Potential death toll of 100,000 in Burma

Kurt Bassuener May 8th, 2008

The BBC’s South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head in a great analytical piece states there is no chance that the junta will allow an adequate aid effort in, comparing the opening of Indonesia’s Aceh and Pakistani Kashmir after natural disasters in 2004 and 2005 - both sensitive areas in coutries with strong military influence over governance.  It is an interesting and depressing comparison. 

His assessment appears correct, despite the best efforts of western diplomats on the ground like Britain’s Ambassador Mark Canning. “Some are getting in, some are not - we need the floodgates to open…It’s crucial that we get these humanitarian experts in, and that’s what we’re putting a lot of effort into at the moment.”  The US charge d’ affaires in Rangoon, Shari Villarosa, called the humanitarian situation “increasingly horrendous,” with “a very real risk of disease outbreaks” so long as people lacked water, food, and sanitation in the delta region. She estimated that the death toll could rise to 100,000 if humanitarian access and aid did not dramatically increase immediately.  The disease risk stems from dehydration, mosquito-borne diseases, and water-borne illnesses like cholera and dysentery.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has suggested that the UN Security Council adopt a resolution that assistance be flown into Burma without the junta’s authorization, but the UN’s humanitarian aid chief, John Holmes, dismissed this as “overly confrontational.”  Holmes acknowledged access problems, but said the Burmese government was “reasonable and headed in the right direction.”

A UN satellite map of the cyclone’s devastation of the Irrawaddy delta can be seen here.  And a NASA satellite photo shows the extent of the flooding in a before and after photo here.

Burma cyclone update - 22,000 dead, and rising…

Kurt Bassuener May 7th, 2008

The devastation to Burma’s Irrawaddy delta region from Cyclone Nargis is becoming clearer as some international correspondents have had a chance to tour the affected areas – Burma’s ricebowl.  22,000 people are reported dead, with more than 40,000 missing, and up to one million without shelter.  The few international media traveling outside Rangoon have heard from those rendered homeless that they have received no assistance up to now.

Al Jazeera English has two correspondents in Burma who have not been identified for fear of government reprisal. In a report broadcast earlier today, one correspondent noted the conspicuous lack of government presence and aid. The army was seen clearing roads, but that was all. She reported seeing a hundred empty Burmese Army trucks on the road back to Rangoon from the low-lying areas she visited, none of which was laden with aid supplies. Residents of the delta region she interviewed noted they had received no warning on state radio of the impending cyclone. The town of Pyinkaya, which had 150,000 residents, “Assistance hasn’t reached them yet and they are dying - completely isolated,” according to Save the Children’s Andrew Kirkwood. CNN International’s Dan Rivers  was also reporting from Bogolay in the affected area, touring a makeshift shelter where homeless and wounded persons had gathered – again with no government presence. The rations on hand would only last two days. Bodies of the dead were being carries to the river. Local officials noted they had not been given authorization to act by the central government. Shops that have reopened today generated unrest as desperate people pushed to get needed relief supplies.

International assistance has been offered, and some from neighboring India and Thailand has already arrived. UN and international Red Cross aid efforts were initiated yesterday.  But the difficulty of getting the regime to allow humanitarian aid experts in to oversee aid logistics, as done in Indonesia after the Aceh tsunami, is retarding efforts to assist. Some humanitarian aid workers are on the ground assessing need and providing help, but visas have been denied to many more disaster relief experts who are on standby. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appealed for humanitarian access: “Forget politics…Forget the military dictatorship. Let’s just get aid and assistance through to people who are suffering and dying as we speak, through a lack of support on the ground.” The regime is more concerned with restricting international presence in the country than in providing for the overwhelming popular need for help. France’s Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner (and founder of Medicins Sans Frontiers and Doctors of the World), noted that the lack of trust in the regime and access was hampering the world’s ability to assist - the junta insists on distribiting the aid themselves. Indonesia’s presidential spokesman, Dino Patti Djalal, asserted in a CNN interview that the scale of the disaster required external assistance on the ground, basing his assessment on the Aceh tsunami recovery effort.

It is as yet unclear how the cyclone and the callous and incompetent reaction to it by the junta will erode the regime’s grip on the state. As of now, popular concerns are consumed by the existential. But the fact that the enormous military buildup of the Tatmadaw since the 1988 coup, including significant logistical capacity, has only been used for repression and not for civic emergencies, will surely not be forgotten. Nor will their footdragging in allowing outside help, which is costing countless lives.  With the military leaders safely out of harm’s way in the new garrison capital Naypyidaw, their detachment from their people’s fate could hardly be more stark than it has proven in these days. In the longer term, the devastation of Burma’s agricultural heartland will necessitate greater external involvement in Burma. 

Cyclone Nargis devastates Burma, but SDPC aims to hold referendum as planned

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.