Myanmar says aid and rescue workers aren’t needed, but they’d like stuff and money:

Myanmar will accept foreign aid but distribute relief itself, an official newspaper said on Friday, after a disaster rescue team from Qatar that arrived in Yangon on an aid flight was turned back.

“Myanmar is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment,” the government-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper said in a report on the aid operation slowly building up for survivors of Cyclone Nargis.

“But at present Myanmar is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing them to the storm-hit regions with its own resources,” the newspaper said.

So other countries are supposed to think that the military dictator and generals will do the right thing? I’m very skeptical. Once aid (either in goods or money) is given, the junta can do whatever they want with it, and nobody will be able to check on them to ensure that the victims received shelter, food, water and so on. Completely insane, I tell you. I can totally understand why some donors are very hesitant because they’re worried that their donation may be diverted for things other than helping the cyclone victims.