Myanmar junta insists aid effort running smoothly

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government said on Thursday its cyclone relief effort was moving along swiftly even as foreign powers warned of starvation and disease among up to 2.5 million people left destitute by the storm.

The European Union's top aid official met government ministers in Yangon and urged them to allow in foreign aid workers and essential equipment to prevent more deaths. But his trip did not yield any breakthroughs.

"You know, relations between Myanmar and the international community are difficult," Louis Michel told Reuters. "But that is not my problem."

"The time is not for political discussion. It's time to deliver aid to save lives."

Earlier, the reclusive generals signaled they would not budge.

"We have already finished our first phase of emergency relief. We are going onto the second phase, the rebuilding stage," state television quoted Prime Minister Thein Sein as telling his Thai counterpart this week.

Separately, the junta announced an overwhelming vote in favor of an army-backed constitution in a referendum held after the cyclone despite calls for a delay in the light of the disaster.

Nearly two weeks after the storm tore through the heavily populated Irrawaddy delta rice bowl -- leaving up to 128,000 people dead -- supplies of food, medicine and temporary shelter have been sent in dribs and drabs to devastated communities.

In the delta town of Bogalay, where around 10,000 people are thought to have died, people complained of forced labour and low supplies of food at state-run refugee centers.

"They have to break stones at the construction sites. They are paid K1,000 ($1) per day but are not provided any food," said Ko Hla Min, who lost nine family members in the storm.

Along the river in Bogalay rotting corpses remain tangled in the scrub. Villagers fish, wash and bathe in the same river.

The United Nations has said more than half a million people may now be sheltering in temporary settlements.

The United Nations has increased its estimate of the number of people in urgent need of aid to 2.5 million, and called for a high-level donors' conference to deal with the crisis.

U.N. spokeswoman Michel Montas told reporters on Thursday that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's deputy, U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes, would go to Myanmar in the next five or six days, where he hoped to persuade the junta to grant U.N. workers more access to the delta region.

"Inconsistent access to the flooded delta region, damage to infrastructure and communications, and heavy rainfall pose serious logistical challenges, so the level of assistance is still falling far short of what is required," she said.