Junta claims constitution victory; aid diverted from cyclone victims

In what critics dismiss as a farcical attempt to legitimise its tyrannical rule, Burma's military junta today claimed its draft constitution won the approval of more than 90 per cent of the votes cast in last weekend's referendum, writes Edward Loxton for The First Post.

The announcement came as more reports surfaced which suggest that widespread corruption is stopping genuine relief supplies reaching the victims of cyclone Nargis. High-energy foods such as protein-rich biscuits are "disappearing" and being replaced by low-quality local products. Top-quality rice is being unloaded from international relief flights - yet somehow the rice that reaches distribution centres in the devastated Irrawaddy delta is of poor quality.

Although independent opinion polls had predicted a resounding defeat for the draft constitution, which entrenches military control of the cowed country, the state media announced that 92.4 per cent of eligible voters had approved of the discredited document.

Voter turnout was more than 99 per cent, the regime claimed - ignoring reliable evidence that interest in the referendum was so low that many polling stations closed at midday and even earlier. Polling station staff, mostly members of a pro-government paramilitary group, had toured townships and villages, hunting out residents who hadn't voted and forcing them to fill in ballots approving of the constitution.

The referendum was suspended in areas devastated by cyclone Nargis but when voting resumes on May 24 it isn't expected to alter the regime's concocted figures.

The regime had pressed on with its referendum in callous disregard of the appalling human catastrophe wrought by the cyclone. Referendum news continues to be given priority in the state media over reports about the scale of the suffering caused by the cyclone and the indifferent response by the authorities. The UN estimates that 2.5 million people suffered the brunt of the cyclone and that at least 100,000 died. Relief agencies battling to bring aid to survivors believe the final death toll will be much higher.

As disease and starvation take hold in the Irrawaddy delta region, reliable reports continue to mount of massive and criminal misappropriation of international supplies of aid reaching Rangoon airport. Airport sources claim electricity generators and water-treatment units intended for the Irrawaddy delta, scene of the worst devastation, were put on a flight to Naypyidaw, where the ruling junta is ensconced, far from the cyclone-hit regions.

The official spokesman of the opposition National League of Democracy, Nyan Win, said members of the party had bought a supply of 1,000 towels at a Rangoon market to add to the relief being sent to the delta, only to discover that they were in bags stamped with the flag of Japan, the letters WFP (World Food Programme) and a message in English and Japanese saying they had been "donated by the people of Japan".

Burmese relief organisations and private donors are prohibited from distributing aid, which has to be handed over to local government authorities. "Much of it then disappears," said one relief worker.

The regime is adding still further to the general misery by ordering survivors who sought refuge in monasteries and other religious buildings either to return to their wrecked homes or move to already overcrowded tent camps. A photograph in a Thai newspaper of a monastery prayer hall packed with cyclone survivors sleeping on its stone floor sums up the cyclone tragedy. Not one child is to be seen - it's estimated that least 40 per cent of the cyclone victims were children, most of them swept away in the tidal wave unleashed by the storm.

FIRST POSTED MAY 15, 2008