Cyclone Nargis: The death knell of the military junta

Time to act

Just as nature abhors a vacuum the humanity of our tortured earth has to begin to abhor despotic governments that care more for entrenching their regimes rather than rising up to the challenge of the government they portend to run in service of their people.

This is no time to highlight the hypocrisy of America’s criticism of Burma having failed to perform when Hurricane Katrina struck, we should take the lessons from that event to realise that a quick response to disaster, calling on all resources available to the global community is the only way to alleviate present suffering.

No relief from suspicion networks

With a stranglehold on government for 46 years and a network of spies with a extremely paranoid aversion to foreign interaction, one would have thought that network serve any purpose in disaster relief but it really serves no useful purpose for succouring suffering.

It just beggars belief that the military junta are incapable of helping their people and would not relent in their obduracy to accept ready help from professional disaster relief agencies to help their people.

Referendum trumps disaster relief

100,000 people have probably died from effect of cyclone Nargis and we can expect a similar number to die from the tardiness to get relief to them – there are dead bodies floating in the water and on land and I do not think the people are anywhere near the point of organising themselves to start mass burials.

They must be smarting from the outrageous dereliction of duty of their government to address their predicament when their help and support is most needed.

The absurdity of it all is we have a disaster of epic proportions, the worst that has ever hit Burma and they have set their priorities for a referendum to take place today – the army has been deployed to monitor the referendum rather than do disaster relief.

Their end is nigh

The military junta has no doubt lit the fuse that would lead to their terminal decline, their referendum and stranglehold on government would not save them.

Having not ever learnt to mobilise their huge army for civil activities, they can never have the logistics to manage this disaster, where their visa offices should be running in overdrive admitting foreign aid relief professionals, they have been closed for public holidays not to resume till Tuesday.

Appeals falling on deaf ears

Meanwhile, the pictures on my television leave me amazed that there is no groundswell of utter condemnation from the so-called friends of Burma – where has the compassion of humanity gone?

This attitude leaves all disaster relief agencies in a quandary; their appeals are failing on deaf ears because no one believes their donations would get anywhere near the suffering Burmese because of those nasty generals.

Change and regime change

There is ever good deed in charging those generals with crimes against humanity and every good cause to engender regime change just as should be done for Zimbabwe and North Korea.

We cannot continue to countenance the suffering of our fellow mankind brought on my other men for their gain much as we should have the greater cause of ridding our world of all governments that lacked the expressly given mandate of the people they assert rule over.

The uprising that would sweep the military junta of Burma from power would be bloody but they will go so much for what they did by failing to do what they should – no people can allow such idle despots to continue to rule over them for much long, a year or maybe more, but they will go and good riddance, it would be.