• English Site
• > World
• > Burma

'Like the Apocalypse'

A Burmese Tragedy

By Jürgen Kremb and Thilo Thielke

Part 2

It seems only a matter of time before infectious diseases like typhus and cholera will begin to spread. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs there is an "urgent need for plastic sheeting, water purification tablets, cooking equipment, mosquito nets, health kits and food."

Prices of food and fuel are climbing rapidly in the cities. Rice, sugar and diesel suddenly cost three times as much as they did before the storm, and only regime officials and their business cronies can afford such prices.

But even as the alarming reports coming from the isolated military dictatorship became increasingly shrill, urgently needed international assistance was slow to get off its feet. The uninhibited fury of nature struck Burma with apocalyptic force, as if a heavenly power were punishing the country for its rotting, junta-led regime. And yet the people most affected by the disaster are those forced to suffer through a life filled with privations under precisely that regime. To add insult to injury, emergency international aid was initially surprisingly meager when compared to similar disasters elsewhere.

At first, the United States said it would send only the equivalent of €3 million ($4.6 million) in humanitarian aid, while Germany committed €500,000 and the European Union pledged €2 million. France promised only €200,000 -- the price of four mid-range cars in Paris -- to the economically battered military regime.

Apparently the politicians of the West still had serious reservations about sending their money to the poorhouse on the Irrawaddy, even in its time of greatest need. Their aversion to the country's stubborn, pro-Chinese generals is simply too deeply ingrained.

The feeling of mistrust is mutual, and led Burma's military leadership, in a display of deep cynicism, to raise as many obstacles as possible to foreign organizations willing to help.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called the junta's uncooperativeness "a catastrophe within the catastrophe." In the days following the disaster, relief supplies that could not be distributed began piling up at airports in neighboring Thailand. The Burmese military government even demanded the payment of duties for importing the supplies.

The leadership of the boycott-weakened country apparently responded to the emergency with a counter-boycott of its own. Was it the result of false pride? Or fear that the numbness of shock within the population could turn into naked fury -- in front of unwanted witnesses, no less -- and then into a rebellion that could sweep away the regime like a second cyclone?

There was no evidence whatsoever of crisis management. The generals accepted the dying of their people with cruel stoicism. "Eat fresh fruit, use clean toilets and dispose of your rubbish," the government suggested in a radio broadcast last Tuesday in the hard-hit regions. Five days after the cyclone, the military leaders were still refusing to issue visas in neighboring countries for international aid workers. And those who were already in the country were harassed at every turn. Volunteers with the aid organization Malteser International, for example, who already had valid visas for Burma, were denied access to "the most heavily affected areas in the region, namely the Irrawaddy River delta," Roland Hansen, the director of the group's Asia team, complained. The suffering population is being left to fend for itself, while the military junta, led by the aging General Than Shwe, holds out in its jungle stronghold, the new capital Naypyidaw, to which the government was moved in November 2005. Prime Minister Thein Sein, wearing a freshly ironed uniform, made a very brief appearance before the cameras of the state-owned television network, directing a few words of encouragement to Burma's tormented people before disappearing again.

"Where are all the soldiers who were so quick to mow down monks and civilians last September?" the Thailand-based Burmese dissident publication The Irrawaddy asked. The only evidence of government involvement was a handful of fire department vehicles spotted in Rangoon. The firemen even tried to turn a profit as they distributed drinking water for cash.

Only on Wednesday evening, with the official death toll persistently hovering at 22,000, was the longed-for landing permit granted for a first United Nations relief flight. One day later, the junta allowed four UN aircraft to deliver urgently needed food. But for many the aid came too late. "They did not accept our direct aid, nor did they accept the relief personnel that we offered them," said French Foreign Minister Kouchner, one of the co-founders of the aid organization Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).

It is becoming increasingly clear that many people would probably still be alive if the Burmese government had warned its people of the coming storm. But there were no reports on the radio or on television in the days leading up to the disaster. And not a word about the cyclone, which was already taking shape five days earlier, was mentioned in the state-controlled newspapers.

"The only thing that the radios were blaring on the day of the disaster," says Irrawaddy editor-in-chief Aung Zaw, "was the government's propaganda on the bogus referendum."

It is quite possible, however, that public outrage over the regime's inaction will turn into new protests. On Wednesday, the day when General Tha Aye, the army's commander-in-chief for the city of Rangoon, announced that the country was "returning to normal" and the first shops reopened, they were promptly looted by hungry survivors. At the Rangoon airport, stunned Burmese looked on as government troops appeared to repackage relief supplies from Thailand -- trying to create the impression that the government itself was doing something to relieve the country's distress.

While the majority of the military has remained in its barracks in the hour of Burma's greatest need, the monks that led protests against the government last fall are everywhere. They are clearing fallen trees with axes and ordinary saws, removing rubble and helping distribute food and supplies.

"Monks and residents, using bicycles and ropes, are trying to get trees out of the way," says German businesswoman Moog. A woman in Rangoon, who, fearing the police, chooses to remain anonymous, says: "Of course, we had hoped for help from the authorities, but there has been no sign of them so far."

"The people in Burma are growing more and more desperate and angry," says Burmese opposition politician Teddy Buri, an elected member of parliament living in exile in Thailand, "because the government does nothing to help the suffering people." The longer the military, with its 400,000 soldiers, ignores the situation, the greater the fury of the people will grow. Sooner or later, Buri believes, popular frustration is bound to turn into "new political unrest," a rebellion that will be "more violent and energetic than the protests in the past."

"At the moment, people are preoccupied with their survival," says Australian Asia expert Sean Turnell, "but once this phase comes to an end, their fury could boil over."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan