Aid Pledged to Burma If Workers Get Access

BANGKOK, May 25 -- Donor nations on Sunday promised military-ruled Burma a significant increase in financial support for survivors of Tropical Cyclone Nargis if the junta keeps its pledge to allow aid workers "unhindered access" to the stricken area.

The offers came during an unprecedented meeting that brought representatives of 50 countries to Rangoon, Burma's largest city, for talks about helping the long-isolated, deeply impoverished country with its recovery. The May 2-3 cyclone killed 78,000 people and left 56,000 missing, according to official estimates, and devastated the country's most important rice growing area.

Western officials said the relief effort could be a turning point in Burma's foreign relations if the ruling generals became more open -- though many of the officials expressed skepticism.

"What started out as a discussion about disaster relief ended up as being about the possibility of this being an opportunity to bridge [Burma] into the international community," said one Western official who attended the talks. "The message overwhelmingly was compassion for the victims, a great desire to help and concern that the help had to be based on principles of full access to the areas and transparent use of funds."

Burma has received negligible foreign humanitarian assistance and has been shut out from international financial institutions since 1988, when the military brutally suppressed massive pro-democracy protests, killing about 3,000 people.

The junta -- suspicious of Western intentions -- has balked at allowing a full-scale international relief effort, insisting that it could distribute relief by itself despite U.N. warnings that aid was failing to reach needy survivors.

During the meeting, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told donors that he believed the government's reluctance to allow "international humanitarian groups to operate freely in the affected areas is now a thing of the past."

"There is good reason to hope that aid to the worst affected areas will increase significantly in the coming days," said Ban, who met for two hours on Friday with Burma's powerful army chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.

The United Nations has planned a $201 million, six-month relief effort for survivors, who need immediate life-saving aid as well as longer-term assistance.

Fundraising has been sluggish because of the unresolved questions about the role of U.N. agencies and international charities in the relief work.

Gen. Thein Sein, Burma's prime minister, presented donors with his government's $11.7 billion reconstruction plan, which in part envisions rebuilding 100,000 houses, replacing lost livestock, building a large protective dike across the Irrawaddy Delta and creating "artificial hills" to act as barriers to future tidal surges.

But participants said such discussions on reconstruction were premature, given the urgent need to ensure that life-saving relief reaches those in need.