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Cindy McCain praises UN relief work for survivors of cyclone in Myanmar

Cindy McCain, wife of US Republican presumptive presidential nominee Senator John McCain, praised the UN's effort to help victims of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and panned the country's military regime for failing to welcome aid.

Cindy McCain, a philanthropist with long experience in humanitarian assistance, spoke on Friday after touring a warehouse at an airport in the Thai capital, Bangkok, where the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) collects supplies it then airlifts to Myanmar.

Efficiency

She praised the efficiency of the operation, saying that there were millions of well-meaning people willing to help out in such emergencies, “but unless it’s organized ... it’s all for nothing.”

She said she wished Myanmar’s ruling junta “had been more caring of their own people,” and she was “disheartened” at its reluctance to admit skilled foreign aid workers and helicopters that could deliver aid quickly to remote areas.

“There have been many, many people who died as a result of their lack of ability and their lack of interest in helping their own people,” she said.

The WFP consolidates aid from some 45 humanitarian and charity groups and flies it into Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, for onward shipment to areas affected by the May 2 to May 3 storm.

Cindy McCain was briefed by WFP officials about the agency’s operations worldwide, which often see it taking a leading role on logistics to ensure that its aid can get delivered, and was told that the program has developed a good relationship with Myanmar’s government since it has been working there for 14 years.

“I’m very encouraged to hear that WFP has developed a relationship with Myanmar,” she said. “There’s some trust back and forth now and I think that it’s imperative not only for this particular situation but imperative from a global aspect for people to begin to trust and talk.”

Sanctions

She dodged a reporter’s question of whether the WFP’s engagement with the junta was more productive than the approach taken by the US and other Western nations, which try to isolate the military regime by imposing political and economic sanctions against it. Her husband, like most mainstream US politicians, backs sanctions because of the junta’s poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.

“I can speak to this only as someone who’s done relief work her entire adult life and I know from my own experience that people-to-people is what this is all about, and government-to-government — I would suggest go talk to my husband about that,” she said.
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