Some Aid Reaches Desperate Areas

Foreign aid workers have begun reaching remote areas of Myanmar hardest hit by the May 3 cyclone, relief agencies said Tuesday, after a promise the junta made to the United Nations last week to open the country’s doors. But the numbers reaching the remote areas – apparently fewer than 20 – are still small, the permissions uneven and the procedures still uncertain.

The admissions represent a significant opening by the country’s military rulers, which for three weeks have delayed delivery of supplies to more than a million people in the remote Irrawaddy Delta. As many as 135,000 people are dead or missing, and the United Nations estimates that 1.5 million survivors have not received any aid.

The concessions followed an agreement announced Friday by Ban Ki- moon, the U.N. secretary-general, after a meeting in Myanmar with the leader of the junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe. On Sunday, at an aid conference in Myanmar, international donors offered tens of millions of dollars in relief, but most made the aid contingent on access for foreign staff members into remote areas.

"The initial indications are that international staff are able to get out, and things are looking quite positive," said Richard Horsey, a spokesman for the U.N. disaster relief office in Bangkok. "But before celebrating victory, we should keep an eye on it."

Among aid workers reaching the delta region were teams from U.N. World Food Program, UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders. The medical aid group said its teams had reached remote delta areas where people had not eaten for three days. "Thousands of people have not seen any aid workers and still have not received any assistance," the agency said.

Paul Risley, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program in Bangkok, said four international staff members had traveled in the delta beginning on Saturday. By Tuesday, he said, seven additional visas had been issued, and the delivery of aid had accelerated, with chartered boats and barges and a fleet of trucks loaded with rice, high-energy biscuits and ready-to-eat food.

In addition, he said, the government has given the food program permission to deploy 10 helicopters, of which one had arrived in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, and the others were being brought in transport planes from South Africa, Uganda and Ukraine.

While opening its door to international donors, the military government has refused permission to U.S., French and British warships loaded with supplies just outside its territorial waters.

However, it has allowed more than 60 U.S. Air Force flights to bring supplies to the Yangon airport.

arrest extended

Myanmar’s military junta on Tuesday extended the house arrest of Nobel Peace Prize-winning democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi for another year, drawing softer criticism than usual from foreign governments that are now focused on aiding survivors of Tropical Cyclone Nargis.

Suu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar’s revered independence hero, Aung San, and leader of the opposition National League for Democracy, which won a landslide election victory in 1990 but has not been permitted to take power.