Aid groups ready to test Myanmar on access
YANGON (AFP) — International aid groups said Monday they were planning to test Myanmar's commitment to open up to foreign aid workers, after the junta pledged to speed up relief for desperate cyclone survivors.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he hoped the country's secretive military rulers would make good on their commitment more than three weeks after the tragedy -- a delay that has outraged the international community.
The junta has blocked access to the country and all but sealed off the Irrawaddy Delta disaster zone in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, even though around two million people are desperately short of food, water and shelter.
"My sincere hope is that they will honour their commitment," Ban said in neighbouring Thailand, after wrapping up the first visit to Myanmar by a UN chief in almost 45 years.
"That we have to see," said Ban, who refused to say how or whether junta leader Than Shwe had explained the decision to limit the relief effort after Cyclone Nargis hit May 2-3, leaving 133,000 people dead or missing.
Dozens of nations and aid groups met Sunday in Myanmar's main city Yangon to discuss the relief operation -- and most bluntly told the regime to focus on saving lives and honour the pledge made to the UN secretary general.
But Monday morning, a fire destroyed an entire floor of one building at the Myanmar embassy in neighbouring Thailand, where visa applications for many aid workers have been held up since the tragedy unfolded.
Thai police said the visa section was not affected, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it had been told the section would reopen quickly.
France announced overnight it had given up trying to deliver a shipload of aid on a French naval vessel in nearby waters. Deeply suspicious of the outside world, Myanmar has refused any aid from US, British and French naval ships.
Some international relief groups that are already allowed to conduct limited operations inside Myanmar said they would put the junta's pledge to the test as soon as possible.
"We want to see whether this translates into action because we have only a handful of people in the delta region," said Veronique Terrasse, a spokeswoman in Bangkok for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).
"Hopefully we'll get some answers today and in the coming days," she said. "We're just waiting and hoping that things will change."
Chris Webster of World Vision said his organisation would try to send people into the delta on Tuesday.
"They have had verbal approval and we've had the general acknowledgement that foreigners can go," Webster said. "But we're hoping for something in writing today. That will be a big test."
Once known as Burma and now one of the most isolated countries on the planet, Myanmar has often reneged on its commitments -- but nations at the conference Sunday warned they would push the junta to get aid workers in.
"We hope that will happen," said Kathleen Cravero of the UN Development Programme.
The storm washed away entire villages and ruined crucial rice fields that are essential to feed the impoverished nation. The European Union's top aid official has already warned there could be a famine ahead.
Myanmar's military rulers are under sanctions from the European Union and the United States -- which has in particular criticised the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner won the country's last national election in a landslide but was never allowed to govern.
She has spent much of the time since then under house arrest. The house arrest order, which is believed to expire at midnight Monday, is expected to be extended.
