What the heck is going on with the government of this country?? Major Cyclone hits and major devastation occurs…outside countries have supplies, water, food medicine etc. that they want to donate but they are not allowed into the country! WHY???
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080509/D90IE0RO1.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-river-of-death-825404.html?r=RSS
Well, Myanmar–which I still think of as Burma, is ruled by a right wing military junta. They have followed an agressivly isolationist policy.
This Junta isn’t exactly the most popular in the world, among it’s people.
They are accepting donations in kind, and are putting stickers on them, to obscure their origins and say they are being sent by various generals in the junta. Moreover, they are sending relief, not to where it’s most needed but to where they have the most support–food as a weapon and propaganda tool. Horrible, but common in third world dictatorships.
They would be better served to use their military to bring the relief supplies to where it is most needed, in a highly visible way, and tell the people that despite their distrust of the rigime, the Gov. still cares for them–it would help them out more than anything else.
They don’t want forign relief workers distributing aid because they would lose control over where it went, and because they feel it would weaken their hold over the people–which is maintained by all the classic tools of dictatorship.
The Burmese (the U.S. doesn’t recognize the change to “Myanmar”) military junta is much like the autocracies in many African states in that it excels in one thing and one thing only: keeping itself in power. It’s also a xenophobic government; why else did it kick out all journalists before it mowed down the democracy activists 20 years ago.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that all of the above means more to the junta than the well-being of its citizenry.
The US and British or part of the problem albeit
only part
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/052200-01.htm
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/03/24/burma15557.htm
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/01/11/burma17729.htm
are we not always part of a problem somewhere in the world? and the british are at the root of many problems too…
Sad!