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YANGON : UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was headed on Wednesday for Myanmar, looking to convince the generals who have snubbed his phone calls to accept a full-scale relief operation for Cyclone Nargis.
Before leaving New York, Ban said the military had agreed to let nine UN helicopters work in remote regions hit hard by the storm, which has left at least 133,000 people dead or missing and two million more in dire need.
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But there has been an international uproar over the limits on the aid operation imposed by the isolated military, which is deeply suspicious of the outside world -- and did not take Ban's calls in the days after the tragedy.
The military's English-language mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar paper, said Wednesday that the regime would not take aid coming from US military ships and helicopters because of unspecified "strings attached."
The United States, one the regime's most vocal critics, has repeatedly said that its aid is unconditional , and Ban will try to get the generals to open up to more help to prevent any more lives being lost.
"This is a critical moment for Myanmar. We have a functioning relief program in place but so far we have been able to reach only about 25 percent of Myanmar's people in need," Ban said before departing.
He was to spend the night in neighbouring Thailand before heading to Myanmar, one of the poorest and most isolated countries in the world, on Thursday.
Aid groups have estimated that the true death toll could be substantially higher than the regime has indicated, while hunger and disease are stalking desperate survivors of the May 2-3 storm.
Many people are without sufficient food and water nearly three weeks after the cyclone hit, and international organisations have repeatedly said the regime does not have the capacity to supervise the relief work alone.
Ban said nine helicopters from the UN's World Food Programme would be allowed to work in remote regions of the country's disaster zone, where almost all foreign aid personnel have been banned.
Cyclone Nargis wiped out vast swathes of the country's Irrawaddy Delta, leaving vital rice paddies in ruins and washing away entire villages.
Despite the scope of the destruction, the World Bank said Tuesday it could not provide any financial assistance to Myanmar because the country was 10 years behind in its debts.
Myanmar, once a prosperous British colony called Burma that was one of the world's major exporters of rice, has been run by the iron hand of the military since 1962.
The country has earned the scorn of the international community due to a snail's pace "road map" to restore democracy that critics call a sham.
It has held Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning democracy activist, under house arrest for most of the time since 1990, when she won the country's last national elections, but not allowed to take office.
The generals have often turned their back on the outside world -- and are going ahead Saturday with the second round of a referendum on a new constitution even though the country is still in the midst of tragedy.
Ban will not be on Myanmar soil during the vote. He will try to hold talks with the leadership on Thursday and Friday, and then return on Sunday for an international conference of donors in the main city, Yangon.
The New Light of Myanmar, whose every edition lists the country's national objectives -- which include uplifting "national prestige" -- dismissed reports that survivors were not getting adequate aid.
"Our country is going through a variety of storm-like plots and intrigues that are much severer than Nargis, and they are endless," it said.
- AFP /ls
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