Myanmar Updated: death toll could reach 1 million

[36burrows]

This is unbearable 

Pray for these people, and God be with them

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/06/myanmar.cyclone/index.html

[David Rothscum]

Probably another slight tip by the globalist eugenicists to push Burma into chaos.

Harnessing Weather: Allegations Surface That US, Russia Have Technology to Manage Hurricanes
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2005/050905managehurricanes.htm
American Free Press/Mike Blair | September 5 2005

Author Sydney Sheldon said, “The old adage that everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it is no longer valid,” in an afterword to his fascinating novel Are You Afraid of the Dark?

“Today,” Sheldon continued, “two superpowers have the ability to control weather around the world: the United States and Russia. Other countries, probably China and North Korea, are working feverishly to catch up.”

As this article was being written the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina were still being felt in the southeastern United States, after it caused billions of dollars in damage along the Gulf of Mexico coast, and the death toll from the killer storm was still being tabulated.

Could this devastation have been avoided? Could Katrina itself have been avoided as a death-dealing hurricane?

The answers to both questions are probably “Yes.” The ability of Russia and the United States to create storms of this magnitude definitely exists.

The big question that remains is, why, then, wasn’t Katrina stopped before it devastated three states—Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi—along the Gulf Coast?

There could be any number of reasons, but all would be mere speculation, as the fact is nothing was done to stop Katrina.

Those who doubt that Katrina, or any other hurricane, could be stopped—or created—can find substantiation in a long-forgotten article by Chen May Yee in the Nov. 13, 1997, issue of The Wall Street Journal.

The article recounts an offer by the Russians to aid Malaysia to create a typhoon to dissipate a pall of smoke that hung over the country—and still does—caused by the burning of large sections of the rain forests in Indonesia and Sumatra.

To quote from the article: Datuk Law Hieng Ding, Malaysia’s minister for science, technology and the environment at the time, said his country “would use special technology to create an artificial cyclone to clean the air.”

The article went on to say that a Malaysian company, BicCure Sdn. Bhd., would sign a memorandum of understanding with a government-owned Russian company to create a cyclone that would cause torrential rains and thus cleanse the air over Malaysia of the smoke and ash.

What Russian company was the Malaysian official talking about?

On Oct. 2, 1992, The Wall Street Journal reported that a Russian company, Elate Intelligent Technologies, Inc., has weather control equipment for sale and uses the advertising slogan of “weather made to order.”

Igor Pirogoff, director of the company, said “Elate is capable of fine-tuning weather patterns over a 200-squaremile area for as little as $200 U.S. per day,” the newspaper reported.

A year before the article was written, Hurricane Andrew caused $30 billion in damages as it plowed through the South. Pirogoff said Andrew could have been turned into “a wimpy little squall.”

According to a UN pamphlet, titled Basic Facts about the United Nations, which was published in 1994, the world body negotiated the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques in 1977. This “prohibits the use of techniques that would have widespread, long-lasting or severe effects through deliberate manipulation of natural processes and cause such phenomena as earthquakes, tidal waves, and changes in climate and in weather patterns.”

Getting back to Malaysia, where the potential for creating or dissipating cyclones seems to have made its first appearance, there was never any follow-up to the stories about Elate and whether in fact the cyclone was created, although it was approved by the Malaysian government.

A call by American Free Press to the Malaysian Embassy in
Washington found no one there with any knowledge of the
subject.

However, there was more success when the Malaysian delegation to the UN was contacted in New York. There, a spokesman claimed to have no knowledge of the creation of a cyclone, but was willing to discuss weather control in his country.

The official said that, by using weather control technology, rain could be created and was being created over the nation’s capital of Kuala Lumpur.

He said that often rain was created over the city to cleanse the air of the smoke emanating from Indonesia, and particularly Sumatra.

He indicated he did not know if the technology being used had been obtained from Russia, but it would appear that such technology to create rain on demand would not have been developed in a Third World country like Malaysia.

There have been numerous reports in recent years about strange changes in the jet stream, which have created alterations in the weather.

In 1982 a report by a Pentagon researcher, identified as L. Ponte, noted that “the Soviets have made advances in bending the all-important jet stream that sweeps across Siberia to set global wind patterns. By using explosive devices in the jet stream, scientists are trying to make it dip and rise in a wave that could replace the frigid Siberian winters with milder air from the South.”

How this would affect weather in other parts of the world was not reported by Ponte, but there have been dozens of reports since his 1982 report about changes in the jet stream’s normal behavior.

