Wreckage from the cyclone
(AP Photo)
Will Myanmar’s junta leaders be swept aside in the storm's aftermath?
What happened
The United Nations suspended aid shipments to Burma, also known as Myanmar, after the country’s military government seized food and equipment sent to relieve survivors of a cyclone that may have killed 100,000 people. Myanmar said it turned back one relief flight because it carried disaster assessment experts and unauthorized journalismts in addition to relief supplies. As of early Friday, government officials notorious for repression and keeping a tight grip on power have allowed in only 11 foreign flights, which relief workers said was nowhere near enough to keep conditions from worsening for the 1.5 million people in devastated areas. (The New York Times)
What the commentators said
Optimists saw a “silver lining” overhead after Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma, said Maureen Aung-Thwin in The Wall Street Journal. The overwhelming need of the people in the wake of the storm was supposed to “accomplish what the United Nations and decades of outside political and economic pressure have failed to—break the military's stranglehold on Burma's democratic movement and usher in a new era of greater cooperation with the outside world.” But “with each passing day” it becomes clearer that the generals have no intention of putting the needs of the people first.
Don’t give up hope, said The Boston Globe in an editorial (free registration). “France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, called Wednesday for the United Nations to act on its 'responsibility to protect' by delivering aid to the people of Burma—even if the ruling junta continues withholding visas for aid workers.” The military junta is reciting “the mantra of most authoritarian or irresponsible regimes” and warning foreigners not to violate its sovereignty, but France’s “move may goad the nations of the world to insist that the junta let outsiders save the people of Burma,” since the generals refuse to do it themselves.
“The calamity is too great to long resist outside help,” said the San Francisco Chronicle in an editorial. “The loss of life, once pegged at a grisly 22,000, is now put at an incomprehensible 100,000;” another 41,000 are missing; 1 million are homeless. The international community will soon have no choice but to barge in if the despots continue resisting the “simple imperative” of opening their doors to life-saving supplies and expertise. “One thing the junta fears more than a tropical cyclone is loss of control,” but we’re all in for the satisfaction of watching as “Myanmar's despots get shoved aside.”
