waldek.usa
05.06.08, 03:01
YANGON, Myanmar - The U.S. military ordered navy ships loaded with relief aid
off Myanmar's coast to leave the area Thursday after the ruling junta refused
to give them permission to help survivors of last month's devastating cyclone.
► export bezrobocia, tysiace zmarlych...ten sam pomysl na poprawe ekonomii.
Adm. Timothy Keating, the top commander in the Pacific, ordered the USS Essex
and accompanying vessels to depart the Myanmar area after what he said were 15
separate attempts in recent weeks to get the junta's authorization to help
with relief efforts.
Video: Navy to Leave Myanmar
Myanmar's state media has said it feared a U.S. invasion aimed at seizing the
country's oil deposits.
The ruling generals also have forbidden the use of military helicopters from
friendly neighboring nations, which are vital in rushing supplies to isolated
survivors in the Irrawaddy delta. This has forced aid agencies to scour for
civilian aircraft around the world and bring them in at dramatically
increasing costs.
The U.N. has estimated 2.4 million people are in need of food, shelter or
medical care as a result of the storm, which the government said killed 78,000
people and left another 56,000 missing.
Speaking in Hawaii on Tuesday, Keating said the U.S. unsuccessfully tried to
persuade Myanmar's leaders to allow ships, helicopters and landing craft in to
provide additional disaster relief.
But US relief efforts would not end completely. Army Brig Gen. John Campbell,
the Joint staff’s deputy director for regional operations, told reporters
Tuesday at the Pentagon that the U.S. would continue to fly C-130 relief
flights to Burma for as long as the regime allowed them in.
Each C-130 has been granted permission to enter Burmese airspace by the
country’s air traffic controllers. The Burmese junta has not granted specific
permission for the planes to enter the country.
Campbell also said the humanitarian supplies on the USS Essex would soon be
offloaded in Thailand and then should find their way to Burma eventually.
The U.S. military ships were already in the region for international exercises
when the cyclone hit. Keating made them available to help with relief efforts
for the storm, and they were deployed near Myanmar in case they obtained
permission to enter the country's waters.
But Myanmar allowed only limited U.S. military aid flights to the country, and
barred the ships from approaching.
Paul Risley, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program, said the departure
of the American ships meant relief agencies would not have the chance to take
advantage of their fleet of helicopters.
"That is truly unfortunate because these helicopters represent immediate
heavy-lift capacity in the area of the delta," Risley told reporters in
Bangkok, Thailand.
Risley earlier warned that the logistical aspects of the relief operations,
such as the chartering of helicopters, were causing expenses to soar.
In previous large scale disasters - such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and
Pakistan's 2005 earthquake - military helicopters were used to meet the
massive emergency's immediate requirements, he said. Thailand and Singapore
have many helicopters on hand, he said.
"For political reasons, the Myanmar government was reluctant to approve their
use," Risley said. Myanmar was reportedly able to field only seven helicopters
of its own.
Amanda Pitt, a spokeswoman for the U.N. relief operation in Bangkok, said
increased aid has reached survivors over the last few days, but access to the
delta remains difficult.
"Much remains to be clarified as far as stepping up of the relief operation,"
she said. "We want better access for international aid workers ... both in
terms of getting into the country and more consistent access to the delta areas."
The French aid agency Doctors Without Borders said its staffers were still
finding remote areas in the delta which have not received any assistance from
Myanmar or international sources.
Souheil Reaiche, the group's mission chief in Myanmar, also said that the
affected population is higher than U.N. estimates because migrants and others
not officially registered by authorities are found among survivors.
A total of 1.3 million survivors have been reached with assistance by local
and international humanitarian groups, the Red Cross and the U.N., said the
U.N's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in a situation
report dated June 2.
It said in Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta, the area hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis,
the proportion of people reached with assistance had increased to 49 percent
from 23 percent on May 25.
However, the report warned, "There remains a serious lack of sufficient and
sustained humanitarian assistance for the affected populations."
Hiroyuki Konuma, an official of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in
Bangkok, expressed concern that if rice planting did not occur soon, farmers
would "suffer from hunger and poverty for a long time while national food
security will be seriously jeopardized."
He said that 60 percent of the paddy fields in the delta, the country's rice
bowl, were hit hard by the cyclone but that only 16 percent are too damaged to
be cultivated in the next planting season, which starts July.
But Konuma said few farmers were returning to their land because they lack
food and shelter, basic agriculture tools and draft animals, while access to
the land was difficult because so many road and bridges were destroyed.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Development Program announced it will provide 20,000
households in 250 delta villages with cash grants over the next six months to
help survivors revive the farming, fisheries and poultry sectors.
"This will empower the survivors," said Hla Myint Hpu, who conducted the needs
assessment for the project. "People want to keep their dignity. They want help
to rebuild their livelihoods and get back on their feet."