In 1996, a group of seven U.S. Air Force officers, who had prepared a research paper about weather warfare, issued a report, which concluded that there was technology under development that would provide “warriors of the future” with the means to control the course of military conflicts, including through the use of weather modification.

The study also states that manipulation of precipitation, storms and fog could improve America’s own weather but could also involve controlling the ionosphere to guarantee U.S. dominance of worldwide communications.

Is major weather control really possible? Is weather manipulation a means of conducting war? If not, why in 1977 did the United States, the then-Soviet Union and dozens of other countries believe it was a good idea to enact a UN treaty banning weather manipulation as a means of conducting war?

In the afterword of his book, Sheldon concludes:

“Weather is the most powerful force we know. Whoever controls it can disrupt world economies with perpetual rainstorms or tornadoes; wipe out crops in a drought; cause earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis; close world airports and cause devastation on enemy battlefields. “We could all sleep better if a world leader said, ‘Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it, and it was true.”



Notice how the cyclone hit the most densely populated part of the country.

[36burrows]

Interesting post David, there's foul play involved no doubt about it...

[hellcatjr]

Aye, David hits the nail on the head, I hinted at that http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=38682.0 but the photos really set the story straight.

[own]

What is the take on this? HAARP?

[David Rothscum]

Could be, but I personally think someone flew some airplanes over around 28 April.

Anyway, look at how this cyclone ties into the current global famine and record rice prices:
http://tinyurl.com/6ekl9a
Rice prices hit records amid Burmese disaster

The cyclone that has devastated Burma is not only set to push world rice prices higher but may have jeopardised the country’s long-term ability to feed its own population, Asian food experts say.

As well as unleashing a catastrophic loss of life, Cyclone Nargis appears to have been fiercest in Burma’s main rice-growing region, the Irrawaddy delta.

Full details of the damage are not yet clear, say World Food Programme officials, but the growing fear is that millions of tons of salt water have flooded onto the precious rice paddies, making them unfit for planting for some time.

The UN agency said that it was not yet known whether Burma, a key rice exporter, would be able to meet commitments to supply the staple to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and has warned of "potentially serious effects".

The price of rice has trebled across Asia this year, hitting a record $25.07 per 100 pounds on April 24. Some local market prices have risen tenfold in the past year and several governments have responded by imposing export bans. Rice is currently trading around $20.96 per 100 pounds.

The price rise has put a severe strain on poor families which spend most of their incomes on food and countries such as Bangladesh have already been forced to plead with neighbouring states, including India, to guarantee supplies.

Officials in Burma say that it is still too early to know the full impact of the storm on rice supplies but it is thought likely shipments out of the country will be delayed. "We are still carrying out a damage survey of our rice stocks and will make an appropriate decision after that," an official from the national Federation of Commerce and Industry told Reuters.

If several harvests are missed as a result of the calamity, Burma’s rickety food economy and impoverished population may take the blow the country can least afford and become a net importer of rice. Given Burma’s uncomfortable relationship with many suppliers in the region China, which remains close to the military regime, would probably step in as the main exporter.

Becoming an importer is not a position anyone would wish for under current market conditions: yesterday the Philippines was forced to cancel a huge tender for rice imports because only one bidder emerged with an impossible price for the goods.

The International Rice Research Institute warned that, with the year’s second harvest imminent, weather patterns in Asia would come under unprecedented scrutiny: the freak damage (Appears to me that even the experts find this cyclone odd...) caused by the cyclone will now exacerbate that.

The WFP yesterday raised the prospect for "long-term food insecurity" in Burma, and the president of the powerful Thai Rice Exporters Association acknowledged that it may soon have to export rice to a country that used to produce enough to meet its own needs.

The region is likely to suffer too. Burma was preparing to export 400,000 tons of rice over the course of this year and had been hoping to profit from record price levels.

Commodity traders in Hong Kong told The Times that with rice and other international grain markets now on a "hair-trigger" for bad news, emerging details of the cyclone could cause cause further panic among Asian governments still struggling to devise the right policy response to soaring food inflation.

Burma is one of the countries that Samak Sundaravej, Thailand's Prime Minister, recently proposed to draw together in a cartel of South-East Asian rice exporters. The plan to create a body that would seek to wield a greater influence over rice prices has drawn heavy criticism from importers.

In the wake of mounting concerns over rice supplies, Mr Samak said that he would seek to bring together Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Laos and Cambodia in a price-setting organisation.

At least 15,000 people have been killed and up to 30,000 are missing after the catastrophic cyclone struck Burma at the weekend, with officials warning that the toll was likely to rise.

