Malaysia wants bigger ASEAN role in Myanmar relief

SINGAPORE: Myanmar should allow military helicopters and rubber boats from its Southeast Asian neighbours to help distribute aid to cyclone victims in remote areas, Malaysia’s deputy prime minister said Sunday.

Najib Razak, who is also defence minister, assured Myanmar’s military rulers that military personnel from its Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) neighbours will not be used to destabilise the government.

“The only organisation that can be effective in terms of disaster relief operations is the military,” Najib told reporters at the end of a high-level security forum, the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore.

“We have proven time and time again that our involvement is strictly humanitarian in nature and there is no other agenda we have in mind when we (have) sent our military into the various disaster-stricken areas in other countries in the past.”

Najib said ASEAN has always respected the sovereignty of Myanmar but he said it was important for the group to play a bigger role because the scale of the unfolding tragedy, “potentially might even be bigger than the tragedy of the tsunami back in 2004.”

The tsunami disaster killed 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean, mostly in Indonesia.

“There is a huge human tragedy of the highest proportion that might befall the people of Myanmar if the government does not allow greater participation by the ASEAN countries and by the world,” Najib said.

Singapore has already offered to deploy its Chinook helicopters, widely used to help victims of the 2004 tsunami, to assist in relief efforts in cyclone-hit Myanmar, where 133,000 people are dead or missing and more than two million others were affected.

Malaysia also sent helicopters to help in tsunami-hit Indonesia.ASEAN has often been criticised for failing to act firmly against its member Myanmar.

Singapore, Monday, AFP