U.N. Suspends Aid Shipments to Myanmar After Government Confiscates the DonationsFriday , May 09, 2008
AP
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YANGON, Myanmar ?
The U.N. is suspending aid shipments to Myanmar after the government began seizing the supplies.
A U.N. official said Myanmar's junta has confiscated all the food and equipment that the World Food Program had flown into the country for cyclone victims.
WFP spokesman Paul Risley said Friday that the WFP "has no choice" but to suspend further aid shipments until the matter is resolved. Risley said all "the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated." The shipment included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits.
Risley said it is not clear why the material was seized. It was also not clear if the shipment seized was the one that was flown in Thursday or another one.
Earlier Friday, the U.N. blasted Myanmar's military government, saying its refusal to let in foreign aid workers to help victims of a devastating cyclone was "unprecedented" in the history of humanitarian work.
While the junta dithered and appeared overwhelmed by Saturday's disaster ? the worst in the country's records ? more than 1 million homeless people waited for food, shelter and medicine, many crammed in Buddhist monasteries or just camped in the open.
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Entire villages have been submerged in the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta with bodies floating in salty water and children ripped from their parents arms. At least 62,000 people are dead or missing. Aid groups have warned that thousands of children may have been orphaned and a medical disaster is waiting to happen.
A Norway-based opposition news network, the Democratic Voice of Burma, provided graphic details of misery in the Irrawaddy delta, where few foreign reporters have been able to reach because roads have been flooded and bridges washed away.
In the village of Kongyangon, someone had written in Burmese, "We are all in trouble. Please come help us" on the black asphalt, a DVB video showed. A few feet away was another plea: "We're hungry," the words too small to be seen by air rescuers.
Grim assessments about the immediate future continued.
"The delta region is known as the country's granary and the cyclone has hit before the harvest. If the harvest has been destroyed this will have a devastating impact on food security in Myanmar," said the aid group Action Against Hunger.
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In Yangon itself, the price of increasingly scarce water shot up by more than 500 percent while rice and oil jumped by 60 percent over the last three days, Action Against Hunger said in a statement.
Hardships in the country's largest city have prompted some embassies, including that of the United States, to send diplomats' families out of the country.
But in an e-mail to The Associated Press, the top U.S. diplomat in Yangon, Shari Villarosa, denied rumors that the entire embassy was being evacuated.
? China Urges Myanmar to Work With International Community On Disaster Aid
"We have gone to Authorized Departure to permit family members to depart the country until the situation stabilizes," she said.
The junta said Friday it was grateful to the international community for its assistance, which has included 11 chartered planes loaded with aid supplies. But it said in a statement that the best way to help was to just send in material rather than personnel.
It said one relief flight was sent back after landing in Yangon on Thursday because it carried a search and rescue team and media who had not received permission to enter the country. It did not give details, but said the plane had flown in from Qatar, which apparently referred to one of the four U.N. flights that was allowed in with high-energy biscuits.
According to the state-media 22,997 people died and 42,019 are missing from Cyclone Nargis. Villarosa, who heads the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of post-cyclone illnesses.
On Friday, Japan said it will give aid worth $10 million through the U.N. to Myanmar, adding to the massive amounts of aid that has been pledged by foreign governments.
While accepting the aid, the isolationist regime of this Southeast Asian nation has refused to grant visas to foreign aid workers who could assess the extent of the disaster and manage the logistics.
Paul Risley, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program, said the organization has submitted 10 visa applications around the world, including six in Bangkok, Thailand, but that none has been approved.
Even if the government changes its mind, there is no hope of getting any visas in Bangkok until Monday because of a Thai holiday that shut the Myanmar Embassy on Friday, Risley said.
"The frustration caused by what appears to be a paperwork delay is unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts," said Risley, who is based in Bangkok. "It's astonishing."
"We strongly urge the government of Myanmar to process these visa applications as quickly as possible, including work over the weekend," he said.
The junta also is preoccupied with holding a referendum on Saturday on a new constitution that is expected to cement the military's grip on power. The referendum has been postponed in certain cyclone-hit areas.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch joined others in urging Myanmar to postpone the referendum entirely and to focus on "relieving the horrendous human suffering."
Protesters gathered outside the Myanmar Embassy in Australia and the Philippines Friday, demanding the referendum be postponed.
Myanmar has banned vehicles from going in and out of the country into neighboring Thailand during the referendum, said Thai police Lt. Natawut Tamaput at a border post in Mae Sai, opposite the Myanmar town of Tachilek.
Thailand is hosting a virtual army of relief groups poised to rush into Myanmar with critical aid and experts once permission is granted.
However, few in Myanmar believed the junta would relent.
"Believe me, the government will not allow outsiders to go into the devastated area," said Yangon food shop owner Joseph Kyaw.
"The government only cares about its own stability. They don't care about the plight of the people," he said.
Among those waiting in Thailand were members of the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team. Air Force transport planes and helicopters packed with supplies also sat waiting for a green light to enter Myanmar.
"We are in a long line of nations who are ready, willing and able to help, but also, of course, in a long line of nations the Burmese don't trust," U.S. Ambassador Eric John told reporters in Bangkok.
By rejecting the U.S. aid offer, the junta is refusing to take advantage of Washington's enormous ability to deliver aid quickly, which was evident during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.
The first foreign military aid following that disaster reached the hardest-hit nation, Indonesia, two days later. The most significant help came when U.S. helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln began flying relief missions to isolated communities along the Indonesian coast.
Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, said that "it's certainly the case that the Americans, as they showed in the tsunami, have extraordinary capacity."
Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej told reporters Friday that he will try to go to Myanmar on Sunday to persuade the junta to accept U.S. help.
But the junta told Samak his Myanmar counterpart is too busy to meet with him, said a Thai army general, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
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