The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Pathein

Myanmar's junta Saturday held a vote on a new constitution, ignoring pleas to focus on delivering urgently needed food supplies to 1.5 million cyclone victims facing disease and hunger.

The referendum being held in all but the most devastated parts of the country is the first balloting to take place in Myanmar since the disallowed elections in 1990, in which democratic icon Aung San Suu Kyi secured a landslide victory.

Voting was postponed by two weeks in the former capital of Yangon, as well as most of the Irrawaddy delta where Cyclone Nargis struck last week, leaving 65,000 dead or missing according to the junta's count.

Although Myanmar says it will now accept aid from the United States, it has tussled with the World Food Programme over unloading UN supplies, triggering a brief suspension of the global body's relief flights Friday.

"My understanding is that it has not yet been released into our hands, but we are working around the clock to get access," Marcus Prior, a Bangkok-based spokesman for WFP, said of a vital UN aid shipment impounded by authorities.

"We have people who know how to work these channels, and they are," he said as the supplies-enough high-energy biscuits to feed 95,000 survivors-remained stuck at Yangon airport more than 24 hours after being delivered.

"It is frustrating but that doesn't mean we're going to throw up our hands and give up. To the contrary-we're going to work harder," he said.

The UN has launched an emergency appeal for 187 million dollars to help the cyclone victims, but Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has not yet succeeded in speaking directly with the reclusive junta leader, Than Shwe, a UN source said.

The junta has also refused to allow in foreign aid workers to direct the relief effort, drawing condemnation from the UN and world leaders who urged the ruling generals to open their doors.

Than Shwe, 75, ignored calls to delay the referendum and allow in foreign experts, despite warnings that without international aid, people who survived the storm's onslaught in the delta could face a new tragedy as disease and hunger stalk the region.

Detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party has berated the junta for proceeding with the vote in the wake of the cyclone, with some polling stations in the delta set up just blocks from makeshift shelters crowded with evacuees whose homes were destroyed.

The regime says the charter will clear the way for democratic elections in two years, but critics say the document will ensure the generals remain dominant in a country that has been ruled by the military for nearly half a century.