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The External Affairs Ministers from the Association of South East Asian Nations are going to meet in Singapore on Monday, May 19, 2008 to discuss how to aid Burma recover from Cyclone Nargis. The foreign ministers of the nation will hold the emergency meting to receive Myanmar’s account of the disaster and hold talks over the country’s refusal to allow most foreign relief experts into the country.
The Cyclone Nargis is the worst natural disaster to hit South East Asia since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. As many as 2.5 million people have been affected by the Cyclone Nargis. According to official sources the death toll in Myanmar has risen to 78,000 and an additional 56,000 people are missing. Burma’s foreign minister Nyan Win will also be attending the Monday meeting in Singapore.
ASEAN has come under severe criticism for being slow to respond to the crisis. Activists have reprimanded the regional block by saying that if it cannot take a strong position in this emergency, they can dissolve themselves into irrelevance. The South East Asian nations unlike western nations however are not expected to make strong demands to Myanmar for opening its doors to foreign aid experts, but are likely to reach up a compromise to speed up aid delivery to the cyclone survivors.
