Chiangmai – Veteran politicians today urged the Burmese military junta to take the Tsunami in Indonesia as an example for reconstructing cyclone shattered Burma.
The veterans highlighted the 2004 Tsunami in Indonesia where the government set aside internal conflicts and let international relief workers and disaster management experts handle rescue and relief efforts in the country.
The veterans' statement issued today coincided with the UN Secretary General's visit to Burma to persuade the junta to provide more access to the international community to the cyclone-hit areas. In the statement, they said that the junta should take Indonesia's Tsunami as an example where the Indonesian government allowed international relief workers free access to the disaster-hit areas despite the ongoing political crisis in Aceh.
The junta should accept aid not only from the UN and ASEAN, but should also take financial and technical assistance from rich countries as soon as possible in reconstructing Burma, the statement added.
The statement also urged the junta to provide agricultural loans and subsidies to farmers who lost everything in the cyclone and other loans to the fishery sector in reconstructing Burma so that the farmers and fishermen can get back to work in time. It also called on the regime to take financial assistance from the UN and the international community especially from rich countries if the government alone cannot afford to provide such loans.
The junta said that it would accept aid from the international community through ASEAN at the ASEAN emergency meeting held two weeks after the killer cyclone lashed Burma.
The ASEAN said in its statement that it would organise relief, resettlement and rehabilitation work in Burma based on the Tsunami experience in 2004.
According to Indonesian government figures the 2004 Tsunami left 120,000 dead and 37,000 missing. The UN said the Tsunami left 650,000 homeless in Indonesia.
In the hardest-hit Aceh province, the government and Aceh separatists could achieve peace and confidence building measures while into post-Tsunami reconstruction work together.
According to figures released by the Burmese junta the death toll and those missing is over 130,000 following Cyclone Nargis lashing Burma on May 2 and 3.
The UN said that the aid needed has reached only one fourth of the total of 2.5 million cyclone victims who desperately need relief materials.
