The slow initial response and the severe curtailment of foreign help will continue to cause misery to survivors.

The reported mishandling or hoarding of aid, and distribution of stale rations are tantamount to a violation of human rights and are a crime against humanity.

Current aid shipments should stop until earlier ones are confirmed to have been released directly to the victims of Cyclone Nargis.

It is impossible to ensure this unless foreign aid teams can get on with their mission undeterred by the military there.

If the stories are true, all the foreign aid despatched only serve to restock the powerful army crippled by international sanctions.

It has also become clear that the junta cannot help its citizens. The United Nations should invoke human rights provisions to disregard borders and move in to distribute aid directly to marooned villages.

In the past, the United States was quick to act unilaterally. But it has been slow to go it alone in the current disaster.

The US can do what it did when a killer tsunami devastated coastal areas across South and South-east Asia in 2004 - help the victims, even though it has not been invited in this case.

Such an act will not be criticised by the international community.

Goh Si Guim