World May. 25, 2008 - 03:51AM JST ( 3 )

YANGON —

Myanmar’s failure to grant foreign aid workers unfettered access to cyclone devastated areas threatened Sunday to overshadow a vital conference aimed at securing billions of dollars for reconstruction.

Disaster experts were still awaiting delivery on the Junta’s promise to allow international helpers in to the Irrawaddy Delta, three weeks after Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian nation.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he had persuaded military leader Than Shwe to relent on accepting all foreign aid workers, but it was unclear when they would get in—or how much they would be allowed to do once there.

With time running out for 2.4 million desperate survivors, disaster workers remain uncertain about when they will get full access to Myanmar, which wants the world to donate nearly $11 billion to rebuild the country.

Some aid groups warned that the international community was unlikely to give the regime all the money it will request at Sunday’s donor conference in the main city Yangon. There was also renewed international pressure on the junta to give way.

“We want to see full and unfettered access for the international aid workers,” Douglas Alexander, Britain’s secretary of state for international development, said in Bangkok ahead of his attendance in Yangon.

“We want to see an increase in the number of flights,” Alexander said, noting that any progress was cause for optimism for cyclone survivors but insisting that the regime must deliver on their promises.

He said the challenge would be to “make sure the regime hears a clear and unequivocal message that we want their word to be translated into actions.”

Sunday’s conference will be jointly chaired by the United Nations and regional bloc the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Details of an ASEAN-led aid mission are due to be presented.

Myanmar’s secretive leadership has kept all but a handful of foreigners out of the disaster zone, hampering relief efforts since the May 2-3 tragedy hit the country formerly known as Burma.

World frustration has been boiling over at the military, which has ruled the country with an iron fist for 46 years and long spurned the overtures of the international community.

For weeks the Junta insisted it could handle the relief effort alone, even though reporters who have reached the delta say many are still without government assistance and that the situation is grim.

Bodies of some of the estimated 133,000 people left dead or missing are rotting in canals. There is little food, rice paddies are in ruins, and there have been international warnings of a possible famine ahead.

But aid workers said Saturday there was no sign yet of changes on the ground regarding access, despite the fact that hunger and disease are stalking survivors.

“There are no clear guidelines so far,” said one foreign relief worker in Yangon, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Myanmar has rejected aid from French and U.S. naval ships loaded with relief supplies which are in nearby waters. The handful of foreign aid staff in the country are largely banned from the delta.

The regime has agreed to let the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, oversee the relief effort.

The details of that arrangement will be presented at Sunday’s donor conference—where Myanmar is expected to ask for $10.7 billion in assistance.

U.N. Secretary General Ban has said he has confidence in the pledges received from Myanmar’s military leader Than Shwe and his inner circle to let foreigners in.

“That is what I have agreed with Senior General Than Shwe,” he said in neighboring Thailand on Saturday, where he inaugurated a U.N. aid facility at an airport that will be a major transport point for relief flights into Myanmar.

“I’m sure that they’ll keep their commitment,” Ban said. He was to return to Yangon on Sunday for the donor meeting having spent most of Saturday visiting the epicenter of the earthquake that struck China on May 12.

ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan said Sunday’s conference would also look at the agreement on allowing in foreign aid workers.

AFP