Nyan Win, the Burmese Foreign Minister, said on state television that 10,000 people had died in just one town, Bogalay, as he gave the first detailed account of the worst cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in Bangladesh.
Seems to me that they're worsening the current famine.

[yanaar]

                                     

[cueball7]

So the last couple days all I've heard about is the terrible cyclone that hit Myanmar?? At first 4,000 dead, then 10,000, now 22,000???  Since when can a twister cause so much loss of life???

Then today, I hear that the REAL story is a massive tidal wave caused all this damage. There was a fierce rainstorm at the time, but that didn't equate to a cyclone.

Why would the major media be covering up the fact that this was a tidal wave? I'll tell you why.

Right now, the 12th planet in our solar system, Planet X, is behind our sun. It will be passing by the earth within the next couple years. It will cause a major pole shift on our planet and MANY problems.  We have only begun to see the effects of the earthchanges. Tidal waves, sudden storms, tornados, hurrcanes, earthquakes, floods, deluge, massive power outages(New York City), Blackberry outages, massive crop failure, etc.

There is much more disinfo out there trying to debunk planet X then support it.DAHHHH-the PTB wouldn't want the truth to get out-it might/would cause a major global panic-hence, the PTB would be hunted down for not telling us about this sooner!

 Search out planet X info for yourself-as the more that wake up to the mother of all coverups-the better!
 

[cueball7]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AmdazwAcgw&NR=1

[industria]

Nargis was a category 3 storm. Not a super powerful one, but as we have seen on our own Gulf Coast, a Cat 3 storm can do severe damage to low lying areas.

The reason so many people were killed in Myanmar had to do with no warning issued, and no evacuation efforts made, which was a political decision.

And YES, there is weather modification science in the hands of the military, and they can most defiantly steer, and alter the intensity of cyclones/hurricanes/typhoons.

btw: Cyclone is a metrological term, and depending on where on the globe it occurs, and how strong it is it can be called different names. (And they can develop at every latitude, even near the poles.) Tropical cyclones are usually referred to as just cyclones in much of the Pacific, while here in the states we call them hurricanes, and in the western Pacific and the China Sea they are called typhoons.

[trixi1]

The reason so many people were killed in Myanmar had to do with no warning issued, and no evacuation efforts made, which was a political decision.

And YES, there is weather modification science in the hands of the military, and they can most defiantly steer, and alter the intensity of cyclones/hurricanes/typhoons.

This was my thoughts on it as well. When you have it taking the path it did, it reminds me of the Katrina hurricane in much the same way. There's no doubt in my mind that they're creating these storms through weather mod abilities. Too many people have had their doubts on the global warming propaganda so they're upping the ante. By creating these storms it gets people thinking "hey, wait a minute, never in my lifetime has there been such radical changes in weather, and they have done alot of scientific studies saying that it's being caused by global warming, so maybe I was wrong. Yeah, that's it. It has to be global warming." What a bunch of crap. If anything, it solidified it to me that it's totally man-made planned destruction and planned murder of as many people as they can wipe out. Absolutely criminal and diabolic. 

[industria]

This was my thoughts on it as well. When you have it taking the path it did, it reminds me of the Katrina hurricane in much the same way. There's no doubt in my mind that they're creating these storms through weather mod abilities. Too many people have had their doubts on the global warming propaganda so they're upping the ante. By creating these storms it gets people thinking "hey, wait a minute, never in my lifetime has there been such radical changes in weather, and they have done alot of scientific studies saying that it's being caused by global warming, so maybe I was wrong. Yeah, that's it. It has to be global warming." What a bunch of crap. If anything, it solidified it to me that it's totally man-made planned destruction and planned murder of as many people as they can wipe out. Absolutely criminal and diabolic. 

I think you hit the nail right on the head, Trixi. The very targets of these weather attacks are chosen are the poorest, and most desperate areas. Easy pickings as it were.  I also think that some of these devastating storms have been BETA tests for larger operations planned. Practice runs to perfect their weather weapons.

Myanmar (like New Orleans) was the perfect spot. Flat, low lying, with a fragile infrastructure, a corrupt, ineffective local  government, a national government in political chaos that employs police state tactics, and a poor population with little means of escape on their own. They, like the folks in the Lower 9th Ward were sitting ducks. And expendable.

It makes me sick.   



An aerial view taken by the Royal Thai Air Force shows the outskirts of Yangon on Tuesday covered in floodwater from the cyclone.

