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The United States will send two more aid flights to
cyclone-stricken Myanmar and offer US$13 million more in aid
through UN agencies even though US officials involved in the relief
effort have not been allowed beyond Yangon airport.
As the first US aid flight arrived in Myanmar on Monday, US
President George Bush condemned the country's military junta for
failing to act more quickly to accept international help after
Cyclone Nargis devastated the country, saying "either they are
isolated or callous."
"It's been days and no telling how many people have lost their
lives as a result of the slow response," Bush said in a radio
interview with CBS News. "An American plane finally went in but the
response isn't good enough."
Henrietta Fore, administrator of the US Agency for International
Development, and Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the US Pacific
Command, flew to Myanmar on Monday with the first C-130 cargo
planeload of US supplies, then watched as it was transferred to
Myanmar helicopters they were told would fly to stricken areas, a
US official said.
"While on the ground, Administrator Fore and Admiral Keating
witnessed helicopters carrying the US cargo bound for Bogalay
township," Ky Luu, director of USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance, told reporters.
Because US officials have serious concerns over whether the aid
would reach cyclone victims, they will contact nongovernmental
organizations in Bogalay to verify the supplies in fact arrived
there, he said.
At the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters the
United States would provide US$13 million in food and logistical
assistance for UN World Food Programme relief operations in the
former Burma, bring the total US aid to US$16.25 million.
"We will send two flights of relief supplies tomorrow and then
we'll take it one day at a time from there," she said.
"It's a drop in a bucket for what they're going to need and we
would hope that the Burmese junta would allow more flights to come
in," Perino said, adding that the president was "very concerned
about it."
Waiting for visas
The first US C-130 cargo plane that flew into Yangon from Thailand
on Monday carried 8,300 bottles of water, 1,350 blankets and 10,800
mosquito nets, which will help as many as 30,000 people, Luu told
reporters at the State Department.
The United Nations says 1.5 million people are in need of immediate
assistance from the cyclone, in which up to 100,000 people are
feared dead.
Fore, Keating and Bill Berger, the leader of a US disaster relief
team that has been waiting unsuccessfully for a week to get visas
for Myanmar, met Burmese authorities at the airport and urged them
to "open up access, to issue additional visas and to bring in
additional supplies," Luu added.
The Americans were at the airport for about two hours, he
said.
"I think we have to stay optimistic on this," Luu said, while
acknowledging that there was "massive concern" about whether the
aid would in fact reach cyclone victims.
While Myanmar's reclusive military government is accepting aid from
the outside world, including the United Nations, it will not let in
foreign logistics teams, who were queuing up in Bangkok hoping to
get visas from the Myanmar Embassy.
US officials had been told last week that the Myanmar government
"would accept our commodities but not accept our disaster experts,"
Luu said.
Keating had said before taking off that he would urge the junta to
allow a "long, continuous train of flights" that could carry up to
90,720 kg of relief goods a day.
The new assistance would include US$12 million for food aid that
will arrive in the coming weeks, including 1,000 tons of urgently
needed food from a US AID Food for Peace warehouse in Djibouti in
Eastern Africa, Perino said.
