Junta agrees to allow aid workers of ‘all nationalities’

Asked by a reporter whether this was a breakthrough, Ban replied: “Yes, I think so, he has agreed to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities.”

Ban said Than Shwe had also agreed to allow the airport in the former capital, Yangon, to be used as a logistical hub for distribution of aid, which is still only trickling in due to the junta’s restrictions on foreign relief operations.

“He has taken quite a flexible position on this matter,” Ban told reporters who travelled with him, a rare concession from the reclusive junta, which is under tougher Western sanctions for cracking down on pro-democracy protests last year.

Disaster experts say that unless the generals open their doors, thousands more people in the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta could die of hunger and disease from Cyclone Nargis, which struck on the night of May 2, leaving nearly 134,000 dead or missing.

“I urged him that it is crucially important for him to allow these workers as quickly as possible and all this aid relief should also be delivered to the needy people as quickly as possible,” Ban said.

In the absence of details, one initial reaction from a relief expert to Ban’s meeting with the top general was sceptical.

“None of it sounds very different, to be honest,” said Dan Collison of Save the Children in the Thai capital, Bangkok. “Aid workers of many nationalities are already inside Myanmar, but they’re stuck in Yangon.”

Stony Silence

At the start of the meeting, the 75-year-old Senior General’s stony-faced silence gave no clues as to whether he would overcome deep suspicions of the outside world and grant the U.N. chief his request.

He was in dark green trousers and a shirt covered with military decorations — as he was when he emerged this week from Naypyidaw, 250 miles (390 km) north of Yangon, to inspect the destruction, the army relief effort and to meet survivors.

Ban saw the extent of the disaster for himself on Thursday, flying in a helicopter over flooded rice fields and destroyed homes in the delta, the former “rice bowl of Asia” that bore the brunt of the storm and its 12 foot (3.5 metre) sea surge.

Government officials told him the situation was under control, repeating a line in army-controlled media that the immediate emergency relief phase of the disaster was over and it was time to look to reconstruction.

Ban will attend a joint U.N. and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) donor-pledging conference in Yangon 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.

He said the amount “depends on the level of confidence, which will require those factors — accessibility, participation, and verifiability”.

Myanmar, one of ASEAN’s 10 members, has accepted relief flights into Yangon from many countries, including the United States, its fiercest critic, but has largely kept Western disaster experts out of the delta.

However, it has allowed a senior U.S. aid official on a three-day government tour of the area. Washington said the permission was an “opening, but it is not sufficient”.

Medical teams from India, China, Thailand, Laos and Bangladesh are working in the delta along with thousands of local medics and other volunteers, state media said.

Ban’s visit was the talk of Yangon for people desperate for political change after 46 years of unbroken military rule — especially given the U.N.’s abortive attempts to mediate after September’s bloody crackdown on protests led by Buddhist monks.

But people accepted his visit would not stray from its humanitarian mission.

Sunday’s conference coincides with the expiry of the latest year-long detention order imposed on opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, under continuous house arrest for five years. Nobody expects her to be released.