Human Rights

Burma has posted public health and red cross officials along the border with China but the performance of their duties has left a lot to be desired, said a Shan businessman from northern Shan State.

"There are many border crossings but Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) inspectors are placed only at Zegao and Muse (pronounced Muzay)" said the source. "They look casually at travelers passing through the checkpoints from head to toes and just let them move on. If they can't do a job properly, why are they doing it at all?"

The businessman explained he was in Muse to gamble at one of the casinos there but found each one of them closed for almost a week. "They must have been taking their cue from China that has shut down the entertainment venues on the Chinese side of the border," he speculated. "Not that the Chinese are also paying too much attention to Sars in Yunnan except at Kunming (the capital of the province where an international airport is located)."

He also found only a few townspeople wearing anti-Sars masks in Muse, each costing 800 - 1,500 kyat. "But most people don't appear to know anything about the epidemic," he said. "They would laugh and ask 'why are you donning it? Is it a new fashion?'"

His experience in Muse proved the shallowness of Rangoon's public information "machine", he concluded.

Sars, first dubbed as killer pneumonia, and believed to have originated in China's Guangzhou Province have claimed hundreds of deaths and is damaging the economy of the Asian countries more than the Gulf War and terrorist attacks combined, according to Asian leaders at the Sars summit in Bangkok late last month.