Door opens a little for aid into Myanmar

The junta also agreed to allow a single US cargo aircraft to bring in relief supplies, US officials said on Friday.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the US welcomed the go-ahead to land a US military C-130 in the country on Monday. He said he hopes this is the beginning of continued aid flowing into the country.

Earlier on Friday, Ky Luu, director of the US office of foreign disaster assistance, had said that skilled aid workers were being forced to sit on the sidelines as victims of last week’s cyclone die.

Nancy E. Roman, communications director of the UN’s World Food Programme, said, “The World Food Programme has decided to send in two relief flights as planned tomorrow, while discussions continue with the Government of Myanmar on the distribution of the food that was flown in today, and not released to WFP.”

The official toll remains at nearly 23,000, with 42,119 people missing, making Nargis the worst cyclone to hit Asia since 1991 when 143,000 people were killed in Bangladesh. State media have not updated the number of casualties since Tuesday.

The impounded shipments contained 38 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, enough to feed 95,000 people. They were meant to be loaded on trucks and sent to the inundated Irrawaddy delta where most of the estimated 1.5 million cyclone victims need food, water and shelter.

Governments around the world have pressed Myanmar’s ruling generals to open the country’s borders to desperately-needed assistance, and on Friday Germany said it agreed with a proposal by France to use the U.N. Security Council.

The Myanmar government has stated its preference through the state-run media to accept “relief in cash and kind” but not foreign aid workers, many of whom are waiting for visas in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

Later on Friday, state-run TV broadcast that a senior foreign ministry official told a US diplomat it would not turn away assistance.

“Myanmar’s stance is that it will accept all aid regardless of the country,” Kyaw Thu, a second minister at the Foreign Ministry told U.S. charge d’affairs Shari Villarosa, who has said the death toll could reach 100,000.

Planes loaded with food and equipment from several Asian countries have landed in Yangon in the past few days and two flights with supplies from the WFP.

In another sign of the impasse between the military rulers and countries eager to kick start an international operation, the prime minister of neighbouring Thailand cancelled a planned trip there this weekend.

Thai premier Samak Sundaravej had been urged by the United States and Britain to try and open the doors.

Survivors have been mostly fending for themselves in the swampy delta after Cyclone Nargis packing winds of up to 190 kph last Saturday whipped up a massive wall of sea-water that hurtled through the low-lying Irrawaddy delta.

In the delta where saltwater has ruined wells, grain stores and rice fields, the estimated 1.5 million survivors are desperate.

“There are no NGOs here. No UN. Only me,” farmer Tei Lin told Reuters near the delta town of Labutta.

Referendum today

The junta urged citizens to do their duty and vote on Saturday for an army-drafted constitution, without mentioning the1.5 million people clinging to survival a week after a devastating cyclone. Only in the worst-hit parts of the country, the referendum has been put off to May 24. Som facts:

• The constitution, third since independence from Britain in 1948, is a key step in roadmap to democracy

•Drafted by handpicked military officers and civil servants

• It will make army chief most powerful figure, who can take power in emergencies

•It will give military 25 per cent of the 440 seats in parliament and a veto over legislations

•Myanmar nationals with foreign spouses or children barred from political office, effectively cutting out opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Her husband, now deceased but with whom she has two sons, was English

•Suu Kyi’s NLD, whose 1990 election victory was ignored by junta, has called for a No vote

•No independent monitors to be present during vote