YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s ruling junta, faced with global outrage about its low-key response to last month’s deadly cyclone, said Sunday that recovery from the catastrophe will be speedy and extolled top leaders for their actions in the crisis.
But criticism of the military junta’s response to the storm continued, with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying the government had acted with “criminal neglect.”
The regime has limited the number of foreign relief workers and added conditions to their movement despite agreeing more than a week ago to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s request that they be allowed into the worst affected areas in the Irrawaddy delta.
The junta has not allowed military ships to bring aid.
Deputy Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Aye Myint, attending an international security meeting in Singapore, praised the government’s relief operations as authorities pushed ahead with plans to open schools today in battered areas, which aid groups fear could put kids in harm’s way.
The comments came a day after the junta came under sharp criticism for kicking homeless cyclone survivors out of shelters and sending them back to their devastated villages. Cyclone Nargis killed 78,000 people and left 56,000 missing.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of displaced people have recently been expelled from their temporary shelters in schools, monasteries and public buildings, Human Rights Watch said Saturday.
Some international aid agencies said their staffers were still meeting survivors deep in the delta who have not received any help since the storm hit.
Gates, who attended the Singapore conference, said a Myanmar representative did not seem interested in speaking with him.
Speaking Sunday in Thailand, Gates said Myanmar’s reluctance to allow a free flow of foreign assistance and aid workers meant that many more people would die. He was referring particularly to the refusal of the junta to allow U.S., British and French military ships off Myanmar’s coast to bring in aid.
Gates told reporters he will make a decision within “a matter of days” about withdrawing U.S. Navy ships off Myanmar because “it’s becoming pretty clear the regime is not going to let us help.”
