Asia-Pacific News
International relief - and criticism - head for Burma
By DPA
May 7, 2008, 13:37 GMT

International relief efforts, accompanied by criticism of the ruling military junta in Myanmar, were under way Wednesday to help the victims of Cyclone Nargis which left over 22,000 people dead, displaced tens of thousands of others and devastated much of the country's rice production.

In Geneva, the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) launched an initial appeal Wednesday for 6 million dollars in emergency aid.

'The scale of this disaster really can't be underestimated,' the Asia-Pacific coordinator for the IFRC, Christine South, said in a statement issued in Geneva.

An estimated 24 million people, half the country's population, are thought to be affected. The Red Cross called it Myanmar's deadliest storm since 1991.

'This will be very much a preliminary emergency appeal, and we expect this figure and the operation to be revised as more information comes to hand,' added South.

Thousands of Red Cross volunteers were already working around the clock to reach and support victims.

'More than one million people may be displaced because of the storm,' IFRC spokesman in Kuala Lumpur John Sparrow said.

In some affected villages along the Irrawaddy Delta, 95 per cent of houses had been destroyed. In Yangon, access to running water and electricity had been severely limited, the Red Cross said.

But reports emerging from the country indicate that the actual extent of the damage from the monster storm, which smashed into the central coast region with 200-kilometre-per-hour winds and inundated the Irrawaddy Delta with tidal waves and floodwaters, was still unknown.

What did become clear was that the cyclone hit after the main paddy crop had been planted, and Myanmar is facing a serious short- term and possible long-term problem in feeding its people.

   'This disaster is going to last,' said one European diplomat. 'It's not something that is going to be over in a couple of weeks or months. It will have far-reaching consequences until the next harvest.'  

   The rich alluvial plains of the Irrawaddy account for at least 60 per cent of Myanmar's rice crop, the country's staple food. Nobody yet knows how much rice the government had stockpiled, but it can be assumed that many warehouses were damaged by the storm.

The situation has forced Myanmar's junta into a situation of unprecedented dependence on the international community for help.

   To the surprise of some, the ruling junta, which has prided itself in the past on its indifference to international opinion, has had to appeal for disaster relief in order to save its own people and, ironically, to save itself.

   'If they don't get enough proper assistance out in the next couple of days or weeks the people will be very angry, and that anger might overcome their fear because they may feel they have nothing to lose,' said Win Min, a lecturer on Myanmar affairs at Chiang Mai University.

   While acknowledging that they need emergency aid from the international community, Myanmar's junta appears to be trying its best to claim the credit for the largesse by controlling its distribution to the devastated countryside.

   'They are delaying visas for foreign aid workers, which is a clear sign that they want the materials but don't want the foreign workers,' said Win Min.

   Meanwhile, Western donors are trying to make sure the emergency relief is delivered and a major disaster averted, while at the same time trying to assure that it is not squandered.

   Despite the cyclone, the junta plans to go ahead with the May 10 referendum, although it has postponed the vote in 47 of the worst-hit townships until May 24.   

Meanwhile a 20-member Bangladesh army rescue team left the capital Dhaka for cyclone-battered neighbouring Myanmar to help in emergency relief distribution and salvage operation, officials said.

The team led by Brigadier General Taslim Uddin is also carrying medicine, water purifying tablets, oral saline, sacks of potatoes and clothes on a TC-130 transport plane.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned that if Myanmar's authorities continued to lag in cooperating with foreign aid agencies, France will take the case to the UN Security Council.

'We will have to see if we cannot force the government to allow aid workers into the country,' Kouchner told journalists in Paris.

He made his comments after meeting German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, who said that the cyclone was the worst catastrophe since the tsunami of 2004.

'Our appeal is: open the country for aid workers so that the people can have a future,' Wieczorek-Zeul said.

In Dublin, Irish President Mary McAleese's office said that Ireland had offered 1 million euros (1.5 million dollars) in relief.

In Berlin, a German Catholic aid group, the relief services of the Knights of Malta, criticised the Myanmar government over visa restrictions that have blocked aid shipments to the Irrawady Delta.

Roland Hansen, who heads the Catholic group's operations in Asia, told ZDF public television in Germany that every step outside the commercial capital Yangon by foreign experts was being restricted by the military junta and permits were even sometimes being revoked.

'We are not allowed into the main disaster zone in the Irrawady Delta. Even the United Nations is complaining about that. We can only hope that things will change and that we'll be able to send in a team,' he said.