* West hits out at Suu Kyi detention

* U.N. says raises 60 percent of $200 mln aid target

* Signs of junta thawing over foreign aid access

(Adds French comments on Suu Kyi, U.N. on aid, colour from rice farmers)

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON, May 28 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military has started to bury cyclone victims in communal graves, villagers said on Wednesday, as Western nations pledged to keep aid flowing despite anger at its detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The former Burma has been promised millions of dollars in Western help since Cyclone Nargis, but this cut no ice with the junta regarding the Nobel laureate, who has been under house arrest or in prison for nearly 13 of the last 18 years.

Officials drove to Suu Kyi's lakeside Yangon home on Tuesday to read out an extension order in person, but it was unclear whether the extension was for six months or a year.

"It is more likely one year," said a senior police source close to officials in charge of the 62-year-old's detention.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who just returned to New York from an aid mission in Myanmar, expressed disappointment but refrained from sharp criticism in light of the disaster, which left 134,000 dead or missing and 2.4 million destitute.

"The sooner restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi and other political figures are lifted, the sooner Myanmar will be able to move toward ... restoration of democracy and full respect for human rights," he said.

Western nations were more forthright in their criticism of Suu Kyi's ongoing detention.

U.S. President George W. Bush said he was "deeply troubled" by the extension and called for the more than 1,000 political prisoners in Myanmar to be freed. However, the State Department said it would not affect U.S. cyclone aid.

France demanded Suu Kyi's immediate release.

"France calls on the Burmese authorities to free without delay Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, the leaders of the opposition and political prisoners, notably those who have been arrested in recent days," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani told reporters.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won a 1990 poll by a landslide only to be denied power by the military, which has ruled the impoverished country for 46 years.

MASS BURIALS

Few had expected Suu Kyi to be released, but the extension was a reminder of the junta's refusal to make any concessions on the domestic political front despite its grudging acceptance of foreign help after the May 2 cyclone.

Witnesses say many villages have received no outside help, and the waterways of the former Burma's "rice bowl" remain littered with bloated and rotting animal carcasses and corpses.

There has been no official word on plans to dispose of bodies, but villagers said soldiers brought about a dozen corpses to two sites for burial in Khaw Mhu, 40 km southwest of Yangon.

"The soldiers told everyone to shoo, to go away," one local woman said, adding that bodies were covered with "white powder" and then concreted over.

In Dedaye, also in the delta, a boatman said there were around 40 or 50 dead bodies in one waterway.

"We did the burial ourselves. If I know the dead person, I'll bury his body. If he knows the other dead person, he'll bury it."

ACCESS IMPROVING, SAYS U.N.

Three weeks after the cyclone's 120 mph (190 kph) winds and sea surge devastated the delta, the United Nations said it had raised roughly 60 percent of its initial $200 million target for aid and relief workers were getting more access.

"We've reached just over a million people with some kind of aid," U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes told reporters.

Junta leader Senior General Than Shwe promised U.N. chief Ban last week that he would allow all legitimate foreign aid workers access to victims across the country.

U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said on Wednesday the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had reported that Myanmar had approved all remaining visa requests for various U.N. agencies. There had been 45 of those pending, Okabe said.

"To date, OCHA estimates that more than 40 percent of the 2.4 million cyclone survivors have received some type of assistance from local, national or international actors," she said, adding that the U.N. agency expected relief efforts to last for at least another six months.

Getting rice farmers back on their feet would be a crucial part of that effort.

In the Irrawaddy delta, farmers are struggling against huge odds to plant a new crop to avoid long-term food shortages.

"We have only until June to plant the main rice crop," one farmer called Huje said in the village of Paw Kahyan Lay, 40 km (25 miles) southwest of Yangon.

"Our fields are flooded with salt-water and we have no water buffalo to plough with," the 47-year-old said, standing with his daughter in the ruins of their home.

Myanmar has appealed for $243 million in aid to get rice farmers back on the land, and $20 million for new livestock. (Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau and Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations, Darren Schuettler in Bangkok and Brian Rohan in Paris; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by David Fogarty)

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