[trixi1]

Okay, how about this one. What about the increase in volcanic activity? Is there a gain for the 'elite' to be targetting Chile for example? As well as others worldwide, can anyone think of reasons why they're going after some of these areas other than population reduction? Is there massive amounts of natural resources and oil in these regions?

Just wondering.

[trixi1]

Okay, how about this one. What about the increase in volcanic activity? Is there a gain for the 'elite' to be targetting Chile for example? As well as others worldwide, can anyone think of reasons why they're going after some of these areas other than population reduction? Is there massive amounts of natural resources and oil in these regions?

Just wondering.

Saw this and including it. Look at that ash spewing against the sky. That's one of the strangest things I think I've seen. That's another reason why I think it could be caused by forces not natural but man-made.

----------------------------------

http://www.emol.com/noticias/ingles/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idnoticia=302742

(I made this pdf file that includes 3 pertinent pictures that stood out to me that seemed really strange how the ash is hitting the sky/clouds)
http://d3d34.usaupload.net/9lnsprbt0y2/1210148519/d7144ac44c85a919f94a0b726470b8ce/Chile_Volcano.pdf

Cloud of ash and smoke above Michimahuida Volcano visible from Puerto Montt
Friday, May 02, 2008
El Mercurio Online

PUERTO MONTT. - The Mochimahuida Volcano is currently emitting a column of smoke that is visible even from Puerto Montt. The volcano, which is located some 40 kilometers to the south of Chaitén, began erupting early this morning after having remained dormant for almost two centuries.

According to specialists from the National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomín), the last reported eruption of the volcano was in 1835.

The natural emergency has alarmed residents, who have been on edge since Wednesday after feeling a series of small earthquakes.

Despite the fact that authorities downplayed importance to the quakes, which totaled more than 60 the day before the eruption, locals could not stop talking about the possibility of an eruption of one of the many peaks in the area.

The town of Chaitén awoke in isolation this morning after Route 7 to the south of the village was closed due to a thick layer of ash on the road impeding traffic. Air travel in the area has also been complicated by the eruption.


-----------------------------------

If you want to see more photos, go to this link. http://www.fotos.emol.com/index.asp?G_ID=5557#

[Biggs]

photos from the cyclone devastation in Burma

22,000 dead, 40,000 missing

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,31231,00.html

[own]

What's interesting here is that Myanmar is refusing aid. We know that the US will add strings to it, but hmm.. still interesting.

[bigron]

MYANMAR   25.000  dead   over 40.000  missing


Is this also part of the NWO genocide project ??

A FULLY MANIPULATED CYCLONE ?

I  watched this cyclone route on CNN about five days before it hit.
CNN comentator gave full details including where it would hit and specially
its intensity........and nobody advised the population that they would be hit
so hard.......they clearly had 5 day pre-knowledge............

[bigron]

see our other thread on  directed hurracanes:


http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=38597.0

[Biggs]

could very easily be a product of HAARP or similar, I am not sure they can create hurricanes, but they can certainly strengthen them and divert their path towards a target or away from an asset. fortunately their tsunami in 2006 still took out the B2's at Diego Garcia (ha ha ha)

[industria]

Aid Group: 1.5 Million At Risk In Myanmar
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/11/world/main4086187.shtml

CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey, reporting from neighboring Thailand, said the scale of the disaster and the extent of the need is becoming clearer as pictures finally come out from the worst-hit areas.

The difference between the damage done and the help being sent in are almost unfathomable.

Winds of up to 120 miles and hour and a storm surge fifteen feet high smashed everything in their path in the Irrawaddy River delta, where survivors are now at risk from malaria and dengue fever, both of which are endemic to the area.

Fresh water has been contaminated by decaying corpses and animal carcasses, as well as sea water.

Tragically, this natural disaster is being turned into a man-made one.

Relief workers have a brutal but time-proven formula to judge the effects of delaying aid to victims in circumstances such as this: multiply the number of dead by fifteen. Sarah Ireland of Oxfam said that, without significant intervention at this point, "then we could be looking at one and a half million people in real danger."

Aid that has been allowed in is being used as much for political purposes as it is to help the victims.

Members of the ruling military junta have made a show of handing out donated relief supplies, in some cases even putting their own names on the boxes.

Cynical as that may seem to us, said Pizzey, an eyewitness who must remain anonymous for his own safety saw another side to the disaster:

"There is something that is wonderful and almost frightening, the behavior of the people," he told CBS News. "They are rebuilding now, they don't deal with the dead, they don't deal with the past, they are not looking for help from anybody."

