Myanmar votes amid devastation

Yangon: Myanmar held a rare election to approve a new army-drafted constitution on Saturday while many of the 1.5 million survivors of a devastating cyclone waited in vain for a concerted aid effort to bring them food and medicine.

Though nervous voters were under orders to vote "yes" to a constitution that will enshrine a dominant role for the ruling military, it was the first real election in nearly two decades.

Army-controlled MRTV ran a final Myanmar-style "get the vote out" propaganda blitz featuring jaunty actresses singing Let's go voting and Come along for voting to a boppy disco beat.

While the junta focused on the poll, thousands of survivors of the cyclone that hammered Myanmar a week ago waited for food, medicine and shelter.

Ten thousand hungry and bedraggled refugees have turned up in Myaung Mya, west of Yangon, and their numbers were swelling by the day despite a lack of food and shelter, an aid volunteer said yesterday.

Hungry

The government has provided no help and the town cannot cope, residents say. "We have 900 people here but we only have 300 lunch boxes. We gave it to the women and children first. The men still have not had any food," a volunteer said.

Protesters in Japan, Malaysia and Thailand denounced the junta for holding the referendum in disregard for the suffering of what the UN has estimated to be 1.5 million "severely affected" cyclone survivors.

The United Nations appealed for $187 million (Dh687 million) in aid, even though it is still not confident the food, water and tents flown in will make it to those most in need because of the junta's reluctance to admit international relief workers.

Health experts warned that a "second disaster" loomed from diseases such as diarrhoea and malaria, even if survivors do manage to find food and shelter. "This is the second disaster," Greg Beck, Southeast Asia programme director for the International Rescue Committee, told Reuters. "First was the cyclone and the surge of water, the second will come if there is no access to food, water and shelter. They will start dying," he said.

Official Myanmar media yesterday revised the death toll to 23,335 people dead and 37,019 missing.

Meanwhile, the UN food agency on Saturday said that Myanmar's military regime has impounded two more plane-loads of cyclone aid, making a total of four that have been seized.

"It's all under the same conditions," said Marcus Prior, a spokesman for the World Food Programme, referring to the first two flights which landed on Friday and have been held at customs. "The situation's very similar to the other two," he said.

The two latest flights, from Dubai and the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, included high-energy biscuits, shelter materials, and communications and office equipment to set up a relief headquarters.