SAVE THE CHILDREN

It took the leader of the Burmese military junta more than two weeks before meeting with the victims of cyclone Nargis today, and International aid assistance is still scarce.

 

So far the official numbers of deceased after the cyclone, is 78,000 and 56,000 people are still missing.  The numbers of dead is feared to rise and help is urgently needed.

 

Over 2,5 million people have been affected by the cyclone, of them, aid work has only reached one quarter.

 

When disaster strike, it is usually the weaker in society which is affected the hardest, and here Burma is no different. ‘Save the Children’ has reported that children constitute 40 percent of the victims.

 

30,000 children under the age of five are acutely malnourished and are threatened by death from starvation.

 

Jasmine Whitbread, UK’s chief executive of ‘Save the Children’ says: “When people reach this stage they can die in a matter of days…We need to reach more before it is too late.”

 

The military junta is though feeling the pressure to accept a full scale relief operation for survivors in the need of aid, and more foreign experts have been allowed to enter the country in recent days. But the government still insists that the consequence of the cyclone is not as great as claimed.

 

However, witnesses within the country are telling their story , a story completely different to the junta’s. A foreign business man characterised: “It was horrible beyond description…One hut with no roof was full of about 100 people, crouching in the rain. There was no food and no water. Each person had nothing more than the clothes on their bodies, shivering in the cold.”

THE DESTRUCTOR

New figures show that the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are now at its highest in over 650,000 years.  Simultaneously the US has listed the polar bear as a threatened species.

 

The polar bear has become the symbol of how climate change is affecting the world, through the melting of the ice habitat in the Artic Sea. Still today’s announcement does not come with a promise of change, despite that US government scientists predict that two thirds of the polar bear population could disappear by 2050.

 

Dirk Kempthorne, US Interior Secretary said: “While the legal standards under the Endangered Species Act compel me to list the Polar bear as threatened…I want to make clear that the listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting.”

 

This is not a promising message from the nation who in 1990 was responsible for 36.1 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emission.

 

We can only wonder about the level of stupidity in the American government, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the world’s wellbeing is depended on a change in US political policies.

 

For a government that talkes about freedom of the individual, democracy and justice, they sure don’t practise what they preach, as no individual freedom will be of any benefit if we destroy our world and the balance of the eco system.

 

We now plead to the American people to wise up and realise how influential their government is on the rest of the world, and although we can’t participate in the US political system, the American people have to participate for us.   

DIRTY DEALINGS

 

As the Chinese government seeks to look after the victims of Monday’s earthquake, the Burmese people are suffering the aftermath of the cyclone, without help.

 

During the riots in Burma last September it was due to China’s effort that a global collaboration of sanctions against the Burmese regime, failed. And we can only wonder what lies behind the Chinese unconditional support of this gruesome dictatorship.

 

Although China is not known for their considerations of human rights, the Burmese situation seems extreme even for them.  

 

Khin Maung Wing, Deputy Executive Director Democratic Voice of Burma said on Sunday: “Unconditional backing from China, Russia and some Security Council members encourages the regime to prolong the game.”

 

The US Campaign for Burma state that since 1989 China has provided the Burmese military regime with weapons worth over US$2 Billion. In return, China receives cheap natural gas from Burma.

I guess that is how the Chinese value the lives of the Burmese people.

  

The BBC reported today that nearly15000 people are confirmed dead after Sundays earthquake, a further 14,000 are still missing, Over 25,000 are still buried in the debris and nearly 65,000 are injured.

In one town, a whole generation of children may be dead.

 

The BBC further reported that China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabo has flown out to the epicentre to see relief work. Maybe this trip while help open the Chinese governments take on human suffering when they see the suffering faced by their own people. I find it difficult to believe that anyone experiencing such a horrific disaster can continue to measure the value of a life in the value of gas supplies.

 

Related links: Peace and Freedom

CRUEL INTENTIONS

The death toll after Cyclone Nargis continue to rise as the Burmese government is still trying to prevent foreign aid workers to enter the country.

The official death numbers from the regime is according to the BBC 34,273, but foreign aid workers believe the numbers are much higher, and there is really no more time to lose.

 

Khin Maung Win, Deputy Executive Director Democratic Voice of Burma, explain that the Junta is trying to keep foreign aid workers away until the regime has completed its referendum on constitutional change on the 24 of March.

 

He says:  “The regime for sure will approve this constitution at whatever cost, but the cost is being paid by millions of victims. Again the plan to hold referendum in divested areas in 2 week time confirms how the regime underestimates the disaster and ignorance of suffering of 2 million people.”

 

It is hard to imagine this level of cynicism which is beyond cruel, even for a notorious dictatorship. The worst part is that although the West and George Bush has criticised the Burmese dictatorship and called it isolated or callous”, no one is willing to pressurise those in support of this cruel dictatorship.

 

Bush also said to CBS radio: “There’s no telling how many people have lost their lives as a result of the slow response.”

 

Khin Maung Win says: “Junta will play this game as long as there is a split within international community in response to its game. Unconditional backing from China, Russia and some Security Council members encourages the regime to prolong the game.”