StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

Myanmar Tragedy Worsens

When I wrote that the situation in Burma would get worse before it got better, I didn’t expect that the military junta would start stealing the relief food and equipment to sell it for their own benefit. As a result, the UN suspended operations. This comes after the military government agreed to receive aid but not allow relief workers to enter the country.

“Myanmar is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment,” the statement, from the Foreign Ministry, said. “But at present Myanmar is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing it to the storm-hit regions with its own resources.”

The human tragedy could reach 100,000 dead. If there was ever a reason to take action to topple a repressive government, this situation should warrant it. But who?

“The situation is profoundly worrying,” said Mr. Holmes, the United Nations official in charge of the relief effort, speaking in unusually candid language for a diplomat. “They have simply not facilitated access in the way we have a right to expect.”

Mr. Holmes’s predecessor in that job, Jan Egeland, said, “children are going to die from diarrhea because of this government’s inaction.”

In what can only be seen as more “window dressing,” it seems that the National Consitutional Referendum will proceed this weekend.

A nationwide referendum on a draft constitution will be held in Myanmar on Saturday as scheduled, with people across the country set to go to poll, except those residing in the declared natural-disaster-hit regions.

As 40 townships in Yangon division and 7 in the southwestern Ayeyawaddy division are under declared natural-disaster-hit regions status, ballot casting in these areas is postponed to a fortnight later on May 24.

The diaster areas represent 13 of the 57 million voters in the country. Something is wrong here.

IMO, it is times like this that a truly global body would act decisively and move to save the children of this country…and while they’re at it, assassinate the entire group of military “leaders.”