Myanmar junta takes swipe at relief efforts

updated 9:19 p.m. ET May 29, 2008

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's ruling junta lashed out at aid donors who promised millions of dollars for cyclone relief, saying survivors didn't need "bars of chocolate."

The criticism came Thursday, a day after global powers expressed outrage at Myanmar's decision to extend pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest for a sixth straight year.

State-run media decried donors for only pledging up to $150 million — a far cry from the $11 billion the junta said it needed to rebuild. The Myanma Ahlin newspaper, a government mouthpiece, said cyclone victims from the hardest-hit areas could get by without foreign handouts.

"People from the Irrawaddy delta can survive on their own, even without bars of chocolate donated by the international community," it said, adding they can live on "fresh vegetables that grow wild in the fields and on protein-rich fish from the rivers."

The reference to chocolate bars appeared to be metaphorical. No aid agency is known to be distributing chocolate, which would not be practical in the country's tropical heat. Paul Risley of the U.N.'s World Food Program, which is directing the effort for emergency food supplies, said his agency provides rice, ready-to-eat meals of rice and beans and high-energy biscuits.

The storm left an estimated 2.4 million people in desperate need of food, shelter and medical care, according to the U.N. Myanmar’s government says the cyclone killed 78,000 people and left 56,000 missing.

Junta apparently wary
Myanmar’s leaders are leery of foreign aid workers and international agencies, worrying they could weakened the junta’s grip on power. The generals also don’t want their people to see aid coming directly from countries like the United States that the junta has long treated as a hostile power.

The newspaper commentary also slammed an unnamed monetary institution, saying its refusal to help cyclone survivors was "an act of inhumanity."

World Bank Managing Director Juan Jose Daboub said last week that the bank would not extend any financial aid or loans to Myanmar because it has not paid its debts for a decade.

The article said the same countries that criticized Myanmar for not opening its door to aid workers were being stingy with relief aid. It appeared to single out the United States without naming it.

"There is one big nation that extended economic sanctions on Myanmar even before it was known that a powerful cyclone was going to strike Myanmar," it said.

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