BBC Radio Five:   The Burmese Government has finally agreed to let aid
workers into the country three weeks after the devastating cylcone
left 70,000 people dead.  The news came after Burma's top General Than
Shwe met with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

But critics are already warning that Burma has the record of
withdrawing promises made to the UN.  Meanwhile people in the
cyclone-hit area will be voting in a controversial referendum later
today. The vote was put on hold in certain parts of the country after
disaster.

Dr Zarni is a UK-based Burmese dissident and founder of the Free Burma
Coalition.  He gave me his reaction.

Zarni:  I would welcome any news that indicates the restrictions (on
aid workers) are being eased.  But I think I am still holding my
judgment as to what it actually means in concrete, operational terms.

This is the regime that has a long record of not honoring promises
made to both the country/the public and the international community.
I would not attribute this development primarily to Sec-General Ban
Ki-Moon's diplomacy.  We have gotta understand that we are entering
the 21st day of the cyclone (aftermath) and we are still talking about
negotiating for the admissions or visas for the aid workers.  The
situation in the country is so bad that even this allowing of aid
workers who should have been in the country 20 days ago is considered
a breakthrough!

This is the magnitude of tragedy and the kind of malicious regime we
are dealing with.

BBC:  You are not confident that the aid agencies will be allowed in
to actually help the people who have been affected by the cyclone.

Zarni:  No.  I am not confident at all.  Let me say this.  I lived in
the country for 25 years under a different type of military regime -
an older generation (generals) and I have studied them for 20 years.
I have also worked with - but not for - the regime in terms of pushing
for some kind of normalization of Burma's foreign relations with, say
the International Labour Organization and a few governments outside.

I have discovered.... What I have come to realize is that this is the
regime that uses anything and everything as bargaining chip, be the
issue political prisoners, Aung San Suu Kyi's freedom, economic
reforms, now the Cyclone victims' welfare, or whatever.  We have to
understand we are looking at a radically different creature there than
a regular authoritarian paternalistic Asian regime.

The generals only look at their interactions with the outside world
through "the lens of war"

It's all about winning.  It's all about posturing.  They are under
enormous pressure.  There is a fleet of naval vessels from US, UK, and
France carrying relief supplies just outside the Burmese waters.
France is threatening to take the issue back to the Security Council
despite the fact that the Chinese  have said they would block it.
There are a lot of issues at work.  So, it would not be accurate to
say that this is the result of Ban Ki-Moon's diplomacy.

BBC:  So, somebody promised them something - even if you don't believe
that they would actually allow the aid workers to do the work - what
could something be?

Zarni:  The world is playing the regime's game, and letting it off the
hook.  Maybe the EU, or ASEAN or even Ban Ki-Moon himself with the
backing of the West promising the regime something they want.

All of this we have to understand in the context of the Constitutional
Referendum tomorrow - Saturday morning - and secondly the donors
'pledging' forum on Sunday.

The regime wants $11 billion from the international community.  The
regime wants something from the international community and they are
giving a little bit back.

This is the regime that is not entirely impervious to the pressure
from the international community. If we are to learn something here
it is that the regime is capable, despite its madness in other
respects, of doing cost-benefit analysis.

They know that the cost of resisting against the international
pressure is greater than what they could gain from manipulating the
natural disaster.

BBC:  End comment, reintroducing the interviewee.