Burma Rebuffs International Aid Teams in Wake of Cyclone

By Benny Avni

The New York Sun

May 7, 2008

UNITED NATIONS — While China's President Hu expresses confidence that Burma's military rulers are capable of handling the recovery from one of Asia's deadliest cyclones in years, the United Nations and world officials, including President Bush, are warning that the regime's denial of access to foreign humanitarian workers could increase significantly the suffering and the death toll.

Foreign humanitarian agencies estimate that the toll in the aftermath of Saturday's cyclone could rise to more than 60,000 deaths, and that bad access roads and other factors caused by decades of misrule are likely to complicate the recovery efforts. Burma's junta refused yesterday to cancel a national referendum, scheduled for Saturday, on its much-criticized plan to enshrine the generals' hold on power in a new constitution.

Mr. Bush offered to enlist the American Navy yesterday in the recovery efforts, urging the junta to allow in foreign aid. In a White House ceremony yesterday, he also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The House of Representatives also passed a resolution denouncing the proposed constitution as a "sham."

Despite heightened international attention to Burma in the cyclone's aftermath, the generals "are very much in power," said the author of "The River of Lost Footsteps," Thant Myint-U, whose Burmese grandfather, U Thant, was the third U.N. secretary general. "They have their own vision, where they want to go, and Western leverage over them is close to zero."

The junta yesterday revised the cyclone's casualty count to 22,464 deaths. But in government-controlled broadcasts, officials said that more than 41,000 people are missing, and U.N. officials added that "hundred of thousands" of people are stranded without shelter, vulnerable to diseases and death. As of last night, however, no outside team capable of assessing the needs on the ground has been admitted into Burma.

Secretary-General Ban yesterday wrote urgently to the junta leader, General Shwe, and while his aides declined to disclose the letter's contents, the director of the U.N. humanitarian coordination office in New York, Rashid Khalikov, told reporters that a five-member assessment team has been waiting in Thailand, ready to go in the country as soon as it gets a visa. "Four days is a lot of time when it comes to natural disasters," he said.

Yesterday, Burma-based representatives of U.N. agencies met with junta officials, and according to unnamed opposition sources in Rangoon, the generals made clear that while food, water, plastic sheets, and other necessities would be allowed into the country, the government would control all aid distribution, said the director of United States Campaign for Burma, Aung Din. Delivery could become a crucial issue, as the junta is known to use foreign assistance for its own aims, he said

Nevertheless, Mr. Hu sent a message of "sympathy" to Mr. Shwe, according to Xinhua. The Chinese premier "expressed the belief that Myanmar would soon overcome the difficulties caused by the cyclone and restore normal life for its people under the leadership of the" junta.

America will donate $3.25 million in unconditional aid, Mr. Bush said, offering even more assistance. "We are prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, and to help stabilize the situation," he said. "But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country. So our message is to the military rulers: Let the United States come and help you help the people."

The Burmese junta's referendum on a plan to partially end military rule by the next decade has been roundly criticized, and the House of Representatives yesterday passed a resolution calling on the U.N. Security Council to reject the outcome of the vote. Yesterday the government announced that only the vote in hardest-hit areas would be postponed to May 24.

Rather than accepting international offers of assistance, the junta generals "are only concentrating on how to cheat on the referendum," said Mr. Din of the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

"More than natural disasters of the moment, however high their toll may be, the heavy yoke of the Burmese military has victimized the people of Burma for more than 20 years," said the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman, a Democrat of California, who was one of the resolution's sponsors. "By passing this resolution, we condemn the scheduled referendum for the sham that it is."