UN emergency aid in cyclone-crushed Myanmar awaits assessment

May 6, 2008, 11:12 GMT

   Yangon - The United Nations is facing 'enormous difficulties' making an assessment of the disaster wrought by Cyclone Nargis on central Myanmar, which is likely to hamper any emergency aid programme in the devastated countryside.

   'We are facing enormous difficulties right now in getting out there and unless there is an assessment ... the first thing you need is an assessment and then you can gauge your response on that,' said Aye Win, spokesman for the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Yangon.

   Various UN agencies and international aid agencies gathered in Bangkok Tuesday morning to prepare emergency aid to Myanmar, where the cyclone claimed more than 15,000 lives and has left hundreds of thousands homeless, but the meeting was stalled by the lack of a proper assessment of the situation, sources said.

   'The UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) sent four teams to the Irrawaddy Delta region last night and today to make assessments, but you've got to understand that a lot of boats have been damaged out there and communications are non-existent,' said Aye Win.

   Myanmar, deemed a pariah states in among Western democracies, has been cut off from most forms of traditional international aid such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and bilateral aid for the past two decades, as part of the West's economic sanctions on the country.

   The UN is one of the only international agencies that has continued to operate in the country, and even their presence is limited, and often by lack in funding.

   'The UN support system is not sufficient inside Myanmar,' said Terje Skavdal, regional director of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), in an interview Monday. The UNOCHA headed the Bangkok meetings.

   The military junta that is ruling Myanmar, listed as one of the world's least developed countries, has earned a reputation for poor macro-economic management, let alone disaster-management.

   Public funds to handle the crisis are severely limited, sources said.          

   But the UN will not be able to launch its disaster-relief programme until a proper assessment of the disaster is in hand, and given the extent of the infrastructure damage in the Irrawaddy Division, such an assessment will take time to complete.

   Even in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, people remained largely without electricity, piped water and communications on Tuesday, four days after the cyclone struck.

   'There has been some progress but there is still the problem of water scarcity, and the danger of diseases outbreaks, and this is just in Yangon,' said Aye Win.

   Myanmar has been ruled by military dictatorships since 1962, when General Ne Win staged a military coup that dragged the once prosperous South-East Asian country into socialism and isolationism that has yet to be fully discarded.

   Faced with the enormity of the destruction caused by the cyclone, however, the ruling junta has welcomed international aid.

   'We need aid from both local and foreign sources,' Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told a press conference on Tuesday. 'It is welcome.'

   Several countries have pledged aid to Myanmar - including 3 million dollars from the European Union, 750,000 dollars from Germany, 250,000 dollars from the United States and two ships of supplies from India - to cope with the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the cyclone.

   On Tuesday afternoon, neighbouring Thailand flew in more than 300,000 dollars worth of medical and food aid, and a planeload of similar supplies from China was also sent.

   It remains unclear whether Myanmar's regime would place restrictions on the aid deliveries and foreign aid workers as it has in the past.

   'We can't yet provide any details,' said Major General Maung Maung Swe, minister of social welfare and resettlement, who attended the press conference with the information minister.

   Hundreds of thousands have been left homeless and without basic utilities by the cyclone, which blew off the Bay of Bengal late Friday, packing winds of up to 200 kilometres per hour, wrecking much of the country's already fragile infrastructure and threatening its precarious food supply.

   Yangon, Myanmar's former capital, was hit hard by the storm, which uprooted trees, toppled electricity and telephone poles, and burst water pipes, leaving the city of several million without basic utilities.