Myanmar courts political
disaster By Brian McCartan
CHIANG MAI, Thailand - With political,
economic and social tensions already running high,
the devastating impact of Cyclone Nargis and the
military government's callous and inadequate
response could represent a perfect storm for
change among Myanmar's repressed and impoverished
population.
The cyclone swept through
lower and middle Myanmar last weekend and five
areas of the country have been declared disaster
zones, while the government has admitted that
22,500 people have died and another 41,000 are
missing.
At least 1 million people have
been rendered homeless, according to international
aid group estimates, and large areas of
the
Irrawaddy Delta and the old
capital Yangon remain flooded.
The Myanmar
government and relief agencies say the casualty
figures are expected to rise as contact is made
with the worst-hit delta areas and more thorough
assessments are made. The cyclone has adversely
affected an estimated 24 million people, almost
half of Myanmar's approximately 57 million
population.
Prime Minister Major General
Thein Sein has been declared the head of a
disaster management committee to oversee relief
efforts. He has been shown prominently in
state-run media holding official meetings to
discuss the damage, meeting people in a Buddhist
temple and viewing the damage in Yangon's North
Dagon Myothit township.
His committee
includes the armed forces, police and fire
brigade, but apparently not the Union Solidarity
and Development Association, a junta-created mass
organization. Images of soldiers and police
clearing trees from roads and handing out supplies
have been repeatedly televised.
However,
Senior General Than Shwe, the ruling junta's
leader, and the rest of the leadership have by and
large remained out of public view and apparently
holed up in the new capital Naypyidaw, which is
reportedly unaffected by the cyclone.
Residents in Yangon say that much of the
government's relief work has been done around
major infrastructure and that very little
assistance has so far been dispersed to rural
areas, where the damage and casualties are the
most severe. Much of the work in clearing away
debris and fallen trees has reportedly been done
by residents and monks, not government officials.
It's unclear why there has not been more
of an effort by Myanmar's military and other
government bodies to alleviate the broad
population's suffering. The country maintains the
second-largest standing military in Southeast Asia
- a largely untapped pool of labor that could be
called on for disaster relief.
And the
junta has shown it can rapidly mobilize security
forces, as it did in suppressing demonstrations
last September, when it opened fire on street
protesters. So far, it has not shown the same
level of organization or determination in
responding to the cyclone crisis, local residents
say.
Part of the reason may lie in the
lack of training given to the police, fire
brigades and military particular to disaster
relief, in the way they are in places such as
China, Thailand and even Bangladesh. The army and
police in particular are charged strictly with
security functions, while disaster relief is left
to the affected communities themselves.
There may be another reason for the
junta's lack of response: its perceived
overwhelming need to maintain security in the
country, which has been on edge since last year's
demonstrations and repression. The junta, with
some justification, believes now could be a prime
time for the urban-based population to revolt and
for the long simmering ethnic insurgencies to take
advantage of the military's involvement in
disaster relief operations to stage new attacks.
While the junta largely stays away from
the disaster, the beleaguered population has by
and large been left to its own devices to help the
injured, bury the dead, clean up debris and find
food and water. Water in particular is in very
short supply and what was already an erratic
electricity grid has been completely shut down.
The World Health Organization has expressed fears
of outbreaks fueled by mosquitoes, dirty water and
poor sanitation.
Food is also in short
supply and the prices of what is available have
skyrocketed. There have already been reports of
looting and rioting in Yangon, as desperate people
steal food and other supplies. It is a problem
that could be long-lasting after the cyclone. The
fertile, low-lying Irrawaddy Delta is Myanmar's
premier rice-growing area and the worst hit by the
cyclone.
Starving desperate
masses A spokesperson for the Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United
Nations said that extensive damage to Myanmar's
crops is expected, especially to rice, rubber and
oil palm production. Although it is too early to
determine how much damage has been done to the
current crop and already basic irrigation systems,
it is likely much of it has been destroyed, as
were rice mills and storage barns.
Initial
FAO figures indicate the areas hit by the cyclone
comprise 50% of all irrigated farmland, which
produce about 65% of Myanmar's rice. The storm
also is expected to have wiped out much of the
area's livestock and damaged fish and shrimp
farms.
