Belated relief, rising frustration in Burma (Roundup)

May 9, 2008, 10:32 GMT

People sit at the flooded roadside, four days after the devastating cyclone Nargis, at the outskirts of the capital Yangon, Myanmar, 08 May 2008. EPA/AKTION DEUTSCHLAND HILFT/ FRED SCHMIDT

   Bangkok/Yangon - A trickle of food aid arrived Friday in cyclone-devastated cities in Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta, providing a small start for a massive aid programme that has been stalled by Myanmar's generals, United Nations experts confirmed.

   'Trucks, with 20 tons of rice and four tons of high-energy biscuits and plastic tarps, have arrived in Labutta,' said World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Marcus Prior. It was the first successful delivery of assistance to Labutta, one of the hardest-hit coastal towns, since Cyclone Nargis hit six days ago.

   The WFP expects to have brought in 45 tons of high-energy biscuits, the basic survival food in disaster situations, by Friday evening, enough to meet the minimum nutritional needs of 100,000 people, said Prior.

   Altogether, various UN agencies operating inside the country have been able to deliver initial emergency supplies to 276,000 individuals in the country this week, but most of those were in Yangon, the former capital.

   'It's not up to the scale that's needed,' said Richard Horsey, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN agency that is heading the Myanmar aid effort.

   The UN now estimates that some 1.5 million people are in need of emergency assistance in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, that killed some 23,000 people and left 42,000 missing, according to government estimates. Others estimate the death toll at 100,000.

   Despite a huge outpouring of aid pledges for Myanmar, exceeding 30 million dollars, the country's ruling junta has delayed granting visas to emergency aid experts this week.

   The natural disaster has come at a sensitive time politically for the regime, which is going ahead with plans to hold a national referendum on Saturday to endorse a pro-military constitution that will cement their dominant role in politics under future elected governments.

   The vote has been postponed in 47 of the worst hit townships until May 24, but the military has ignored an international appeal to the government to postpone the vote altogether to pay attention to the national tragedy caused by Cyclone Nargis.

   Observers believe the military does not want more foreigners in the country this weekend to witness the referendum, but that policy may also be applied to the post-referendum period.

   An article in The New Light of Myanmar on Friday indicated that Myanmar welcomed foreign aid, but not foreigners.     'Currently, Myanmar is receiving emergency relief provisions and is making strenuous efforts to transport these provisions without delay by its own labour to the affected areas,' the newspaper said.

   'That is a very discouraging message to be coming out,' said Hosley.

   The need for more relief aid, especially in the Irrawaddy Delta, is dire.   

   Labutta has become a magnet for people left homeless and without food by the disaster, said Joakim Cottig, a spokesman for the Adventist and Development Relief Agency (ADRA).

   Thousands of people are on foot, looking for food and drinking water, which has become scarce in the region.

   'The harvest has been to a large extent destroyed,' Cottig told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in Yangon.

   Most of the cyclone's casualties were in the Irrawaddy Delta, the country's low-lying coastal plains where an estimated 60 per cent of the nation's rice is grown.

   Once a region of abundance, the region is now a disaster zone.

   'Bodies are lying everywhere,' said Cottig. 'The danger of epidemics is now very large.'

   OCHA was expected to issue an international 'relief appeal' sometime Friday, after assessing the full extent of the calamity.

   Some governments, such as the US, are reportedly mulling the option of air-dropping relief supplies on the affected populations without the government's approval.

   Dissident groups in Myanmar, also known as Burma, appealed for help from abroad that circumvents the junta.

   'To save thousands of lives before it's too late, we would like to urge the United Nations and foreign governments to intervene in Burma immediately to provide humanitarian and relief assistance directly to the people of Burma without waiting for the permission of the military junta,' said a joint statement issued by the All Burma Monks' Alliance, the 88 Generation Students and All Burma Federation of Student Unions, three leading anti-government groups.