Unmitigated Disasters

No, I'm not talking about my job search. I'm talking about Myanmar and China. Is it just me, or has the whole world gone to hell in the past like 10 days? Yes, I know, I live in the United States and even with gas being really expensive, I still have rose-colored glasses for the poverty and dire straits of the majority of the human community. Still, I think things have gone from bad to worse in the past two weeks.

For those of you not up on the news (but read my blog... ok, so maybe that's no one), a huge cyclone hit Myanmar about 10 days ago, and now the death toll has reached 32,000 people. The government, an illegal military junta whose only apparent allies are China and Thailand (and even they probably don't like them very much), refuses to let disaster relief agencies and NGOs unfettered access into the country to give aid to the desperate, starving people. They are afraid someone will kick them out of power. Now, here's what I don't understand. Apparently over the weekend, they had a referendum on whether or not these guys can stay in power. Of course, any opposition is brutally oppressed, like the Buddhist monks beaten some years ago for protesting the dictatorship. Thus, the vote was probably not honest. No shock there - as if without the cyclone it would have been honest. But the real thing that confuses me about this whole thing is this: wouldn't they look much better as a government if they LET PEOPLE INTO THE COUNTRY TO HELP THE CITIZENS NOT DIE? I mean, I get the whole iron-grip-on-power thing, but if the people weren't pissed off at them enough, now they're letting them die by the thousands. Think they're going to be happy about that? I predict, if the international community doesn't launch a humanitarian attack (yes, you heard me) first, a massive riot and political upheaval possibly in the next year. A people cannot stand being oppressed and denied basic human rights for very long. I would venture a guess that they wouldn't mow down the entire population of a country, and I think it's fair to say that there are more people than government officials. I'd take the public in that fight.

The second disaster was a massive - 7.9 on the Richter scale - earthquake in the Sichuan province of China. China, contrary to previous disasters, has been pretty upfront about the problems they now have with regard to rescue operations, and they have even been (we think) honest about the death toll. I think it's pretty obvious they are feeling international pressure to speak plainly about their need - if they have it - for aid considering a) the Myanmar situation and b) the upcoming Olympics. Perhaps people will be kinder to China if they open up a little. This is very good PR for an isolated, repressive society. Now, if only they'd extend their openness to human rights abuses and get to work on fixing them up. After cleaning up after the quake, I suppose that's the next item on their agenda.

While the US might previously have been in a position to launch an assault on Myanmar to forcefully get aid workers in to help the people, with American troops overstretched around the world and in Iraq, we are paralyzed, at least should it come to an out-and-out military conflict with the Burmese government. I guess it shows that one unmitigated disaster - Iraq - prohibits us from preventing another unmitigated disaster - Myanmar.

Of course, considering how well we did in aiding Katrina victims, other countries have every right to not want US involvement in their disasters. Yes, our own unmitigated disaster, and things are still not normal down there more than two years later. Our very own cyclone of epic proportions. Now, imagine if the world community had decided to invade the US because our government was not doing enough for the victims of that hurricane... Imagine if US citizens had risen up to overthrow our government in the wake of such inaction and ineptitude. What would have happened then?