Myanmar Junta Drops Ban on Cyclone Relief Workers (Update1)

By Ed Johnson May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Myanmar's junta dropped its ban on international aid workers carrying out cyclone relief operations in the country, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, after talks with military chief Senior General Than Shwe.

``He has agreed to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities,'' Ban told reporters in the capital, Naypyidaw, according to the UN delegation. ``He has taken quite a flexible position on this matter.''

The military leader also agreed to allow the airport in the former capital, Yangon, to be used to distribute international aid, Ban said.

More than 130,000 people are dead or missing after Cyclone Nargis hit the southern rice-growing Irrawaddy River delta three weeks ago, sweeping away villages, crops and livestock. Myanmar's military, which has run the nation of 48 million people since 1962, barred international workers from the worst-affected areas and rejected offers of helicopters, trucks and aid from U.S. warships anchored off the coast.

The agreement on aid workers ``is going to help with our operation enormously,'' UN World Food Program country director Chris Kaye said by telephone from Yangon.

``We understand that they are going to be allowed to work in the delta,'' Kaye said. The agreement will help the WFP ``ramp up the scale of operations,'' he added.

More Aid

Ban arrived in the country formerly known as Burma yesterday to press the junta to grant international workers access to the delta and accept more aid.

``This is a significant step forward, and could be a turning point in the aid response,'' Brian Agland, CARE's country director in Myanmar, said in an e-mailed statement today.

Agland and other leaders of aid organizations will meet with Ban tomorrow to plan coordination of the relief effort.

Ban met yesterday with General Thein Sein, the nation's prime minister, who took issue when the UN chief said the disaster was too great for the junta to handle and that more aid was urgently needed, according to a UN statement.

After meeting the prime minister, Ban expressed frustration at ``the inability of the aid workers to bring assistance at the right time to the affected areas,'' according to the UN.

The junta estimates the cyclone may have caused $10.7 billion in damage to property and affected 5.5 million people, Ramesh Shrestha, the UN Children's Fund representative for Myanmar, said yesterday after meeting with U Soe Tha, the country's development minister.

Donors to Meet

Delegates from 31 countries have registered to attend a May 25 donor conference in Yangon sponsored by the UN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. While the international community wants to focus on improving the aid effort, the ruling generals want money for reconstruction.

Shari Villarosa, the charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, will attend the conference, State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters yesterday in Washington.

The Bush administration has led international criticism of the junta for blocking the relief effort and for rights abuses, including the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The opposition leader, whose National League for Democracy won elections in 1990 that were rejected by the junta, has spent 12 of the past 18 years in detention and has been under house arrest at her home in Yangon since May 2003.

Pro-democracy campaigners are demanding that Suu Kyi, 62, be freed this month, saying the junta's legal authority to detain her will expire. Under the State Protection Law, the regime can only hold someone deemed a security threat for five years without trial or charge, according to the Burma Campaign U.K.

`Killing Thousands'

``Ban Ki-moon must meet with Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD leaders whilst he is in Burma,'' said campaign director Mark Farmaner in a statement. ``The UN failed to take action that the people of Burma called for to help restore democracy. Now the regime they left in power is killing thousands more through the denial of aid.''

The junta will hold a referendum on a draft constitution tomorrow in the areas worst hit by the cyclone, two weeks after the rest of the country voted. The charter was approved by 92.4 percent of voters with a 99 percent turnout on May 10, according to state media.

The junta says the referendum will pave the way for elections in 2010. The U.S. and opposition groups in Myanmar say the ballot was rigged and accuse the generals of trying to prolong their reign.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ed Johnson in Sydney at ejohnson28@bloomberg.net.

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