the UN has halted its aid to burma ...

[wannaBe]

because its first shipment has been impounded

wtf is wrong with them?

Why can nobody do anything? shouldn't we be going in there to bring about regime change? Oh but no, silly me, they don't have anything we want do they. .

Message withdrawn

It breaks my heart, the generals are so myopic, they just don't care about their own people. They have been starving them slowly for years-- malnutrition and infant mortality is really high, infrastructure dreadful and so many people locked up for no reason.

Burma could be one of the richest countries in east asia, it is fertile, lots of gems and mineral wealth and incredibly hard working people.

They are rapidly turning a disaster into a humanitarian catastrophe.

Shame on them.

Message withdrawn

It seems from the news that the aid was "impounded" for distribution by the Burmese army? So not simply blocked as the first reports suggested. I still want to donate if anyone is aware of charities that are somehow getting the aid through.

There are oil and gas deposits worth billions in Myanmar - after seeing what has happened in Iraq, maybe the junta are justifiably paranoid? The Burmese will also be aware of Cambodia's grim history though few here are. Still the junta's response has been inadequate at best and it is truly disgusting that they would proceed with a so-called election at this time.

Nothing gets away from the terrible human tragedy there. It won't just be the aftermath of the flood but the destruction of the rice paddy fields.

This is an extract from an article in The Telegraph - looks like the junta are making people pay for donated aid before distributing it to them!! Can they be more evil?

"Other witnesses said that far from helping the victims, the junta's thugs and soldiers were taking down the names of private citizens and Burmese NGOs who were distributing food and water they had bought, and intimidating them so much that they stopped. The fire brigades forced people to pay before they handed out water; others were told they had to buy food and drink donated to help with the crisis."

The son of the leader, General Than Shwe, has accumulated 5 ferraris and 5 porsches, whilst the army killed and tortured innocent monks in the recent uprising his family went to Dubai for a big shopping trip to get away from it all! He is the most evil man on the face of this planet.

For anyone who is interested the telegraph has a piece on Burma's history. It doesn't really touch on the tragedy unfolding but provides a fascinating context www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/11/do1113.xml

The latest news update is here:

" May 11 (Bloomberg) -- Relief flights by aid organizations including the International Federation of the Red Cross arrived in Myanmar as charity officials reported progress in getting help to the 1 million people left homeless by last weekend's cyclone and now facing disease and famine.

Four Red Cross planes carrying tents and other equipment landed in Myanmar yesterday while two others were scheduled to leave Europe, the U.K. Department for International Development said in an e-mailed press release. The World Food Program also reached agreement with Myanmar authorities to allow staff to collect and distribute aid that was held up on May 9.

Assistance to Myanmar, where as many as 100,000 died in the Tropical Cyclone Nargis on May 3, has been stalled for much of the past week as the country's ruling junta rejected calls to admit relief workers and delayed accepting emergency materials.

We're back up and running again,'' Chris Kaye, director for the World Food Program in Myanmar, said in a telephone interview yesterday. Things are beginning to work much more smoothly'' with the authorities. ``We're breaking down misunderstandings.''

Myanmar's rulers also opened the polls yesterday morning for a referendum on a new constitution, ignoring U.S. criticism of the process and appeals to delay the vote after the cyclone... "

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aW1Mdbla.e80&refer=home

As repugnant as all of this is...have we entirely forgotten the reprehensible acts, or lack of them, when the US southern states were flattened by a hurricane. ONe of the worst things about that was Fox news was telling everyone it was on it's way ( I remember seeing the reports and thinking 'oh they'll deal with it). What did the US govt do? Zip. Hence avoidable deaths, lost homes, irrevocable damage to property. It was happening so far from Washington...and the locals weren't "Washington types" were they??

Scale is different of course. Other dynamics not so dis-similar.

We don't like their politics and govt. structure. Which makes them an even easier target, for westerners with limited memories.

IMVHO.

In what way is it similar?

natural disaster being worsened by the govt decisions. Is the similarity. Different scale, but provides a reason as to why the US cannot get all pointy-fingered. The victims in he south were a demographic of poor, Democrats and black.

the only conclusion one can draw from the Burmese authorities refusals of aid workers is that they do not want to save their civilians
that's genocide in my book.

ok, but I will point fingers anyway since what the Burmese government is doing isn't neglect or incompetance, but actively evil. A thousand times worse.

burma is fucked up its obvious, i feel so sorry for the one million and over of people have suffered over this comminist regime

Sorry to split hairs, but it is not really communist at all.

Run by a bunch of thugs, basically. Rich, evil thugs.

They dont appear to have an ideology other than greed and what ( I think) Douglas Alexander called 'malign neglect'.

I'd also be hestitant about taking a hostile foreign press, to Burma, as writing the Gospel. The West have deployed sanctions against Burma for 20 years so far. If I was a Burmese leader I too would be verrrry careful about having US planes in Burmese airspace or on ground.

Which Burmese leaders? I understood that their democratically elected leader was in detention while a bunch of thugs ran the country. I bet they are nervous too.

So you don't think any of this is really happening then?

the leaders are those leading the country.

Of course there is a catastrophe happening.

haven't read thread but fucking hell...

Pan, I don't think you have an understanding how the burmese people have suffered under the regime even prior to the cyclone. It has the lowest amount of money spent on health in the world, lower than any other cruel dictatorship. If you need medical treatment in a hospital you have to buy your own drugs and your own equipment. If you are too poor then you receive no treatment and you die. If you are lucky you may get treatment at some hospitals for the poor where they reuse such things as bandages and needles. People have to pay tax but there is no such thing as a welfare system or any public services. God only knows what its like now. The US Government may have failed some people after Hurricane Katrina, but it did not actively prevent aid from reaching the suffering and as Piffle says, the Burmese government is committing genocide and has committed genocide against many ethnic minorities in Burma for a number of years.

It is an unspeakably cruel and evil regime which is supported by the Chinese government who exploit the many natural resources of the country. Could you imagine if the PM sold a forest to another country and pocketed all the proceeds? This is what happens in Burma on a daily basis with teak, rubber, gems, oil and gas.

bravisimo - I don't doubt for a second all of what you say about life in Burma - that wasn't the point at all of my posts.

I was drawing attention to the hipocrisy of of states such as the US in being quick to decry anyone who fails to act to prevent further suffering in their own country after the effects of a natural disaster. And quite unlike the Burma cyclone, Katrina was safely predicted, ignored, rescue plans were negligently slow, and people died because of Washingtons demonstrable indifference. The Western states are pretty fast often at condemning others as if their own current actions, or recent history, remains without blemish.

was my point.

yes the US did fail it's citizens in that situation but they are also right to criticise and condemn the Burmese regime and they have a duty to condemn it to show that this indifference to your own people is not acceptable and is not viewed as acceptable by the free-thinking world.

There are now reports that a second cyclone is due to hit burma this week though not as strong as the first one. God only knows how the homeless are going to cope

Pity there is no oil in Burma.

Then we would go and "liberate" them.

There is lots of oil and gas in Burma - that is why it is of strategic interest. And probably part of the reason they are so skeptical about US offers to help.

There is a major oil pipeline being built so that China can access Myanmar's resources.