Myanmar..where the price of life is so high!

Myanmar or known before with the name Burma is a southeast Asian country with about 50 million inhabitants. Since 1962, it has been under military rule after a coup d'etat from General Ne Win and since 1988 there is a junta (military led government) leading the country. News related to Myanmar covered the front pages when the cyclone Nargis hit this country with a result of 130.000 dead and missing people, thousands of injured ones and devastated villages and rice-growing areas. This disaster became more tragic once the junta did not allow international aid in form of food, medicine and other supplies to its people. United Nations says that there is an outburst of malaria and there are around 1 million people without shelter. Associated Press said that the military regime showed a part of the foreign aid as provided by the junta itself by showing the general handling aid to people himself. Even though the junta allowed the netrance of some foreign relief after a meeting with heads of state of ASEAN group member of which is also Myanmar, headed by Singapore. The problem now is that part of the food and medicine is going to be 'missing' or sold in the black market instead of being handled to the victims of cyclone Nargis.

Burma has always been critiziced for supressing its people and for human rights abuses by Crisis Watch and Amnesty International; the International Labor Organization announced that it will seek to prosecute members of junta for crimes against humanity at the International Court of Justice. A the same time, according to World Health Organization there was a humanitarian crisis in Burma even before the cyclon, many children are malnourished but after the cyclone this crisis has worsened. Burmese people use rice a lot and the devastated Irrawaddy delta was the source of rice production. For sure the future will be hard for the Burmese but many organizations are trying to provide enough food and water to prevent a possible outburst of famine.

For me it is very painful that the leader of a country which is facing a natural disaster keeps its people away from the emergency relief by saying that they are capable of handling the aftermath of the cyclone and that they are not ready to accept large-scale foreign assistance. This reminds me of the communist era in Albania when our dictator would say 'we better eat grass than accept aid from the imperialists'. Our dictator did not want to get something from an 'enemy' country and be obliged to give something back in return or face the risk of an influence or intervention from that country. This is the same case in Burma. The junta in fact is leading an authoritarian type of government by supressing human liberties and rights accompanied with political oppression. Apparently, they are afraid that US or any other country will 'invade' them for their oil resources or will 'intervene' and change their government. It is not fair that for the sake of some people sitting in the same chair, millions of others should suffer. Coercion may lead to fake respect but inhumanity will lead for sure to their destruction.