Kurt Bassuener May 5th, 2008

Burma is reeling from the devastating tropical cyclone Nargis, which hit the south-central population centers of the country on Saturday, including the Irrawaddy delta and the former capital, Rangoon.  At the time of writing, the estimated death toll is officially 10,000 with 3,000 missing, and seems sure to rise, as it has been doing throughout the day.  Towns and villages on the coast were flattened by storm surge.  Hundreds of thousands have been rendered homeless by the cyclone, and food shortages are pervasive.  The affected area is home to roughly half the Burmese population.  The BBC has a number of images of the devastation, including to Rangoon, a city of five million. The Democratic Voice of Burma, broadcasting from Oslo, also filed a report, which can be seen on YouTube, here.

Despite the pervasive security apparatus of the military dictatorship, cleanup efforts were led by Burmese citizens themselves.  “Where are the soldiers and police? They were very quick and aggressive when there were protests in the streets last year,” a retired government worker complained to Reuters news agency.  Former Swedish cabinet minister Jens Orback comments on the military, police, and even firemen’s conspicuous absence – and the work of Burmese civilians and monks in clearing debris.  Though police and armed forces are now in evidence, they have been conspicuously late in arriving – and the extent of their efforts throughout the country is not clear.  Aung Zaw of the newspaper The Irrawaddy, published from Chaing Mai, Thailand, reported that the military’s efforts were still piddling: “The soldiers are only helping people near the military facilities; downtown Rangoon is like a ghost town.”

Clearly external assistance is in order, but the Burmese generals are legendarily wary of external actors.  The UN reports that the regime has agreed to accept aid, and a number of international agencies, like the World Food Program, and NGOs are already engaged.  The international response is likely to be genrous, but the amount of access allowed bilateral donors remains to be seen.  Many donors and governments who have made aid offers remain on hold.  How the aid is delivered and through whom it is distributed could have important side effects.  If citizens’ committees are the primary operators in the recovery effort, then they should receive and distribute international aid to the Burmese people. 

The regime remains focused on its planned referendum on May 10 for a new constitution that will purportedly provide for a “disciplined democracy,” but will lock-in the powers of the ruling Tatmadaw (armed forces).  The regime said that people were “eagerly looking forward to voting,” making humanitarian experts and others pointedly question the government’s priorities.  Already a highly dubious proposition given the regime’s total control of media and repression of independent elements of society, it is a reflection of the generals’ detachment from their own people and the wider world that the vote will be afforded any legitmacy.  Those working to turn out a “no” vote to the new constitution report that the level of fear is the biggest obstacle.  It remains to be seen if the strength of the junta’s hold on the country has been dented by the cyclone and its anaemic response.  The decision to go ahead with the referendum despite the displacement of a major proportion of the population is a risky bet.  The 1990 elections, in which the regime assumed strong rural support to offset urban support for the opposition National League for Democracy, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, were a blowout for the generals which they surely are aiming to prevent this time around.  They may even see the problems in Rangoon as a boon, assuming that the “no” vote might be stronger there.  The calculus appears to be that the regime fears that the “no” has momentum, so the sooner the balloting, the better.  But the inept response to the suffering of the general population can hardly aid the regime’s credibility, and may even loosen its grip.

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