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  Burma: The Silence of Bogalay

Burma The Silence of Bogalay

By Fiona Ehlers in Burma

Part 3: 'If No One is Helping those People, We Burmese Have to Help'

The captain stops at a rice mill. The miller and his family survived the cyclone only because they took refuge in the rice storage area that night. They sat on top of a pile of rice sacks, bunched together, shivering with cold and fear, and said Buddhist prayers all night. After the storm subsided and the sun came out again -- there was a clear blue sky the first few days after the storm -- the miller's daughter gave birth. The baby was very premature, but is healthy, at least for the time being.

The abbot indicates he wants to leave. He shows us a winding path to a bridge on the edge of the city. He opens his umbrella, which is dark red like his robe, gives us a parting smile and disappears into the twilight.

A few kilometers outside the city, the two Burmese women are still waiting for the trucks loaded with rice and other supplies. They will return to Rangoon tonight, extremely frustrated at not having accomplished what they set out to do.

On the way back, the two Burmese men who accompanied us from Rangoon to Bogalay start making calls on their cell phones. What they have seen has shocked them. They want to do something now, overcome the feeling of powerlessness.

They call people who have money and influence -- prominent monks, Chinese and Russian businessmen staying at major international hotels. They spend hours asking for donations of cash, clothing, and food. While we were on the boat they took pictures of bodies, using the zoom to get close-up images. It wasn't easy for them to do it, but they knew they were going to need the pictures to show prospective donors, "otherwise they won't believe us and won't give us anything." The next day they want to rent a truck and drive back to Bogalay. "As long as no one else is helping those people," they say, "we Burmese have to help them."

We can see the Shwedagon Pagoda, Rangoon's most famous landmark, gleaming golden in the distance. The damage the storm did to the roof was repaired very quickly and it is again illuminated by yellow floodlights at night. Aid organization personnel wearing heavy boots and cargo pants can be seen sitting and standing around in hotel lobbies. They're waiting to get started on a mission that will probably never take place. There can't do anything until the junta gives them permission. Western diplomats and United Nations delegations are poring over mission plans and preparing for meetings in Naypyidaw, the newly declared administrative capital. They haven't given up yet.

General Than Shwe, the leader of the junta, remains in seclusion in Naypyidaw most of the time. The general is a superstitious man who doesn't trust anyone but his astrologer. He has chosen to isolate himself from his own people as well as from the rest of the world in his bizarre new capital.

Very little information is available about his life, but a 10-minute video of his daughter's lavish state wedding can be seen on the Internet video portal YouTube. It's a decadent spectacle showing his offspring with her hair full of diamonds and wearing a wedding dress made of the finest silks. There is a five-story wedding cake and plenty of champagne for the guests. Amidst all this splendor, the dictator can be seen joylessly feasting while outside his people are starving.

Naypyidaw is located 350 kilometers north of Rangoon, in the middle of the jungle. It might just as well be on another planet.

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