OT: UN suspends aid to Myanmar

[Jeff da Weasel]

Apparently, the Myanmar junta government is confiscating all supplies being flown in by the UN. I don't get angry too much about global events that I can't affect, but this is ridiculous. We're looking at maybe 100,000 dead people and many times more than that needing immediate help, and all efforts to provide aid are for nothing.

 

It's beyond sick, beyond wrong.

 

Source

[Billster]

More

 

Textbook case of how to make a bad situation worse. These dictator governments will do anything to make sure their citizens fear them.

 

[/screed]

[Alndln2]

Awful situation. I hope these victims find some mercy somehow.

[Rabid]

Time to pull out of Iraq and head east. Way east.

[UstadKhanAli]

It's sickening. I so want the UN to send in troops and overthrow the sack of {censored} military junta in Burma.

 

You may have read that article I posted several months back about an author of an LA/OC Weekly article coming across uranium mines in Burma, who were in turn selling it to Iran.

 

I had the pleasure of meeting Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy and Nobel Peace Prize winner who has been kept in house arrest by the military dictatorship for most of the time since she's been elected. I wish she could somehow be the leader of Burma again, but unless outside forces intervene, the Burmese military will continue exploiting their people, letting cyclones kill them without helping anybody, moving whole villages, employing slave and prison labor with no justification, selling uranium to Iran, trading arms with Pakistan and China, and letting their people sink further into a morass of extreme poverty (Burma has one of the most impoverished populations in the world).

 

[Hard Truth]

Not too defend the Myamar government, but it appears that the propaganda machine is turning up the heat on the country, with condemnations from Laura Bush etc. Is the Bush administration really concerned about the people, or do they have designs on the uranium and other natural resources? Sorry to get political, but I think we need to be careful and skeptical about this.

[UstadKhanAli]

I wasn't initially going to post this, but I think it may be a good way to help people. I don't know very much about the avaaz.org people, but they've really helped those of us in the pro-Tibet movement by collecting petitions. Having been to Burma, I can definitely vouch for the fact that the monasteries are typically the only group of people that help the population of Burma (who in turn, of course, help sustain the monasteries). I contributed a little money a few days ago through them. Anyway, check this out if you want to contribute to aid in Burma that may actually make it there:

 

http://www.avaaz.org/en/

 

The cyclone that ripped through Burma left tens of thousands dead and a million homeless--a natural disaster made much worse by the failure of the military junta to warn or evacuate its people.

 

Now, the government has slowed the urgent process of providing humanitarian relief--so Avaaz is raising funds for the International Burmese Monks Organization, which will transmit funds directly to monasteries in affected areas.

 

In many of the worst-hit areas, the monasteries are the only source of shelter and food for Burma's poorest people. They have been on the front lines of the aid effort since the storm struck. Other forms of aid could be delayed, diverted or manipulated by the Burmese government--but the monks are the most trusted and reliable institution in the country.

[Jeff da Weasel]

Hard Truth, it's the UN (United Nations, not USA) that's being denied their ability to provide aid, not just the USA. I'm not going to argue about this at all; I don't "do" political discussions. I'd just like to see relief efforts not be thwarted for political reasons. Tens of thousands of people (or more) will certainly die unnecessary horrible deaths as a result. I don't see how any political reason would validate this.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Not too defend the Myamar government, but it appears that the propaganda machine is turning up the heat on the country, with condemnations from Laura Bush etc. Is the Bush administration really concerned about the people, or do they have designs on the uranium and other natural resources? Sorry to get political, but I think we need to be careful and skeptical about this.

 

 

I've been wondering about this too. However, I've chalked it up recent events: the monk uprising and now the military regime blocking and seizing UN aid supplies. However, it's always good to continually question what is going on, and why nations are waggling their finger at a nation. The U.S. has recently imposed freezing of assets of the military regime and has spoken out against the regime.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Hard Truth, it's the UN (United Nations, not USA) that's being denied their ability to provide aid, not just the USA. I'm not going to argue about this at all; I don't "do" political discussions. I'd just like to see relief efforts not be thwarted for political reasons. Tens of thousands of people (or more) will certainly die unnecessary horrible deaths as a result. I don't see how any political reason would validate this.

 

 

The Burmese military censors everything and tries to control all information coming in from the outside. Their newspapers and TV are a complete joke. They cover political grandstanding and delegates from China and Pakistan visiting. And shark attacks off the coast of Florida or concrete plants collapsing in Western nations...."important" information like that.

 

The population's primary source of information are backpackers, who often sneak in books and newspaper articles in their backpacks and leave them for people to read or speak to them in private (such as taxi rides, stores, monasteries, or other closed settings where backpackers and the local population would typically interact). It's there that you get asked questions such as "Does the world know what's going on here?" and ask questions about what is going on in the outside world.

 

Anyway, the point of this is that this is how the Burmese government controls the people. Through lack of information, through brute force, through information not getting out to the outside world. And it's working. People outside Burma, by and large, either don't give a {censored} or simply don't know about what is going on there.

 

And so when a disaster like this decimates Burma and puts 2000 square miles of Burma under water, the government doesn't know what to do. They don't really give a {censored} about their own people...that's just less people to deal with. They don't want outside intervention. They don't want to look bad because they're not helping...they just simply don't want to help. If UN troops and aide show up, people will see how {censored}ty things are, how the government doesn't do anything, how bad the people have it. And there will be an exchange of information, of outside ideas, of everything. And the military dictatorship doesn't want that. At all.

