Burmese children line up to receive free rice after the destructive Cyclone Nargis on the outskirts of Rangoon on Monday. (Associated Press)

The Burmese military junta is coming under increasing criticism — particularly by the UN — for its handling of relief efforts following Cyclone Nargis on May 2.

Aid sent by Western nations like Canada and the U.S., as well as by humanitarian relief agencies, is arriving daily. But increasing reports are surfacing that the aid may not be reaching the cyclone survivors and one group of Burmese in particular — the ethnic Karen who have been waging a civil war with Burmese authorities for the past almost 60 years. A growing number of eyewitness reports are coming out that much of the aid arriving from abroad is winding up in government warehouses from where the high-quality foods are being saved for the military and senior officials.

In addition, human rights organizations and some Burmese are saying the military's aid program may be taking an even more sinister twist. They allege that there is reason to believe that food aid is being denied to the tens of thousands of ethnic Karen living in the Irrawaddy Delta, which was the hardest hit by the cyclone.

The delta has not been a hotbed of insurgent activity in recent years. But the junta likes to control the Karen where it can and its actions in this case seem similar to its operations in the eastern part of the country, near the Thai border, where soldiers are trying to starve Karen farmers off their lands and thereby cut the main source of supply to the Karen National Union and its military wing, which is still active there.

The Karen

The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says 63,290 to 101,682 people have died because of the cyclone and another 220,000 are missing. Many of these will be Karen as the two hardest hit townships, Laputa and Bogalay, have a majority Karen population.

Although a census has not been done since before the Second World War, Karen are believed to make up to 60 per cent of the population of the Irrawaddy Delta. As many as 40 per cent are Christian, which makes them an even more distinct minority in Buddhist Burma.

In a report released on Thursday, the Karen Human Rights Group, which is based in Thailand, says that checkpoints have been set up on the roads leading into the area to stop aid getting in. Amnesty International in Thailand has also said they have heard reports of Karen villages being denied aid. However, political and military leaders of the Karen National Union or KNU, the organization fighting for self-determination for the Karen in Burma, caution that it may be too early to make these claims. According to David Taw, the KNU's foreign affairs minister, "There is a general lack of aid. They are all victims and there are many market rumours."

A senior Karen military officer commented that, "All of the areas are bad resulting in some people not wanting to share. It is too early to tell." Both leaders concurred that the majority of aid arriving in the delta was coming from religious leaders of the Karen Baptist Convention. While the majority of Karen are Buddhist, Christian pastors play a strong role in organizing community events and relief.

A history of hatred

The many checkpoints that have been set up by the military in the aftermath of the cyclone have kept most international relief workers and journalists out of the area, thus making information very difficult to receive.

But most observers agree that given the history of communal strife in the region and the military's poor human rights record with ethnic minorities, there is a strong likelihood that a hierarchy of aid would be imposed, with the military at the top, ethnic majority Burmese next and minorities far below. Bad feelings between the Karen and the Burmese go back centuries. The Karen consider themselves to be the first inhabitants of the Irrawaddy Delta region. When the British seized control of Burma in the 19th century, they moved the capital from Mandalay to Rangoon, which grew into the commercial and political heart of the country drawing Burmese to the new capital and the Irrawaddy Delta.

The British preference towards Karen in the civil service and the army only fanned the flames of ethnic hatred and this exploded during the Japanese occupation the Second World War. On entering Rangoon, the Japanese army declared Burma independent and set up a Burmese government. Burmese in the delta wasted no time in taking out their revenge on their Karen neighbours.

Following independence in 1948 ethnic tension simmered until January 1949 when the KNU revolted and demanded the establishment of a Karen homeland centred around the Irrawaddy Delta, some of the most fertile land in the region.

The resistance

Fighting between the KNU and the Burmese army raged throughout the area until the early 1970s when the Burmese army conducted a scorched earth policy that broke the back of Karen resistance. What makes the Irrawaddy Delta of particular concern to the generals is its possible connection to the Karen resistance along the Burma-Thai border to the east. Here in the mountains, Karen villagers still manage to defy the thousands of Burmese soldiers sent against them.

With limited resources, and with their crops burned by the army to starve them out, these villagers continue to eke out an existence. Although they have the option of going down to live in government controlled villages or of running to refugee camps in Thailand, they have chosen to remain near their homes, making them a continuous symbol of defiance. The Burmese army prefers to attack them rather than take on the insurgent army of the KNU, which still holds out in pockets along the border. The junta reasons that by attacking the villagers they will eventually force them down out of the mountains and without the villagers for support the KNU will cease to exist.

This is the tactic that worked in the Irrawaddy Delta decades ago.

The large Karen population, with its long history of anti-government insurgency in the area, makes the population of the Irrawaddy Delta suspect in the regime's eyes.

For the junta, it seems, the cyclone has the possibility of stirring up the Delta region again and this is something it feels a need to control by setting up checkpoints, restricting access and keeping a tight grip on aid and who gets it. Short of an actual invasion by international powers, it may be impossible to get the generals to relinquish their control over aid supplies. They have made it very clear they do not want the foreign aid workers who usually go with these relief efforts. Instead they have shown a preference for Chinese, Thai and other Asian nationals who are less likely to question how the junta doles out its aid.

Brian McCartan is a freelance journalist based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and has reported on human rights in Burma for the past seven years.