Myanmar allows first UN emergency aid flights for cyclone victims; snubs U.S.
May 8, 2008YANGON, Myanmar - Relief supplies from the United Nations arrived in Myanmar on Thursday, but U.S. military planes loaded with aid were still denied access by the country's government five days after a devastating cyclone.
The military junta also continued to stall on visas for UN teams seeking entry to ensure the aid is delivered to the victims amid fears that lack of safe food and drinking water could push the death toll above 100,000.
Four airplanes carrying high-energy biscuits, medicine and other supplies arrived in Yangon Thursday, UN officials said. Two of four UN experts who had flown to Myanmar to assess the damage were turned back at Yangon's airport for reasons that were not immediately clear, said John Holmes, the UN relief co-ordinator. The other two were allowed to enter.
By rejecting the U.S. offer, the junta is refusing to take advantage of Washington's enormous ability to deliver aid quickly, which was evident during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.
"We have demonstrated in crises around the world ... our logistical capability to get humanitarian assistance quickly in to the people who need it," said Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar.
Gordon Johndroe, President George W. Bush's national security spokesman, said the United States was still working to gain permission to enter Myanmar. Another option being considered was air-dropping aid without permission, said Ky Luu, the director of the U.S. office of foreign disaster assistance.
But Defence Secretary Robert Gates later said he couldn't imagine dropping relief aid into Myanmar without the military junta's permission.
France has argued that the UN has the power to intervene to help civilians because of an agreement by world leaders at a 2005 summit that the international body has a "responsibility to protect" people sometimes when countries fail to do it. But that agreement did not mention natural disasters.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband asked Myanmar's junta to "lift all restrictions on the distribution of aid." Separately, Kouchner said France would make $3 million available to French aid groups already operating in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper also expressed frustration with the situation in an interview Thursday with Toronto radio station CFRB.
"The world community wants to help, and I think we're all prepared to put aside our concerns about how Burma is run for the next few weeks, just to deliver humanitarian assistance," he said.
Harper said Canada would be open to any request to send its Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART, but there has been no request so far.
Myanmar's generals, traditionally paranoid about foreign influence, issued an appeal for international assistance after the storm struck Saturday. They have since dragged their feet on issuing visas to relief workers even as survivors faced hunger, disease and flooding.
Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, said the United States has to convince Myanmar's government that it has no political agenda.
"Clearly we all know the political context there, and I think it's going to take a little bit more time for a breakthrough there," Costello said.
The Association of Southeast Nations appealed to the international community to keep sending aid through Thailand.
The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said some donors were delaying aid for fear it would be siphoned off to the army. The UN World Food Program's regional director, Anthony Banbury, indicated the United Nations had similar concerns.
"We will not just bring our supplies to an airport, dump it and take off," he said.
So far, the United Nations has recorded donations to Myanmar relief totalling $25 million from 28 countries, the European Union and charities. An additional $25 million has been pledged. Canada has pledged up to $2 million.
Meanwhile, a five-member rapid response team from Toronto-based GlobalMedic has arrived in Bangkok. A spokesman told The Canadian Press Thursday the team is awaiting approval of visas to enter Myanmar for its 10-day aid mission.
The team brought along five million water purification tablets, 21 water purification units and $1 million worth of medicine to stave off water-borne diseases.
Myanmar's state media said cyclone Nargis killed at least 22,997 people and left 42,019 missing, mostly in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy Delta. Villarosa said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because safe food and water were scarce and unsanitary conditions widespread.
"That extraordinary volume of rain, of wave, of wind just crushing everything, snapping everything in its wake, that death toll I think could be conceivable," said Costello, of World Vision.
UN officials estimated as many as one million people were left homeless in Myanmar, which also is known as Burma.
In Yangon, the cyclone blew off the roof of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and cut the electricity to her dilapidated lakeside bungalow, where she is under house arrest, a neighbour said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Entire villages in the delta were still submerged from the storm, and bloated corpses could be seen stuck in the mangroves. Some survivors stripped clothes off the dead. People wailed as they described the horror of the torrent swept ashore by the cyclone.
"I don't know what happened to my wife and young children," said Phan Maung, 55, who held onto a coconut tree until the water level dropped. By then his family was gone.
The World Health Organization has received reports of malaria outbreaks in the worst-affected area, and said fears of waterborne illnesses surfacing due to dirty water and poor sanitation also remained a concern.
Even near Yangon, the country's largest city, stricken villagers complained that they had received no government assistance and were relying on aid from Buddhist monasteries.
Myanmar's state television Thursday showed Prime Minister Lt.-Gen. Thein Sein distributing food packages to the sick and injured in the delta and soldiers dropping food over villages. The date of the distribution was not given.
Michael Annear, the Southeast Asia disaster management co-ordinator for the International Red Cross said recovery efforts were slowly making their way into Yangon.
Electricity has been restored to some parts of the city, and the water distribution network was turned back on in some areas.
The International Red Cross has issued a six-month, $5.9 million appeal to focus on immediate relief needs such as hygiene kits, cooking sets, water and shelter provisions.
The Canadian Red Cross has contributed to that appeal. Annear, who is Australian, predicts the Red Cross will be working to help Myanmar rebuild for at least two years.
(With files from The Canadian Press)
