8/8/08 for Burma

Daniel Pepper in Burma, 2006:

Fifty years ago Burma (also known as Myanmar) was one of the wealthiest countries in Southeast Asia. Today it has mortality rates on par with Sierra Leone and the Congo.

But unlike its African counterparts, not one international aid agency operates in eastern Burma. In this region about 12 percent of the population is infected with malaria, the most common cause of death, and over 15 percent of children are malnourished.

Human rights advocates along the border in Thailand say the current military offensive underway in eastern Burma, against the Karen ethnic minority, is the worst they have seen in ten years.

These photographs were taken in one such area, in the autumn of 2006.

Read & see more photos at Daniel Pepper’s website

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Citizen Journalists in Burma, 2008.

Courageous individuals in Burma took these photographs of the destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis, despite the military junta’s desire to control the flow of information about the scale of the crisis to the international community.

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James Whitlow Delano traveled to Burma in 2008:

Three days of driving rain had already begun to ruin the dry season rice harvest, leaving the crop under water, before I returned to Yangon from Bago on the day the cyclone struck.

I was in Myanmar (Burma) entirely by chance, working for a South Korean client on a documentary on the lives of two men living in exile since the 1988 crackdown. I was photographing places and things that represented their lives in Burma.

Then the storm turned everything on its head.

Excerpt, “In the Eye of the Myanmar (Burma) Cyclone: A Firsthand Account”

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MK McKenna traveled to Burma in 2008.

The Burmese are an incredible people who have amazing spirit for life and simplicity- even with the government in turmoil, they enjoy everyday, all the simple pleasures, and still take pride in their country. They have not given up hope for a free Burma, and neither have I.

See more photos by MK on her SmugMug profile

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On May 2, 2008, a Class IV cyclone named Nargis hit Burma, battering Burma’s main rice-growing region, the Irrawaddy Delta. After the storm, an area equivalent in size to the entire state of New Jersey was under water.

The death toll climbed from 400 people at first to over 100,000. As Burma’s military regime blocked international aid, agencies speculated that the final death count would exceed 1 million people because of disease and starvation.