Word: reliefers
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Some are involved already. Celebrated actor Kyaw Thu, who was jailed for a month for joining last September's demonstrations, runs the Free Funeral Services Society, a private charity offering free cremations for the poor. It is now operating its own relief effort, with volunteers at its Rangoon headquarters loading up delta-bound trucks with donated goods...
Private donors have faced some government restrictions. Those who arrive in the towns have been asked to hand over their relief supplies to local authorities for distribution. Instead, many are reportedly storing the goods with sympathetic locals and secretly distributing them by themselves. The junta doesn't want foreigners distributing aid in the delta, but neither does it feel comfortable with Burmese distributing it. "The government is scared that relief workers will get involved in politics," says a co-founder of one Burmese relief group...
...monks are also on the move again. Buddhist temples and monasteries have always played a central role in helping the needy in Burma (as, in this religiously and ethnically diverse country, have churches, mosques and Hindu temples). After the cyclone, monks led small-scale relief efforts into the delta, the distinctive multicolored flags of their faith fluttering from cars and small trucks. Monks from well-known monasteries in Mandalay and elsewhere in Burma are either in the delta or heading there, while in Pakkoku - the Irrawaddy town near Mandalay where last year's protests originated - their brethren are reportedly soliciting...
Despite the participation of thousands of Burmese, the impact of this homegrown relief effort will always limited, admits Zaganar. "We deliver our supplies by road because we cannot afford a boat," he says. "But most victims live close to the water. We cannot get through to them." He says Burma desperately needs more boats and helicopters from abroad. Not even the nation's richest private donors - who include junta cronies like tycoon Tay Za, who was put on a U.S. sanctions list last year - have the means or expertise to meet even a fraction of the needs in far-flung...
Burma's state-run media continues to portray a well-oiled state relief campaign: soldiers unloading relief supplies from helicopters, generals inspecting neat rows of refugee tents. Government propaganda is also used to justify the curtailment of most foreign assistance. This week the junta has ejected almost every expatriate aid worker from the disaster area. The people of Burma will "accept any kinds of foreign aid with appreciation," comments The New Light of Myanmar, a mouthpiece of the ruling junta. "However, they will not rely too much on international assistance and will reconstruct the nation on [a] self-reliance basis...