Horror in Burma

Myanmar's junta seized U.N. aid shipments Friday meant for a multitude of hungry and homeless survivors of last week's devastating cyclone, forcing the world body to suspend further help.

The aid included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits and arrived in Myanmar on Friday on two flights from Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates.

"All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated," U.N. World Food Program spokesman Risley said.

"For the time being, we have no choice but to end further efforts to bring critical needed food aid into Myanmar at this time," he said.

At least 62,000 people are dead or missing in Myanmar, entire villages are submerged in the Irrawaddy delta and aid groups warned that the area is on the verge of a medical disaster.

The U.N. has grown increasingly critical of Myanmar's military rulers' refusal to let foreign aid workers into the country while the junta appeared overwhelmed and more than 1 million homeless people waited for food, medicine and shelter.

"The frustration caused by what appears to be a paperwork delay is unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts," Risley said. "It's astonishing."

The junta said in a statement Friday it was grateful to the international community for its assistance — which has included 11 chartered planes loaded with aid supplies — but the best way to help was just to send in material rather than personnel.

Source.

 

I found this article in a Danish newspaper, which explains the junta's position.

Expert: Junta is clinging to control

The regime in Myanmar is afraid that the people will gain the courage to rebel if the country is invaded by relief workers, says expert.



What is the military junta of Myanmar thinking of?

Can't they see the huge disaster that has hit their country?

The growing number of lost lives these days and the tales of the enormous scope of the disaster seem to be sliding off the generals in Myanmar.

Control is the most important factor
The key word to an understanding of what is happening is Control.

Only through control can they maintain their iron grip on the people.

Which is why everything else comes in second place, tells several experts that politiken.dk have spoken to.

Afraid of resistance
»The situation in Myanmar at this time - no matter how critical it may be to the people - is, to the military junta, a matter of holding on to power at any cost. If large numbers of relief workers enter; firstly, the rest of the world will gain insight into the real scope of the disaster, and how little the military is doing to relieve the situation. But even worse: There is a risk that the people may gain courage and resist,« tells Mikael Gravers, ethnographer and assistant professor at the University of Aarhus.

It is through human contact that the people can see that there are other types of societies - with democracy and human rights.

Monks helped the victims
The military junta has refused to let relief workers into the country. But it has, over the last two days, received a few planes with relief aid - primarily through the UN. Authorities maintain that the country itself will organize the sharing of the aid. Today the UN has confirmed that the military has confiscated all the relief aid that was sent, and for this reason decided to halt flights into the country.

»The military's absence was evident already over the weekend. It was the monks who helped people - not the military. Now they want to be the ones dealing out the good stuff and seeing to it that their own supporters are first in line,« says Mikael Gravers.

Unwanted interference
Once the country had to open to relief workers and foreign press, reports on the country's condition would leak out in earnest. This would form the base for more critic, which in turn might start an avalanche with the people. This is why the regime keeps international society at a distance.

»They do not want to listen to the criticism from abroad. It is seen as direct insults and unwanted interference, tantamount to neocolonialism,« explains Mikael Gravers.

Suddenly they eat you
He explains that the military junta has its own control logic which means that they choose only to see the situation from their own perspective.

»These generals have been very little abroad, and their educational level is low. They are trained soldiers and for example have next to no university degrees, which could give them a general global perspective. So they are mostly thinking from within. This is why it is almost like speaking to lions and tigers and other wild animals: You can train them, but suddenly they eat you anyway. They only have their own logic, which they stubbornly hold on to, and that logic is about control,« tells Mikael Gravers.

 

Yeah, I read in the LA Times a couple days ago that they are continuing with their export of rice and giving their own people the rice that's been flooded and rotted.