ASEAN team gains 'full access' to Burma

Southeast Asian and UN experts will have full access to cyclone-devastated parts of Burma, where more than a million people have still not received any foreign help, ASEAN says.

"Now we have 250-plus of our, what we call our post-Nargis assessment teams, in the Delta, in the Rangoon division, in the south and they will be doing the full assessment and they will have full access to the affected region," Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan told reporters in Singapore.

"I think if we look at that, it's already a great achievement and we will try to maintain that momentum.

"We have been given full cooperation and support by the authorities in Burma."

Cyclone Nargis pounded the southwest Irrawaddy Delta and the main city of Rangoon on May 2-3 leaving more than 133,000 people dead or missing.

ASEAN said last week that the Emergency Rapid Assessment Team had begun to deploy in the delta region to start a long-awaited examination of the needs of millions of people affected by the storm.

It said then that its advance teams, ferried by UN World Food Program helicopter, would compile a first-hand "progress report" for an ASEAN Roundtable meeting in Rangoon on June 24.

Surin said there were no doubts that the team would be able to do its job adequately and with credibility, "coming up with a report that would be taken up by all parties in order to be the basis of rehabilitation and reconstruction later on."

Inciting international outrage, Burma's isolated military regime had largely barred foreign aid workers from gaining access to the delta, which bore the brunt of the cyclone.

Relief workers slowly moved into the region in late May after the junta started to ease restrictions on access, and asked fellow ASEAN nations to coordinate the international relief effort.

ASEAN has often been criticised for failing to act firmly against Burma, a member country which has frequently embarrassed its neighbours with its refusal to shift towards democracy.

"I think ASEAN has made a very, very significant step in trying to connect the international community through ASEAN with Burma on the humanitarian mission," Surin said, describing it as a confidence-building measure.

"So I think we realise that this is very precious."

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

The ASEAN team is working under a tripartite arrangement with the United Nations and the Burma government.

One Southeast Asian diplomat in Rangoon said last week that the team would finish its work by month's end, although ASEAN says its findings will only be released in mid-July.

"We expect them to meet a lot of difficulties, with many parts of the delta remaining physically difficult to reach by road or boats," the diplomat said.

"We are hoping we may be able to fill in the gaps, although we realise there is a big void in terms of aid to be filled."

Surin said things had been going "very well" on the ground.

"Certainly there are rooms for improvement but we are working on that and we have been assured that, yes, we will work together until the mission is accomplished," he said on the sidelines of a meeting about human rights in ASEAN.

The deployment of the ASEAN team last week came a day after the United States gave up trying to convince the junta to allow aid-laden warships stationed off the delta to deliver their vital supplies.

Source: AAP-SBS