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Myanmar regime accused of hoarding cyclone aid

Yangon rejects US, UN pressure

Al’, AFP, Yangon
The United Nations said yesterday that only a tiny portion of international aid needed for Myanmar's cyclone victims is making it into the country, amid reports that the military regime is hoarding good-quality foreign aid for itself and doling out rotten food.
The country's isolated military regime has agreed to accept relief shipments from the UN and foreign countries, but has largely refused entry to aidworkers who might distribute the aid.
Even as US President George W. Bush and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon voiced their fury at the country's generals, and aid
agencies again warned that time was running out. the regime remained defiant about letting in outsiders.
But many survivors said they had still not received aid from die government 11 days after the disaster, and that they could not understand why their leaders have snubbed offers of help that have poured in from around the world.
"The nation does not need skilled relief workers yet," Vice Admiral Soe Thein said in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a mouthpiece for the military which has ruled die nation widi an iron grip for nearly half a century.
He said the needs of the people after the storm, which has left around 62,000 dead or missing
since ripping through the southern Irrawaddy delta on May 2 and 3, "have been fulfilled to an extent".
l\vo US planes have already delivered aid to the country, and, in an apparent broadening of the inidal agreement, the government seemed willing to allow future shipments.
But logistical botdenecks, poor infrastructure and the junta's restrictions have delayed the distribution of the aid, which is piling up at die airport in Yangon.
"There is obviously still a lot of frustration that this aid effort hasn't picked up pace" 10 days after the cyclone hit, said Richard Horsey, die spokesman of the UN humanitarian operation in Bangkok, Thailand.
Cyclone Nargis devastated the country's Irrawaddy delta on May 3, leaving about 62,000 people dead or missing, according to the government count. 'Hie UN has suggested the death toll is likely to be more than 100,000
With their homes washed away and large tracts of land underwater, some 2 million survivors mosdy poor rice farmers are living in abject misery, facing disease and starvation.
The UN said the World Food Programme is only getting in 20 percent of the food needed.
"That is a characterization of the programme as a whole. We are not reaching enough people quickly enough." Horsey told The Associated Press.