Five million Burmese are going hungry, warns UN

[babylonsister]

Five million Burmese are going hungry, warns UN
By Peter Popham
Published: 19 October 2007

One in ten Burmese is going to bed hungry and an estimated five million people do not have enough food, UN officials said yesterday. The hunger gripping rural communities has spread to cities because of the steep increases in the costs of fuel and other commodities which provoked last month's nationwide protests against the ruling military junta.

Burma used to be known as the rice bowl of Asia and, on paper at least, it still has a food surplus. But according to Paul Risley, an official with the World Food Programme, who has just returned from the country, many people are struggling to survive on meagre meals. "We can presently only provide food to about 500,000 vulnerable persons – far less than is needed," Mr Risley said. "There are points of real poverty and food insecurity in parts of Burma's urban areas.

"This has happened before but it is becoming a larger problem, for example, among particularly vulnerable groups such as HIV and Aids patients. We haven't yet talked to the regime about alleviating this but we are receiving requests from non-governmental organisations and other groups working in urban areas to investigate the problem."

In a visit planned before last month's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests, a WFP team including Mr Risley and Tony Banbury, its regional director for Asia, spent five days in Burma and visited the southern Shan stateat the heart of the Golden Triangle – once one of the world's most important areas of illegal opium cultivation. There, they found desperate poverty among the former opium farmers.

"Southern Shan state has a food surplus and we saw corn being harvested. Outside every house, corn cribs were brimming with corn and the rice was on the point of being harvested as well," Mr Risley said. "But the tragic thing is that, just minutes away from the main road, there are traditional mountain communities without access to land and without enough food.

"These are tribes who traditionally carry their wealth on their bodies in the form of silver and gold bracelets. In several villages we were told they were selling their bracelets to obtain food. We believe some of them are going back to opium production because they don't want to lose all their wealth."

more...

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3075692.ece

[Kagemusha]

1. I have a question.

Outside of Burma, we are aware that the price of crude oil has gone up to, at present, something near to $90 a barrel at the present US dollar rate. The price was easily $15 to $20 a barrel prior to the invasion of Iraq.

The reporting on the price of fuel in Burma going up has an element to it that implies... the cost is going up solely because the Burma military junta wishes it to go up, and if only the junta were removed, the price would obviously come down. I have never seen any justification for this belief.

Is the price hike an end of some sort of subsidization that shielded Burma from the global price of oil for some time, or is it, er, just as people are saying, a hike that is a unilateral, unnecessary collective punishment of the Burmese people by its military leadership?

[babylonsister]

2. I'd say collective punishment, but have no facts to back that up. If I

find something, I'll let you know. Good question. Bottom line, people are suffering horribly. You'd think Chevron, with its gazillion bucks, could help.

I don't know if this will help, or even happen:


http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g8H5J30YjXkCYiahie2kI1uia2FA
US lawmakers plan squeeze on Chevron in Myanmar

17 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Proposed sanctions introduced in the US House of Representatives would pressure US energy giant Chevron to pull its investment from Myanmar, which rights activists say is helping prop up the ruling military junta.

Under the strategy, similar to one used against US companies during the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa, the legislation introduced Thursday would end tax write-offs enjoyed by Chevron on revenues earned from its natural gas project in Myanmar.

Chevron will also be barred from making any payments to the junta from its joint venture with French oil giant Total, Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production, and Myanmar?s Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise operating the lucrative Yadana gas fields, congressional aides said.

The sanctions were introduced as part of a package of new US measures aimed at punishing the military regime for its recent crackdown on pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks that left at least 13 people dead and 3,000 detained.

more...

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g8H5J30YjXkCYiahie2kI1uia2FA