Greedy Generals replacing good rice from UNHCR for cyclone victims with bad rice

When one of Myanmar's best-known movie stars, Kyaw Dhyu, traveled through the Irrawaddy Delta in recent days to deliver aid to the victims of the May 3 cyclone, a military patrol stopped him as he was handing out bags of rice.

"The officer told him, 'You cannot give directly to the people,' " said Tin Win, the village headman of the stricken city of Dedaye, who had been counting on the rice to feed 260 refugees sleeping in a large Buddhist prayer hall.

The politics of food aid -- deciding who gets to deliver assistance to those homeless and hungry after the cyclone -- is not just confined to the dispute between Myanmar's military junta and Western governments and outside relief agencies.

Even Myanmar citizens who want to donate rice or other assistance have in several cases been told that all assistance must be channeled through the military. This restriction has angered local government officials such as Tin Win, who are trying to help rebuild the lives of villagers. He twitched with rage as he described the rice the military gave him.

"They gave us four bags," he said. "The rice is rotten -- even the pigs and dogs wouldn't eat it." He said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees had delivered good rice to the local military leaders last week but they kept it for themselves and distributed the waterlogged, musty rice. "I'm very angry," he said, adding an expletive to describe the military.