Political Obstacles Slow Disaster Aid for Myanmar
The nation's military dictators are wary of admitting foreigners to help with relief efforts
Officials in Myanmar are still struggling to count the dead from a monster tropical cyclone that swept through over the weekend, but efforts to aid the survivors have been hampered by the slow response from a military junta that is notoriously suspicious of outsiders.
Amid estimates that the death toll from the storm topped 22,000, the government of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) said that it welcomed humanitarian aid from "friendly" countries. But aid workers had trouble getting visas to enter the country. United Nations relief officials, along with a team of U.S. disaster assessment officials, were stalled by visa delays.
Myanmar's deep reluctance to admit the additional teams left a small number of aid workers already in the country struggling to cobble together deliveries of food and water to as many as 1 million people left homeless. "This regime is extremely paranoid and isolated and xenophobic," says Derek Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The prospect of having all kinds of people from all over the world doing work they cannot really control or even monitor is troubling to them."
The U.S. military offered to send Navy ships to aid in relief efforts. But the regime in Myanmar might not find that to be a reassuring offer, particularly after listening to years of senior U.S. officials' condemnations of the country's military leaders. "Even under the best of circumstances, nations that know the United States is out to get them would be suspicious," says Mitchell.
Unsurprisingly, aid groups are reluctant to criticize Myanmar's regime too publicly because they fear losing whatever access to the country they have been granted. But aid workers are growing increasingly worried about the delays. "Everything hinges on access," says Greg Beck, the Asia regional director for the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid group. "The international aid community needs to get staff and supplies into devastated communities rapidly if we're going to avert further deaths."
Maung Maung Swe, Myanmar's minister for social welfare, said the government has a process that must be followed. "For expert teams from overseas to come here, they have to negotiate with the Foreign Ministry and our senior authorities," he told a news conference.
But with tens of thousands of people without access to clean drinking water, food, or shelter, aid groups are worried about the scale of the disaster. "Prices of basic foods, including rice, have already doubled in the last few days, which is very worrying for a population who have already been living under precarious circumstances before the cyclone," notes Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian aid group with teams inside Myanmar.
Even for relief workers already stationed in the country, access to the worst-hit areas is difficult, both for assessment teams and for those bringing in relief supplies. Many of the main roads have been destroyed, and there is limited access to other means of transport.
The slow response by Myanmar's pariah military junta is another black eye for a government recently under public scrutiny for its violent suppression of monks leading democracy protests.
A bungled response "could create new tensions and fissures" inside Myanmar, says Mitchell. "But that's a possibility we see no evidence of yet."
Reader Comments
USA in Burma?
We have put ourselves in the world issues forever. It makes me proud to know that until the last few years most of the world respected what we stood for and that we do stand up for those that can't for themselves. Lately we have pushed ourselves into places that we had no business being to try to make the world bend to our own way of life. Probably, at this time our approval rating is as low as the president's. We have lost the respect that our forefathers worked and bled so much to earn for so long. Until we can make good on our own integrity and character again we will never get that back.
I come from a long line of military, both men and women, of all branches of the services. My son serves now in the USMC. I believe that it would do them a lot of good to go to help people and make a positive difference. Not just to go as the bullies that we have become. No, I do not believe that we need to invade yet another country. I believe we need to become more trustworthy so that other countries will except help in good faith without having to feel the need to watch thier backs as well as the backs of the neighbors they have.
Please, stay proud of our troops and give them all the support you can! Remember that you only have the rights that they are willing to defend!
Part II: Weighting the Alternative Options and the Potential Costs in Human Life
Part II: Weighting the Alternative Options and the Potential Costs in Human Life
If the advent of 4,000 US marines into Burmese territory [and probably other Western military forces to follow suit] encourages the regime opponents to make another attempt at their infamous dream of toppling the regime in a people’s power revolution, politicizing the disaster and capitalizing their presence, the presence of international aid workers and the usually huge attention of international media, leading to the combat operations of the foreign troops inside and the subsequent military intervention, how many people do you think will die as a result of fighting and shooting? The rosy scenario is that the Burmese military government in a remote location will be overthrown in no time (like Saddam’s) and the return to normalcy will be speedy and the successful reconstruction efforts will be convincing and persuasive enough to sway the public opinion later. Did they also tell you that GIs will be welcomed as liberators with flowers and candies? How many people do you think will die if the Burmese military retreat and engage in guerilla warfare (the urban guerilla warfare like in Iraq and the jungle guerilla warfare like in Vietnam)?
However well-intentioned U.S and our American friends may be in offering to send 4000 US marines for relief operations inside Burma, we will have to, as we should, reject your offer. The U.S government should concentrate its efforts in the realistic and pragmatic ways and means to help my fellow Burmese cyclone victims rather than attempting to open up the feel-good, unrealistic, and dangerous channels of helping us.
Thanks a lot but NO, thanks again.
Part I: Weighting the Alternative Options and the Potential Costs in Human Life
Part I: Weighting the Alternative Options and the Potential Costs in Human Life
Knowing how my folks survived in the past and how good they are at their own survival, I would rather let them take the chance with some cholera, diarrhea, etc. than letting the Burmese military government confront with 4000 US marines. (Amy Kazmin and Howard Schneider, U.S. Tries to Persuade Burma to Accept Aid: Military Offers to Deploy Up to 4,000 U.S. Marines, Washington Post, Monday, May 12, 2008; 1:14 PM)
If the sanitation and unclean water causes the disaster-related diseases like cholera, diarrhea, some Burmese are going to die, but NOT as many as the outside world think or NOT as many as the fighting between the troops would cause. Which water do you think my fellow Burmese in the delta region had drunk before the cyclone? Where do you think they had discarded their urines and excretions before the cyclone? Yes, the floating, decomposing, dead bodies of human and animals (a lot of them currently in the water) are unusual and increase the chance of disease outbreak. However, if the dead bodies were to cause us the deadly diseases, we would have never been born because our ancestors would have never been born. Where do you think our ancestors had, well into the second half of the 20th century, disposed the corpses of their loved ones if the cremation is unaffordable? In addition, the smelly corpses naturally repel anyone to seek their drinking and cleaning water away from them.
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