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panama hat

What do condoms have to do with the Burmese Junta?

Mid

Burma: more UN help on the way but US ship may leave
22 May, 2008


USS Essex has been waiting just off the coast of Irrawaddy delta region for almost a month now.
Photo by AFP

Australian government has delivered two more helicopters to Thailand for the use of the UN World Food Programme in the relief work of cyclone victims in the delta region of Burma.

However, Navy Admiral Timothy Keating told the media that USS Essex may leave the Burmese coast where it has been waiting for weeks the green light from the Burmese government to be able to help refugees who are urgently in need of food and supplies.

In another development, former UN special envoy for human rights in Burma, Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, said that there is a window of opportunity for more dialog the may lead to political transformation in the military ruled country.

bbc.co.uk


and ........



French navy ship unloaded in Thailand.
Photo by AP

cite

bbc.co.uk


incredible


.

__________________
"Keeping quiet while monks and other peaceful protesters are murdered and jailed is not evidence of constructive engagement." - Arvind Ganesan, Human Rights Watch.

"I think...I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check" - M.C. Escher

Mid

US Invited Burmese Officials to Ride in Relief Helicopters
By LALIT K JHA
Thursday, May 29, 2008

The US invited a Burmese government delegation to visit its aircraft carrier USS Essex off the coast of Burma and check on the humanitarian purpose of its mission to the region.

Burmese officials were even told they could ride in US helicopters or landing craft delivering aid to the cyclone survivors, Admiral Timothy J Keating, commander of the US Pacific fleet, told reporters at the Pentagon in Washington on Wednesday.


An MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter air lifts supplies from another ship onto the USS Essex.
(Photo: Reuters)

Four ships of the Pacific fleet, including the USS Essex, are carrying relief supplies which Washington has offered to deliver to the survivors of this month’s cyclone. The Burmese regime, however, has rebuffed the offer, apparently suspicious of the true intentions of the US mission.

Keating delivered a letter containing the offer at a meeting in Rangoon with a Burmese delegation led by a three-star general.

Keating assured the delegation the US only wanted to provide humanitarian aid to cyclone survivors. He told reporters at the Pentagon that he had assured the Burmese: "Once you tell us we're done, we will leave. You will not know we were here."

Keating said he had also told the Burmese delegation: “We're not in the business of reconstruction; we're in the business of supplying relief supplies."

The US admiral said he had also offered to send his fleet’s hospital ship, Mercy, to the region, but he doubted whether the Burmese regime would accept.

Keating flew from Thailand for the Rangoon meeting on May 11, aboard the first US relief flight, together with Henrietta Fore, director of USAID, and Scot Marciel, deputy assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

Keating said he, Fore and Marciel had gone to “great lengths” to convince the Burmese delegation “that we had no military intentions here. We wanted to provide relief. And we were capable of doing that already.

"The delegation accepted my comments and said: ‘We understand, we acknowledge, but we cannot approve. This decision has to be made at the very highest levels of our government, and we will take your recommendation to the highest levels of our government."

Keating said the US was capable of delivering about 250,000 pounds of relief supplies per day to Burma. “We were capable of moving it from the central distribution point there at Rangoon out to the areas needing the equipment, the relief supplies, using our medium- and heavy-lift helicopters, of which we have about a dozen in Thailand and another dozen on the USS Essex group, which is off the southwest coast in the Bay of Bengal."

Keating said whenever the US delegation tried to explain US intentions, the response from Burmese officials was the same: "We understand. We acknowledge. We appreciate your offer. But we can't give you a recommendation now.

"They listened graciously, if you can listen in a graceful manner, but they listened. They were very straightforward."

Admiral Keating said: "I assured our Burmese colleagues that we would do this without fingerprint. That is, we wouldn't need any gas; we wouldn't need any fuel, gas, fuel; we wouldn't need any food; we wouldn't need any lodging.

“We would come in, be entirely self-sufficient. We would come in, if they chose, at first light and leave every evening. We offered them the opportunity to put their own military members or civilians, their choice, on our airplanes, on our helicopters."

Keating said the distribution of US aid arriving in Rangoon was being handled by “nongovernmental organizations to a limited degree and to a larger degree by the government of Burma. Do we know where they're going? I do not necessarily know where those relief supplies are going.

"That is why we continue to emphasize our desire to put helicopters into Rangoon and the surrounding countryside so as to assist in the further distribution into the Irrawaddy delta, where we are convinced that the help is needed most desperately."

irrawaddy.org

Norton

No way if I was any of those junta jackasses would I fly in a US helicopter with open doors. Might end up as a the ultimate "relief" drop for the Burmese.

Mid

10........................

Mid

Burmese military southeast command watches US warship
Fri 30 May 2008
IMNA

The Southeast Command based in Moulmein (Mawlamyine) the capital of Mon State has been keeping a close watch on a US warship which is waiting off the coast of Burma with relief supplies for cyclone refugees. The command has also posted soldiers on the costal villages along the bay in the state.

According to a source close to soldiers at the coast, they (soldiers) are watching the US warship with binoculars. They told villagers that "You already know what we are watching".

The soldiers guarding the costal area are from the Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) No-587 and LIB No-343 based in Aru-taung village in Lamine Sub Township.

"They are based along the mountain side near the sea and are closely watching the pagodas along the mountain near Kawdood village and plantations," the source said that. They started the monitoring a week ago.

They have been observing every fishing boat including fishermen they suspect near the sea-shore from the Andaman Sea.

About five vehicles passed along the Moulmein - Thanpyuzayart highway over two days ago, said an eyewitness in Mudon Township.

