that it is only a plastic change. The recent visit of Burmese President Thein Sein to India was an attempt to improve its ties with the largest democracy of the world and also enhance the Southeast Asian country’s image as a welfare nation. But the ground reality remains almost the same.

Since the day when the devastating tropical cyclone Nargis struck Burma (Myanmar) on May 2, 2008, the women survivors remain the worst sufferers.  Despite the fact that three full years have passed since the fateful night, the relief from international agencies, originally blocked by the junta, remains sporadic, paltry and tragically late, all this has been compiled to the continued agony for the poor Burmese people including women and children.

Meanwhile the military rulers of Burma had organized a so-called general election in November 2010 and a quasi democratic regime was installed in Nay Pie Taw but millions of Burmese are still living in terrible conditions in the Nargis affected areas many without pure drinking water and food or proper shelter.

The cyclone, originating in the Bay of Bengal, ripped a trail of destruction across the Irrawaddy and Rangoon divisions and also ravaged parts of the Bago, Mon and Kayin regions. A water wall four meters high is said to have rolled some 25 miles inland across the Irrawaddy River Valley, flattening everything in its path.

The Center for Public Health and Human Rights of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Emergency Assistance Team-Burma, accused the then military dictators of failing to provide adequate food, water and shelter to the survivors

Although the military government claimed the final death toll to be 84,537, with 53,836 missing, independent estimates are that 140,000 were killed and tens of thousands more have never been found. The cyclone devastated the already spavined social infrastructure and wiped out paddy fields, which at the time were being readied for the country’s primary rice crop.

The UN itself admitted that it would need millions of dollar to ensure long-term recovery for the affected Burmese people. Its humanitarian coordinator in Burma, Bishow Parajuli disclosed in an interview that the recovery effort deserved nearly US $691 million for a three-year plan, but only $180 million could be raised from international donors.

Parajuli claimed some success on shelter, schools, agriculture inputs, health care and disaster awareness programs among the survivors but admitted that the progress was slowing down because of the lack of funding. He estimated that over 100,000 families still need to rebuild their homes and around 180,000 people face acute water shortage.

A comprehensive report, prepared by the New York based Human Rights Watch, reveals that the ‘Burmese government continues to deny basic freedoms and place undue restrictions on aid agencies despite significant gains in rehabilitating areas devastated by Cyclone Nargis’.

It is mentionable here that the Burmese junta named State Peace and Development Council initially did not allow international aid to its own people and that way it received condemnation from across the world for its inhuman behavior.

Although the military government claimed the final death toll to be 84,537, with 53,836 missing, independent estimates are that 140,000 were killed and tens of thousands more have never been found.

Suzanne DiMaggio of the Asia Society’s Social Issues Program said that for nearly five decades, Burma’s military rulers had systematically undermined the interests of their own citizens. It wasn’t until days into the tragedy, goaded by international criticism, that the SPDC Chief Senior General Than Shwe found the time to visit the destroyed areas.

But that began to change. Aid workers in the country say the military rulers were softened only after a personal visit by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in the middle of May 2008. Slowly communications between Nay Pie Taw and the international agencies began to improve. Visas and travel permits were made a little easier and faster for the foreign aid workers.

Elaine Pearson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch however claimed that ‘two years after one of the world’s worst natural disasters, local aid workers still feel the brunt of continued repression by the military authorities’.

Speaking to media, the official of the rights group narrated the continued ‘violations of rights to free expression, association, and movement against Burmese aid workers and their organizations by the ruling SPDC’. Titled ‘I Want to Help My Own People’, the HRW report is based on 135 interviews with survivors, aid workers and eye-witnesses, which has claimed that the junta failed ‘to use revenue from natural gas sales to adequately support reconstruction efforts and that millions of people are living in unnecessary poverty fueled by systematic corruption and repression’.

The report quoted many woman survivors of Cyclone Nargis who narrate their grim tales. May Khin, a middle aged woman from Laputta township described her pain, “Nargis was the worst experience of my life. The last thing I remember is the lightning coming together with a strong wind and later a giant wave covered my daughter and me while we were running to the monastery. Then we were separated. I was washed away by the wave and became unconscious. When I came to, there were no clothes on my body and I could not walk as I had no strength. Beside me there was a dead body.”

The International Organization for Migration claimed that nearly 500,000 people in Burma are still homeless after the devastating cyclone. Chris Lom, spokesman of the Geneva based aid agency recently argued that ‘the affected people have not been able to buy supplies to rebuild their houses because they need to spend the money on food’.

Another report that was jointly released by the Center for Public Health and Human Rights of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Emergency Assistance Team - Burma accused the then military dictators of failing to provide adequate food, water and shelter to the survivors and even then continuing to violate the rights of the victims as well as the local relief workers.

Burma receives international media headlines with the flawed constitution and electoral laws that finally prevented the pro - democracy icon Suu Kyi to take part in the polls. Her party the National League for Democracy which recorded a massive victory in the last general election in 1990 - but was denied power by the junta even faced forced dissolution as it did not register with the election commission as a mark of protest.

Talking to this writer from New Delhi, Thin Thin, an exiled Burmese lady activist claimed that the military regime did very little for the rehabilitation of the cyclone victims and they turned out to be inhuman towards the women and children.

“The entire junta and the present government are afraid of one lady (Suu Kyi) and how can you believe that the generals (though they are now ministers) would do better for other women? The women and the children are still living in real vulnerable situations inside Burma,” she said. She concluded by saying, “Now more and more poverty stricken family girls will be trafficked from those affected areas for the sex business in Thailand and China. If your government is not listening to you, whom else can you depend on?”