Burma's embattled military junta lashed out at offers of foreign aid this morning, claiming the 2.4million people affected by Cyclone Nargis “can survive on self-reliance without chocolate bars donated by foreign countries".
An editorial in an army-run also accused the international community of being stingy.
It noted that the United Nations' £100 million "flash appeal" was still a long way from being full nearly four weeks after the disaster, which left 134,000 dead or missing.
The level of aid stands in stark contrast to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when outside governments promised £1 billion within a week of the disaster.
"Burma needs about £5.5 billion. The pledging amounted to over £75 million, less than the £100 million mentioned by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as emergency aid," it added.
"There is one big nation that even extended economic sanctions on Myanmar although it had already been known that Myanmar was in for a very powerful storm," it said, referring to the United States.
The tone of the editorial is at odds with recent praise of the UN relief effort, but follows criticism of the junta's extension on Tuesday of the five-year house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
US President George W. Bush said he was "deeply troubled" by the extension and called for the more than 1,000 political prisoners to be freed.
The State Department said it would not affect US cyclone aid, but a top U.S. commander said warships laden with aid would leave waters near the delta if they did not get a green light soon.
France, which diverted a naval vessel to the Thai island of Phuket where it would offload aid supplies, demanded the immediate release of Suu Kyi, who has now spent nearly 13 of the last 18 years in prison or under house arrest.
"France calls on the Burmese authorities to free without delay Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, the leaders of the opposition and political prisoners, notably those who have been arrested in recent days," the Foreign Ministry said.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a 1990 poll by a landslide only to be denied power by the military, which has ruled the impoverished country for 46 years.
Needy: Cyclone-affted residents wait for relief aid from private donors in Bogaley in the Irrawaddy Delta
The situation remains dire for many survivors in the delta, the "rice bowl of Asia" in the days before what was then Burma won independence from Britain in 1948.
The army has started to bury bodies in communal graves, villagers said, although there has been no official word on plans to dispose of the thousands of bodies that still litter the fields and waterways.
Bodies are grotesquely bloated or rotting to the bone and covered in swarms of flies. The stench of death remains strong.
"The soldiers told everyone to shoo, to go away," one woman said at a communal burial site in Khaw Mhu, 25 miles southwest of Yangon, where soldiers covered bodies in "white powder" and then concreted over them.
In Dedaye, also in the delta, a boatman said there were around 40 or 50 dead bodies in one waterway.
Aid pledge: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, left, meets with Myanmar junta leader Senior General Than Shwe
"We did the burial ourselves. If I know the dead person, I'll bury his body. If he knows the other dead person, he'll bury it."
Three weeks after the cyclone's 120 mph winds and sea surge devastated the delta, the UN says it is slowly being given more access, with all its staff with pending visas requests being granted permission to enter the country.
However, getting aid and access to the delta remains a very different proposition. The latest assessment from the UN's disaster response arm suggests fewer than half of victims have had any help from "local, national or international actors".
Witnesses say many villages have received no food, clean water or shelter, and farmers are struggling against huge odds to plant a new crop to avoid long-term food shortages.
"We have only until June to plant the main rice crop," one farmer called Huje said in the village of Paw Kahyan Lay, 25 miles south-west of Yangon.
"Our fields are flooded with salt-water and we have no water buffalo to plough with," the 47-year-old said, standing with his daughter in the ruins of their home.
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