Cyclone Nargis - Food

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Title: Action Against Hunger (Action Contre la Faim - ACF)
Description: Reports and articles and description of ACF's work in Burma/Myanmar... * Myanmar: Nutrition Assessment Points to Looming Crisis in Bogalay * Myanmar Raises Cyclone Toll to 78,000 * Myanmar: Emergency Shipments Arrive to Reinforce Action Against Hunger's Response on the Ground * Myanmar: ACF Convoys Deliver Aid to Hard-Hit Bogalay * Myanmar Emergency: Reports from the Ground * Myanmar: Nutrition Assessment Points to Looming Crisis in Bogalay * Myanmar Raises Cyclone Toll to 78,000 * Myanmar: Emergency Shipments Arrive to Reinforce Action Against Hunger's Response on the Ground * Myanmar: ACF Convoys Deliver Aid to Hard-Hit Bogalay * Myanmar Emergency: Reports from the Ground
Source/publisher: Action Against Hunger
Date of entry/update: 2008-06-04
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
Description: See especially the Special Rapporteur?s reports and press releases..... Overview of the mandate... International standards... Individual complaints... Annual reports... Country visits... Documents...The human right to food...The obligations of States...Implementation of the mandate by the Special Rapporteur
Source/publisher: United Nations
Date of entry/update: 2008-06-04
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish also available)
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Title: After the Storm: Voices from the Delta
Sub-title: An independent, community-based assessment of health and human rights in the Cyclone Nargis response
Description: "Cyclone Nargis lashed Burma on May 2, 2008, making landfall in the Irrawaddy Delta, 220 km southwest of Rangoon. This was a massive cyclone which would have been a challenge for any country to address. In all, some 140,000 lives are thought to have been lost, and at least 3.4 million persons were directly affected. Nargis hit Burma, a country under long-standing military rule, at a crucial time: just days before a national referendum on a new military-backed constitution was planned. The response to Cyclone Nargis on the part of Burma’s ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), was profoundly affected by the junta’s policies, its practices toward its citizens generally, and by the political imperatives of the junta’s referendum priorities. The junta’s response was marred by failures to warn, failures to respond, limits on humanitarian assistance from independent Burmese NGOs and citizens, and limits on humanitarian assistance from international entities eager to assist. Independent assessment of the Nargis response has proven to be challenging. Assessments done with the collaboration of the junta have reported little on the human rights situation for survivors and relief workers. Burma Before the Storm Military rule in Burma has also been characterized by widespread human rights violations, including the violent suppression of the ‘Saffron Revolution’ in 2007, and severe curtailment in social spending. The official government expenditure on health is about $0.70 per capita per annum or 0.3% of the national GDP, amongst the lowest worldwide. The health and social services situation is more severe in rural and ethnic minority areas. The Referendum and the New Constitution The SPDC announced in February, 2008, that it would hold a referendum on its new military- drafted constitution on May 10. The constitution had been drafted in secret by military-appointed representatives, without the participation of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), winners of the 1990 elections which were never recognized by the regime. It was against this complex and contested backdrop that the worst natural disaster ever to hit Burma made landfall. The Emergency Assistance Team - Burma Within days of the cyclone health care workers from the Thai-Burma border region joined together to create EAT, the Emergency Assistance Team- Burma. The teams, eventually 44, were comprised of several volunteers each; most were cyclone survivors. They received training in emergency responses, food and water distribution, and basic first aid provision. The EAT teams, working “under the radar” and with local community based organizations (CBO) while unaffiliated with any formal NGO or GO, went deep into the affected areas to provide relief to survivors. Their efforts are part of a larger ongoing effort of border-based social organizations which quickly respond to challenges such as Cyclone Nargis, mobilizing through a network of other CBOs. By After the Storm: Voices from the Delta the end of the first phase of relief (in the first three months) 44 direct assistance teams had provided assistance to an estimated population of some 180,000 survivors in 87 villages across 17 townships. An Independent Assessment of the Nargis Response In response to reports of human rights abrogation in cyclone-affected areas, a collaborative group was formed which included EAT and the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights to conduct an independent assessment. With technical assistance provided by local organizations Global Heath Access Program and Karen Human Rights Group, two rounds of data collection were undertaken in the Irrawaddy Delta by the EAT teams: from June to September, and October to November, 2008. A total of 90 interviews were conducted. Interviewees were 33 relief workers and 57 survivors, interviewed in storm-affected areas (including in Irrawaddy Division) and in Thailand. RELIEF EFFORTS AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS FRAMEWORK The Government of Burma1 /Myanmar is not a party to most international human rights treaties, but acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991, and the Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1997, albeit with reservations. By accession to the CRC, the junta has legally agreed to recognize the right of the child to reach the highest standard of health and access to health care. Under CEDAW special consideration is given to realizing women’s rights to health care and to the needs of rural women. The Responsibility to Protect The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), issued in 2001, advanced a framework for international human rights protection, declaring that it was each sovereign nation’s responsibility to protect their citizens from crimes against humanity, genocide, and other mass atrocities. This was later reaffirmed by the 2005 resolution of the UN General Assembly and the 2006 UN Security Council resolution. The 2005 resolution concluded that it is the responsibility of the international community to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity .” and taking “collective action” only “on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations. R2P was invoked in the early, stalled response to the Cyclone but was never implemented. The people of Burma, including EAT, did respond to the responsibility to protect—despite junta harassment, arrest, and in some cases, imprisonment, for providing humanitarian assistance..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: The Emergency Assistance Team and The Center for Public Health and Human Rights at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Date of publication: 2009-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 1.88 MB
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Title: Is the SPDC diverting aid on ethnic grounds?
Description: "According to recent reports received by KHRG from residents of the Irrawaddy Delta, the SPDC has not only been restricting aid supplies and access by international humanitarian workers, but has also been doing so on the basis of ethnicity. Increasing reports on the military?s restrictions and misappropriation of aid supplies necessitate immediate international investigation, as all affected residents of the delta regardless of their ethnicity remain in urgent need humanitarian assistance. The regime?s obstructions of humanitarian aid increasingly appear to fall under the criteria of crimes against humanity. In such a case, the responsibility to protect this population falls on the international community..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Right Group Commentaries (KHRG #2008-B5)
Date of publication: 2008-05-14
Date of entry/update: 2009-11-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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