What is the Burmese government playing at?

[wensley]

Why are they preventing aid getting into their country? They reckon there's over 250,000 dead already, with another 200,000 susceptible to disease and infection. Seems crazy to restrict incoming aid and support! There's shit loads of charities with millions of pounds worth of aid raised but no way of getting it to the people who need it.

Is this some pride thing? Don't get it at all

[dubluke]

its fucked up aye, think its something to with the pride of the regime aye, wanting to make it seem like they are self-sufficient

aid agencies are now getting it in stealthily through countries that burma are friendly with

[wensley]

its fucked up aye, think its something to with the pride of the regime aye, wanting to make it seem like they are self-sufficient

aid agencies are now getting it in stealthily through countries that burma are friendly with

Yeah, the first shipment when out yesterday from down near me in Cornwall. Still think they need to swollow their pride and just think about their people. If that means accepting aid from un-friendly countries then so be it.

[dubluke]

its fucked up aye, think its something to with the pride of the regime aye, wanting to make it seem like they are self-sufficient

aid agencies are now getting it in stealthily through countries that burma are friendly with

Yeah, the first shipment when out yesterday from down near me in Cornwall. Still think they need to swollow their pride and just think about their people. If that means accepting aid from un-friendly countries then so be it.

aye they need to sort it out but doubt they will, similar situation after chernobyl in russia, they desperately needed outside help but wouldn't swallow their pride

[djshiva]

governments that are more interested in total power and control than anything else, are bound to care more about protecting their power than their people.

you will also notice that they went forward with their "constitutional referendum" that solidified their power for a very long time. not only were there less people around to vote in it, but there are indications of them putting pressure on voters to vote how they wanted. surprise! they got the results they wanted.

it's all about control, sadly, and not about what's good for the people of the country.

and just to play devil's advocate, it's no surprise that they have been slow taking aid from the US, a country that sat back and watched people in a big city drown and die in the aftermath of hurricane katrina. our ability to solve problems got called into question big time after that one, and i for one, am still utterly ashamed of how my country left new orleans to rot.

[slim]

Not in any way defending the actions of Burma, their government are clearly a load of shit for brains oppressive military fucktards, but from what i've heard they are only refusing "western" aid, but are receiving it from china and other nearby countries, could be more of a regional politics thing.

But can't remember my source, so don't take my word for it 100%

[macroclimate]

Yeah... situation is totally fucked...

The bottom-line is it's a dictatorship, and as shiva said, they (as well as most other dictatorships) are more interested in maintaining their power than helping their people. Accepting aid from the outside (while obviously necessary for sustenance at this point) would make the government look weak.

[efx]

Need to roll in the abrams and bradleys and sort em out proper imo

[bjackman]

usually i deliberately ignore threads to do with politics or philosophy or anything serious and non-music-related but

AARGH OH MY GOD for the first time ever i wish i was a politician coz this is making me seriously angry.





probably a good thing people like don't become politicians, really

[ytee]

Yeah... situation is totally fucked...

The bottom-line is it's a dictatorship, and as shiva said, they (as well as most other dictatorships) are more interested in maintaining their power than helping their people. Accepting aid from the outside (while obviously necessary for sustenance at this point) would make the government look weak.

weak....and they don't want to feel like they owe other countries for anything....it's retarded.

[sang-froid]

Yeah... situation is totally fucked...

The bottom-line is it's a dictatorship, and as shiva said, they (as well as most other dictatorships) are more interested in maintaining their power than helping their people. Accepting aid from the outside (while obviously necessary for sustenance at this point) would make the government look weak.

weak....and they don't want to feel like they owe other countries for anything....it's retarded.

The heat seems to have gone out of this topic so I'll attempt a bit of cool logic :

It's wonderfully simple to slate nasty dictatorships. So, I'll leave that for those that is simple, which is not the same as condoning such political arrangements, you understand.

But, it is interesting the way that people suddenly get to be experts on a country by regurgitating the stuff in the usual media. And then, express some kind of faux sympathy with those suffering by following the crusade to let the humanitarian agencies in to administer their largesse to the unfortunates.

In fact, the authorities there have been working alongside various Asean nations, albeit not brilliantly perhaps, to assist the people in the Irrawaddy.

Generally speaking, it's not popular to try to see things from different perspectives in these instances of 'disaster' for fear of being seen to be siding with 'the enemy'.

But, frankly, if I were part of the ruling regime in Myanmar/Burma I would have serious misgivings about giving carte-blanche to any agency from the 'west' to set up camp. These NGO's, whilst undeniably well-meaning, have no real independence from their domestic patrons.

Jasmine Whitbread, director of Save the Children in the UK, spends as much time as she can with the higher echelons in the Foreign Office. Given that her organisation is currently being snubbed by Myanmar officialdom (in favour of governments and agencies closer to home) she has taken the decision to highlight the problem of child abuse amongst aid workers. Whilst she can claim to have procedures in place to identify and deal with perpetrators within her own - and perhaps other domestic agencies working with children - by subtle implication, suggests that with these 'foreign' or Asean agencies, there may be no such enlightened and stringent vetting of personnel taking place.

The lengths to which some of these would-be policy-makers, such as Ms Whitbread, will go in order to make up for their outrage and sense of uselessness in the Myanmar predicament strikes me as both cynical and manipulative. Both of which are, co-incidentally, cited as attributes of the evil Burmese regime.

But hey, just a thought.