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SINGAPORE - Foreign aid to Myanmar's hundreds of thousands of cyclone victims must have "no strings attached," Deputy Defence Minister Aye Myint said Sunday, insisting the focus was now on reconstruction.
"We would warmly welcome any assistance and aid which are provided with genuine goodwill from any country or organisation, provided that there are no strings attached, or politicisation involved," he told a high-level security forum in Singapore that included representatives of donor countries.
He stressed that Myanmar was now concentrating on reconstruction and repeated the latest official toll of 77,738 dead and 55,917 missing, as well as the estimate of US$10.67 billion in cyclone damage.
"For those groups who are interested in rehabilitation and reconstruction, we are ready to accept them in accordance with our priorities," Major General Aye Myint said.
He added that "we would consider allowing them (into Myanmar) if they wish to engage in rehabilitation and reconstruction work, township by township."
The Myanmar official was speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual conference in Singapore of defence ministers, military officials and security experts from Asia, North America and Europe.
Myanmar has asked its Southeast Asian neighbours to coordinate the international cyclone relief effort, but aid workers on the ground have expressed frustration over the military government's handling of the humanitarian crisis.
Singapore, which currently chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that includes Myanmar, has criticised the slow response of the military government to the disaster.
"It's regrettable that the Myanmar government has responded in this way. Myanmar's partners in ASEAN have all been deeply concerned by the massive suffering of the victims, which a more rapid international relief operation could have minimised," Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a keynote address to the security forum on Friday.
At the same forum, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Saturday said the military government's slow response to the cyclone disaster had cost "tens of thousands of lives".
"Our ships and aircraft awaited country approval so they could act promptly to save thousands of lives - approval of the kind granted by Indonesia immediately after the 2004 tsunami and by Bangladesh after a fierce cyclone just last November," Gates said.
"With Burma (Myanmar), the situation has been very different - at a cost of tens of thousands of lives."
Rights groups accused Myanmar's government of forcing victims out of emergency shelters and back to their devastated villages - even if they have no homes left after the May 2-3 cyclone.
Nearly one month after the cyclone, only 40 percent of the estimated 2.4 million people in need have received any help, according to the United Nations. - AFP/ir
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