This situation must immediately be rectified to avoid a greater humanitarian catastrophe: the international community must press the junta to immediately remove restrictions on visa applications for relief workers, and to allow freedom of movement for expatriate relief workers, and free distribution of food supplies.

For the homeless and displaced, however, the immediate effects of the cyclone are being made more acute by the decision of the Burmese junta to delay and in some cases to seize aid being flown in and to refuse visas to staff of international relief agencies.

Beyond the immediate crisis of shelter and clean water, however, this disaster poses longer-term challenges for the international community. There are lessons for us from the relief effort of the Asian tsunami.

In Aceh, the tsunami led to a peace process which ended a decades-long civil conflict. In Sri Lanka, it contributed to the apparently permanent breakdown of the peace process, and the resumption of full-scale war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (or Tamil Tigers).

While it is too early to know the political ramifications of this disaster for Burma, the international community should ensure first that they do no harm through their relief efforts; that the aftermath of this disaster does not further entrench the repressive practices of the current regime.

First, if and when international aid agencies are allowed on the ground, they should try to link as much as possible with Burmese civil society. Contact between international agencies and Burmese society has the potential to open up one of the region’s most closed countries—which would be welcome. Contact between the international community and many parts of the Burmese government could also prove a positive development.

Second, international humanitarian assistance must be provided in a way which respects and protects the fundamental rights to housing of those displaced. Under international law, displaced people have the right to return to their original houses and land, unless return is factually impossible. If going home is genuinely impossible, then people have the right to adequate alternative housing—close to their livelihoods, and education and health facilities, with access to clean water and sanitation. The international community must influence the reconstruction policy in Burma to reflect these rights wherever possible.

In Sri Lanka, while there was much to be pleased with in the response of the government and international community, some people displaced by the tsunami are still languishing in camps, some four years after the wave hit. Some relocation sites were poorly constructed, or in locations where communities could not make a living. Inevitably, people leave these sites and find themselves displaced once again.

There is every reason for grave concern about ongoing displacement in Burma, since the State Peace and Development Council (or SPDC)—Burma’s military junta—has a terrible record in this regard. Before Cyclone Nargis hit, there were already an estimated one million people displaced Burmese, mostly from Burma’s many ethnic minorities.

This displacement was caused by the Burmese military’s counterinsurgency tactics in the civil conflicts it is fighting and by their policy of military self-sufficiency, where poor villagers are forced to provide food, labor and land to the military. Development projects, such as dams, mines and oil pipelines have also caused mass displacement and other violations of human rights. Some communities have been displaced more than 100 times in the past 50 years.

These displaced people, who are located both inside the country and in camps around its borders, are supported by a remarkable group of organizations, like the Thai Burma Border Consortium. The needs of these people—and their right to one day return home— should not be forgotten today.

These past few days show the importance of the role of the international community in responding to the crisis in Burma, and the difficulties they will face in dealing with the Burmese government. There will still be much to be done once tents, food and clean water are on the ground.

These past few days also remind us in the starkest possible way that the basic rights of the Burmese people, including their rights to housing, can only be protected through sustained political change in that country.

Dan Nicholson is an Australian lawyer who coordinates the Asia and Pacific Programme of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), a Geneva-based international human rights organization. COHRE’s 2007 report on Forced Displacement in Burma is available at www.cohre.org/burma