Burma sham referendum takes place in the shadow of Nargis

According to the Bangkok Post, early results from Burma’s charade of a referendum is showing overwhelming support for the new pro-military charter. With widespread heavy intimidation of its citizens, and civil servants ordered to vote yes, the vote is a complete sham. A government source told the Post that almost 100 percent of voters in one Rangoon township have voted for the new constitution while districts in Mandalay and Shan State recorded over 90 percent votes in favour. The military junta rejected calls to delay the vote due to Cyclone Nargis which struck a week ago killing tens of thousands and leaving 1.5 million homeless.

Aid is slowly trickling in. UN aid flights resumed on the weekend, with three planes and a delivery of trucks. This came a day after the UN halted aid flights after the regime seized an initial delivery of high-energy biscuits and relief equipment. An International Red Cross plane also arrived with medical supplies and 35 tonnes of equipment intended to provide prisoners with clean drinking water. The Thai Royal Family also chartered a plane with 18 tonnes of aid. However the Burmese micro-management of the relief effort has stretched to placing aid in boxes plastered with names of top generals. Local TV made a big deal of top General Than Shwe handing out aid packages to survivors at elaborate ceremonies.

Nonetheless Shwe and his confreres refused to countenance delay of the referendum in order to help the cyclone victims. The exiled National League for Democracy was one of the many groups aghast at the government’s appalling insensitivity. Spokesman Soe Aung speaking from Bangkok pleaded in vain with the international community to pressure the regime to defer the referendum in order to address the devastation caused by the cyclone. The only action taken so far is to delay the referendum to 24 May in the Irrawaddy Division and some parts of Rangoon. Meanwhile with the delta region mired in a massive humanitarian tragedy and aid groups kept frustratingly out of the country, the Burmese Government has pressed on in the rest of the country with its change to the constitution aimed at codifying the military’s role as the pre-eminent power in the country.

There is little doubt that the referendum is more important to Burma’s generals than the relief effort. State-run television ran songs from young cheerful women urging citizens to forget the catastrophe and go to the polling stations. "Let's go to cast a vote . . . with sincere thoughts for happy days," the women sang. The government diverted soldiers and military vehicles from relief work to ensure that the referendum went smoothly. Instead of delivering aid, trucks roamed the streets for days, blaring constant messages on loudspeakers telling people to vote.

The generals have much to gain from getting out the vote. Victory will set their power enshrined. Under the new constitution, the military would gain a permanent 25-per-cent share of all seats in the upper and lower houses of parliament - enough to veto any changes to the constitution. No president could be chosen without consulting the military. There is also a clause which bars anyone who has been married to a foreign national from holding political office. This is directly aimed at Aung San Suu Kyi who married a British academic and is therefore disqualified.

In February, Human Rights Watch declared the referendum a sham, calling it “a hollow exercise in the military’s sham political reform process”. HRW said the referendum lacked credibility as it did not have the support of opposition political parties, did not involve public debate and did not allow the media to report on the process of drafting a new constitution. “Burma is a dictatorship that lacks the safeguards needed to ensure a free and fair referendum,” said Brad Adams, HRW’s Asia director. “Unless there is a fundamental change of course by the authorities, a referendum in this environment will have little credibility.” With more than a million citizens on the verge of starvation and disease, Burma’s rulers show no indication this credibility is in any way important to them.

Cyclone Nargis devastates Burma

The official death toll for Burma’s Cyclone Nargis is likely to triple in the next few days. While current rough estimates are that over 15,000 people are dead, there are still another 30,000 people missing and a million more left homeless. Burma is struggling to cope with the aftermath of the cyclone with serious power shortages, lack of drinking water and the threat of disease all hampering rescue efforts. Large areas of the country are cut off with no communication to the outside world.

The director for the World Food Programme in Burma, Chris Raye, said information about the destruction in the low lying Irrawaddy Delta was still scanty, but it was clear it was a disaster on a very large scale. Raye said that unless the region had quick access to shelter, water and sanitation, the situation would deteriorate further. "We have a major humanitarian catastrophe in our hands,” he said. “The numbers of people in need are still to be determined, but I'm sure we're talking of hundreds and thousands.”

Several coastal villages were completely destroyed by the brunt of the storm and a sea surge. Burmese foreign minister Nyan Win said that 10,000 deaths alone (two thirds of all reported casualties) occurred in the coastal township of Bogolay which bore the brunt of the cyclone’s onslaught. Casualties also numbered in their thousands in nearby Labutta. The coastline was inundated by 3.5 metre waves which swept away most of the houses and gave their residents to chance to flee.

Despite government misgivings about admitting foreign organisations, a massive multinational rescue operation is now underway. International and local Red Cross teams were distributing essential supplies and bringing in more from Malaysia. "We're distributing supplies for those who need shelter, plastic sheeting to cover roofs, water purification tablets,” said a spokesman. “We are currently procuring 5,000 litres of water, cooking items, bednets, blankets and clothes for those in most need."

Their efforts will need reinforcing. The first cyclone of the 2008 season was a devastating one for Burma. Cyclone Nargis made landfall late Friday with sustained winds of up to 210kph and gusts of 240kph, the equivalent of a strong category three hurricane. Nargis came ashore across the Mouths of the Irrawaddy and followed the coastline northeast flooding the entire coastal plain. The fallow agricultural areas were especially hard hit. The capital Rangoon and its population of four million are almost completely surrounded by floods.

Eyewitness accounts at Birma News report that entire communities near Rangoon have been washed away. One resident said rooftops have been blown away and people have nowhere to live and nothing to eat. Another said all the trees have been uprooted, power lines are down and all the pagodas in the city are closed. A third said the uprooted trees have made most city streets impassable. Burmese TV footage on Youtube shows the extent of the damage in the capital:


With telephone lines out of order in the entire Irrawaddy delta region, eye-witness accounts are the only way of assessing the scale of the damage. In the delta township of Day Da Ye, 40km south of the capital, one man reported hundreds of bodies littering the streets. He saw firsthand the bodies of humans and animals along the main road through Day Da Ye while on his way to Rangoon.

The cyclone will have serious impact beyond the immediate region. Food prices in Rangoon and elsewhere have soared by up to 100 per cent since the storm, adding to the burden of millions of the country’s poor. The delta is Burma’s main rice-producing region and large areas of cropland were destroyed. Burma is a key rice exporter and the UN has questioned whether it will now be able to meet commitments to supply the staple to neighbouring Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, warning of "potentially serious effects". The price of rice has trebled across Asia this year, hitting a record $25 per 50 kilos in the week before the storm. Nargis will pile more misery on the poor of Asia.