Earth Times Tue, 20 May 2008
Yangon - The head of United Nations humanitarian affairs on Tuesday asked Myanmar's junta for more cooperation in providing disaster relief for up to 2.5 million people affected by Cyclone Nargis, which smashed in the country 18 days ago. UN humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes asked Myanmar Prime Minister General Thein Sein at a meeting Tuesday "to please find ways to cooperate with the UN."
Holmes arrived in Myanmar Sunday and was permitted to visit relief camps in Labutta, Bogale and Wakema - three towns in the storm-devastated Irrawaddy Delta - on Monday.
In a press conference in Yangon, Holmes estimated that 1.6 to 2.5 million Myanmar people has been affected by Cyclone Nargis, that swept over the central coast on May 2 to 3, leaving at least 133,000 dead or missing, according to government estimates.
Holmes, who described the relief operation in the Irrawaddy Delata as "well organized," asked Thein Sein to allow the UN to use commercial helicopters to bring in supplies to cyclone victims stranded in remote areas of the delta.
Myanmar's paranoid military regime has been sharply criticized for retarding the international relief effort for its own people by placing restrictions on logistics and UN experts keen to enter the country and the worst-hit areas.
Holmes was one of the few foreigner permitted to enter the Irrawaddy Delta region since the cyclone hit.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to arrive in Myanmar on Thursday to view the catastrophe and urge Myanmar's generals to speed up relief efforts.
Ban is scheduled to meet Myanmar junta chief Senior General Than Shwe on his visit.
On Saturday the UN chief will fly to Bangkok for a brief meeting with aid agencies and Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, before returning to Yangon on Sunday to attend a UN-ASEAN conference designed to scale up relief activities that have been so far restricted by the military junta in Myanmar.
The UN and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have urged governments to send ministers to the meeting in Yangon, hoping that their presence would increase pressure on Myanmar to open its doors to international relief aid and workers.
International aid workers are hoping the conference will speed up the delivery of emergency supplies to the needy.
"It can't get any slower than it is going now," quipped one UN official.
More than two weeks after Cyclone Nargis, the World Food Programme (WFP) has only been able to reach about one third of the 750,000 people deemed in desperate need of food aid.
The international aid community wants to see Myanmar's military regime ease restrictions on the massive logistical pipeline needed to get emergency supplies to the remote areas in the Irrawaddy Delta where most of the cyclone's victims are living.
The junta is also under pressure to grant more visas to foreign relief experts, and to allow more international aid workers into the Irrawaddy Delta, which is currently off-limits for the vast majority of foreign aid workers.
With the arrival of Holmes and Ban, the Myanmar government has at least started to show greater concern for its own people.
State media announced three days of mourning for the catastrophe's victims Monday night.
Senior General Than Shwe, who heads Myanmar's junta, visited the cyclone-affected region for the first time on Sunday.
Than Shwe told victims of the storm that the government had taken "prompt action" in carrying out relief work in the affected areas, and had already spent 50 billion kyat (43 million dollars) on assistance, said The New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece.
The military originally allocated a 5 billion kyat (4.3 million dollar) budget for emergency aid for cyclone victims, with most of that coming from donations from Myanmar businessmen close to the regime. It was unclear whether the 50 billion kyat already spent included aid from bilateral sources.
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