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1st big foreign aid flights finally let in by Myanmar junta
2008-05-08 After snubbing a U.S. aid offer, Myanmar's isolationist regime indicated Friday that it wants foreign relief supplies but not foreign workers to help recover from a devastating cyclone. Muzi.com News 10068824-0 (muzi.com)The statement came a day after Myanmar's military government allowed in the first major international aid shipment amid fears the death toll from last weekend's cyclone could hit 100,000. Muzi.com News 10068824-1 (muzi.com) "Currently Myanmar has prioritized receiving emergency relief provisions and making strenuous effort delivering it with its own labor," the Foreign Ministry said in the state-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper. Muzi.com News 10068824-2 (muzi.com) The United Nations and other agencies have complained that Myanmar is dragging its feet on the issuing of visas for its personnel they say are badly needed to cope with the crisis. Muzi.com News 10068824-3 (muzi.com) The statement expressed government gratitude to the international community for its assistance, which has included 11 chartered planes loaded with aid supplies. But it emphasized that the best way to help was just to send in material rather than personnel. Muzi.com News 10068824-4 (muzi.com) Among those aid workers stranded in Thailand were 10 members of the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team. Air Force transport planes and helicopters packed with supplies also sat waiting for a greenlight. Muzi.com News 10068824-5 (muzi.com) "We are in a long line of nations who are ready, willing and able to help, but also, of course, in a long line of nations the Burmese don't trust," U.S. Ambassador Eric John told reporters in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, Thursday. Muzi.com News 10068824-6 (muzi.com) "It's more than frustrating. It's a tragedy," he said. Each day of delay means "a lot more people suffering," he said. Muzi.com News 10068824-7 (muzi.com) Myanmar's isolationist regime issued an appeal for international assistance after winds of 120 mph and a storm surge up to 15 feet high pounded the Irrawaddy delta Saturday. Muzi.com News 10068824-8 (muzi.com) But the junta has been accused of dragging its feet despite emerging reports on entire villages submerged, bodies floating in salty water and children ripped from their parents arms. Muzi.com News 10068824-9 (muzi.com) "My children were crying all night. There is not enough food. There will be no food this evening," said Daw Thay, who took refuge in a monastery with her three children and her 99-year-old mother in a town 60 miles south of Yangon, the country's biggest city. Muzi.com News 10068824-10 (muzi.com) Daw Thay, 42, said monks were going without food so others could eat. Muzi.com News 10068824-11 (muzi.com) "We share what we have but there isn't enough. So they (the monks) give the food to the children and the old people first," she said. Muzi.com News 10068824-12 (muzi.com) Juanita Vasquez, a UNICEF worker in Myanmar, said Thursday that the most dramatic scene she's witnessed were children who have lost or become separated from parents. Muzi.com News 10068824-13 (muzi.com) There are "more children roaming around this area looking for their families," she said in a telephone interview from Yangon. "We don't know at the moment how many have lost their parents and relatives." Muzi.com News 10068824-14 (muzi.com) In the swampy delta, a horrible stench rose from corpses and dead animals, bloated and floating in the water. Someone had written on a black asphalt road in Kongyangon village: "We are all in trouble. Please come help us." A few feet away, the desperate plea, "We're hungry." Muzi.com News 10068824-15 (muzi.com) Tired of waiting for help in Yangon, red-robed monks, other civilians and dozens of soldiers cleared piles of debris and toppled billboards from streets and cutting branches off uprooted trees. Muzi.com News 10068824-16 (muzi.com) "They've started doing the clean up themselves," Aye Chan Naing, chief editor of Democratic Voice of Burma, said as a light rain showered down. "They are volunteers." Muzi.com News 10068824-17 (muzi.com) Public transportation was slowly coming back to life in the city, with some trains operating, and cars formed lines three miles long to get rations of two gallons of gasoline. Muzi.com News 10068824-18 (muzi.com) The cyclone blew off the roof of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's dilapidated bungalow in Yangon and cut off its electricity, a neighbor said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Suu Kyi, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for her pro-democracy activism, has been under house arrest for years. Muzi.com News 10068824-19 (muzi.com) More than 20,000 