Canadian PM Meets Burma’s Exiled Leader

Canadian Premier Stephen Harper met exiled Burmese opposition leader, Sein Win, on May 7 in at his parliamentary office in Ottawa and discussed aid efforts for tens of thousand of Cyclone Nargis victims in Burma. It was the first time a Canadian prime minister had met the leader of the Burmese government in exile.

At the meeting, Sein Win, the prime minister of Burma’s exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), requested that Canada coordinate with other countries the international relief efforts for victims of the cyclone disaster in the Irrawaddy delta and Rangoon Division. 

Sein Win was accompanied by Mika Leveque of Rights and Democracy, Peter Gillespie of Inter Pares, and Tin Maung Htoo of Canadian Friends of Burma. Jason Kenney, the Canadian secretary of state for multiculturalism was also present at the meeting. 

As partners in a Canadian umbrella organization—the Humanitarian Coalition—CARE Canada and Save the Children Canada, along with Oxfam Canada and Oxfam Quebec, are distributing Canadian donations through their staff on the ground in Burma. 

Save the Children is co-leading a plan to address education infrastructure for children, as early estimates have found 3, 193 primary schools destroyed, affecting some 500,000 children. Meanwhile, CARE distributed water supplies to approximately 10,000 people taking shelter in pagodas and schools in Rangoon’s South Dagon and Thaketa townships.    

To date, more than 22,500 people have died, with over 41,000 people missing and one million homeless following the devastation of Cyclone Nargis. A US diplomat in Rangoon estimated that the death toll could be 100,000.    

Nearly half the number of dead and missing are likely to be children, said Save the Children officials in Burma.  

Sein Win and Harper also discussed the food crisis that 142,000 Burmese refugees are facing along the Thai-Burmese border.