Report from Burma - post Nargis

I land in the new airport with its air conditioned walkways, escalators and conveyor belts, opened only recently; vastly different from the first time I arrived in Yangon some 15 years ago.  The airport then was a steamy hall full of people shouting and pushing, the smell of beetle nut and smoke lingering in the air.  When I dragged my family over to live in Yangon in September 1995, my younger son, 3 years old at the time, after seeing all the huge trees lining the road leading from the airport to town remarked, “Are we going to live in the jungle?”   Those trees are gone now; all of them.  Yangon has been stripped of its greenery, the defining veneer that often covered the dilapidated buildings behind but gave life and colour and hope to the city.  Now the true sadness of Yangon is revealed, it shows in the buildings, it shows in the faces of the people as you pass by.  They stare blankly sitting in corner tea shops or squatting on the roadside.  The life, the busyness, the vibrancy of Yangon has been blown away.

My driver talks rapidly telling me about the cyclone and when it hit, the fear resonates in his voice.  As he talks, I stare out of the window en route to our office.  With the foliage gone a strange neon brightness lights the sadness …we arrive.  Burnet Institute, where I work, shares the building with Save the Children and the street and the stairwell are a hive of activity.  People in red shirts, Save the Children volunteers, run up and down the stairs.  Trucks are being loaded, instructions shouted…ordered chaos.  Finally, in the faces of these volunteers I see the familiar welcoming smiles that have always been a part of my experience of this country.  Perhaps all hope is not lost.  The Burnet staff welcome me; they always do but this time there is something different.  One of the staff remarks…"Oh Karl, now we are safe!"  I wish it were that easy. 

I am eager to find out what has been going on and work out how I can best assist.  Kim, our country director briefs me.  Burnet Institute is a small concern in Burma, we support our local partners to implement HIV prevention, care and support programs; we are not a relief organisation but our staff want to do something to help.  We join a meeting of local organisations held in our meeting room to see what assistance can be provided to them.  The room fills to capacity and out of the door.  There are hundreds who come to listen and see what help can be offered.  It is obvious that they want action.  They want resources, they want money.  They want it now.  I find one of the groups I know and hand them $1,500 raised from donations to the Asia Peace and Education Foundation.  They tell me they will buy blankets, water and food and that they are returning to the field tonight.  The money will be well used.  As the meeting breaks up we tell people that from the following day we will establish a resource centre to assist them identify donors and funds and materials.  We will try to help coordinate what they are doing with the international response that strangely seems to have forgotten that there are many Burmese who want to help their own people. 

I cannot get over the absence of trees.  It is surprising that more people in Yangon were not injured but the winds struck early in the morning and many people were still in their homes.  Of the many trees and sign boards and electrical poles that were uprooted, most seemed to have fallen on roads or walls.  Giant tree trunks that blocked the roads have been cleared now but their huge stumps and roots still lie on the side walks and life seems to be gradually returning around them as tea shops and stalls are set up amongst the rubble.  I speak to the gang of street kids that gather outside my hotel that I have come to know over the years.  They jabber away and tell me of the storm, that their houses have been blown away, that the few possessions their families had are gone.  I buy them a meal but for the fifteen I feed this night there are tens of thousands in the flooded delta region that are going without.  The feeling of powerlessness and inequality in this equation is almost overwhelming.  My Burmese friends tell me of the supplies and equipment that are coming in daily and being stuck in the airport; supplies that can bring life and hope to so many.  But they are also quick to acknowledge that there are many in the regime and in the government service that have gone to incredible lengths to help; even risking their own personal security.  Burma has never been black and white.

We open the resource centre along with a number of other agencies (World Concern, The HIV Alliance and a local partner).  Groups and individuals flow in; a constant stream of enquiries, "We need food, can you help us get shelters, water…there is no water".  The staff in the resource centre are amazing.  With patience, they help each group collect their thoughts and form them into coherent proposals which we submit to the increasing number of donors interested in supporting them.  By the end of the second day we have almost 20 proposals that will target over 20,000 people. 

We engage with the UN, attending cluster meetings for shelter, health, protection and more.  There is a telling lack of Burmese faces in these meetings.  I am not particularly surprised but distressed at how easy it is to ignore local knowledge and expertise and ownership.  I hear news from our office in Melbourne that has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure that money can be sent through to provide funds for some of the local groups we are seeing at the resource centre.  Our bank will not allow the transfer – they are scared of the US Treasury Department that has imposed financial sanctions on the country.  Don't they know even the US have relaxed these rules in the current situation?  Don't they know there is an emergency here?  Burmese friends who have been out in the delta have given me photos.  Distressing pictures of the lifeless bodies of small children washed up on the banks of the river.  In a moment of rage I think I will send these pictures to those bankers – mindless bureaucrats with hearts of stone.  Of course I do not do that; I would not dishonour the dead in such a way. 

Today is Sunday; I meet with more Burmese friends this morning.  We share a meal together, "What have we done to deserve this?" they ask reflecting on their 'karma'…"Why did the storm not hit them (the generals)?"   I need a break and head for a gym.  As I speed up on the treadmill watching the news on the TV mounted above on the wall, the tragedy in China once again flashes on to the screen.  Then the reports focus on Burma.  The estimates of the death toll rises, it is now over 130,000.  Disease and starvation now threaten the survivors that are yet to receive any assistance.  In the meantime, the Myanmar Government claims that the situation is in hand whilst an increasing number of foreign naval ships gather just outside Myanmar territorial waters…I think of the frantic nature of this moment in time.  I reflect on the global proportions of this political standoff and the lives of thousands of young children and their families teetering on the edge of survival.  I think of what we must do tomorrow when the resource centre reopens, I think of the many committed, Burmese who have walked into the centre seeking assistance.  I think of the stories told to me by my Burmese friends of the other groups organising their own relief response.  This is what is not getting out into the media.  The fact that there are hundreds perhaps thousands of normal Burmese citizens who are taking their own action, forming groups, gathering money, buying food, taking it themselves to the delta.  They are not victims, they will not be beaten; theirs is not a hopeless cause…