Will Burma open its arms to aid?

By Jonathan Head
South East Asia correspondent, BBC News

Ready to go: But how much will Burma open up in the wake of the cyclone?

The cyclone which struck Burma on Saturday is the worst natural disaster the country has experienced in modern times.

The storm drove waves 3-4 m (10-13 ft) high across the flat, swampy Irrawaddy delta, obliterating entire towns and villages in scenes strikingly reminiscent of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.

The death toll is enormous; the needs of survivors are urgent, and clearly well beyond the capacity of a government which even in normal conditions fails to provide the most basic services for its people.

No food or water

"Some areas are still completely under salt water, and people have absolutely no food or drinking water," said Andrew Kirkwood from Save the Children in Rangoon.

"Unless assistance gets into those kinds of areas very soon, the death toll will rise."

The initial response of the military authorities was not encouraging. The day after the storm civilians could be seen in Rangoon struggling to cut up fallen trees by hand, with few soldiers in evidence.

International aid agencies were hamstrung by the need to request permission from the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, to travel anywhere.

The fear and suspicion of outsiders, especially westerners, is ingrained in the minds of the men in green...

But as the magnitude of the disaster has become clear there has been a marked change in attitude.

Their in-country teams are being allowed to travel into the delta region without permission, so long as they have someone from the government or the local Red Cross with them. Four army divisions have been mobilised to help in the Irrawaddy delta.

A number of UN and other agencies keep offices and significant emergency supplies inside Burma, so they have been able to get some relief out immediately to more accessible places.

Seventeen assessment teams have already been dispatched to the affected areas - they will now be able to draw up a preliminary picture of what kind of help is needed, and how best to get it there.

Transport will be critical. Much of the delta is normally only accessible by boat, and most of those berthed in the area were destroyed by the storm.

But for the relief operation to be effective, far more aid workers need to be allowed into the country - people with experience of managing a disaster this big, who know how to keep the flow of aid moving.

That is where the Burmese authorities have baulked.

Wary generals

The military is extremely wary of allowing the small number of foreigners based in Burma to move around in normal times; the prospect of having many times that number operating in the country may prove too much for the generals to swallow.

"Some are getting in, some are not - we need the floodgates to open," said Britain's Ambassador in Rangoon, Mark Canning.

"It's crucial that we get these humanitarian experts in, and that's what we're putting a lot of effort into at the moment".

The tsunami brought political change as well as aid to Aceh

The government has appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint to oversee the issuing of visas, but it still is not clear whether he has the authority to approve them in the numbers the international agencies say they need.

It is worth making a comparison with the tsunami that struck Aceh in Indonesia in 2004, and the earthquake in Pakistan in 2005 which hit Kashmir.

In both countries the disasters occurred in sensitive areas controlled by the military, to which foreigners were usually denied access.

In both countries the governments responded to the disaster by opening their doors to aid workers and journalists, and allowing the UN to co-ordinate the relief operation.

The massive international presence after the tsunami was one of the factors that persuaded the Indonesian military and Acehnese rebels to bring their long conflict to an end.

This simply will not happen in Burma. The government is very unlikely to allow foreign journalists in, just as it is about to hold a controversial referendum on the new constitution it has drafted.

And even if significant numbers of aid workers do get in, the operation will certainly be run by the military authorities, and may be subject to restrictions that hamper them from getting help to those in need.

There will be no great opening up to the outside world in Burma, as there was in Aceh.

The fear and suspicion of outsiders, especially Westerners, is too ingrained in the minds of the men in green who always have the last word in Burma.