Most donor nations on Sunday stopped short
of making new pledges for relief for victims of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar as they were awaiting more details on access and accountability, but observers
described the meeting as a step forward.
"It was a reasonable success," said Frederich Hamburger,
European Union Ambassador to Myanmar and Thailand, of a United Nations-ASEAN
sponsored pledging conference held in Yangon Sunday, almost three weeks after
Cyclone Nargis smacked into the country's central coast leaving at least
133,000 people dead or missing.
In recent weeks, Myanmar's response to the catastrophe has been widely
criticized for throwing roadblocks in the way of an international relief
effort, by slowing the logistics of getting emergency supplies to an estimated
2.4 million needy victims of the cyclone and for reluctantly granting visas to
foreign relief experts keen to enter the country and the areas hardest hit by
the storm.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon scored a diplomatic success on Friday when he
won assurances from Myanmar's junta chief Senior General Than Shwe that the
regime would grant visas to "all" foreign aid experts.
On Sunday, Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein clarified that all aid and aid
workers were welcome on the provision that they came with "no strings
attached."
"We will warmly welcome any assistance and aid which are provided with
genuine good will from any country or organization providing that there are no
strings attached, nor politicization involved," Thein Sein told the
conference.
The conference attracted representatives from about 44 countries, several UN
agencies, ministers from the 10 members of the Association of South-East Asian
Nations (ASEAN), the Red Cross movement and at least five non-governmental
organizations.
A key issue at the conference was whether Myanmar's reclusive and notoriously
paranoid junta would allow greater access to the country and the Irrawaddy
delta to foreign aid workers, who have been outraged by the government's
restriction on their movements that have been impeding aid supplies to victims
of the cyclone.
"Expert and experienced international relief workers, in addition to the
medical teams from neighbouring countries, must have unhindered access to the
areas hardest hit by the disaster," UN chief Ban said in his opening
remarks to the conference.
The conference, co-chaired by UN humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes and
ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan, hoped to get donor countries to open
their chequebooks for ongoing disaster relief and soon-to-be needed
reconstruction work in the Irrawaddy, which is Myanmar's traditional rice bowl.
"Some countries like China made new pledges, but most are still waiting to
see more details on access, accountability and for a thorough assessment of the
damage done," said Hanke Veit, Myanmar director for the European
Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO.)
"But the conference was a success in the sense that it was another step in
the right direction," she added. "What's needed now is to see what
the new procedures are for granting visas and access to the Irrawaddy."
More than three weeks after the catastrophe, international aid has reached only
25 per cent of the affected people, many of whom have been stranded without
access to supplies in remote regions of the Irrawaddy delta.
German Foreign Office State Minister Gernot Erler, who is in Yangon, told dpa
that for the first time German aid workers with the Federal Agency for
Technical Relief (THW) succeeded in proceeding to the Delta with two water
purification machines.
He called this "a real breakthrough." They can produce 120,000
drinkable litres of water a day, and that should be up and running by Sunday
evening.
He arrived with a German Army plane with eight tons of goods. Germany has
donated 4 million euros so far to aid agencies for Myanmar and was willing to
give more aid, he said, but he was waiting for a needs assessment.
Myanmar's ruling junta has come under harsh international criticism for failing
to facilitate a multimillion-dollar disaster relief effort for their own people
by slowing logistics and preventing foreign workers from entering the country
or the delta.
The conference was also a diplomatic test for ASEAN, which has set up a task force
to ease the implementation of the aid flow with Myanmar's paranoid generals.
Myanmar joined ASEAN in 1997.
"ASEAN is providing the diplomatic architecture," said Surin at a
recent press conference. "What we bring to the table is a degree of
confidence, a degree of comfort."
ASEAN has set up a "core working group" of nine
members, with three from ASEAN, three from the UN and three from the Myanmar
government that will take responsibility for coordinating the relief effort
hereafter, dpa reported.
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