Photo -- copyright Citizen Journalist -- Burma.Is anybody there, does anybody care?”
Line from musical play 1776.
The secondary death toll from the Burmese junta’s blocking Cyclone Nargis survivors from receiving abundantly offered and supplied international humanitarian aide goes beyond negligent homicide or laissez-faire/passive extermination.
Cholera outbreaks have been confirmed in areas devastated by Cyclone Nargis. A report is circulating that the Myanmar military made an announcement that all aid has been delivered and therefore, relief efforts are done. The UN says that only 25 % of cyclone victims have received the most rudimentary of aid rations. Reports and photos document the rotten rice being handed out to starving cyclone victims by Myanmar’s military. At the same time, photos document government workers loading sacks of good quality rice for shipment to Bangladesh for the ruling military’s profit.
The military has handed out plain biscuits to starving survivors while the high-energy biscuits donated by the UN’s World Food Program remain in storage.
Foreign aid workers are refused entry to areas where the most destitute and needy survivors are. Burmese laymen and aid workers have been stopped, harassed, arrested, turned back and robbed of their truckloads of relief goods by the military and its allies.
Traumatized and economically devastated cyclone survivors are forced to leave refugee camps. They are ordered to go back where their homes were before cyclone Nargis, without food, clean water, money, or materials for shelter, let alone reconstruction. Some rations and supplies can be bought for 5000 kyats in exchange for a vote for the referendum that legitimizes this murderous regime’s rule.
Emergency shelter, generators and other reconstruction supplies are being used by the military rather than distributed to the cyclone survivors.
I am disturbed by these reports and photos, but not surprised.
I spent 6 months in Northern Rakhine State doing medical fieldwork. There was a surge in the already too prevalent human rights abuses. There was no hiding the resulting physical injury, starvation and death from the regime and their thug allies. Too many young boys’ faces told the story of generations of oppression whether carrying a furrowed brow or void of any emotion, i.e. poverty of spirit.
The surge brutality I saw coincides with the numerous international energy and economic development projects that will further enrich the junta, solidify Myanmar’s neighbors as partners in crime and most of all escalate the degradation, starvation, enslavement and death of populations clinging to the hope of survival amidst inhumanity.
The Irrawaddy Delta is the agricultural heartland of Myanmar. Is the active blockade of life saving aid to Cyclone Nargis victims because the Myanmar rulers want these people to die? Do they want to create a population enslaved to the regime for every morsel that passes their lips? Do the Myanmar rulers want to get their hands on this precious land? Is it for profit from the agricultural potential or is something more militaristic in the planning?
I was amazed at the many people in Burma who looked to America as their future heroic rescuer. Pleas from people for information about what the U.S. was doing to help them were difficult for me to face. U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice previously sat on the board of Chevron, which brings in billions of dollars to the Myanmar regime, despite the 2003 U.S. embargo against Myanmar. The role of mega-corporations in the conflicts which are alive and well in the world today is astounding. Is that what is holding up rescuing the 2.5 million Cyclone Nargis survivors, let alone the rest of the 56 million people of Burma?
Whatever the reason, it is EXTERMINATION BY BLOCKADE OF HUMANITARIAN AID.
Nora Rowley is a Burma focused human rights activist and medical doctor.
