'This regime is good at killing people, not helping them'

There were still mathematical equations chalked on the blackboards of the classrooms of the number eight middle school in Hlaing Tha Yar today, but the only lesson being given was one of survival.

Since the cyclone hit, the school, situated in a large village an hour's drive west of Rangoon, has been turned into an impromptu refugee centre, with some 2040 of the displaced now crammed into the white-washed building.

Around 17 families were camped out in each classroom, including many nappy-less babies and several grim-faced grandmothers lain out on the desks.

Mai Paw and her husband and six children had sought refuge in the school as soon as the high winds flattened her bamboo shack and ruined everything the family owned. They have been there in the same clothes ever since.

Today, they and their 50 or so noisy roommates batted away swarms of flies away from their faces as they ate the scoop of rice handed out to each by the charity World Concern. Although rice is still available to buy in the village, the price has almost doubled, putting it well out of reach of the homeless locals.

"We have lost everything. We have no house and no jobs," said Mai, as she joggled her youngest child, a seven-month-old son, to stop him crying. Her husband, clad in just a longyi, a traditional sarong, said nothing. His devastated face and sunken cheeks said everything.

They planned to stay in the school for as long as it took for the government to help rebuild their battered neighbourhood. But a visit from a government officer today showed where the ruling elite's real priorities lie: rather than reassure the refugees that help was at hand, they were told to expect an eviction. The government wants to use the school as a polling station in two weeks. That's the date for the referendum which the government reluctantly postponed after the disaster.

In Hlaing Tha Yar today there were no government lorries and no soldiers helping with the reconstruction effort. It was a different story in downtown Rangoon, where most streets yesterday were lined with army trucks. But rather than attending to the most pressing concerns - such as mending the roof which had completely blown off one city centre hospital - soldiers could be spotted throughout the day sweeping up leaves and piling up twigs in a rather ill-placed show of civic pride.

Why, asked some charity workers, weren't the soldiers where they were really needed, down in the delta? One Indian aid worker had just returned from a trip down the Pyapon river, where he had seen families in dire need. He was one of the very few foreigners who managed to breach the newly strengthened checkpoints which have popped up all over the south of the country - anyone with too fair skin was being turned back, and sometimes deported.

"We spoke to one woman who told us how, when the wave hit, she was with three of her young children. She had the baby in her arms and the toddlers by her side, but as the water reached her chin she had to make the terrible decision which of her children to hold out of the water and save," said the aid worker, who did not want to be named for fear it jeopardise his charity's mission. His organisation is having to work under the radar because of what he described as the government's "paranoid, knee-jerk response."

He added: "They have totally failed. This government is very good at controlling people and killing people, but it has no experience of humanitarian relief."

The correspondent has not been named for reasons of security

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