Stolen Relief Aid in Burma — no surprise
The NY Times reports the Burmese military has stolen aid supplies.
Lead graf:
The directors of several relief organizations in Myanmar said Wednesday that some of the international aid arriving into the country for the victims of Cyclone Nargis was being stolen, diverted or warehoused by the country’s army.
The gut of it:
The aid directors in Myanmar declined to be quoted directly on their concerns about the stolen relief supplies for fear of angering the ruling junta and jeopardizing their operations, although Marcel Wagner, country director of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, confirmed that aid was being diverted by the army. He said the issue would become an increasing problem, although he declined to give further details because of the sensitivity of the situation.
International aid shipments continued to arrive Wednesday, including five new air deliveries of relief supplies from the United States. Western diplomats said their representatives at the airport were making sure the cargo was unloaded efficiently and then trucked to staging areas.
The fate of the supplies after that, however, remained unknown, because the junta has barred all foreigners, including credentialed diplomats and aid workers, from accompanying any donated aid, tracking its distribution or following up on its delivery.
Criminal, cruel, vicious. No one should be surprised.
Key grafs:
Burma’s regime is pursuing a modified “Darfur strategy,” at least the Darfur political strategy as pursued by Sudan’s dictatorship in Khartoum. For the last three years, the Sudanese government has been resisting, thwarting, dodging and blocking international relief and peacekeeping efforts in Darfur, carefully relenting — by an inch or two — when the public and economic pressure reaches a momentary crescendo.
The Burmese junta knows the script…
And:
In Burma, a few (the junta) wield vast physical power over the rest. Ditto North Korea. Ditto Sudan. Economic sanctions, economic rewards, harsh words, warm words and sharp threats may nudge these regimes, but the dictators only move when it’s in their interest. When 100,000 deaths serve the interest of the local thugs, then the realistic options are starkly limited.
Dictatorships kill.
Gosh, and these guys in the dictatorships are the voting members at the United Nations, who expel the US from its Human Rights activities.
Tell me again why the UN is morally superior?
Comment by Insufficiently Sensitive — 5/14/2008 @ 7:03 pm
It would be interesting to see what happened if, for example, the United States made it crystal clear that refusing to allow full, untrammelled humanitarian aid would result in pinpoint tactical nuclear strikes on Burmese military bases, followed by assassination teams gunning for the top leaders of the military dictatorship.
Comment by Crafty Hunter — 5/15/2008 @ 7:58 am
Burma: another inconsequential and conveniently ignored byproduct of the Democrats causing South Vietnam to fall to the Communists. Just another killing field. Look away. Nothing to see here.
Comment by Koblog — 5/15/2008 @ 8:00 am
I do not understand the point of giving aid when it is not being given to the people who need it. Why are we shipping in supplies? So we can say we did the right thing, I guess, and avoid criticism from some UN bureaucrat or media pundit even though the right thing only serves to empower the tyrants and actually makes the victims’ situation even worse. Which we know full well even while we’re doing it and yet we still do it. Just to look good. To somebody. Somebody, that is, other than the Burmese cyclone victims. What a strange world we live in.
Comment by Sarah — 5/15/2008 @ 8:08 am
This situation highlights the problem every NGO faces when trying to work in such a country. (These are known generally as TFNs — totally f**ked nations.) The not-for-profit is totally at the mercy of the local and national thugs who run the place.
Comment by Robert — 5/15/2008 @ 8:34 am
I know it’s frustrating when you feel you can make a big difference with a little …armed intervention (kowtowing now for using dirty language)… but remember war is bad, always and forever… right?
Comment by Wayland — 5/15/2008 @ 8:49 am
Why is it no longer possible to air-drop aid directly to the villages/settlements where the people are, rather than going through the port where the army is? I recall that iconic and doctored photo (clouds added later) of the Berlin air-drop post WW2; is there really such great fear that the Burmese are going to shoot down our aid planes for infringing Burmese airspace? I must be missing something.
Comment by dilip kumar — 5/15/2008 @ 9:31 am
Yes war is bad. But some things are worse. Put yourself and your family in Burma. Which is worse, a war that kills the
people who are causing your family to slowy die, or watching your family die of the diseases born of the death and
destruction around you. I know which I would prefer. Ask those who survived Pol Pot after we left Vietnam, or the people
of Darfur that not only have to worry about tribal fighting but the UN troops that are supposed to be prtecting them.
And yes, even those people in Iraq who would not have survived another year under Sadam Hussein. There are things worse
than war, but only if you don’t have the privilege of sitting on the sidelines watching.
Comment by James — 5/15/2008 @ 9:38 am
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” — John Stuart Mill
Comment by Darwin — 5/15/2008 @ 10:04 am
Quit enabling the thugs by sending them free goodies.
Air drop guns and ammo to the isolated folks, and let
them sort it out.
Comment by MaggieW — 5/15/2008 @ 10:11 am
Iran repainted aid boxes when they had an earthquake a few years ago. Dictators don’t want to look week and ineffectual to their cowed populace.
It’s a shame that one of Burma’s neighbors wasn’t in position to invade after the hurricane. Remove the junta and ensure aid flowed. Then the state could be made a UN Protectorate (perhaps under China so they save face, but are held accountable for non-dictatorships in the area).
Comment by rjschwarz — 5/15/2008 @ 10:35 am
dilip kumar, I believe you underestimate the scale. The amount of aid that can be brought in by ship dwarfs what can be airdropped by several orders of magnitude.
Comment by rjschwarz — 5/15/2008 @ 10:37 am
Victims: The starving citizens, yes. The dictators, they’re re-invigorated. The “donors” – such as you and me, yes. Let’s not forget that this food aid, and all foreign aid, is stolen from us. It’s bad enough when it sustains the poor; it’s pure evil when it is [often] used to support enemies that would happily put a bullet in our heads.
Comment by djr — 5/16/2008 @ 4:55 am
“Burma: another inconsequential and conveniently ignored byproduct of the Democrats
causing South Vietnam to fall to the Communists. Just another killing field. Look away.
Nothing to see here”.
I have no love for the Dems’ Vietnam policy, but Burma was an odd duck for many years before that. The State Peace and Development Council (the highly euphemistic name for the thuggish junta) is only the latest incarnation of state-sponsored brutality and weirdness that go back to Ne Win’s dictatorship in the 1960s. His absurd (in the true sense of the word) economic policies took what was SE Asia’s most prosperous country at the end of WW2 and turned it into the poorest. He was a big believer in numerology, and since his lucky number was nine, he had all the money changed into denominations that were multiples of nine. Ever try counting a stack of 63-kyat notes quickly? He was also into wage and price controls, which worked about as well there as they did anywhere else they’ve been tried. Eventually, things got so bad that his fellow generals forced him out. Then things got even worse after the generals found out in 1989 and 1990 that they really weren’t as popular as they thought. That’s when the mask dropped for good, leading to the abomination you see today.
Comment by waltj — 5/16/2008 @ 4:57 am
Odd that more aid is sent by a single miniscule American religion than by the entire countries of Russia and China?
What does that tell you about goals and priorities?
Comment by Al Fin — 5/18/2008 @ 1:16 pm