A local township clerk, caught selling relief materials donated for victims of Cyclone Nargis in Irrawaddy division has been removed from office but sources said no action has been taken against him so far.Kyaw Soe, a clerk of the Pyapon Township Peace and Development Council in Irrawaddy division, was reportedly caught selling about 1000 rice bags of aid donated by the Saudi Arabian government in Rangoon earlier in November."He has been suspended from his job but we don't know what punishment is in store for him if at all," an official at the Pyapon Township PDC office told Mizzima. He added that so far the accused has not been prosecuted nor tried in any court."All investigations were done by the Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) so they will report to higher authorities in the divisional office for further action," he added.Kyaw Soe, who was caught selling the rice bags for over 10,000 kyat each, was arrested by the BSI in Pyapon town the official said. He added that since the BSI had arrested him, if any charges are pressed against him it will be by the BSI.A BSI official in Pyapon town, when contacted by Mizzima, said the clerk has not been arrested. But he declined to comment further saying he was not authorized to speak to the press."We are not authorized to talk about this. He [Kyaw Soe] is at home, he is not here," said the BSI official.Meanwhile a local rice merchant in Pyapon, said he had known that the clerk, prior to his arrest, had been selling aid materials for personal gain."This is not the first time he has done this. He has done this sort of thing earlier many times but evaded arrest," the merchant said.The merchant added that Kyaw Soe had earlier sold about 900 bags of rice at 18,000 kyat per bag. And he has been bailed out by his family members from the custody of the BSI.The merchant said, earlier the head of Pyapon Township PDC, Myo Myint Zaw, was also suspended from office for illegally selling 6000 to 7000 bags of chemical fertilizers but the case was not proceeded with and the accused till today has not been punished."We know there is a lot of corruption relating to aid supplies but we dare not reveal it, because the authorities are involved," said the rice merchant.In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, the Saudi Arabian government had donated at least 370 tons of relief supplies including tents, foodstuffs, blankets, medicines, ambulances, rescue equipments, electric generators, according to information released by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia (RESA) in Washington D.C.Cyclone Nargis struck Burma on May 2-3, leaving over 2.4 million devastated and more than 130,000 killed or missing.
Ban will not visit Burma, despite calls by former world leaders
In response to the call, Michele Montas, spokesperson of the Secretary General, on Wednesday said the world body chief has reiterated his commitment to remain engaged on the Burmese issue both personally and through his special adviser, Ibrahim Gambari, but will not make a visit unless there are "reasonable expectations of a meaningful outcome."Yesterday, 112 former presidents and prime ministers urged Ban Ki-moon to pay a visit to Burma and press the junta to release all political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.Signatories to the petition, initiated by former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, include former U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and John Major and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.But Montas on said the secretary general "said he would like to visit Myanmar [Burma] again to discuss a broad range of issues but that he will not be able to do so without reasonable expectations of a meaningful outcome."She also said Ban's special envoy to Burma would not revisit the Southeast Asian nation "unless there was a real possibility of moving forward there."Ban visited military-ruled Burma in May, in the wake of deadly Cyclone Nargis, to convince its rulers to allow increased access for international aid workers and relief materials to help cyclone survivors. The cyclone left at least 130,000 dead or missing and devastated the lives of 2.4 million people in Burma's Rangoon and Irrawaddy Divisions.Ban on Wednesday received the letter and a phone call from former Norwegian Prime Minister Bondevik, the architect of the letter. The petition urged the world body chief to push for the release of all political prisoners in Burma, even if he chose not to return to the country.The petition and the response of the UN chief come amidst the Burmese junta's continued sentencing of dissidents to long prison terms and transferring them to remote prisons across the country.On Wednesday, the junta transferred a popular hip-hop singer, Zeya Thaw, arrested for his involvement in last year's protests, to a prison in Burma's southernmost town of Kawthaung.
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