Aid teams set as Burma leaders say 'relief phase over'

[Robbien]

Source: Monsters and Critics

The claim had been met was made at a government presentation in Yangon Thursday for 200 foreign delegations invited to help the ruling regime amass aid on Sunday for disaster relief and rehabilitation of areas hard hit by the cyclone.

Penny Lawrence, international director for Oxfam, said one of the most bizarre message of the presentation, chaired by Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein, was that, according to Myanmar's military rulers, the relief phase of Cyclone Nargis was over.

'The presentation they gave demonstrated through their statistics that they've now finished the relief phase, that all food, water and shelter needs have been met by the government and they were now into the recovery phase,' said Lawrence.

. . .

Another 'bizarre' statistic presented at the presentation, Lawrence said, was that the cyclone killed 1,250,194 chickens and 136,804 water buffaloes, while 10.7 billion dollars in rehabilitation work would be required, such as building embankments around villages in Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta.

. . .

At the conference, to be co-chaired by OCHA secretary general John Holmes and ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will announce a 'mechanism' by which it proposes to speed up the delivery of aid to the cyclone victims, despite the Myanmar government's odd-ball ways.

It is hoped that the Myanmar government will acknowledge on Sunday that they still have an emergency on their hands. 'If that doesn't happen we are in trouble,' said Horsey.

Read more: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1407331.php/Aid_teams_set_as_Burma_leaders_say_relief_phase_over__Roundup_

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And from Relief Web:
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EVOD-7EXGLB?OpenDocument

BANGKOK, May 24, 2008 (AFP) - Myanmar's ruling generals will struggle to convince donors to stump up 10.7 billion dollars in cyclone aid because the regime insists the relief effort is over, an aid group said Saturday.

Penny Lawrence, international director of Oxfam, was in Myanmar this week and said the junta seemed convinced that all the survivors of Cyclone Nargis had been reached, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

"If you talk to other people, whether that's a taxi driver in Yangon, other development agencies, the UN, then it's very clear that they are coming across villages all the time that have not yet been reached by the aid effort."

More than 133,000 people were left dead and missing when the storm pummelled Myanmar three weeks ago, and the United Nations says that 75 percent of the some 2.4 million desperate survivors are still without life-saving supplies.