BURMA: SOME PROGRESS ON HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RANGOON 000371

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP/MLS, DRL, AND IO
PACOM FOR FPA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/12/2018
TAGS: EAID PREL PHUM BM PGOV EAGR MARR
SUBJECT: BURMA: SOME PROGRESS ON HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE

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Classified By: P/E Chief Leslie Hayden for Reasons 1.4 (b) & (d)


1. (SBU) Summary: The UN Resident coordinator Dan Baker
briefed donors on his meetings in Nay Pyi Taw where the
Deputy Foreign Minister informed him that visas for all UN
assistance experts would be issued and said the GOB was
issuing clearances for relief flights with only one-day
notice required. He stated that offers of foreign military
assets to assist relief efforts would continue to be denied,
although he gave an indication the GOB would accept UN or
ASEAN helicopters. The GOB also requested enormous
assistance for rehabilitating the monsoon rice crop in the
Delta. Baker told the GOB that unless donors were allowed
access to the Delta to monitor assistance, their requests
would not be granted. End summary.


2. (SBU) Acting UN Resident Representative Dan Baker briefed
the donor community today regarding progress on humanitarian
assistance deliveries and visas, and his May 12 meetings with
government officials in Nay Pyi Taw.

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Logistics:
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3. (SBU) Baker reported that UN planes were arriving on a
daily basis. The GOB cleared and released all cargo without
delay, as long as the consignee was clearly identified as a
UN agency. Shipments consigned to INGOs were more
complicated, Baker explained, although the UN had
successfully negotiated the release of a shipment consigned
to Save the Children. Baker noted that shipments consigned
to INGOs with long-established MOUs with the GOB were less
problematic.


4. (SBU) The UN now faced the challenge of warehousing and
transporting the enormous amount of assistance arriving
daily, Baker explained. To complicate matters, only 5-6 ton
trucks could be used to transport the goods down to the Delta
because of the damaged roads and bridges. Baker made an
appeal for donors with such trucks to donate their services
to the UN to transport the goods. Baker also asked that
donors bringing in bilateral commodity flights push the GOB
for permission to land at Pathein airport. He noted that
while the GOB had indicated they would allow relief flights
to fly directly to Pathein, the UN had not yet been able to
obtain a flight clearance to do so. Other bilateral donors
should push the GOB for permission to get flights to the
airport closest to the affected area, he advocated.

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Meeting the Deputy Foreign Minister
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5. (SBU) Ban Ki Moon instructed Baker to deliver a message
to Nay Pyi Taw regarding the UNSYG's displeasure over the
reluctance of high-level officials to take his calls or
answer his correspondence. Expecting to meet with Prime
Minister Thein Sein, Baker instead met with Deputy Foreign
Minister Maung Myint because the PM had been called to
Rangoon. Baker reported the meeting went better than
expected. The Foreign Minister greeted Baker with an
unprecedented embrace and informed him that visas requested
for UN officials had been, or were in the process of being
granted. Maung Myint handed Baker a list of 28 UN visa
applicants who were being approved, but did not say when, and
4 from the European Development Agency ECHO whose visas the
GOB extended. Maung Myint continued that the MFA was giving
clearances for relief flights, with only one-day notice
required. The MFA only required a list of goods, crew names,
and the name of the consignee. When Baker inquired about
visas for international INGO workers and bilateral aid
agencies, Maung Myint replied that these would continue to be
granted on a case-by-case basis.

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Distribution:
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6. (SBU) Baker pressed Maung Myint on the slow pace
humanitarian goods were being distributed. Maung Myint
defended the GOB's response and informed him that the GOB
could handle delivery of the relief goods it had. The
government had brought several boats down to the area, and
was delivering most of the supplies this way. Baker told the
donors the UN logistics team had verified that the GOB was
indeed delivering supplies by boat.

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No Foreign Military Assets Wanted
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7. (C) UNSYG Ban Ki Moon had instructed Baker to ask
specifically about the GOB's willingness to accept foreign
military assets to deliver assistance to the Delta. Maung
Myint was definitive in his answer. He informed Baker that
the GOB had received ten offers of foreign military
assistance and had refused all of them. The GOB would
continue to refuse these offers, Maung Myint emphasized.
Maung Myint confirmed that though the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs was handling flight clearances, visas for
international humanitarian staff, and customs clearances for
relief goods, the Ministry of Social Welfare remained
responsible for distribution of relief goods. Baker
emphasized to the donors that the GOB had not yet rejected
using UN helicopters. The ASEAN Secretariat representative
spoke up and said that during a May 12 meeting with the
Minister of Health, the minister said the GOB would accept an
ASEAN offer for helicopters.


8. (SBU) Baker asked about the government's strategy for
returning those victims relocated since the cyclone. Maung
Myint related that the government was very concerned about a
second wave of death and disease, but emphasized that the
Ministry of Health had the situation under control. The GOB
was aware that most of the displaced were rice farmers and
fisherman, who needed to plant their crops and get back to
fishing to minimize the economic effects of the cyclone.
Baker also asked if the GOB would be willing to give
permission for relief agencies to come into Burma to provide
temporary relief. Maung Myint replied that the GOB had
"learned their lesson from what happened in Aceh," and would
not allow outside relief agencies to establish a temporary
presence in Burma.


9. (SBU) Maung Myint emphasized the GOB needed more diesel
fuel and informed Baker the Thai government was sending
400,000 gallons of diesel. He also informed Baker the GOB
planned a diplomatic field visit to the Delta within the next
four or five days.

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Rice Crop Crisis
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10. (SBU) Baker also described to donors his May 12 meeting
with the Director General of Agricultural Planning and a
number of his staff. The DG informed Baker that in 23
townships affected by the cyclone, 2.34 million acres of rice
paddy had been affected, which account for 2 million of the
11-16 million metric tons of rice Burma harvests every year.
The DG noted that if these fields could not be planted with
the annual monsoon crop in the next three months, Burma's
national harvest would be greatly affected. The DG continued
that 200,000 acres now had saline intrusion and the
government needed 9,000 metric tons of salt-tolerant paddy
seed.


11. (SBU) The government also needed 50 kilos of fertilizer
for every acre, an enormous volume that would have to be
shipped in within the next three months. The local farms
also need farm machinery, draft animals, implements, and to
repair paddy field embankments in order to be ready to plant
the harvests. For these inputs, the GOB estimated the cost
at USD 75 per acre. The UN added that a micro-credit scheme
would be needed to channel the money to the displaced

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farmers. If the International community could not find a way
to meet these needs, it would have to find a way to feed the
displaced, and those that depend on the Delta for food, for
another year. Baker told the donors that he closed his
meeting by emphasizing to the DG that such an enormous
request for in-kind assistance and funds would not happen if
donors were not able to have access to the delta to closely
monitor the assistance.


12. (C) Comment: Although assistance is moving slower than
we wish, there has been some progress over the past week.
The technocrats are waking up to the enormous damage of
cyclone Nargis and the significant economic repercussions for
Burma. The UN and international NGOs are pushing behind the
scenes to get what they need and their strategy appears to be
working. Offers of foreign military assets appear to have
triggered the regime's deep paranoia of a foreign invasion.
But other, more benign offers are being accepted. The
assistance we have provided to date should help build
confidence in our humanitarian intentions. End comment.
VILLAROSA