Since security is all about preventing any major threat to human life, the effect of the deadly cyclone that hit Burma last Saturday must be seen from a serious human security perspective. However, the Burmese military junta is far from comprehending such a humane concept.
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The ruling junta denies lifesaving aid to its own people.
A horrific crime is being carried out by the clique of generals that rules Burma, with the world as witness. According to the United Nations, some 1.5 million people near the country’s southern coast are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance following Cyclone Nargis last weekend. Tens of thousands are dead, and 1 million or more are homeless. The few reports reaching the outside world from the Irrawaddy Delta region, where 2,000 square miles are underwater, speak of thousands of refugees camped in the open without food, medicine or clean water amid the stench of rotting bodies. (more…)
Long before the catastrophic cyclone smashed into Burma and brought down the already feeble nation to its knees, the core of the military organization suffered a serious blow last September. During the monks’ uprising, a Burmese diplomat privately expressed his sympathy for the monks uprising and his worries about the affect of western sanctions on his family. He did not approve of the killing of the monks and he was unhappy to be identified with the generals who had ordered the killing. (more…)
A US air drop of humanitarian aid to the desperate survivors in the Irrawaddy delta—with or without Burma’s permission—is the only way to save lives that hang in the balance with each passing hour. (more…)
The secretary-general of the United Nations and the leaders and foreign ministers of many nations including the United States, China, France and the UK have all urged the Burmese regime to allow international aid into the country to help the victims of Cyclone Nargis. (more…)
In the eyes of Burma’s military rulers, everyone is a potential enemy. Even foreign aid workers. (more…)
As a major humanitarian crisis in Burma unfolds and the death tool reaches 100,000, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Burmese military government is not doing enough to save lives.
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On May 10 most of the people of Burma will go to the polls in a referendum on a new constitution. This constitution aims to cement in place a regime (now styled the ‘State Peace and Development Council,’ or SPDC) that has impoverished this once prosperous land. (more…)
Four days after cyclone Nargis, large areas of southern Burma remain paralyzed, including the country’s largest city, Rangoon, and international aid agencies fear that unless large-scale relief rapidly reaches the survivors the death toll could soar yet again.
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For Burma’s normally reclusive military rulers, resented by their own citizens and mistrustful of the outside world’s intentions, the devastation wrought by tropical cyclone Nargis has posed an uncomfortable dilemma at a sensitive political moment.
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The devastating cyclone that killed at least 22,000 people in Myanmar is driving up the cost of basic commodities and could stir fresh protests against the country’s military rulers, who violently put down a pro-democracy uprising last year. (more…)
It is impossible not to hope that the catastrophe in Burma undermines one of the most oppressive and unpleasant dictatorships in the world. There are a few reasons why it might, although the regime’s brutal resilience means that this can be only a slim chance. (more…)
Burma, devastated by cyclone Nargis, is undergoing a national disaster that is beyond politics. (more…)
The deadly cyclone that ripped into Myanmar poses a threat to the stranglehold on power of the country’s ruling generals, becoming a force for change more powerful than huge pro-democracy demonstrations and international sanctions. (more…)
By all accounts, Cyclone Nargis has devastated Burma - a 12-foot wall of water swept away entire villages, leaving the coastal plain under water, thousands dead, missing or homeless, and much of the capital city of Rangoon without electricity or water. (more…)
After three decades of conflict and civil war in Indonesia’s restive province of Aceh came to a relatively rapid political solution in the aftermath of December 2004’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, the concept of natural disasters as paving the road for conflict transformation has gained in both adherents and interest. But, as this brief comparison between the situation in Aceh in 2004 and that of Burma today will make clear, there is scant evidence for optimism in the devastation of Cyclone Nargis proving the memorable catalyst of a solution to Burma’s ills. (more…)
The response by the Burmese regime to this weekend’s cyclone disaster shows that the junta is incapable of running the country, let alone helping the victims. (more…)
It is not often that there is fair warning of a comprehensive abuse of political rights. But in Burma, we know the day that this abuse will take place: This coming Saturday. This is the day of the referendum called by Burma’s military regime on the draft constitution it has prepared. (more…)
Burma, once the richest countries in Southeast Asia, today is mired in deep poverty — its economy ruined by nearly 50 years of economic mismanagement under military rule. And yet, over the last few years Burma has also emerged as a significant producer of energy in Southeast Asia. Thanks to large fields of recoverable natural gas located offshore, Burma now earns substantial foreign exchange revenues. At present, most of these revenues ($1 billion to 1.5 billion per year, depending on price fluctuations) come from Thailand. Gas from Burma, piped onshore from the Gulf of Martaban, generates around 20 percent of Bangkok’s electricity supply. (more…)
On May 10, Burma goes to the polls to vote on a new constitution; a constitution that very few people have actually seen, and certainly one which cannot be criticised publicly. The whole process is a farce according to most independent observers, including the UN official responsible for monitoring Burma’s human rights situation for the last seven years. (more…)