UN halts aid to Myanmar as junta seizes supplies

Myanmar said yesterday it was not ready to let in foreign aid workers, rejecting international pressure to allow experts into the isolated nation where disease and starvation are stalking cyclone survivors.
The United Nations blasted Myanmar's military junta yesterday, calling its refusal to let in foreign aid workers "unprecedented" as survivors of a devastating cyclone waited for food, shelter and medicine.
A UN official says the World Food Programme is suspending cyclone aid to Myanmar because its government seized supplies flown into the country.
He says the WFP has no choice but to suspend the shipments until the matter is resolved.
WFP spokesman Paul Risley said yesterday that all "the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated." The shipment included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits.
Risley said it is not clear why the material was seized.
The junta said in a statement yesterday it was grateful to the international community for its assistance which has included 11 chartered planes loaded with aid supplies but the best way to help was just to send in material rather than personnel.
One week after the devastating storm killed tens of thousands, Myanmar's ruling generals -- deeply suspicious of the outside world -- said the country needed outside aid for those still alive, but would deliver it themselves.
The foreign ministry announcement came as a top UN official warned time was running out to move in disaster experts and supplies to prevent diseases that could claim even more victims.
Instead, the ministry said some relief workers who arrived on an aid flight from Qatar on Wednesday had been deported.
"Currently Myanmar has prioritised receiving emergency relief provisions and is making strenuous efforts to transport those provisions without delay by its own labours to the affected areas," it said.
"As such, Myanmar is not ready to receive search and rescue teams as well as media teams from foreign countries."
One relief flight was sent back after landing in Yangon on Thursday because it carried a search-and-rescue team and media representatives who had not received permission to enter the country, the junta said. It did not give details, but said the plane had flown in from Qatar, apparently referring to a UN flight.
The military regime that rules this impoverished country, once known as Burma, has long been wary of any influences that could threaten the iron grip on power it has maintained for almost half a century.
Even with the country battered by tragedy, the generals insist they will hold a constitutional referendum on Saturday, brushing off criticism they are ignoring the plight of the homeless while devoting resources to the vote.
Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy said the junta should delay the vote on a document her party says will merely enshrine military rule.
"With this situation, it is not the appropriate time to hold the referendum," NLD spokesman Nyan Win told AFP.
The extent of the catastrophe unleashed by Cyclone Nargis has also put the regime under intense international pressure to postpone the vote and open up the country, where only a handful of outside aid groups are allowed to operate under strict controls.
The United Nations estimates more than one million people have been left homeless by the disaster and, as each hour passes without clean water and food, they are at ever greater risk of starvation and disease.
"The situation is getting critical and there is only a small window of opportunity if we are to avert the spread of diseases that could multiply the already tragic number of casualties," said Noeleen Heyzer, the top UN official for the Asia-Pacific.
Rotting bodies of people and animals are piled up in many places across the remote southern Irrawaddy delta, where the storm's high winds and waves washed entire villages away.
In many places, the stench of death is overwhelming. Houses have been demolished, roads and bridges are damaged and huge swathes of land are still underwater a week after the disaster hit.
The United States has said the death toll could be around 100,000, but the regime on Thursday increased its official death toll by 17. It gave figures of 22,997 dead, 1,430 injured and 42,119 missing.
Compounding the disaster, the worst-hit area was the major rice-growing region, wiping out the main local food source until the government is able to deliver supplies.
"Now I do not have money to buy essential food items," said 75-year-old Thant Aung, who said his whole village in the Kyaklate delta district was destroyed.
"We have less food to eat. I am borrowing money from my friends to keep my family going."
The World Food Programme said another plane laden with energy biscuits, emergency medical tents and other gear landed Friday in Myanmar's main city Yangon, which is several hours' drive from the worst-hit areas.
In its statement, issued before the latest plane, the foreign ministry said 11 aid flights had landed so far and the world could help by sending cash and emergency supplies, rather than aid workers.
"The donors and the international community can be assured that Myanmar is doing its best," it added.
Other nations are divided on whether they have the right to force Myanmar, whose most powerful ally is China, to open up to humanitarian intervention.