One week after Cyclone Nargis unleashed devastating 120-mph winds, sending 12-foot waves over Myanmar's low-lying Irrawaddy River Delta region in the Bay of Bengal, desperate survivors huddle under a few coconut palm leaves they've tied together, their only protection from the elements in an area where 95 percent of the buildings were destroyed.
Far away on higher ground in the isolated capital city of Naypyidaw, the country's ruling military leaders are still deciding how much emergency aid – high-energy biscuits, water-purification pills and medicines – will be allowed to reach their people. This is turning a huge natural disaster that already may have claimed at least 22,000 lives into a colossal man-made one that could see 100,000 die and an estimated 1.5 million suffer.
The tragedy is that other nations can do little to help the people of Myanmar, formerly Burma, without the military junta's permission. Even though in 2005 the United Nations formally acknowledged a responsibility to help people left unprotected by their government, a Security Council proposal this week to send aid in defiance if Myanmar's rulers was blocked by China, Russia, South Africa and Vietnam.
Myanmar rulers want full control of relief operations. Myanmar's ambassador to the United Nations, Kyaw Tint Swe, said yesterday that his nation intends to cooperate with the international community. “It has to be orderly and systematic,” he said. And controlled by his insecure government, one that violently put down peaceful demonstrations by Buddhist monks last year.
Yesterday, the Myanmar government said it would allow one U.S. cargo plane to bring food and other supplies into the country. After temporarily freezing its aid flights after the government confiscation of several others, the United Nations also agreed to resume flights.
As much as most of the world would like to change the government in Myanmar, one of the world's poorest countries, the priority now must be on getting in aid. The only way to do that is through the country's seemingly uncaring rulers, as repugnant as that may be.
