Burmese govt. finally agrees to allow foreign aid to help cyclone “Nargis” survivors

The Burmese military government today agreed to let in “all” aid workers to help the 2.4 million survivors of Cyclone Nargis. The junta’s leader, General Than Shwe, made the announcement during a meeting with the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon. The decision comes some three weeks after the devastating cyclone swept through the south-east Asian country, leaving nearly 134,000 dead or missing.

Since then, Shwe and his fellow generals have resisted opening up the country’s borders to allow in disaster relief specialists and aid workers. Ban announced the decision by the reclusive military government after his meeting with Shwe: “He has agreed to allow [in] all aid workers.”

Ban’s breakthrough came at the end of a short mission to Burma where he had praised “the will, resilience and the courage of the people of Myanmar“, before embarking on a carefully managed four-hour helicopter tour of the Irrawaddy delta, where most of the cyclone victims died.

Ban changed from a business suit into a beige casual jacket, baseball cap and trousers before boarding the military helicopter, and flew over flooded rice fields, to witness the extensive damage to trees, homes and other structures. He was then taken to a well-ordered relief camp with tents in neat rows - scenes that contrasted sharply with the UN and aid agencies’ view that three-quarters of the 2.4 million people affected had yet to receive any aid.

“I am so sorry, but don’t lose your hope,” Ban told one woman as he peered into a tent at the Kyondah relief camp 45 miles south of Rangoon. “The United Nations is here to help you. The whole world is trying to help Myanmar.”

In a 90-minute meeting beforehand in Rangoon, the Burmese prime minister, Lieutenant General Thein Sein, told Ban that the rescue and relief phase of the operation was ending and the reconstruction and rehabilitation could start.

But Burma has blocked significant amounts of aid and kept out large numbers of international disaster management specialists with the expertise to scale up relief, apparently fearful that their presence could loosen the regime’s 46-year grip on power.

Surin Pitsuwan, the secretary-general of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean), warned that “the [Burmese] authorities insist that the rescue and relief phase is over, but competent international agencies say that assertion can’t be verified“. Surin, who is head of an Asean taskforce set up to funnel outside help to Burma, added: “We do not know the extent of the damage, we don’t know the numbers of the dead, the numbers of the missing, or even the numbers of displaced.”

Ban said he was “very upset” by what he had seen. Earlier he had promised: “I bring a message of hope for the people of Myanmar.”

Ban’s meeting with the Burmese leader, in remote new capital of Naypidaw, 250 miles north-east of Rangoon, came ahead of a donor conference in Rangoon on Sunday, backed by Asean and the UN.

The Asean taskforce has set tests the regime must meet if it is to reach international standards and win donors’ confidence to achieve the target of £5.5bn it deems necessary for reconstruction. Among the conditions the taskforce says must be met is that more international relief workers be allowed into the stricken areas to ensure a higher degree of transparency. Foreign aid staff have been barred from the Irrawaddy delta, where 60% of the infrastructure has been destroyed and the official tolls of dead and missing stand at 77,738 and 55,917.

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