According to a woman in a village, villagers have been saying that soldiers from foreign countries came to Kalar Gote Island near Kawdood in a boat. "I didn't see it, but many people in our village are talking about it."

US warships will unload relief material soon on the Burma Sea if the Burmese regime does not permit distribution of the supplies for the victims of Cyclone Nargis, according to The Irish Times.

monnews-imna.com

Norton

Essex waiting for a few Burmese Navy patrol boats to appear! Anyone fancy another Gulf of Tonkin incident?

Texpat

Why don't the fishermen sail out to the Essex and fill up on rice and generators and tarps and water? Are the soldiers checking every fishing boat?

Norton

All. Don't know but looks they are watching.

Mid

US aid ships to leave coast of Burma
Wednesday, 04 June 2008

New Delhi - In an unfortunate move, the United States on Wednesday said it will withdraw naval ships off Burma's coast, carrying relief material, after the country's military rulers refused to allow it to help survivors of last month's Cyclone Nargis.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Timothy J. Keating said the US Navy has made at least 15 attempts to convince the Burmese military junta to allow them access to help the cyclone victims. But the junta refused.



"I am both saddened and frustrated to know that we have been in a position to help ease the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people and help mitigate further loss of life, but have been unable to do so because of the unrelenting position of the Burmese military junta," Keating said.

After the failed attempts, Keating has recommended that the USS Essex group and U.S. Marine Corps 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) continue with their previously scheduled operational commitments by June 5.

"The Secretary of Defence approved this recommendation," the statement said.

Keating said the Essex ships will now head for the coast of Thailand to reload their remaining helicopters and personnel on June 11.

"However, should the Burmese rulers have a change of heart and request our full assistance for their suffering people we are prepared to help," said Keating.

The US Essex ships had been positioned off the coast of Burma since May 13, ready and able to deliver urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the victims of Cyclone Nargis that swept Burma on May 2 and 3, leaving more than 130,000 people dead or missing and 2.4 million homeless.

The statement on the withdrawal of the US Navy ships came days after US Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates said that the Burmese junta's obstruction of international efforts to help cyclone victims cost 'tens of thousands of lives.'

Keating, who personally flew to Rangoon with the first U.S. military relief flight on May 12, said he had offered the Burmese junta to visit U.S. ships in international waters and to fly on U.S. military relief flights in an effort to help ease any concerns they might have regarding U.S. humanitarian assistance and intentions.

But the junta turned down the offer and continues to deny permission to help victims in the hardest hit areas in Irrawaddy delta, wasting the efforts of the Joint Task Force Caring Response, including the four-ship Essex Group, 22 medium and heavy lift helicopters, four landing craft, and more than 5,000 U.S. military personnel.

Earlier last week, the French withdraw its military vessel loaded with relief aid from its position near the coast off Burma after failing to obtain permission to go into the Delta to help cyclone victims.

Burma's military junta has maintained that it welcomes aid supplies and international aid workers to help survivors of the cyclone but will not accept the use of any foreign military equipment for relief purposes.

The United States was quick in responding after Cyclone Nargis hit Burma on May 2. The USAID and the Department of Defence have so far completed a total of 106 airlifts carrying more than two million pounds of emergency relief supplies that are believed to be reaching at least 417,000 people.

The United Nations, however, said aid has reached only an estimated 1.3 million out of the total of more than 2.4 million affected people.

mizzima.com

Mid

A slow boat to Myanmar - nearly
vivek prakash

I was at the airport shooting pictures to illustrate a Singapore Airlines story when the office rang to say there was an opportunity, if we could move quickly enough, to embed with the U.S. Naval relief operation heading to cyclone hit Myanmar.



Early the next morning I was aboard a U.S. Navy supply ship heading up the Malacca Strait. There were 8 journalists on board - writers, a BBC tv reporter and cameramen, and 3 photographers. It was a 2 day trip up to the USS Essex, and with little else to do on board, I photographed the crew preparing supplies which would be transferred when we arrived. With only experience of ferries to go on I’d feared getting horribly seasick - but was holding up okay, and excited about what we’d find when we got to the Navy ships.

snip

reuters.com

vivek prakash has a blog with reuters , more pic's and full ( long ) article here : http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2008/...arly/?rpc=401&&

Texpat

Interesting article about US military aid into Myanmar:

*snip*

When Cyclone Nargis tore across Myanmar on May 2, the Marines were preparing for the start of the annual Cobra Gold in Thailand.

But it didn’t take the unit’s 240 Okinawa-based Marines — most of whom have returned — long to switch gears from a combat-training posture to relief mode, working around the clock to provide pallets of supplies for the support effort, dubbed "Operation Caring Response."

On May 12, after delays caused by the reluctance of the Myanmar government to accept international assistance, a U.S. Air Force C-130 loaded with relief supplies was allowed to land in Rangoon. It was the first of 200 relief flights delivering more than 3.3 million pounds of much-needed supplies that the U.S. military would send into the country to assist international organizations providing relief.

Marines reflect on Myanmar relief effort | Stars and Stripes

***

Two hundred flights is nothing to sneeze at.

Wonder why the mainstream media never reported it?

panama hat

Nice to see a truly uncynical and nice article about armed forces - especially US forces who are always associated with Iraq.

Happyman

^ agree 100%

Now the hard part begins !

Had to chuckle about this quote from the article

"There are still some Marines down there, making sure all the equipment gets on the ship and comes back," said Capt. James Warner,

Texpat

Far more common than most people would imagine.

Just isn't seen as newsworthy.