Burma junta agrees to allow in "all" cyclone aid workers

The country's military supremo Senior General Than Shwe made the major concession during talks with visiting United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Friday morning, said a UN pool report.

 "He has agreed to allow in all the aid workers," Ban said after the meeting with Than Shwe, who heads the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta styles itself.

 In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which swept over Burma's central coast on May 2-3, leaving 133,000 dead or missing, the regime welcomed humanitarian aid but hindered its delivery, and only reluctantly granted visas to foreign experts seeking to enter the country.

And the visas that were passed out were done so on a selective basis. 

Asked if Than Shwe had indeed agreed to grant visas to "all" aid workers, Ban replied, "I think so, he has agreed to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities," adding, "He has taken quite a flexible position on this matter."

For the international aid community, there were still questions about what Than Shwe had agreed to. 

In similar disasters elsewhere, governments have simply waived visas requirements for foreign aid workers.

"We want to get that statement clarified," said John Sparrow, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Bangkok. "Does it mean all foreign aid workers can enter the country? Does it mean all that are there have access to the Delta?"

Nor was it immediately clear what prompted Than Shwe's change of heart the on visas for foreign experts, deemed necessary to speed up the delivery of emergency supplies of water, food, shelter and medicine to an estimated 2.4 million cyclone victims in the Irrawaddy delta, the region hardest hot by the storm.

"Maybe Ban Ki-moon was able to persuade him what was really going on on the ground, or he threatened not to go ahead with the donor pledging meeting on Sunday," opined Win Min, a lecturer on Burma affairs at Chiang Mai University in neighbouring Thailand.     

Ban arrived in Rangoon on Thursday, where he held talks with Burma Prime Minister Thein Sein before visiting the Irrawaddy delta.

The UN estimates that the storm affected up to 2.4 million people, most of them living in the delta. Almost three weeks after the storm, international aid has reached only 25 per cent of the affected people, a poor performance that is largely blamed on Burma's rulers.

Burma's regime has claimed that the "rescue and relief" phase of the emergency assistance for the cyclone victims is over, an outlook that clashes with that of the international aid community, who maintain that the work has yet to really begin.

It is hoped that the regime will backtrack on that stance before a pledging conference is held on Sunday, co-hosted by the UN and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean), of which Burma is a member.

"This was a good first step," said Win Min, of Than Shwe's concession on foreign aid workers' visas. "It's good news for the Sunday conference, which otherwise would have been useless."  

The disaster has put the spotlight on Burma's rulers, a military dictatorship that has lorded over its people for the past 46 years, earning the country pariah status among Western democracies and proving an embarrassment for even its closest Asian allies.

On Sunday, the regime is expected to appeal for more than 11 billion dollars for reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement in the delta.

The government estimates that some 60 per cent of the delta's infrastructure was destroyed or damaged by Cyclone Nargis. The Irrawaddy is likewise the country's rice bowl, accounting for more than 60 per cent of the staple food.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has put out an appeal for emergency funding to help farmers in the Irrawaddy plant rice in the next few weeks to benefit from the monsoon season, when the main crop is grown.

"There is a very narrow window of opportunity to provide seeds and other inputs to farmers so that next season's rice harvest, which helps to feed millions of people, will not be lost," said He Changchui, FAO's chief in the Asia-Pacific region, who recently visited the delta. 

The UN secretary general will return to Rangoon on Sunday to preside over a UN-Asean pledging conference for Burma, for the cyclone victims' short-term and long-term needs.