[Hard Truth]

Jeff the weasal wrote "Hard Truth, it's the UN (United Nations, not USA) that's being denied their ability to provide aid, not just the USA. I'm not going to argue about this at all; I don't "do" political discussions. I'd just like to see relief efforts not be thwarted for political reasons. Tens of thousands of people (or more) will certainly die unnecessary horrible deaths as a result. I don't see how any political reason would validate this."

 

I don't disagree with anything you say in that post. I'm just saying we need to be very wary and skeptical about any proposed solutions, beyond material aid such as food and shelter, to Myamar's problem proposed by the USA's government.

[Jeff da Weasel]

I'm wary and skeptical about anything I hear from any government.

[Gus Lozada]

Tens of thousands of people (or more) will certainly die unnecessary horrible deaths as a result.

 

 

I guess they will be finally relieved

 

 

I apologize for the horrible irony of my comment, but given the situation, I guess many will finally find some well-deserved rest.

[deanmass]

There is a great movie about Burma/Myanmar, and the strife there called Beyond Rangoon. I own it on VHS, but it is not out on DVD. Worth digging around for if yuo are interested..

[echoshock]

 

Not too defend the Myamar government, but it appears that the propaganda machine is turning up the heat on the country, with condemnations from Laura Bush etc. Is the Bush administration really concerned about the people, or do they have designs on the uranium and other natural resources? Sorry to get political, but I think we need to be careful and skeptical about this.

 

 

 

I think you watch too much CNN.

[Deef]

There's no real reason for me to have interest in Burma beyond any other foreign country, except for having picked up a book called "The Trouser People" several years ago. The author, Andrew Marshall, attempts to understand the colonial-era nation-building of British explorer George Scott by travelling through modern Myanmar (sometimes illegally), sitting imperialism and dictatorship beside one another for a good look at both.

 

One thing that I remember is that the Myanmar government would still, a half-century after independence, blame all shortcomings of their current infrastructure on the past evil colonial regime.

[Anderton]

The "SSS Political forum meter" is still in the green, take care it doesn't go into the yellow. Red closes the thread.

 

But I have to say, has anyone noticed the almost complete lack of personal attacks in some SSS threads about very heated and controversial topics? Frankly, I'm impressed. That's why these threads are staying open.

 

The general vibe seems to be that people are more interested in exchanging ideas in order to build a better database from which to draw their own conclusions than forcing their ideas on others.

 

"The truth shall set you free."

[UstadKhanAli]

A raving cyclone in Burma. A devastating 7.9 earthquake in China. Let's hope nothing else hits Asia or anywhere else soon.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

There's no real reason for me to have interest in Burma beyond any other foreign country, except for having picked up a book called "The Trouser People" several years ago. The author, Andrew Marshall, attempts to understand the colonial-era nation-building of British explorer George Scott by travelling through modern Myanmar (sometimes illegally), sitting imperialism and dictatorship beside one another for a good look at both. One thing that I remember is that the Myanmar government would still, a half-century after independence, blame all shortcomings of their current infrastructure on the past evil colonial regime.

 

 

When we were in Burma, many of the older people (not the government, so this doesn't contradict what you are saying at all) that we spoke to thought that things were much better under the British.

 

I also should add that one of the people that we were traveling with was a relative of Sir Hubert Rance, the last British governor of Burma.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Rance

[UstadKhanAli]

The general vibe seems to be that people are more interested in exchanging ideas in order to build a better database from which to draw their own conclusions than forcing their ideas on others.

 

 

Sounds very very good.

[John Sayers]

i think it's important to note where Burma sits - i.e between China and the Indian Ocean. I suspect China will continue to support the regime in Burma because of that association.

 

Tim Costello of World Vision updates us every evening about the situation, even though it was only a category 3 cyclone it hit the major rice growing region at the river delta so the damage was greater than normal. Their great fear is an outbreak of water born diseases like cholera or worse still, typhoid because whilst the water is receding the monsoon rains are due anytime now.

 

Fortunately World Vision was in there from the start as they have 600 Burmese employees who the military couldn't prohibit from bringing in aid.

 

Then there is the disastrous Chinese earthquake. I understand China has deployed 2 million from the military to assist. Reports of whole schools totally destroyed with all the students buried - a sad week for Asia.

[UstadKhanAli]

Avaaz.org is contributing money to the Burmese cyclone victims by giving it to the monasteries, who have been already providing aid and shelter. Seems like a good idea.

 

And World Vision is also in China, giving aid to the victims of that horrible earthquake.

[John Sayers]

The "SSS Political forum meter" is still in the green, take care it doesn't go into the yellow. Red closes the thread. But I have to say, has anyone noticed the almost complete lack of personal attacks in some SSS threads about very heated and controversial topics? Frankly, I'm impressed. That's why these threads are staying open. The general vibe seems to be that people are more interested in exchanging ideas in order to build a better database from which to draw their own conclusions than forcing their ideas on others. "The truth shall set you free."

 

What I find interesting is that there is no China thread in the political forum and the Burma one lasted a couple of days and then faded..

[UstadKhanAli]

Here's a NY Times article on the China earthquake, which discusses in part the openness of the Xinhua News Agency, pointing out the changes that may have occurred (please note that this is not the whole article below):

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/world/asia/14response.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Chinese Web sites remain heavily censored, and a brief flirtation with openness and responsiveness does not mean that China is headed toward Western-style democracy. On the contrary, if China manages to handle a big natural disaster better than the United States handled Hurricane Katrina, the achievement may underscore Beijing