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Air Force could open landing field in Myanmar

As the U.S. Air Force continues flying supplies into cyclone-ravaged Myanmar, the service’s disaster relief specialists are readying for the opportunity to open a makeshift base inside the reclusive Southeast Asian country.

Myanmar has agreed to let military flights continue, officials said Tuesday, opening the door for a massive humanitarian aid operation.

The Air Force’s 36th Contingency Response Group — deployed to a Vietnam War-era base in southern Thailand — are poised to open and operate air fields inside Myanmar.

But the country’s military-run government remains cagey about a wide-scale Western aid mission inside its territory, where as many as 2 million are suffering after Cyclone Nargis struck May 2. The government has made no guarantees.

Five more C-130 transport planes loaded with emergency supplies roared off the runway for Myanmar on Wednesday.

Marine Lt. Col. Douglas Powell, a spokesman for what has been dubbed operation Caring Relief, said a total of 197,080 pounds of provisions have been sent into Myanmar on the eight U.S. military flights that have been cleared to go. Most of the provisions have been blankets, mosquito nets, plastic sheets and water.

Still, officials with the United States Agency for International Development, whose banners drape each supply pallet, are among many international parties pushing hard for more access — the sort of access an in-country landing field near the hardest-hit areas provides.

Ky Luu, USAID’s director of foreign disaster assistance, said Monday that even if Myanmar’s government fully opened its borders to relief workers, the country’s lagging infrastructure would impede the flow of supplies.

Relief pallets are being unloaded by hand — not forklifts, he said. If unlimited flights into Yangon’s main airport were cleared by Myanmar’s government, incoming flights would experience major congestion.

And USAID has no assurances other than on-scene reports by aid workers that the supplies won’t be confiscated and resold, Luu said.

Marine Corps Capt. Mark Hamilton, piloting one of the C-130s in Yangon, told The Canadian Press that he was greeted warmly and that a Myanmar Air Force member boarded the jet and snapped photos.

Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific Forces, also accompanied one of the flights into Myanmar to try to persuade the junta to relent. Keating said the U.S. military could provide 200,000 pounds of supplies a day, which would be a massive boost to the lagging relief efforts. Keating came back later Monday with an understanding only that Myanmar would consider the offer. Myanmar state television said navy commander in chief Rear Adm. Soe Thein told Keating that basic needs of the storm victims are being fulfilled and that “skillful humanitarian workers are not necessary.”

The 36th response group, created to speedily deploy to Pacific-region disasters such as the tsunami that hit the region the day after Christmas 2004, has also placed other aircraft and personnel on standby in Thailand: a C-130 and its crew from Yokota Air Base in Japan and a C-17 Globemaster III from Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

Additionally, six C-130s and more than 100 airmen who happen to be in the region for “Cobra Gold” — an annual multinational military exercise in Thailand — could be diverted to the help relief efforts if requested.

Powell said there are about 11,000 Marines and sailors and four ships in the region that could be harnessed to help the mercy mission.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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