BURMA: UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 RANGOON 000394 SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/MLS, DRL, AND IO PACOM FOR FPA E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/15/2017 TAGS: EAID PREL PHUM BM PGOV SUBJECT: BURMA: UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE REF: RANGOON 371 RANGOON 00000394 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: P/E Chief Leslie Hayden for Reasons 1.4 (b) & (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordinator John Holmes was granted a visa and will visit Burma May 18-21. The UN has made no progress on obtaining permission for international staff to visit the field, and national staff are having increasing problems traveling to the Delta. The ASEAN Emergency Rapid Assessment Team arrived in Rangoon, but has not yet been granted permission to travel to the field. They are using the data the UN has already collected to write their assessment. The 160 relief workers from Bangladesh, China, India, and Thailand the GOB agreed to accept will be medical personnel only. EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel met with the GOB to press for access for international humanitarian workers and permission to visit the Delta. He made no progress on either issue. End summary. ¶2. (SBU) At a briefing for diplomats, Acting UN Resident Coordinator Dan Baker announced that UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordinator John Holmes was granted a visa and would visit Burma May 18-21. Baker emphasized that Holmes "planned and expected" to visit the field, and would meet with the diplomatic corps and the UN Country Team during his visit. ¶3. (SBU) Baker told diplomats that the UN had obtained no resolution on the issue of international staff visiting the affected areas in the Delta. Even worse, some of the UN shipments and national staff were being stopped at checkpoints where police and military personnel demanded travel authorizations. The UN had raised the issue with the Ministry of Foreign affairs. The Ministry confirmed to the UN that local staff and UN goods did not require authorization and said they would instruct police and military commanders to stop demanding authorizations at the next meeting of the GOB's cyclone task force. ¶4. (SBU) Baker noted that the ASEAN Emergency Rapid Assessment team had arrived in Rangoon, but had not been given permission to travel to the field. Therefore, they were working with the UN to use the data it had already gathered to make the assessment the team leader would present at the ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting on May 19. Baker also �0A;added that five ASEAN countries, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia had offered the GOB medical teams to assist in the relief effort but had heard no reply. ¶5. (SBU) Baker also elaborated on the 160 relief workers the GOB announced it would accept from Bangladesh, China, India, and Thailand. Baker recounted that none of these countries had been informed of the GOB's intentions and had been scrambling to figure out what the GOB needed and would accept. They had since discovered that the GOB wanted only medical workers, and had given no indication the workers would be able to travel to the field. The UN was disappointed, Baker added, it had hoped for a wider range of expertise to use in the field. ¶6. (SBU) UN relief coordinators announced that UN flights continued to arrive without problem and that, as of this morning, its assistance had reached 500,000 beneficiaries in Yangon and Irrawaddy Division. WFP noted that it had delivered 1200 metric tons of rice and dispatched high-energy biscuits for around 160,000 people. The UN also noted that USD 2 million had been provided to local CBOs through local NGOs Paungku and Metta. The money had been disbursed through cash grants and relief items in the cyclone affected areas. ¶7. (SBU) The UN was looking for additional warehouse space and hiring more trucks to beef-up their delivery capacity and yesterday submitted a request to use 10 UN helicopters to deliver assistance. They had not received an answer from the GOB yet. A consignment of WFP telecommunications equipment had not been released by the GOB, but WFP was negotiating for its release on the basis that its MOU stated WFP could bring RANGOON 00000394 002.2 OF 002 in telecommunications equipment in emergency situations. The GOB two days ago refused to permit the offloading of communications equipment from a German relief flight. ¶8. (SBU) Members of EU Commissioner Louis Michel's delegation attended the briefing and gave a short readout on the Commissioner's meetings with the GOB. Michel met for two hours with the Ministers of Planning, Social Welfare, and Health. He emphasized that his visit was strictly humanitarian and he was there to find solutions to the problem of "urgent access" to the Delta. Michel pressed the GOB to allow national staff to travel to the Delta without authorization and to grant international humanitarian experts access to the affected areas. He also asked the GOB to allow the EU's NGO partners to increase their international staff presence to deal with the crisis; to grant UN visas and travel permissions quickly; and allow relief flights to land at Pathein airport. The Ministers took most requests "under advisement" but answered that access to Pathein airport was neither necessary nor feasible, as the control tower was not equipped to international standards. Louis Michel's main request, to visit the Delta himself, was denied, although they did invite him to join the helicopter tour for the dip corps planned for Saturday, May 17. ¶9. (C) Baker closed the meeting by reiterating the UN's concern to get the people the government had moved to camps, back to their homes and land (reftel),so they could plant this year's rice crop and begin fishing again. He urged diplomats to ask their capitals to push the GOB to get the cyclone victims out of the camps and back to their fields. Otherwise, he warned, the international community would be paying the price for years to come. ¶10. (C) Comment: The GOB has yet to come to terms with the fact that it does not have the capacity to respond to this disaster. Some progress so far has been made by the UN and the international community, but much more is needed. Of highest priority are humanitarian experts on the ground to identify the needs of the victims and improved logistics to get relief goods out of Rangoon to the 1.5 - 2.5 million victims in desperate need of assistance. Relief Supplies to date have not reached most of the victims in the region two weeks after Cyclone Nargis slammed into the Delta. Thus, it is essential that the ASEAN Ministers press for significantly increased access. VILLAROSA