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GRIM: Cyclone-affected children reaching out for food in Bogalay, in the Irrawaddy delta. As many as one million people have been displaced. -- AFP
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BANGKOK - YES to aid but a defiant no to relief workers.
In a statement carried in the state media yesterday, Myanmar's Foreign Ministry made clear that the government would deliver international emergency aid 'with its own labour'.
And yesterday, the Minister of Social Welfare rebuffed a hand-carried request from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to be allowed to use its own personnel to distribute food supplies unloaded from planes and waiting at Yangon's airport.
'It is an impediment to the work we are trying to do,' Mr Chris Kaye, the WFP's country director in Yangon, told The Straits Times yesterday.
Bangkok-based WFP regional director Tony Banbury told journalists: 'We're going to have to shut down our very small airlift operation until we get guarantees from the authorities.
'It should be on trucks headed to the victims. That food is now sitting on a tarmac doing no good.'
Analysts familiar with the mindset of Myanmar's generals say it is paranoia about outside - and especially Western - interference, as well as an isolated top leadership, that are responsible for the decisions which are delaying aid to the desperate cyclone-struck people.
And it is also the politics of power.
Well-connected sources in Myanmar say it is at the insistence of junta supremo, Senior General Than Shwe, that the referendum on the country's new Constitution is going ahead today despite the disaster in the Irrawaddy delta.
'Talk about fiddling while Rome burns', was how one weary Yangon resident described the situation.
The ageing general in Nyapyidaw, a few hundred kilometres north of the cyclone disaster zone and the volatile city of Yangon, may be out of touch with the reality in the delta, analysts said.
He appears confident that the army can handle the relief effort alone.
But it is clear to experts that the scale of the disaster is so huge that it is impossible for any one country - let alone an impoverished one - to deal with it without massive assistance.
Except for those in the disaster area, the rest of the country goes to the polls today to vote on the referendum. Those living in the cyclone- struck area - seven townships in the Irrawaddy Division and 40 townships in Yangon - will vote on May 24.
But even that could be a problem. With upwards of one million people displaced and a death toll which could reach or even exceed 100,000, the stricken region may not be ready for such an exercise for months.
But the Constitution is very important to Gen Than Shwe, for whom it is both an insurance policy and his legacy.
State media has been campaigning for a 'Yes' vote as the 'patriotic duty' of citizens.
The Constitution lays the ground for registration of political parties and an election in 2010 - which opens up a tenuous space for democracy.
But it also entrenches the military. Under the system, the chief of the armed forces will be more powerful than the head of state.
The referendum process is also less transparent than in previous elections.
A covert opinion poll of more than 2,000 voters, held days before the cyclone, by a consortium of Myanmar news agencies based in neighbouring countries, has found that just over 66 per cent of respondents would vote 'No'. The rest were undecided.
But a 'No' vote would be a huge embarrassment - one the junta will likely avoid at all costs.
Results will not be announced district-wise where the counting will take place - but in the capital at the end of the whole process.
That, say analysts, makes it clear that if voters reject the charter in any part of the country, the numbers can be tampered with in Nyapyidaw to engineer an overall positive result.
'This is more important to (Gen Than Shwe) than anything else,' Chiang Mai-based independent Myanmar analyst Aung Naing Oo told The Straits Times.
'And his underlings can't say 'No'.'
The tension over the contradictory priorities of the referendum and the disaster could even lead to a split in the army, some analysts said.
But if at all, that will come only after the referendum, because those who would assume power would also need the legitimacy conferred by the Constitution.
nirmal@sph.com.sg
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