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Myanmar on defensive over cyclone aid effort

AFP - Thursday, June 12

YANGON (AFP) - - Myanmar insisted Wednesday that visas were being granted to aid workers and no food shortages were imminent in an apparent bid to deflect criticism that it has not done enough after Cyclone Nargis.

In the crucial weeks after the storm hit in early May, the reclusive military regime stalled on issuing visas to foreign aid workers, provoking the ire of the United Nations, western governments and aid agencies.

After a personal visit by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the junta slowly started to open up access to the country, especially the badly-hit Irrawaddy Delta region, where more than two million storm survivors were in need of aid.

The official New Light of Myanmar said Wednesday that 911 foreigners had been granted visas since the cyclone -- 458 UN staff and foreign aid workers, 357 Southeast Asian nationals and 96 participants in a May 25 donor conference.

"The government has granted visas to members of aid groups to render humanitarian assistance, to enable international experts to assess damages, to carry out relief work and to provide medical care to storm victims," it said.

Of those granted permission to enter military-run Myanmar, 569 remained in the country, the government mouthpiece said.

The United Nations has said its staff are getting visas with greater ease but cautioned in a report this week that independent aid groups were still having trouble, with some visas pending for three weeks.

Aid workers have also complained that visas are only being issued for short visits to the country, while getting permission to travel to the delta remains difficult.

"Clearly international staff do require much more sustained access to the delta areas, particularly for key skilled technical staff so they can really establish more systematic operations," said Amanda Pitt, spokeswoman from the UN's emergency relief arm.

Pitt also warned that aid agencies were facing shortages of emergency food and shelter for cyclone victims, with the UN appeal only 40 percent funded and China's May 12 earthquake sapping shelter supplies.

"They (aid agencies) need half a million tarpaulins, and food funding is needed to sustain the pipeline of assistance," Pitt told reporters in Bangkok.

Cyclone Nargis destroyed food stocks and swathes of rice paddies, which have yet to be replanted due to the difficult living conditions for the delta's farmers.

Planting was meant to start in early June, but some farmers could not work as they lacked clothes to wear, while animal carcasses still littered the salt-logged fields, AFP reporters in the ravaged region witnessed.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that food security could be compromised unless the rice planting season urgently begins.

But a Myanmar government minister denied in state media Wednesday that food shortages would be a problem.

"Some organisations were spreading groundless information such as there was or would be shortage of rice in Myanmar," national planning and economic development minister Soe Tha said in the New Light of Myanmar.

"The rice output in the storm-affected areas in Ayeyawaddy (Irrawaddy) and Yangon divisions made up only 2.3 percent of the nation's total rice output. The uncultivable acreage is barely one percent of that of the whole nation."

These figures contradict the official view of the FAO, which released a statement last month saying the five states hit by the cyclone produce 65 percent of the country's rice.

It estimated that 16 percent of the 1.3 million hectares (3.2 million acres) of agricultural land in the delta has been seriously damaged.

More than 133,000 people were left dead or missing when the cyclone pounded into Myanmar nearly six weeks ago.

The UN estimates that 2.4 million people need emergency aid, but that about one million have not yet received any foreign assistance.

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