BURMA:UN SECRETARY general Ban Ki-moon appeared to have made a dramatic breakthrough yesterday in his mission to get relief to Burma's cyclone survivors after the regime agreed to allow in all international aid workers.
Three weeks after Cyclone Nargis struck, killing an estimated 134,000 people, the reclusive regime's leader, Gen Than Shwe, gave the go-ahead for the arrival of disaster management specialists needed to boost relief efforts.
Few details of the deal emerged, although UN officials in the 2¼-hour meeting in the new Burmese capital, Naypyidaw, said aid workers would be able to work in the Irrawaddy delta region that most had been barred from.
"I had a good meeting with the senior general, particularly on these aid workers," said Mr Ban, after leaving the modern government complex. "He has agreed to allow all aid workers in regardless of nationalities. He has taken quite a flexible position on this matter."
The secretary general, who had insisted the Burmese authorities lacked the capability to deal with the disaster after seeing it from the air, said it was "significant" that Gen Than Shwe had agreed to use the port at Rangoon as a relief hub allowing civilian ships to ferry in aid, though relief on US, French and British warships was rejected.
But the question for aid agencies was whether the hundreds of international disaster relief experts would be able to travel into the delta to disperse the vast quantities of supplies needed for the 1.5 million homeless.
"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 doing," said a UN official present at the meeting.
"This agreement can produce results," said Mr Ban. "The implementation will be the key. I believe they will keep and honour their promises." But even UN officials were cautious, characterising the Burmese leadership's shift as "significant in principle".
Aid agencies were also hesitant. Chris Webster, a World Vision relief worker awaiting a visa, said: "We appreciate the language, the rhetoric and the openness. But how this translates into action and whether it will mean we will be able to get staff and supplies in remains to be seen." Care International, which already had 550 staff in Burma and has managed to get aid to 100,000 survivors, was hopeful the agreement would lead to a big change in the relief effort.
"Care has already started a pipeline of people into the country, and if this decision means people can get in faster, that's excellent news," said Care's Burma country director, Brian Agland.
The International Red Cross said the questions of who would be allowed in and the specific nature of what they would be allowed to do tempered elation over the regime's apparent movement