OPINION:The junta's obstructionism is forcing ordinary people in Burma to help each other achieve change by working together secretly, writes a special correspondent.
BAN KI-MOON raised hopes for Burma's destitute cyclone survivors last week, but dismal signals from the ruling generals since then are blackening victims' prospects and the mood in Rangoon.
Aid workers who at last got their hands on visas and delta permits are still confronted by delays and obstacles in what some fear could deteriorate into an operational quagmire.
A week after the UN secretary general's visit, the promised "open access" for a proper aid response has not materialised.
UN and international organisations battle red tape for limited permits to even enter the delta, only to find when they arrive that their worries have just begun.
Access alone is of limited use without the telecommunications equipment, vehicles, boats and helicopters the generals still don't allow in in any numbers.
An astonishing million or more survivors are still fending entirely for themselves in delta wastelands strewn with decayed corpses of people and animals.
Access to the other million or so that have been contacted by relief workers and private donors remains fraught with uncertainty as the generals continue to evict thousands of survivors from roadsides and temporary camps where relief workers can reach them.
With cameras forbidden in the affected areas, the almost unimaginable scale of suffering is being hidden.
A World Food Programme (WFP) chief returned on Thursday from Labutta, a worst-hit town that has received a relatively high volume of aid, expressing "concern over the system's ability to meet needs". That measured language barely hid underlying deep frustration at the fact that, though some helicopter support has arrived, the WFP's planning assumptions over the last week - including the granting of permissions relating to accessing food, vehicles and other back-ups - had failed to come good.
The organisation, like others, is managing to get some food and other aid to many victims, but few of these are living in conditions much above survival level.
The struggle to do effective work against a backdrop of red tape, stalled permits and refusals for vital equipment evokes barriers more to be expected in a war zone than a natural disaster. And that backdrop explains why Burmese private relief teams have operated from the beginning as though they were heading out to pass behind enemy lines.
I met not a single Burmese who would contemplate even for a moment putting their aid donations in the hands of township officials or soldiers. Though that means they lose time dodging checkpoints, making zig-zags and detours, hiding out and lying about their activities if caught, this is seen as entirely necessary.
"You can't trust the military to give the donations to the people," said U Aung Myo, a white-collar professional who turned himself into a full-time aid worker for local and international relief operations weeks ago and has had barely a moment's rest since.
He is part of the "other army" of Burmese private citizens, monks, charities, youth groups, churches and business people whose often heroic efforts over the past month will eventually be an important memory to help this stricken society heal from the Nargis body blow and four decades of crippling military rule.
"Our society has been breaking apart for a long time, but this is showing we can pull together," said a middle-aged Rangoon woman.
Burmese show restrained fury but little surprise over the army's obstructive behaviour in general - and no surprise over the disappointing outcome so far of Ban Ki-moon's promised "open access" for foreigners.
They know that the army believes - probably correctly - that unfettered access to the delta population could both expose it to uncontainable outrage and threaten the iron grip it holds over daily life that is the basis of its hold on power.
So it stalls on access permits, forbids cameras and tries to ensure that state officials are inserted between all delta helpers (both Burmese and foreign) and the people who so badly need help.
Burmese citizens can often dodge the officials, but that option is not open to foreign groups such as UN organisations attempting to work openly. They must negotiate with local representatives on a case-by-case basis, hoping that individual humanitarian impulses over-ride unknown other instructions.
This is happening on a provisional basis in a number of areas, reflected in the rise in figures of victims reached this week from about one half to one million.
But, in many other areas, authorities are already acting in ways that directly hurt and bewilder victims, dismay local relief teams and bode badly for future prospects.
Soldiers have told groups sheltering and waiting for aid along roadsides to move into rice fields where they are less visible (and more vulnerable to snakes, disease-carrying mosquitoes and other hazards).
Township officials have pushed villagers out of schools and monasteries and told them to return to areas that are destroyed. They have closed down "tarpaulin towns" outside Rangoon and in other areas and sent homeless inhabitants away with a few dollars and a few cans of rice.
And they have confiscated privately donated blankets and tarpaulins, telling survivors these would be redistributed "later". The picture is almost unbelievably grim, but the desperation of survivors means the relief effort must push on in spite of the surprise, bewilderment and obstruction cropping up on a daily basis.
Foreigners are learning what it is like to be Burmese - without clear information and without rights, you must instead take what you get.
You deal with the uncertainty by trying to read the "signs". As usual, these are deeply conflicting: as Ban Ki-moon's trip fades into the distance, the bad signs are increasingly outweighing the good.
For weeks, the regime's mouthpiece newspapers at least publicly welcomed international assistance. This week, for the first time, a note of outright derision appeared, with one writer in the state-run Kyemon mocking foreigners' attempts to access the delta with "chocolate bar" aid and frowning at efforts to enter "not just our kitchens but the living room and bedroom as well". That particular writer failed to note that hundreds of thousands of his countrymen no longer even have a kitchen or a living room.
Or even a life.