Myanmar rejects aid workers

2008-05-09 07:22

Yangon - Myanmar said on Friday it was not ready to let in foreign aid workers, rejecting international pressure to allow experts into the isolated nation where disease and starvation are stalking cyclone survivors.

One week after the devastating storm killed tens of thousands, Myanmar's ruling generals - deeply suspicious of the outside world - said the country needed outside aid for those still alive but would deliver it themselves.

The foreign ministry announcement, made in a state-run newspaper, followed repeated calls from aid groups who say it is essential to get disaster experts into the country to cope with the almost unimaginable destruction.

Instead, the ministry said some relief workers who arrived on a supply from Qatar on Wednesday had been deported.

"Currently Myanmar has prioritised receiving emergency relief provisions and is making strenuous efforts to transport those provisions without delay by its own labours to the affected areas," it said.

"As such, Myanmar is not ready to receive search and rescue teams as well as media teams from foreign countries."

The military that rules this impoverished country, once known as Burma, has long been wary of any influences that could threaten the iron grip on power it has maintained for almost half a century.

Bodies piled up

But the extent of the catastrophe unleashed by Cyclone Nargis has put the regime under intense pressure to open up the country, where only a handful of outside aid groups are allowed to operate under strict controls.

The United Nations estimates more than one million people have been left homeless by the disaster and, as each hour passes without clean water and food, they are at ever greater risk of starvation and disease.

Rotting bodies of people and animals are piled up in many places across the remote southern Irrawaddy delta, where the storm's high winds and waves washed entire villages away.

In many places, the stench of death is overwhelming. Houses have been demolished, roads and bridges are damaged and huge swathes of land are still underwater a week after the disaster hit.

Survivors need food, clean water, shelter, medical supplies and more to stave off hunger and disease, and there are fears that many who lived through the first tragedy may now fall prey to a second.

"This is beyond the capacity of the country to respond to," Richard Horsey, of the UN's emergency relief arm, told AFP.

"It's critically important that the people supplied by the international relief effort with experience of other disasters, who know how to run an operation of this scale, are there," he said.

'Doing its best'

Compounding the disaster, the worst-hit areas were the major rice-growing region, wiping out the main local food source until the government is able to deliver supplies.

"Now I do not have money to buy essential food items," said 75-year-old Thant Aung, who said his whole village in the Kyaklate delta district was destroyed.

"We have less food to eat. I am borrowing money from my friends to keep my family going."

The World Food Programme said another plane with tons of energy biscuits, emergency medical tents and other gear landed on Friday in Myanmar's main city Yangon, which is some distance from the worst-hit areas.

In its statement, issued before the latest plane, the foreign ministry said 11 aid flights had landed so far.

"The international community can best help the victims by donating emergency provisions such as medical supplies, food clothes, electricity generators, and materials from emergency shelters with financial assistance," it said.

"Myanmar will wholeheartedly welcome such course of actions. The donors and the international community can be assured that Myanmar is doing its best."

- AFP