Re: Myanmar (formerly Burma)

On Sun, 11 May 2008 11:13:49 -0700 (PDT), Veronique
<veroniqueunique@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
<f30387f9-e5b5-45ab-a846-f15c7eef2573@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:

>Yes, more or less. The biggest reason for opposition is Myanmar was
>imposed without referendum by the current military junta (the same
>junta which proved fairly indifferent to the effects of the recent
>cyclone on its population, and which is, right at the moment,
>restricting UN ****pments of aid to those affected.)

I'm a little surprised that the cyclone and the Burmese government's
reaction to offers of aid haven't become a major topic here. 

If I've understood the situation correctly from the news re****ts I've seen
the devastation is worse than that suffered by Aceh - the Sumatran
province
that was hit harder than anywhere else by the 2004 tsunami. There 170,000
were killed and half a million made homeless; in the cyclone-devastated
area
around the Irrawaddy Delta the UN-estimated death toll is already climbing
into six figures with another 220,000 re****ted as "missing"; as many as a
million people may be homeless and at risk from disease, food  shortages,
contaminated water, etc.. 

Meanwhile the Burmese government puts the dead and missing figures at
28,000
and 33,000 respectively; only a tiny pro****tion of its Army has yet
appeared
in the Delta (the infrastructure was pretty dire even before the cyclone
struck) and the government doesn't want to allow Western aid workers into
the country, so almost no-one with experience of estimating the scale and
nature of such a disaster, or of calculating what kinds of aid are most
needed and where, is on the ground. 

As far as I'm aware, only fairly small amounts of aid are arriving - from
Burma's few trading partners - and the scale of the existing distribution,
medical, and infrastructure repair operation would be wholly inadequate
even
if the Generals' official estimates were accurate. 

It would appear that while the Burmese government would be happy to accept
the delivery of western aid in the form of bags of food and boxes of
medicines in the sort of quantities they expect to be able offload by
hand,
they're damned if they'll accept expert *****sors, still less American
C130s
laden with trucks, lifting machinery and helicopters, and still less
journalists. 

If the impression I've been given is halfway accurate I get the feeling
that
the government's attitude is going to cost hundreds of thousands of lives
.... but we won't be allowed to count. 


Oh - one other thing: it appears that the cyclone is going to push the
already doubled world market price of rice on even higher. Burma is a
major
ex****ter but 2,000 square miles of paddy fields have just been inundated
with sea water, so the likelihood of widespread food riots and political
instability in countries such as Bangladesh, Egypt and Haiti has just
increased still further. 


-- 
Regards,  Peter Boulding
pjb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (to e-mail, remove "UNSPAM")
Fractal music & images: http://www.pboulding.co.uk/
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