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The National League for Democracy (NLD) has condemned the Burmese military government’s plan to go ahead with the constitutional referendum on May 24 in the devastated areas affected by Cyclone Nargis.

The NLD, one of Burma’s leading opposition groups, said in a statement on Wednesday the party has information that the junta will go ahead with its plan to hold the referendum on May 24 in 40 townships in Rangoon Division and seven townships in the Irrawaddy delta.

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“It is not the right time to hold the referendum in the cyclone-hit region because people are dying and still struggling. Diseases are spreading day by day,” said an NLD statement. “The State Peace and Development Council [the official junta title] has responsibility for the lives of the survivors.”

The NLD said the government should concentrate on humanitarian work among the survivors.

A member of the NLD disaster committee, Aye Kyu, who is now in Laputta, said diarrhea is widespread in the township and many people, especially children, are living in trauma.

A Burmese doctor who recently returned from Laputta, one of the worst-hit areas, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that up to seven survivors died every day at emergency relief camps in the town. Homeless survivors are also staying at monasteries, temples and schools. About 100,000 survivors are in the town, he said.

The doctor said authorities seized medicine and medical equipment from volunteer Burmese medical workers in Laputta. The medicine and equipment were provided by Merlin, an international nongovernmental organization (INGO) operating in Burma.

A staffer from an INGO in Rangoon that works on aid operations, said, “We can't give any support directly to the community.”

The junta-backed newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, on Wednesday published photographs showing survivors giving the two-handed sign of respect, usually reserved for the Buddha, to Lt-Gen Myint Swe, who inspected a relief camp in Hlaingthayar Township in Rangoon.

The European Union urged the Burmese military junta on Tuesday to allow relief supplies and aid workers access to the 1.5 million people facing hunger and disease in the aftermath of cyclone.

France, Britain and Germany have called for governments to deliver aid to cyclone victims without the military junta’s agreement, if necessary.

“We have called for ‘responsibility to protect’ to be applied in the case of Burma,” the French junior Human Rights Minister, Rama Yade, said on Tuesday.