The government will need to import
massive amounts of rice at a time of skyrocketing
global prices to feed the cyclone victims as well
as millions of other Burmese who depended on the
rice grown in the delta for their sustenance. This
is an expensive proposition for one of the world's
poorest nations, but one which the generals will
need to undertake if they hope to keep protesting
and hungry people off the streets.
Prior
to the cyclone disaster, tensions were already
running high in Myanmar due to massive political
pressures imposed on the population to vote in
favor of a new constitution during a May 10
referendum. The government announced the date for
the referendum only in February and on Tuesday
postponed the vote until May 24 for 47 of the
worst cyclone-hit townships.
This means
almost half the population will not cast ballots
in the initial voting and that the junta expects
about 24 million people to have recovered enough
with scant government assistance to participate in
the referendum. The United Nations Security
Council released a presidential statement on
Friday urging the military regime to make the
referendum vote "credible and inclusive". Making
the referendum credible or inclusive will be
almost impossible after the cyclone if the junta
pushes ahead with a vote this month.
Instead, the generals may find their
supposedly democratic exercise is met with a
popular backlash. Before the cyclone disaster, the
population was already feeling the pinch from
runaway inflation for basic foods and commodities.
Rising costs, particularly for fuel, sparked last
year's mass demonstrations, which later morphed
into anti-government protests.
The storm
reportedly demolished most of the flimsy homes in
the poor townships around Yangon. These shanty
town areas are home to Yangon's poorest and
historically have been hotbeds of support for
anti-government protests. Many, hurt by rising
fuel costs that have made their commutes into
Yangon for work increasingly expensive, joined the
September protests.
Its unclear how the
population will react if and when the scale of the
government's inaction is revealed. Although
Myanmar's Department of Meteorology and Hydrology
received advance warning of the approaching
cyclone from both the Asian Disaster Preparedness
Center in Thailand and the Indian Meteorology
Department a week before, it only issued warnings
though television and radio on Friday, May 2.
Nor is there any evidence that military
units, police or hospitals were told to prepare
for a possible emergency. Further frustrating
cyclone-affected communities is the government's
reluctance to allow foreign aid workers access to
disaster areas. The regime sent out a rare appeal
for foreign aid on Monday, but it is clear that
what they want is food, medical supplies and
finance, but not the presence of aid workers who
might reveal the government's weak response to
outside news organizations. (The generals notable
spurned international aid offers in the aftermath
of the 2004 tsunami.)
Myanmar Embassy
staff in Bangkok, where many of the foreign aid
specialists are waiting approval to enter the
country, took Monday off rather than process visas
due to a Thai holiday. On Tuesday, the UN said the
Myanmar government had not responded to their
requests to waive visa requirements for
international aid workers. While UN and other
relief workers wait outside the country, the
military regime dithers over whether to grant them
visas, raising questions about how many lives have
been lost due to their inaction.
This
includes the UN's special five-person disaster
assessment team, United Nations Children's Fund
workers and expert staff members of several
humanitarian agencies.
That's in line with
the junta's pre-cyclone policy of monitoring and
controlling the international aid and development
organizations that worked inside the country. The
reclusive regime is particularly vexed by the
prospect of foreigners moving about the country
unescorted. The International Committee of the Red
Cross was accused by government newspapers of
aiding Karen rebels in April.
Myanmar's
military rulers are clearly courting a political
disaster through their response to the cyclone
calamity. The possibility for anti-government
protests were already running high if the
government announced a "yes" vote for the
constitutional referendum, a result many believe
the junta will attempt to rig in its favor.
And there is still simmering resentment
over the military's violent crackdown, including
mass arrests of Buddhist monks and the shooting
deaths of other demonstrators, last September. Now
the generals have added to this volatile mix a
callous and incompetent response to the massive
death and hardship brought on by Cyclone Nargis.
Brian McCartan
is a freelance journalist based in Chiang Mai,
Thailand. He can be reached at
brianpm@comcast.net.
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