Cyclone Nargis, who are the real killers?

Envisat captured Cyclone Nargis, making its way across the Bay of Bengal just south of Myanmar (Burma) on Thursday 1st May 2008, with its Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument working in Reduced Resolution mode to deliver a spatial resolution of 1200 meters.

Credit: European Space Agency

[Click on image for bigger picture]

A United Nations official says Burma’s military junta has seized all the food and equipment that the World Food Program had flown into the country for cyclone victims.

He says the WFP 'has no choice' but to suspend further aid shipments until the matter is resolved.

UPDATE: It has just been announced that there will be two WFP flights later today, Saturday 10th May 2008.

WFP spokesman Paul Risley said on Friday 9^th May 2008, that all 'the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated'.

The shipment included 38 tonnes of high-energy biscuits.

Risley said it is not clear why the material was seized. It was also not clear if the shipment seized was the one that was flown in on Thursday or another shipment.

Earlier on Friday, the junta announced said it was not ready to let in foreign aid workers, rejecting international pressure to allow experts into the isolated nation where disease and starvation are affecting cyclone survivors.

A week after the devastating storm killed many tens of thousands, Burma's generals, who rule with an iron fist, and are deeply suspicious of the outside world, said that whilst the country needed outside aid for those who were still alive, they would deliver it themselves, without outside help.

The Burmese foreign ministry announcement came as a top UN official warned that time was running out, and that is was imperative to quickly move in disaster experts and supplies to prevent hunger and diseases that could claim many more victims lives.

The foreign ministry, even said some relief workers who arrived on an aid flight from Qatar on Wednesday had been deported from Burma.

The dictatorial military regime that rules this now impoverished country has long been wary of any influences that could threaten their dictatorial, and oppressive iron grip on power, which it has maintained for almost 50 years. During this half century, conditions for the ordinary Burmese within Burma, have deteriorated more and more.

Burma is a member of the association of South East Asian Nations, (ASEAN), however the leaders of the other ASEAN members have kept very quiet up to now, except for the Thai prime minister, who has announced he will travel to Burma to talk with the generals this weekend.

Even though the country is devastated and battered by the tragic aftermath of cyclone ‘Nargis’, the generals insist they will hold a constitutional referendum on Saturday, brushing aside any criticism that they are ignoring the plight of the hungry, the sick and the homeless, not to mention the disposal of tens of thousands of rotting corpses of humans and animals which are left lying about, whilst they are selfishly devoting valuable already scarce resources to the vote.

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy said the junta should delay the vote, an exercise her party says will merely enshrine military rule.

Had the cyclone early warnings, issued by the India Meteorological Office and others, been heeded, and had an evacuation of the areas most at risk been carried out, many thousands of lives could perhaps have been saved, but the generals chose to totally ignore these warning. Satellite imaging gave several days prior warning too, but this warning was obviously not heeded either.

The Burmese military junta leaders, and their supporters both within and outside of Burma (that includes their silent supporters in ASEAN) should be held jointly and severally responsible by the international community for the deaths of all those thousand who have died or will die from lack of care after the cyclone struck, the junta's lack of early action and non-cooperation with outside aid organisations and other governments should be classed as a form of conspiracy to cause suffering and death amongst the Burmese people, it can even perhaps be regarded as manslaughter, mass murder or even genocide.

PUTTING ALL THAT ASIDE, WHAT IS NEEDED NOW IS IMMEDIATE, MASSIVE UNITED RELIEF EFFORTS, SUPPLIES OF FOOD, WATER, MEDICAL SUPPLIES, MATERIALS TO MAKE TEMPORARY SHELTERS, AND OF COURSE TRAINED PERSONNEL TO PROVIDE THE SKILLS AND EXPERTISE WHICH ARE REQUIRED.

SANITATION INCLUDING THE PROPER DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD, BOTH HUMAN AND ANIMAL IS ALSO A VITAL PART OF THE RELIEF EFFORT.

THERE IS GREAT POTENTIAL FOR DISEASES, THEREFORE DOCTORS AND OTHER MEDICAL STAFF WILL BE NEEDED IN LARGE NUMBERS.

Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit


- A wise man does not urinate against the wind