07 May 2008

One way to solve the problem

According to the Telegraph, Burmese soldiers and police opened fire on rioters at infamous Insein Prison outside Rangoon after the cyclone swept through. Given that the storm killed some 65,000 people (assuming the missing didn't make it), the 36 who were shot in the prison won't even move the needle...
But, typically, the Burmese are balking at foreign aid. “The United Nations is asking the Burmese government to open its doors. The Burmese government replies: 'Give us money, we'll distribute it.’ We can’t accept that,” said the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, who is a co-founder of the aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières.
Burma’s rulers are deeply suspicious of the outside world, particularly the West, but after years of mismanagement, corruption and self-imposed economic isolation, the country’s infrastructure is creaking at the best of times, and their ability to distribute huge quantities of supplies across a vast area in dire circumstances is highly questionable. “The juxtaposition of the cyclone and the voting might cause many in Burma to feel this is an indication that the military should not be in power,” said David Steinberg, a Burma expert at Georgetown University in Washington. Many Burmese are deeply traditional, he pointed out, and the disaster could be taken to mean the current rulers had lost the 'mandate of heaven'.

Rico says let them all starve, if they won't see reason; when the government gets tired of tripping over dead people, or the citizens overturn the government, there'll be time enough to save the rest...
In the meantime, a number of charities have launched appeals to help the Burmese in the wake of this weekend's cyclone. You can donate online to the British Red Cross, www.redcross.org.uk; to Oxfam's emergency fund, www.oxfam.co.uk; to Christian Aid, www.christianaid.org.uk; and Save the Children, www.savethechildren.org.uk.

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