Locals with loved ones in Myanmar mount urgent drive to help

In a mustard-colored board room near Loring Park, far from the cyclone-racked Myanmar delta where experts say the death toll could reach 100,000, a cadre of veteran local activists braced for one of their trickiest disaster-relief efforts.

"Sanitation is going to be huge," said Colleen Striegel, who directs staffing strategy for the Minneapolis-based American Refugee Committee.

As hungry crowds looted stores in Myanmar and the country's iron-fisted regime slowly eased its resistance to foreign aid Wednesday, all eyes around ARC's oval table were on a color-coded wall screen displaying a roster of humanitarian experts. Spread across the globe, they are linked by the group's frequently updated database.

Drawing on nearly 30 years' experience in disaster assistance, the local team quickly agreed to tap a malaria expert and clinical coordinator based in Thailand. But a shelter expert couldn't be spared. He's building schools in Rwanda.

Gary Dahl, a Northfield native and ARC health expert, said he hopes to procure visas today in his hometown of Bangkok, Thailand, so he and an infectious-disease specialist can get into Myanmar to assess the chaos.

That won't be easy. Myanmar's military regime is heavily bureaucratic and bristles at help from the United States, which has placed economic sanctions on the South Asian government. The Myanmar regime is even limiting the spread of media images of the storm's devastation.

"We can only hope the visas come through, and then we don't even know how they'll get in -- it might be only accessible by boat," ARC spokeswoman Therese Gales said.

Sleepless nights

In North St. Paul, Myint Myint Thu anxiously awaited word from her parents, three sisters and her brother. They still live in the house where she grew up -- a riverside wooden structure with a corrugated metal roof in the delta town of Kyait Lat.

"I cannot even think of sleeping," she said. "I want to do something."

Along with her husband, Aung Koe, Thu left what was then known as Burma when the military government seized control in the late 1980s.

As many as 5,000 exiles, including several recent ethnic Karen refugees, have resettled in Minnesota. Last summer, they organized the Community Improvement and Development (CID) nonprofit group. They hoped to help newcomers from Myanmar adjust to life in Minnesota.

Now they're scrambling to help raise money.

"We're trying to find who is on the ground at the moment so we can channel our funds to get to the people really affected by the storm," said Myo Nyunt, a St. Paul consultant who came here in 1999.

He said he fears the Myanmar government will siphon off funds "for their own personal needs."

In the midst of the disaster relief, Myanmar's leaders have decided to move forward with an election in most of the country this month on a military-backed constitution that Nyunt and other expatriates oppose.

"Through cronyism and other issues, they are no longer accountable," he said.

Their local CID group plans to work through U.S.-based Buddhist monks to identify Myanmar monasteries sheltering cyclone victims so relief money can be sent directly to where it's needed most.

They also hope to buy kerosene cookstoves in Bangkok, and take them across the border. Nyunt's daughter, Thet, an English teacher near the Thai-Myanmar border, has been in touch and is ready to help.

"Bureaucracy is one obstacle because the military structure is very centralized in its decisionmaking, and that might even slow things such as visas," said Tun Myint, a Myanmar native and visiting professor of political science and international relations at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.

"The aid has to be really strategic," he said.

He was relieved to receive word that his five brothers are safe in the capital city of Yangon (formerly Rangoon).

"Problems with the infrastructure and road systems might make the area only accessible by boat and airlifting helicopters," he said. "The price of household items such as rice has increased six times in four days, and the condition of the drinking water and lack of electricity are grave concerns."

Back at the Minneapolis office of the American Refugee Committee, the detail work is daunting. Because Myanmar is under U.S. sanctions, items such as insurance coverage for staffers need special permission from the Treasury Department.

But the group, established in 1979, is ready for the worst -- as always. When the tsunami hit South Asia in December 2004, ARC launched a fishing-boat restoration project. With a $1 million grant from the foundation created by former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, ARC's efforts were lauded worldwide.

Unlike groups that swoop into disaster areas and impose answers, ARC workers insist on assisting groups already in place. More than 90 percent of its 2,000 worldwide staff members are refugees or locally based aid workers.

"It's still early to know how we'll respond," Gales said. "But our landmark is to work with those on the ground to fill the gaps and not step on anyone's toes or duplicate other group's efforts."

Curt Brown • 612-673-4767