Wealthy tycoon profits as families suffer

Thousands of Burmese cyclone survivors are being forcibly evicted from refugee camps and told to return to their devastated villages and reconstruct their homes and lives, writes Edward Loxton for The First Post.

Tented camps are being dismantled around the helpless families - including the showpiece camp visited by junta leader General Than Shwe and featured in regime propaganda TV footage, purportedly showing the outside world evidence of a caring government in action.

More than 10,000 refugees were packed into one of the camps which has been ordered to close. Most of the refugees are being transported by bus, truck or boat back to their cyclone-devastated villages and dumped amid the ruins with a few days' supply of rice and the equivalent of about £4 in cash.

One desperate family head told the Burmese exile magazine Irrawaddy that his village was still up to three feet under water. "It's impossible to go back," he said.

Local authorities are telling the uprooted refugees to start work on rebuilding their flattened villages while the central government organises a reconstruction programme. However, the only reconstruction seen so far in the cyclone-hit region is of damaged government buildings, police stations and some schools.

Lucrative contracts to reconstruct official buildings have been awarded to companies nurturing close ties to the regime, such as the Tay Za business empire. Tay Za (pictured), Burma's wealthiest tycoon, is on the US black list of Burmese business leaders, but now stands to make up lost income with the windfall provided by the cyclone.

Monasteries are also being told to evict survivors who sought refuge in temple grounds and assembly halls, angering many outspoken monks and abbots - and adding fuel to the anti-regime sentiment that burst into the open during last September's ruthlessly suppressed demonstrations.

FIRST POSTED MAY 29, 2008