BEIJING — The growing standoff as governments and aid groups around the world await necessary approval from Myanmar to bring in large quantities of badly needed emergency supplies suggests a leadership battered by indecision and fear, analysts said.
A small quantity of high-energy biscuits arrived Thursday in the isolated nation aboard a commercial flight, but its load paled against the enormous needs of a battered population. Another flight was allowed to land, but it contained no food and Myanmar balked at letting in the experts on board needed to operate its generators and water purification equipment, aid experts said.
Myanmar's Foreign Ministry said in the state-run New Light newspaper today that it welcomed foreign aid but not foreign workers. Humanitarian organizations, on the other hand, say they're wary of handing over millions of dollars' worth of food and equipment to the military government.
Three U.N. World Food Program flights packed with biscuits for the estimated 1 million left homeless by last weekend's cyclone were granted approval Thursday, but the government apparently changed its mind.
"The big challenge today is over the clearance of flights," said Greg Barrow, a WFP spokesman in London.
Myanmar continued to snub the U.S., which has several ships and helicopters standing by to provide emergency supplies and medical care. "We do not yet have confirmation," said Army Maj. Kerrie Hurd, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii.
Aid specialists say the continuing indecision by the military rulers in Myanmar, also known as Burma, will only push the death count higher as disease and starvation take their toll. Officially, 22,000 people have died and 41,000 are missing, although some critics fear the actual number of dead is several times that many.
"There's a shocking lack of government response," said Shawn Crispin, Asia-Pacific consultant with the Committee to Protect Journalists. "This is emerging as Burma's Hurricane Katrina."
The regime's apparent reversal on the United Nations flights and the mixed signals received by other governments point to an internal struggle among the top leadership, some said. Myanmar's decision-making is shrouded in secrecy, like so much else about the country, which is ruled with an iron fist by a small circle of generals. This leaves most officials afraid to make a decision and no real mechanism for policy debate among ministries and military branches.
