Ten thousands
Burmese Americans, who live in New York and 100,000 in
California or many others from different parts of the United
States, are desperately scrambling to organize relief to their
ravaged homeland, but not being able to help directly.
Even three flights
under U.N's World Food Program in
Bangkok, were waiting to take off from
Dubai,
Dhaka, and Thailand with
50 tons of biscuits on May 08, 2008, four days after the cyclone
hit, but there was no immediate flight clearance from the
military junta for the first major airlift of international aid.
Although Myanmar's
generals, traditionally paranoid about foreign influence, issued
an appeal for international assistance after the deadly storm
struck on Saturday, preferably bilateral,
government to government and blocked any individual or
undesignated organization’s assistance, but they have since
dragged their feet on issuing visas to relief workers even as
survivors face hunger, disease, and flooding in the hardest hit
Irrawaddy delta. International organizations with access to
Myanmar, such as the International Red Cross,
UNICEF, the
International Rescue Committee
and the International Medical Corps, or other organizations
under UN, are trying to persuade the government to issue more
visas to speed the aid to sites where it is most needed.
The Saturday
Cyclone Nargis killed at least 22,980 people and left 42,119
missing, says Myanmar's state media. But according to a top U.S.
diplomat on Wednesday, more than 100,000 may have perished. This
is the most devastating cyclone in Asia since 1991 when a storm
killed 143,000 in neighboring
Bangladesh. Myanmar's
Irrawaddy delta town of Labutta,
the area hardest hit by the cyclone that struck over the
weekend, has been virtually washed away by the 12, 13, and even
20 feet high waves.
As the scale of the
disaster in Burma now becomes clear, questions are being asked
over how much, the authorities knew about the magnitude of the
approaching storm. “Although they were aware of the threat,
Burma’s state-run media failed to issue a timely warning to
citizens in the storm’s path,” the US First Lady Laura Bush
accused the military government like many others who think the
same around the world.
However, a
statement in state television declined any charge against them
and said timely weather reports were announced and aired through
the television, and radio in order to keep the people safe and
secure in nationwide, but Burmese citizens complained that they
were not properly alerted and no instructions were given as to
what action they should take. Officials from the UN's disaster
reduction agency in Geneva also believe as the scale of the
devastation suggests there was not a proper early warning
system. India's meteorological agency, which monitors cyclones
in the Indian Ocean, said it warned the Burmese authorities
about the cyclone’s severity 48 hours before the storm struck.
The
cyclone is the deadliest natural disaster to hit Myanmar in
recorded history, according to a U.N.-funded disaster database
that includes figures from the past century.
Lack of clean water and poor sanitation in the
wake of the disaster increases the risk of diarrhea, especially
for children and floods can drive mosquito breeding, leading to
outbreaks of malaria and dengue fever, according to UNICEF.
The
military government is not
allowing aid workers to move around the country without
permission. In addition, government and private offices were
unable to function with power cut off and staff absent. There
was some anger on the storm-ravaged streets of Yangon at soaring
food prices and long queues for petrol.
According to the
UNICEF Executive
Director Ann Veneman, in situations such as these, people are
highly vulnerable to disease and hunger, and they need immediate
help to survive.
The junta, which
rules Myanmar as a closed society, has always taken great pains
to not even allow tourists to speak to ordinary Burmese people
on issues such as democracy and human rights.
Last September, the military violently cracked down on Buddhist
monk-led demonstrations, killing 31 people and triggering
international outrage. Aung San Suu Kyi, who is a Nobel Laureate
for peace in 1991 and has become an international symbol of
heroic and peaceful resistance in the face of oppression, is
under house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years,
following her party’s sweeping victory in 1990 elections that
the junta ignored.
Reflecting the
scale of the crisis, the junta said it would postpone by two
weeks a constitutional referendum in the worst-hit areas.
However, the referendum, part of the army's much-criticized
"roadmap to democracy," would proceed as planned elsewhere on
Saturday. The regime plans a referendum on its constitution in
May; leading up to what it says will be national parliamentary
elections in 2010. But critics say if it proceeds under current
conditions, the constitutional referendum they have planned
should not be seen as a step toward freedom, but rather as a
confirmation of the unacceptable status quo. The constitution
that Burmese are now being urged, to vote for has been drafted
only by regime supporters.
Aid groups and
governments, including U.S. President
George W. Bush, asked the military to relax their tight
grip to allow humanitarian assistance into Myanmar, which has
been ruled by the military for 46 years. United States and
France complained about
Myanmar's reluctance to accept direct aid. But they hoped that
the military would realize to accept aid from everybody they
could possibly accept it from and may be that will be the
something good that can come out of this terrible destruction.
Autocratic
regimes always try to underplay the scale of humanitarian
disasters and, in shunning international assistance as a display
of national ego, cause even more needless loss of life. The
response to the cyclone is just the most recent example of the
junta’s failure to meet its people’s basic needs.
General Than
Shwe’s regime should remind that a country cannot subsist
without people.
