Myanmar stays on the defensive

The military junta that rules Burma, now also called Myanmar, kept up its hard-to-understand resistance to outside help Friday when it blamed its own people as well as foreign media for damaging the image of the country during the cyclone recovery crisis. Myanmar's leadership said Friday that claims by the United Nations that more than 1 million people are still without assistance were false. The country's Irrawaddy Delta region in the south was devastated by the Cyclone Nargis on May 2 and 3, and as many as 100,000 people were killed. Many countries and international aid groups have tried to help, but the junta has refused most offers of aid. The U.S. Navy recently turned around ships loaded with relief supplies that had been waiting for permission to dock in Myanmar, but the government has allowed the Marines to deliver aid to Yangon, the country's largest city. Shipments from Yangon to the delta area have been problematic. however. "Of the 1 million or 1.5 million people in need of relief support, we think that between 450,000 to 750,000 are in emergency need," said Lt. Gen. John Goodman, commander of Marine Forces Pacific and head of the U.S. relief operation for Myanmar, according to the Associated Press. Myanmar's reclusive leadership are reported angry over years of U.S. criticism of their human rights record and for refusing to surrender power to a civilian government elected by a landslide in 1990.