'People Are Just Desperate'

MYANMAR, May 20, 2008 — -- Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar May 2, leaving 134,000 people dead or missing.

The country's military government, or junta, initially refused to allow international aid and aid workers into Myanmar, worsening an already dire situation, according to international critics.

Tuesday, the United Nations said the junta had finally permitted the World Food Program to use its helicopters to bring aid to the millions left destitute by the cyclone.

An aid worker with the U.S.-based non-governmental organization, Operation Blessing International, was one of the few able to gain entry into the affected areas. He spoke to ABC News about trucks full of aid bypassing villagers, rotting corpses and a government's indifference that has cost thousands of lives. For safety reasons, we cannot reveal his name.

ABC News: We have been hearing figures as high as 200,000 as the most recent death toll. Where are you getting your figures?

The figure of 200,000 is a projected figure that other aid workers and I have been speculating about based on the current death toll, which we all agree is much, much too low based on the facts on the ground, seeing how many people are affected by this and how serious the disaster is given how many people on the ground could still die because they have been denied access to foreign aid.

I was fortunate to be one of the first foreign aid workers to gain access to the affected area after the cyclone hit. It was very hard for most of us to gain visas. I was there just a few days after the cyclone hit, and at that time the Delta region was still open for foreign workers to get in, so I was able to organize a team and very quickly access the region, and we were doing food distributions and that was about two days before the military sealed off the Delta region.

ABC News: What were the most poignant moments during your time there?

When we were first able to access the Delta region, we entered villages that were completely cut off. We were using canoes to get aid out to these very remote locations, and when we arrived it was just a grim situation. Houses were destroyed. The people were sitting around completely shell-shocked. The children were very sick. We had already started to see cases of children with diarrhea. And they needed everything; they needed food, shelter and water and very quickly. We didn't have enough to give to these people that first day. We told them we would be back the next day with the right supplies.

The next day when we tried to access the village we were coming by road to get to the region, and we were stopped at a military checkpoint by armed military personnel, and they told us we could not pass through and deliver the aid we wanted to. And that moment for me was very poignant because at that moment, the Burmese government was committing a huge crime by disallowing vital aid from reaching its own citizens -- willfully knowing that those people may die if they did that.

ABC News: How would you describe the actions of the Burmese military junta?

The Burmese junta has been warring with several separatists and minority groups like the Karens for several years now. Our local team has been able to access the Delta region, and in the past few days has been talking to groups of Koreans especially who have told us that they have been denied aid by military trucks that have simply passed them by. And our team feels that the military is being selective on who they give aid to based on whether or not the people support he military or not. Of course, that's very dangerous.

It's a violation of the citizens' human rights set out in U.N. charters.

Aid should be given to any victim no matter what their political standing is. So to me to deny any victim aid is a crime against humanity. It's great to hear now that the Burmese military is starting to open up the doors to let foreign aid in. But over the past two weeks since the cyclone hit, it has closed the doors repeatedly to communities of people who have needed aid. People have died unnecessarily since the cyclone hit because their own military government has prevented them from reaching aid, and that is a crime against humanity.

ABC News: What has been your contact with the junta?

Personally, my contact with the junta has been quite limited because I was based in Yangon coordinating things the majority of the time. I was on two convoys that were stopped at military checkpoints. Upon seeing me as a Westerner, they told us to turn around and go back; they wouldn't let local teams go in with the aid. They did the same with every aid worker -- Western aid workers.

I have seen vans packed full of foreign doctors, foreign donated medicines that are trying to get into the zone to reach people who are in desperate need of medical help. And here's the junta military saying, "Just turn around and go away -- we don't want you to come in as foreigners." And it's just horrendous that this is being allowed to happen. The people are just desperate. There are very, very sick people. I'm sure people are dying right now because the government is disallowing aid from reaching them.

ABC News: What kind of access has the junta been providing to relief workers and the people in need?

