UN chief: Myanmar to allow all aid workers

[May 23, 2008]  NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on a mission to open Myanmar to international disaster assistance, said the ruling junta agreed Friday to allow "all aid workers" into the country to help survivors.

Ban's comments came after a crucial two-hour meeting Friday with the junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the country's most powerful figure. Myanmar's junta has until now refused to allow an influx of foreign aid and experts to reach survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which struck three weeks ago and killed at least 78,000 people and left 56,000 missing.

The United Nations chief did not say whether Than Shwe had acceded to the most urgent request by international aid agencies -- to allow their foreign experts into the hardest-hit region, the Irrawaddy delta.

However, when asked if he thought the agreement was a breakthrough, Ban told reporters: "I think so." One foreign aid official called it a "significant step forward."

A senior U.N. official present at the meeting said Than Shwe also gave the green light for foreigners to work in the hardest-hit region, the Irrawaddy delta, which has been virtually off-limits to them.

Ban "saw no reason why that should not happen, as long as they are genuine humanitarian workers and it was clear as to what they were going to be doing," said the official, who requested anonymity for reasons of protocol.

The official said government authorities had earlier not been able to give this assurance of access because they needed a "green light from the top."

Myanmar's military government has until now refused to allow an unimpeded influx of foreign aid and experts to reach survivors of the May 2-3 Cyclone Nargis. While granting an increasing number of visas to foreign staffers, the regime barred all but a handful of them from the delta.

Myanmar's military regime has been eager to show it has the relief effort under control despite spurning the help of foreign disaster experts and has trotted out officials to give statistics-laden lectures to make the point.

Some 2.5 million survivors are at risk from disease, starvation and exposure to monsoon rains.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned Friday that hundreds of thousands of people in remote areas of the delta have insufficient food, and said prices for rice, cooking oil and other basics had doubled throughout the country.

Only a "very narrow window of opportunity" remains to provide seeds and other material to farmers before the rice planting season upon which millions depend begins in a few weeks, the agency said. It said that half the cattle and buffaloes in 10 townships surveyed had perished during the storms.

"I had a very good meeting with Senior General Than Shwe and particularly on the aid workers. He has agreed to allow all the aid workers, regardless of nationality" into the country, Ban said.

Although the regime has been granting an increasing number of visas for foreign aid workers to enter the country, all but a handful have been confined to Yangon, the country's largest city.

"I urged him that it would be crucially important for him to allow aid workers as swiftly as possible and all these aid relief items also be delivered to the needy people as soon as possible," Ban said.

Than Shwe also agreed to make Yangon the logistics hub of the aid operation, which Ban called "an important development," Ban said.

"This is a significant step forward, and could be a turning point in the aid response," said Brian Agland, who heads the U.S.-based aid group CARE in Myanmar. "We welcome the agreement that has been reached between the U.N. secretary-general and government authorities in Myanmar that will facilitate the immediate entry of emergency response experts."

Ban arrived at the remote capital of Naypyitaw earlier Friday after a flight from Yangon, 250 miles to the south. He witnessed some of the cyclone's devastation during a carefully choreographed tour Thursday.

It was not known whether Ban discussed the fate of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose latest period of detention expires Monday. A string of U.N. envoys have in the past failed to spring the democracy icon from house arrest, confronting a junta that has proved virtually impervious to outside pressure.

The 76-year-old Than Shwe -- reclusive, superstitious and known as "the bulldog" for his stubbornness -- had refused to answer Ban's calls from New York or answer two letters sent to him by the secretary-general.

As Ban's visit proceeded, the regime appeared to ease some of its restrictions on foreigners.

France-based Doctors Without Borders said it now had some foreign staffers working in four areas of the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta, which had previously been virtually off limits to non-Myanmar relief workers.

A second French cargo plane loaded with 40 tons of relief supplies was due to land Friday in Yangon, while Canada said it would lend its biggest military aircraft, a C-17 cargo lifter, to deliver U.N. World Food Program helicopters to Myanmar.

The regime had earlier allowed the U.N. agency to bring in 10 helicopters to fly emergency aid to stranded victims.

Ban's firsthand look at the devastation wrought by the storm left the secretary-general shaken Thursday, even though the areas to which he was taken were far from the worst-hit.

"I'm very upset by what I've seen," Ban told reporters after a walk through a makeshift relief camp where 500 people huddled in blue tents at Kyondah village in Dedaye township, about 45 miles southwest of Yangon, Myanmar's largest city.

[Associated Press; By JOHN HEILPRIN]

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.