As food aid is halted, pressure grows on Myanmar military

May 9, 2008, 14:21 GMT

An employee of the German Red Cross (DRK) transports a wrapped mobile drinking water purification machine at the DRK\'s logistics centre of airport Berlin-Schoenefeld, Germany, 09 May 2008. EPA/NESTOR BACHMANN

With reports of a possible 100,000 cyclone deaths in Myanmar, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Friday suspended relief flights after 38 tons of aid were impounded by authorities in the disaster-struck country.

The UN aid efforts have also been hampered by difficulties in obtaining visas from Myanmar's military government, which faced further condemnation Friday for failing to waive visa restrictions for humanitarian workers in the wake of the devastating storm.

'We are in discussions with the government in Myanmar and we hope to find a resolution soon,' WFP Director of Communications, Brenda Barton, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa at the Rome headquarters.

'It's possible that it is only a customs-related problem,' she said on the decision to impound the aid. Before Friday's decision, the Rome-based WFP had planned to send a further eight flights carrying aid to Myanmar, she said.

The junta has appealed for international material aid but has not extended that to personnel. More than 22,000 people have been killed and 41,000 are missing with more than a million in urgent need of assistance since Cyclone Nargis struck on Saturday.

But unofficial estimates say the final death toll could be as high as 100,000 once the victim tally is known from outlying areas, and if disease is allowed to set in.

The British government was the latest to estimate that up to 100,000 people are dead or missing,while the number of 'vulnerable' to the consequences of the disaster could reach 1.9 million.

The figures were based on 'authoritative sources' quoted by Britain's Ambassador to Myanmar, Mark Canning, who has been reporting to the Foreign Office in London.

The number of those missing or dead was estimated to be between 63,000 and 100,000, while the toll of those vulnerable could 'escalate dramatically' to between 1.2 million and 1.9 million.

The British government was continuing to urge the authorities in Myanmar to allow in conventional aid as well as more experts from international aid organizations.

WFP spokesman Paul Risley had earlier told the BBC food assistance was 'sitting in a warehouse, it is not in trucks heading to Irrawaddy Delta where it is critically needed.' The WFB now had no other choice than to stop further aid flights.

Richard Horsey, spokesman for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN agency that is heading the Myanmar aid effort, also warned about a stoppage of aid deliveries.

'If it's not clear that UN agencies will be smoothly cleared through customs then we won't let the flights depart, since that would imply that the goods aren't going to delivered to the UN or might start to pile up at the airport,' he told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa in Bangkok.

A trickle of food aid arrived earlier Friday in Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta, providing a small start for a massive aid programme that has been stalled by Myanmar's generals, UN experts confirmed.

It was the first successful delivery of assistance to Labutta, one of the hardest-hit coastal towns, since Cyclone Nargis hit six days ago.

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.

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.

Amnesty International on Friday criticized the decision by Myanmar's military junta to go ahead with the referendum, and said the new constitution was undermining human rights.

'Even as hundreds of thousands of its citizens struggle for basic shelter, food and health care, Myanmar's government has prioritized acceptance of the new constitution, a document that Amnesty International views as an effort to undermine respect for human rights and to entrench military rule and impunity,' Amnesty said.

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.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa she would phone UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to ask the UN Security Council to meet on the crisis, as requested by France.

'In such a situation, it is utterly inexplicable to me that the military government is not letting into the country the desperately needed relief that has been offered,' she said in Berlin.

German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul announced a doubling in emergency aid to the people of Myanmar to 2 million euros (3.1 million dollars), with the aid being channelled through relief organizations and not the Myanmar government.

Wieczorek-Zeul said she was aware of estimates that up to 1.9 million people were in urgent need of assistance.

China meanwhile sent a second 500,000-dollar shipment of 60 tons of medicine, tents, food, water purifiers and other relief materials arrived in Myanmar on Friday, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej abruptly cancelled plans to fly to Yangon over the weekend to persuade the ruling junta to accept aid workers and supplies for the cyclone-devastated country from the United States.

Samak said he had been informed that the Myanmar government was not ready to accept international aid workers into the country at this point, so there was no point in him flying to Yangon on Sunday.

In Australia, one protester was arrested and others cautioned at a rowdy demonstration outside the Myanmar embassy in Canberra over the regime's reluctance to allow foreign aid for cyclone victims.