Asia-Pacific News
LEADALL: "Too little, too slow" - but Myanmar aid starts to flow
By DPA
May 12, 2008, 15:05 GMT

Ten days after Cyclone Nargis crashed into Myanmar, claiming up to 100,000 lives, disaster relief began arriving Monday, including a shipment from the US government.

But a senior United Nations official said the relief was reaching 'too few, and too slowly' because of constraints imposed by the ruling military junta.

   'We are reaching people today but we are reaching too few and too slowly,' said Terje Skavdal, the regional representative for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) which has been leading the relief efforts for Myanmar out of Bangkok.

Cyclone Nargis swept over the central coast of the country on May 2 to 3 in the region's worst natural disaster since the December 26, 2004 tsunami.

   The calamity has been compounded by a reluctance on the part of Myanmar's military masters to facilitate the delivery of aid and a reluctance to grant visas to foreign relief experts.

   'Normally, you will within three to four days be up to speed in such a situation like this,' Skavdal told a press conference. 'The fact that we are at day 10 now shows how delayed we are in the response,' he said.

On Monday morning the first of three cargo planes with a total of 110 tons of food, tents, medical supplies, drugs, and pumps and generators for water and sanitation systems from Doctors Without Borders arrived in Yangon.

Also on Monday the US government flew its first shipment of disaster relief into Myanmar, a country whose leadership has long been on Washington's black list.

   'This is a small salve for a much larger wound,' US Ambassador to Thailand Eric John said from U-Tapao, 120 kilometres south-east of Bangkok.

   'In addition to supplies, it is absolutely crucial that response experts be allowed into Burma to help those struggling with the devastation that affects them,' the diplomat said, joining the rising chorus calling for the granting of visas to relief experts.

Myanmar has said it is ready to accept international relief and medical supplies, the Indian Foreign Ministry said Monday as it sent an aircraft carrying meals to its cyclone-hit neighbour.

Addressing the press in New Delhi, foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said that so far two Indian navy ships and five aircraft had delivered food, clothing, medicine, tents and other material.

'Myanmar has also conveyed their readiness to accept international relief and medical supplies,' the Indian official said.

   While emergency supplies are now arriving in Yangon, the former capital which was also hard-hit by Nargis, getting the stuff out to the countryside is a 'major logistical challenge,' said UNOCHA spokesman Richard Horsey.

   Many of the hardest-hit townships were in the low-lands of the Irrawaddy delta, in areas that are only accessible by boat.   

   The UN is currently holding negotiations with senior Myanmar generals in Naypyitaw, the new capital, in an effort to persuade them to grant visas to 60 'key' relief experts from the UN and other international agencies to facilitate the emergency programme in Myanmar, said Horsey.

   The World Food Programme (WFP), which has been handling logistics for the UN effort, estimated that less than 10 per cent of the international staff and materials and 'general logistics apparatus' that are needed are in the country, said WFP spokesman Marcus Prior.

The WFP estimates that it has been able to provide up to 30,000 affected people with two-week rations, but this pales in comparison with the 1.2 to 1.9 million people believed to have been affected by the storm.

Henriette Ford, US Director for Foreign Assistance, headed a mission that met with Myanmar government representatives in Yangon to discuss further assistance efforts.

In what was deemed a breakthrough, the US government received permission Friday from the junta to deliver the relief supplies, a day after the regime rejected an offer to fly the aid in on a Thai Air Force C-130.

Myanmar's government has also refused to grant visas to a US Disaster Assistance Response Team to accompany the US aid.

Meanwhile the European Commission announced it would meet Tuesday in Brussels to discuss the ongoing crisis.

'The purpose of the meeting will be to review the situation and to beef up the response of the EU member states and the European Commission to this emergency situation,' a statement from the commission said.