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QUESTION: There's been some talk about -- I mean, I know this is more of a political decision, but in terms of, like, what you can do in terms of getting aid in, there's been some talk about just kind of forcing the aid through, doing airlifts, you know, if the government won’t give the visas and let you get on the ground. Would that help you in any way, like, even if you could do, like, targeted kind of pin-drop food drops, things like that? Is that something that’s being considered? Would that help you, or it’s really not the kind of infrastructure that you would need to get the aid where it needs to be?
MR. LUU: Anything that might have a positive impact is being looked at and is being discussed. Air drops -- again, here you have to have the in-country infrastructure in order to be able to distribute the supplies. You have to be able to communicate to beneficiaries that air drops are occurring. And therefore, it’s not the most efficient manner in terms of providing relief assistance and, in the end, it may create more harm than anything else. So our point is that, yes, we’re looking at it, but the immediate needs are for open access for the current existing operational partners and for the regime in order to open up to provide for additional relief workers to get on the ground.
QUESTION: Just a quick follow-up. What is -- what do they -- is the regime telling you in terms of why they’re not letting you in?
MR. LUU: I’d have to defer that to my State Department colleagues. What I do know is that, you know, on the humanitarian side, this is what we’re planning on in our discussions with our NGO partners and our UN colleagues.
QUESTION:
there's been some talk about just kind of forcing the aid through, doing airlifts, you know, if the government won’t give the visas and let you get on the ground.
-snip-
MR. LUU: Anything that might have a positive impact is being looked at and is being discussed.
-snip-
So our point is that, yes, we’re looking at it, but the immediate needs are for open access
However, the UNSC meeting failed to discuss the Myanmar issue because of opposition from some countries including Indonesia.
"We opposed the suggestion. The UNSC is not the appropriate forum to discuss the disaster issue," Indonesian Representative to the UNSC Marty Natalegawa said.
Based on Indonesia`s past experiences in dealing with disasters, especially the 2004 deadly tsunami, Natalegawa said that most probably the aid delivery efforts were hampered by conditions in the field.
"It`s quite possible that the obstacles hampering the relief assistance delivery are not caused by things political but by the complexity of conditions in the field... Please, don`t assume that the technical problems occurred because Myanmar is not serious," he said.
"It should not be politicized," he stated.