The news about the damages from the cyclone in Myanmar is trickling in and it’s increasingly grim. As people deal with the logistics of how to properly distribute aid, the Yangon area is struggling to get back on its feet after the devastation caused by the cyclone. Meanwhile, in the midst of the efforts to provide relief to the victims of this catastrophe, politics rears its ugly head.
Here is an excerpt from a New York Times article I read yesterday by Seth Mydans and Helene Cooper:
Mr. Bush’s called for openness from Myanmar a day after his wife, Laura, criticized the country’s military leaders for not warning people before the cyclone hit on Saturday.
In reply, Australia’s foreign minister, Stephen Smith, was among those who urged countries to focus on helping Myanmar instead of criticizing its government. “The priority now is rendering assistance to thousands of displaced people who urgently need our assistance,” Mr. Smith said in Hong Kong.
Likewise, Joel Charny, vice president for policy at Refugees International, a Washington-based aid organization, said the Bush administration’s approach could be counterproductive. “To stand up and say, ‘One message is we want to help and the other message is the government is incompetent, and oh, by the way, tomorrow we’re giving a Congressional medal to Aung San Suu Kyi,’ well, that gets their back up,” Mr. Charny said. “I’m not saying the U.S. shouldn’t have concerns about democracy. I’m saying that the idea is you try to make it easier rather than harder for the regime to take on international assistance.”
In addition, Mr. Bush said he was prepared to use Navy warships and aircraft “to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation.” Still, he added, “In order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country.”
A Burmese political analyst called Mr. Bush’s condition “a cheap shot.” The analyst, Aung Nain Oo, who is based in Thailand, said: “The people are dying. This is no time for a political message to be aired. This is a time for relief. No one is asking for anything like this except the United States.”
Exactly. If the USA, or any country, wants to offer humanitarian aid, I think that is wonderful. But the aid shouldn’t come with strings attached, or accompanied by lectures. Just help the people that need it, and keep your political and religious agendas to yourself. But that seems to be an impossible task for the “holier than thou” contingent. You would think those idiots in the Bush administration would “get it” by now. But no, they continue their same style of inflammatory, derisive diplomacy; criticizing and ridiculing other countries, rather than making a sincere attempt to engage in constructive dialogue. That means sitting down and talking to the other country, not lecturing them and calling then bad names.
There have been suggestions by some officials that the UN should “intervene” and impose a resolution on Myanmar demanding that they accept relief teams into the country. An article in the International Herald Tribune offered response to this idea:
But the United Nations’ under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, resisted the idea of taking action to force Myanmar to open its doors, though he noted that 50 to 10 United Nations aid workers were awaiting word on their applications for visas.
“To be honest I’m not sure we’re at that stage at the moment,” Holmes said at a noon briefing on Wednesday. “We are having useful and constructive discussions with the authorities of Myanmar. It is moving in the right direction. We want it to move much faster, clearly. But I’m not sure it would help at this moment at least to embark on what could be seen by some people as a confrontational path.”
When a reporter from Al Jazeera asked why the United Nations should not simply going into Myanmar, “invited or not,” Holmes replied tartly, “I’m not sure that invading Myanmar would be a very sensible option at this particular moment.” He added: “Would it actually get aid to the people who are really suffering on the ground any quicker? Personally I doubt it.”
