News

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will fly to Myanmar this week and visit the areas hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis, a UN spokeswoman said Sunday.

Myanmar's military government has given permission for the UN chief to travel to the Irrawaddy delta, where UN officials fear tens of thousands of cyclone survivors are not getting adequate aid, UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said.

Mr. Ban sent UN humanitarian chief John Holmes to Myanmar over the weekend to assess the needs of the survivors and urge the isolationist junta to open its doors to more international aid.

The military junta has not allowed most international relief workers into the devastated region.

Myanmar's military leader, Senior General Than Shwe, has refused to take the secretary-general's phone calls or answer two letters sent urging that international relief teams be allowed in quickly to provide relief.

At least 78,000 people were killed in the May 2-3 storm and another 56,000 are missing.

Ban will leave New York on Tuesday and is scheduled to arrive in Myanmar's commercial capital, Yangon, on Wednesday, Montas said.

“He will go to the areas most affected by the cyclone,” she said.

The secretary-general will leave Myanmar on May 23 and stop in Bangkok, Thailand, on his way back to New York, she said.

John Holmes, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, was greeted by Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu at the start of a three-day trip that will include a tour of the Irrawaddy delta, the area most severely hit by Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3.

Mr. Holmes also will meet with high government leaders, said Daniel Baker, a senior UN official.

He did not elaborate but other officials have said Mr. Holmes' mission is to assess the needs of survivors and urge the isolationist junta to open its doors to more international aid before people begin dying from starvation and diseases.

Mr. Holmes was dispatched to Myanmar after junta leader Gen. Shwe refused to take telephone calls from Mr. Ban or to respond to two letters from him, U.N. spokesman Michele Montas said in New York. Holmes is to deliver a third letter.

State television said Gen. Shwe visited two relief camps Sunday, the first time he has met with the survivors since the tragedy more than two weeks ago. He visited the camps on the outskirts of Rangoon, and it is not known if he intends to go to Irrawaddy.

Mr. Holmes' visit comes as world leaders expressed outrage at the handling of the disaster by the military regime, which insists it is managing relief operations perfectly well on its own despite evidence that many of the 2.5 million survivors are living in misery – with little food, shelter, medical help, clean drinking water or sanitation.

About 78,000 people are confirmed dead and 56,000 missing in the cyclone, according to the government. Aid agencies, however, say the death toll in Myanmar, also known as Burma, could be 128,000.

A glimmer of hope was raised Sunday when British Foreign Office Minister for Asia Lord Malloch-Brown said Myanmar may accept a compromise, allowing Western ships to deliver aid in the country's cyclone-hit delta region using Asian intermediaries.

“We're just going to have see what negotiations in the coming days by the Asian leaders, by the UN secretary-general, achieve,” Lord Malloch-Brown told the BBC. “I think you're going to see quite dramatic steps by the Burmese to open up.”

But he suggested an agreement was still some way off.

A U.N. report said Saturday that emergency relief from the international community had reached an estimated 500,000 people only.

“This is inhuman,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC, accusing the military regime of caring more about its own survival than its people's welfare.

The junta says it has completed relief operations and now will turn to reconstruction. It has barred foreign aid experts, including the U.N.'s international staff, from travelling to the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta.

Aid agencies have been forced to depend on their limited local Myanmar staff to distribute relief in the delta.

On Sunday, the regime accused foreign news organizations of falsely reporting that the government was refusing or hindering international relief aid.

“Some foreign news agencies broadcast false information and thus some international and regional organizations are assuming that the government has been rejecting and preventing aid for storm victims,” a government statement said. “Those who have been to Myanmar understand the actual fact.”

But Save the Children, a global aid agency, said Sunday that thousands of young children face starvation without quick food aid.

“We are extremely worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger,” said Jasmine Whitbread, who heads the agency's operation in Britain. “When people reach this stage, they can die in a matter of days.”

The UN report said the ruling generals were even forbidding the import of communications equipment, hampering already difficult contact among relief agencies.

The government has ordered that all equipment used by foreign agencies must be purchased through Myanmar's Ministry of Posts and Communications – with a maximum of 10 telephones per agency – for $1,500 each, it said.

The military junta's xenophobia stems from the fear that allowing foreign aid workers to mingle with ordinary people will embolden them to rebel against 46 years of authoritarian rule.

In one town near Rangoon, tired and hungry refugees stood in the baking sun beside flooded rice paddies, demolished monasteries and thatched huts. With the arrival of each vehicle carrying precious food and water, they jumped with excitement and surged ahead to get a share.

At least they were getting something.

“The farther you go, the worse the situation,” said an overwhelmed doctor in the town of Twante, just southwest of Rangoon, Myanmar's main city. The doctor declined to give her name, fearing government reprisal.