To my knowledge, the junta is still allowing very limited aid relief to its people. The state-run media channel, the television, is showing them with a staged facade of distribution -- and everyone knows that those aren't real. You can see the people that they are giving aid to on the TV aren't those people in desperate need. The people in real need are far, far out in the Delta -- still cut off; many of them can only be reached by helicopters and foreign experts who really know what they are doing.

ABC News: How were you able to access the affected region?

The two days I was able to access the Delta region, we first of all drove by truck from Yangon down to a place called Koshancoon and found places that were completely cut off.

The problem is they are barring western workers, so a lot of NGO's are having to be creative and hire local teams because they are the only ones who can really access the region. The problem is these local teams are not experts in providing relief. Helping someone in need, giving someone relief is not rocket science but it does require some training and you have to have some method to it. Otherwise you can endanger the worker or the person receiving aid.

And the problem with that is that we don't have the vital time needed to give these guys the training they need because every hour since the cyclone hit, the situation is growing worse and worse for the victims because they are growing weaker exponentially as the combination of sicknesses -- diarrhea, respiratory illnesses -- all these things added together are killing people at a very alarming rate.

ABC News: What are the major diseases now threatening the people in Myanmar?

All the aid groups are predicting the real horrific one like cholera and, of course, that's brought about especially when you have these rotting corpses around. The military is putting a lot of effort into sweeping leaves off the capital city Yangon while those teams could be better placed in the Delta region getting rid of these thousands of corpses still lying around.

It's raining of course, it's monsoon season. And those rains have been an extra problem because the people don't have shelter so they are exposed to the elements. So they get damp, and they get wet. And that leaves children especially open to respiratory illnesses. And you have to consider also these are people who have very limited access to food. They are weak, they are undernourished -- their immune system is weak, which leaves them even more prone to these illnesses. Then if you take freshwater out of the equation the people start getting diarrhea, stomach upsets. All these things combined are very serious because they are going to start killing people very, very quickly.

ABC News: What have you seen the government doing in terms of collecting the dead?

For me as an aid worker who has worked many disasters around the world, I've been shocked by what I see as an unprecedented lack by any government to bag and tag the victims, the dead.

I haven't seen one body bag. I haven't seen any collection of bodies going on at all.

If you compare that to the tsunami for example -- after the tsunami, every government was mobilized within 48 hours. We had a systematic process of the victims. To me, it just demonstrates further the lack of interest, the lack of compassion that this government has for the people of the Delta region.

ABC News: While you were on the ground, how much talk did you hear about forced aid?

While I was on the ground we kept hearing these reports of government talking about forced drops. This, of course, brings a new set of problems with it because that would violate the sovereignty of Burma.

In my opinion, any government that does not care enough about its people to provide them access to aid, to collect the dead and to allow its own people to die. Any government that will do that does not deserve sovereignty.

ABC News: What can be done going forward? Is the aid that will be coming into the country now too little, too late?

It's great to see that the doors seem to be opening. There is some leeway being made. There is some progress being made with these diplomatic solutions. But of course, that's too little, too late for too many victims. There have already been many, many deaths -- preventable deaths since the cyclone because the government was blocking aid.

They have declared three days of mourning now. They are sweeping the leaves off the streets. They are allowing aid in now. Talking to the ASEAN conference and all these things.

But when it's all said and done and historians look back on this it will be sad to think how many people died after the fact -- after the cyclone because their own government prevented them from getting aid. And somewhere down the line the government is going to have to be held accountable for their complete lack of competence and their complete hatred of their own people in disallowing the aid to reach them.

After I was prevented going in, our medical professionals were still able to go in and access some of the hardest hit areas. And I spoke to one of the doctors when he came out after being on the ground for three days.

He returned to Yangon and told me that one village that they worked and slept in was like being in hell. He described it as absolutely horrific because all through the night people were screaming out in terror and even finding dead bodies in the darkness. Conditions like that are unacceptable because within 48 hours, if the world had been allowed to respond we could have gotten into these locations.

We could have brought vital relief -- medicine, water and food and saved many, many lives that have been needlessly lost because the military government has disallowed aid reaching its own people.