US commences aid-flights to cyclone-hit Myanmar

] The spokeswoman, Michel Montas, was asked if the UN was concerned that some of the aid sent to Burma, might be going to people who were not victims of Cyclone Nargis. “That concern exists," she said. “We don’t have any independent report of a specific portion of the aid going to other sectors besides the victims (but) it is a fact that a very small percentage of victims have so far received the aid." The Australian reported an Australian aid plane arrived in Rangoon yesterday to offload urgently needed supplies. A senior aid official in Burma said there was little doubt the Australian aid would be rebadged as the property of the Burmese Junta. Credible eyewitness accounts have detailed that UN aid had been similarly repackaged. “The narrative is the military rescuing the nation," the official said. “It’s highly probably there will also be leakage of Australian aid." In Burma, heavy rains on Tuesday pelted homeless cyclone survivors in the country’s Irrawaddy delta, complicating the already slow delivery of aid to more than 1.5 million people facing hunger and disease. As more foreign aid trickles in, critics have been ratcheting up the pressure on its military rulers to accelerate a relief effort that is only delivering an estimated one tenth of the supplies needed in the devastated delta. One Rangoon businessman who returned from a personal aid mission to Bogalay, a delta township where at least 10,000 people were killed, said that soldiers were appropriating aid. “There are still some villages in the worst-hit areas that nobody has got to," the man, in his late 30s, said. “Around Bogalay, private donors are not allowed to distribute their assistance to the victims themselves. We had to hand over what we had." More [url:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23696575-23109,00.html[/url]

See also: Call to force aid on Burma May 14, 2008 - FRANCE, Britain and Germany have called for the world to deliver aid to cyclone victims in Burma without the military junta’s agreement if necessary.

] “We have called for the 'responsibility to protect' to be applied in the case of Burma," French junior Human Rights Minister Rama Yade said today as EU development ministers' met to discuss emergency aid to Burma. The little-used UN principle could allow the delivery of aid without the accord of the government if Burma’s military rulers continue to bar foreign aid teams from entering the country. Mr Yade said the three major EU powers would make the proposal to the United Nations Security Council, but acknowledged that they did not have unanimous support in the 27-nation EU. [url:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23696523-23109,00.html[/url]