Jittery Myanmar keeps foreign aid workers at bay
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Yangon: Myanmar's junta impounded two UN food aid shipments at Yangon airport on Friday, officials said, triggering more outrage at the military government's refusal to accept a major international relief operation.
"We're going to have to shut down our very small airlift operation until we get guarantees from the authorities," a furious World Food Programme regional director Tony Banbury told CNN. The two shipments, 38 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, were enough to feed 95,000 people, a tiny fraction of the estimated 1.5 million destitute survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which ripped into the southeast Asian nation six days ago.
"Myanmar is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment," the government-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper said in a report on the aid operation slowly building up for survivors of Cyclone Nargis. "But at present Myanmar is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing them to the storm-hit regions with its own resources," the newspaper said. In a statement in the official media after Myanmar turned back a team of Qatari rescue workers coming in on an aid flight this week, the foreign ministry said Myanmar would accept "relief in cash and kind" but not foreign aid workers. The Qatar plane was one of 12 international relief flights that landed in the former capital on Thursday, it said. Outside frustration is mounting at delays by the generals in giving visas to aid workers and landing rights for flights, including those from the US military, which has supply planes on standby in neighbouring Thailand. Survivors of last Saturday's cyclone have largely been fending for themselves in the swampy delta. "They are gone. They are gone," U Thein, who lost her 8-year-old son and 3-month-old daughter in the cyclone, whispered in her village near hard-hit Labutta town in the delta. Around her, in hushed tones, villagers say more than 100 of their friends and relatives were killed in Saturday's carnage. The sea surge and 190 kmh winds ripped the tiny village apart, tearing down coconut groves and ripping the roofs off buildings, including the local primary school. Besides the cawing of crows and gentle weeping of the destitute, the only sound is the hammering of nails as villagers desperately try to rebuild their homes in the malaria-infested swamplands. No soldiers or government agencies have turned up to help. "We have to get shelter. We have to get shelter," said San Myint. She and her brother have been sawing and hammering since dawn to repair their shattered home. "The mosquitoes are eating us at night," she says. "But we were lucky. We survived." Patriotic referendum Myanmar's junta urged citizens on Friday to do their patriotic duty and vote for an army-drafted constitution in a televised message that made no mention of the estimated 1.5 million people clinging to survival a week after the cyclone (To read more, please click here). The junta is holding a referendum on the constitution on May 10 in all but the worst-affected parts of the country. Its opponents have suggested the delays in allowing in aid workers are because it does not want an influx of foreigners before the vote. "If you are patriotic and you love your nation you must give an affirmative vote," state-run MRTV said in a broadcast on Friday. The constitution is a key step in the junta's seven-stage "roadmap to democracy", which is meant to culminate in multi-party elections in 2010 and bring to an end nearly five decades of military rule in the Southeast Asian country. It has been widely derided by the opposition and Western governments as a blueprint for the generals legitimising their grip on power. The military first seized control in 1962, and ignored the results of a 1990 election they lost by a landslide. The government announced on Tuesday it would go ahead with the vote in parts of the country not affected by Cyclone Nargis, but postponed it by two weeks to May 24 in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta and the city of Yangon and its outskirts. In the storm-ravaged former capital, a city of five million, people were stunned by the ruling generals' decision to proceed. "It shows how unreasonable and crazy they can be. They just want to celebrate victory even though the people are suffering," said one shop owner. "It makes no difference to me – I've decided to vote "no" no matter when they hold it," he added. The constitution gives the military an automatic 25% of seats in Parliament, control of key ministries and right to suspend the constitution at will. US ships in waiting, others also crying hoarse The US Navy said four ships, including the destroyer USS Mustin and the three-vessel Essex Expeditionary Strike Force, were heading for Myanmar from the Gulf of Thailand after the Essex deployed helicopters to Thailand for aid operations. The United States, however, was waiting for approval to start shipping in aid on military planes. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was seeking direct talks with the junta's senior general, Than Shwe, to persuade him to remove obstacles. A UN spokeswoman said Ban believed it might be "prudent" for the government to postpone the referendum. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Friday he wanted Southeast Asian nations and China to apply more pressure on Myanmar. "The Burmese regime is behaving appallingly," he said. But UN humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes questioned the value of voicing outrage with the junta over the aid delays. "It's not clear to me at this stage anyway that bludgeoning them over the head is going to make any difference or make it any better. We have to work with them," he told US National Public Radio. While Holmes said the United Nations estimated at least 1.5 million people were "severely affected", Britain's UN ambassador, John Sawers, said it may be in the millions. China, the closest thing Myanmar has to an ally, urged patience in dealing with the junta. "(The international community) should take Myanmar's willingness and ability to receive (the aid) into full account, and have patient and close communication with Myanmar," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters. Myanmar state-run radio and TV did not give an update on Friday of the official toll, which stood at 22,980 killed with 42,119 missing as of Tuesday. Although experts fear it could be as high as 100,000. Source: Reuters |
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