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While UN's Ban Calls Myanmar Flexible, With "No Strings," Building Titans Loom

UNITED NATIONS, May 25 -- In Myanmar, there were meetings, but was there a meeting of the minds? The UN's Ban Ki-moon emerged from his meeting with Than Shwe on Friday saying that the Senior General "has agreed to allow all the aid workers [in], whoever, regardless of nationalities. He has taken quite a flexible position on this matter."

  But at Sunday's pledging conference, Prime Minister Thein Sein laid out a vague condition: "providing that there are no strings attached, nor politicization involved." So would even attempting to make sure that aid is not diverted for military use be construed as "strings attached"?

  The junta screened a film at Sunday's conference, which it called "Heart-Hit Nargis." The film said that Thein Sein's central committee had immediately met on May 3 and 8:30 a.m. to decide what to do, and then the film showed images of some of the hard-hit areas such as Bogale and Pyinsalu, with choral and chamber music, and then images of officials unloading boxes, neat rows of blue tents like those Ban Ki-moon was allowed to visit. It also said the government was "collaborating with private construction companies" to rebuild the country.

  These firms presumably include Tay Za and his Htoo Trading Group, which helped build the jungle capital at Naypyidaw as well as the military government's vacation playground at Ngwe Saung.

Ban and Shwe, Tay Za and Htoo Trading Group not shown

   Before he left for the region, Inner City Press asked the UN's John Holmes about reports that Htoo wants to clear out portions of the Irrawaddy Delta for ports and further profits. Will the pledges pay for this? Will the UN or its UN Development Program? What safeguards are in place?

    But has Ban dissuaded or undercut France's ardor? Before the UN headquarters' three day weekend, French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert told select reporters that France will push forward in the Security Council is full access is not granted. Over the weekend, the French foreign and defense ministries gave up on delivering the 1000 tons of aid on its ship the Mistral, and will turn the supplies over to the World Food Program in Thailand. The ministries jointly said they are "particularly shocked that the Myanmar authorities did not accept that 1,000 tons of humanitarian aid... could not be directly unloaded and distributed. Nothing... can justify the victims of a catastrophe being denied the basic right to the necessary aid."

   So will France introduce a resolution, as long promised, in the Security Council on May 27? Watch this site.

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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