Burma’s junta agreed today to admit cyclone aid workers "regardless of nationalities" to the hardest-hit Irrawaddy Delta, a breakthrough for delivering help to survivors, UN officials said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with Burma Senior Gen. Than Shwe
Western disaster experts, largely kept out of the delta and restricted to the former capital Rangoon, welcomed the news but wanted more details on the deal struck by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and junta leader Senior General Than Shwe.
"The general said he saw no reason why that should not happen ... as long as they were genuine humanitarian workers and it was clear what they were going to be doing," a UN official with Mr Ban said.
Mr Ban and his aides, on a mission to help 2.4 million left destitute by the storm that struck three weeks ago, met Senior General Than Shwe for more than two hours in the remote new capital of Naypyidaw.
Mr Ban said Than Shwe had also agreed to allow the airport in Rangoon to be used as a logistical hub for distribution of aid, which is still only trickling in.
Asked whether the agreement on relief experts was a breakthrough, Mr Ban replied: "Yes, I think so. He has agreed to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities."
Later, at a news conference in Rangoon, he said he hoped the agreement "can produce results quickly. Implementation is the key."
Disaster experts say that unless the generals open their doors thousands more people in the Irrawaddy Delta could die of hunger and disease, adding to the nearly 134,000 reported killed or missing in Cyclone Nargis.
The junta has accepted relief flights into Rangoon from many countries, including the United States, its fiercest critic. But it rejected offers of French and American ships delivering aid.
World Vision, one of the few charities operating in Rangoon, said any concessions from the junta were welcome, however small.
"Any positive noises are better than nothing," spokesman James East said in the Thai capital, Bangkok. "We are cautiously optimistic. The critical thing is access to the delta."
Mr Ban flew over the cyclone-ravaged landscape of Burma's heartland yesterday, touching down to learn from officials' briefings and conversations with storm victims of the misery that he hopes more foreign assistance can alleviate.
Before his helicopter tour of the stricken area, Mr Ban said he was bringing a "message of hope," to Burma's people.
The first-hand look at the devastation left Mr Ban shaken, even though the areas he was brought to were far from the worst-hit. "I'm very upset by what I've seen," he said, after a walk through a makeshift relief camp where 500 people huddled in blue tents at Kyondah village in Dedaye township, about 65 kilometres south-west of Rangoon. Mr Ban is the only foreign leader so far allowed into the disaster zone.
Mr Ban will attend a joint UN and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) donor-pledging conference in Burma on Sunday. However, ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said countries would be reluctant to commit money until they are allowed in to assess the damage for themselves.
Meanwhile, Burma's government will go ahead with a referendum on an army-drafted constitution in Rangoon and the Irrawaddy Delta tomorrow.
The vote was held in the rest of the country on May 10th despite the disaster, with a Yes vote of 92.4 per cent after citizens were repeatedly told to approve a constitution that is part of the military's "roadmap to democracy".
Opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest for the last five years, voted today when officials visited her central Rangoon house to collect her ballot paper, a source at the local electoral commission said.