UNITED NATIONS (AP) - France criticized Myanmar's military junta on Friday for refusing to allow a French Navy ship with 1,500 tons of aid for victims of Cyclone Nargis to deliver food and medicine with small boats and helicopters.
Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said the ship would be in international waters within sight of the devastated Irrawaddy Delta on Saturday, and he warned that the government's refusal to allow aid to be delivered to people in need or in danger "could lead to a true crime against humanity."
Ripert told reporters that when he got up to speak in the U.N. General Assembly about the government's failure to allow foreigners to deliver aid, he was immediately interrupted by Myanmar's U.N. ambassador who accused France of sending "a warship" to the country.
"I had to intervene to explain that it's not true," Ripert said. "It's not a warship, it's a ship on which we have 1,500 tons of food, drugs, medications. We have small boats which could allow us to go through the delta to most of the regions where no one has accessed yet. We have small helicopters to drop food, and we have doctors."
"As of today the government of Myanmar refused to the French the authorization of using this ship, and asked to us to convey the material through airlift in Rangoon, which of course is a nonsense," he said, using the former name of the capital, Yangon. "This is purely unacceptable."
Myanmar's U.N. Mission said Ambassador Kyaw Tint Swe was not available to comment on his remarks to the closed-door meeting of the General Assembly.
Ripert said France was still trying to convince Myanmar's authorities to allow the aid delivery.
"Hundreds of thousands of lives are in jeopardy and we think that the primary responsibility of the government of Myanmar is to help and open the borders so that the international aid could come into the place," Ripert said.
On Saturday, the FSS Mistral was sailing near the Irrawaddy delta, hoping for permission to bring the aid to the needy, French officials said.
France has been in the forefront of pushing for U.N. Security Council authorization to deliver aid to Myanmar, an issue Ripert said he has pressed for every day in the council, so far unsuccessfully. China, Russia, South Africa and other council members contend that aid to cyclone victims is a humanitarian issue - not an issue of international peace and security to be dealt with by the U.N.'s most powerful body.
France argues that the council enshrined an agreement by world leaders at a U.N. summit in 2005 that the U.N. has a "responsibility to protect" people when nations fail to do it. But that agreement referred only to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
"It's true ... that natural catastrophes were not included because at the time nobody thought that any government would dare to refuse some help to its own population in case of natural catastrophes," Ripert said.
At the General Assembly meeting, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned the death toll will increase dramatically unless Myanmar's military government allows more aid into the country.
Ban said he was sending U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes to Myanmar this weekend. Holmes is to deliver a third letter attempting to establish contact with the country's leadership to discuss how the U.N. can assist the government's relief effort, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said.
Myanmar's leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, has refused to take Ban's calls and has not answered two previous letters.
"Unless more aid gets into the country - quickly - we face the risk of an outbreak of infectious diseases that could dramatically worsen today's crisis," Ban warned in the text of his speech which was released by the U.N.
Ban also told representatives of the 192 U.N. member states that he hopes a meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations next Monday and a high-level pledging conference that he has suggested for May 24-25 will help to mobilize resources in response to the disaster in Myanmar - as was the case in response to the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.