are known dead and tens of thousands more are listed as missing, and the U.N. estimates more than 1 million people are homeless in Myanmar, which also is known as Burma. Muzi.com News 10068824-20 (muzi.com) Four airplanes carrying high-energy biscuits, medicine and other supplies reached Yangon on Thursday, U.N. officials said. Two of four U.N. experts who flew in to assess the damage were turned back at the airport for unknown reasons, but the other two were allowed to enter, said John Holmes, the U.N. relief coordinator. Muzi.com News 10068824-21 (muzi.com) By rejecting the U.S. aid offer, the junta is refusing to take advantage of Washington's enormous ability to deliver aid quickly, which was evident during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations. Muzi.com News 10068824-22 (muzi.com) The first foreign military aid following that disaster reached the hardest-hit nation, Indonesia, two days later. The most significant help came when U.S. helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln began flying relief missions to isolated communities along the Indonesian coast. Muzi.com News 10068824-23 (muzi.com) It was the biggest U.S. military operation in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam War. Muzi.com News 10068824-24 (muzi.com) With the Irrawaddy delta's roads washed out and the infrastructure in shambles, large swaths of the region are accessible only by air, something few other countries are equipped to handle as well as the United States. Muzi.com News 10068824-25 (muzi.com) Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, said that "it's certainly the case that the Americans, as they showed in the tsunami, have extraordinary capacity." Muzi.com News 10068824-26 (muzi.com) The U.S. government, which has strongly criticized the junta's suppression of pro-democracy activists, will have to convince the generals that Washington has no political agenda, Costello said. Muzi.com News 10068824-27 (muzi.com) "Clearly we all know the political context there, and I think it's going to take a little bit more time for a breakthrough," he said. Muzi.com News 10068824-28 (muzi.com) Gordon Johndroe, President Bush's national security spokesman, said the U.S. was working to gain permission to enter Myanmar. Muzi.com News 10068824-29 (muzi.com) One American official, Ky Luu, director of the U.S. office of foreign disaster assistance, created a stir by saying one option being considered was air-dropping aid without permission. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates quickly said he couldn't imagine that happening. Muzi.com News 10068824-30 (muzi.com) Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand offered to negotiate on Washington's behalf to persuade Myanmar's government to accept U.S. aid. Muzi.com News 10068824-31 (muzi.com) France is arguing that the U.N. has the power to intervene without the junta's approval to help civilians under a 2005 agreement that the world body has a "responsibility to protect" people when governments fail to do it. That agreement did not mention natural disasters. Muzi.com News 10068824-32 (muzi.com) French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband asked Myanmar's junta to "lift all restrictions on the distribution of aid." Separately, Kouchner said France would make $3 million available to French aid groups operating in Myanmar. Muzi.com News 10068824-33 (muzi.com) The Association of Southeast Nations appealed to the international community to send relief supplies through Thailand. Muzi.com News 10068824-34 (muzi.com) "Please keep the help coming, keep the contributions coming, and if you have to, go to Thailand, park there and wait for redistribution from there," said ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan. Muzi.com News 10068824-35 (muzi.com) The U.S. military sent more humanitarian supplies and equipment to a staging area in Thailand on Thursday. A C-17 transport plane brought in water and food, joining the two C-130s already in place, Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said at the Pentagon. Another C-130 loaded with supplies was on its way, she said. Muzi.com News 10068824-36 (muzi.com) The U.S. Navy also has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in a relief effort, including an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters. Muzi.com News 10068824-37 (muzi.com) China, Myanmar's closest ally, urged the junta to work with the international community. Muzi.com News 10068824-38 (muzi.com) The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said some donors were delaying aid for fear it would be siphoned off to the army. The World Food Program's regional director, Anthony Banbury, indicated the U.N. had similar concerns. Muzi.com News 10068824-39 (muzi.com)
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