The flow of relief supplies is speeding up, although not at a rate that comes close to being good enough, and hundreds of relief teams who are prepared and able to help are still being kept out in spite of mounting international pressure.

But the relief effort hasn’t been smooth even ignoring the reception by the Myanmar government. A Red Cross boat carrying relief supplies sank Sunday.

The double-decker boat that sank after apparently hitting a submerged tree trunk was carrying supplies for more than 1,000 people and was the first Red Cross shipment to the disaster area, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

It said all four relief workers on board were safe.

"This is a great loss for the Myanmar Red Cross and for the people who need aid so urgently," said Aung Kyaw Htut, the distribution team leader for the Myanmar Red Cross.

The boat was traveling from Yangon to Mawlamyinegyun, a 12-hour journey, when it sank near Bogalay town, which was extensively damaged by the cyclone, the IFRC said.

IFRC's head in Yangon, Michael Annear, described the sinking as "a big blow."

"Apart from the delay in getting aid to people we may now have to re-evaluate how we transport that aid," he said.

Meanwhile, the government announced the confirmed death toll had jumped to nearly 29,000.

With no access to clean water and sanitation for many of the survivors, that figure can only rise, horrifically.

[industria]

Washington's "humanitarian" hypocrisy
http://socialistworker.org/2008/05/12/humanitarian-hypocrisy

Lee Sustar argues that the U.S. government has different standards for declaring a humanitarian disaster--or determining if its victims get help.
May 12, 2008

A DEVASTATING storm with winds in excess of 100 miles per hour sweeps in from the sea through a river delta region, leaving death and homelessness in its wake.

The impact is made far worse by the government's failure to have taken even elementary precautions or evacuated the population in a timely way. The nation's powerful military, with troops stationed nearby, does almost nothing to help, despite scenes of helpless survivors broadcast around the world.

Offers of assistance from neighboring countries are spurned by the incompetent leadership cabal in the capital, because the government is more concerned with projecting an image of self-sufficiency and conducting public relations than helping the suffering victims.

That was the shameful federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005--and it should be kept in mind if you hear White House officials criticizing the military junta in Myanmar for its failure to prepare for, or recover from, Cyclone Nargis, which has left an estimated 100,000 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.

First Lady Laura Bush weighed in on the crisis at a rare news conference, declaring, "We already know that they are very inept"--an apt description of her husband's response to Katrina.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters, "What remains is for the Burmese [today called "Myanmar" by the country's military regime] government to allow the international community to help its people...It's not a matter of politics. It's a matter of a humanitarian crisis."

Obviously, Rice is correct that there is a humanitarian crisis. The repressive dictatorship in Myanmar, which shot dead scores of people to crush protests over rising food prices last fall, bears responsibility for much of the death toll. After failing to warn the population of the threat, it has been unable to provide food and shelter for those affected and unwilling to allow relief agencies to distribute the crisis.

Last weekend, the regime even went ahead with a national referendum designed to solidify its power--while survivors of the cyclone were still scrambling to put their lives back together.

But Rice and the U.S. political elite are utterly hypocritical in declaring that politics isn't involved in Washington's attempt to pressure Myanmar to accept aid. Where the U.S. is concerned, it's politics that determine whether people are "innocent victims" of repressive regimes, or populations whose lives are expendable if they get in the way of imperial aims.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THUS, EVEN as U.S. diplomats denounced the Myanmar junta for allowing innocent people to suffer and die for lack of aid, the U.S. military and its Iraqi government pawns were barricading, bombing and starving Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.

According to CNN, "Weeks of fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood have destroyed the main market and isolated civilians from supplies of food and water, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned. In addition, several hospitals in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood have run out of basic medical supplies, including anesthesia and dressings, the Red Cross said."

McClatchy Newspaper correspondents described a U.S. rocket attack that hit next door to a hospital in Sadr City on May 3: "A hospital official said that the explosion shattered all the windows and sent many doctors running from the building, leaving the emergency ward without enough personnel to deal with injury victims. Television footage showed several ambulances with shattered windows and hospital staff racing through corridors with bleeding victims strapped to gurneys."

The report noted that "the U.S. military is facing growing criticism over what residents describe as mounting civilian casualties in Sadr City, a densely populated slum of some 2.5 million people, which has seen heavy clashes over the past six weeks between U.S. and Iraqi forces and militiamen loyal to the hard-line Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr."

Moreover, while the U.S. condemns the Myanmar generals for interfering with humanitarian aid to a starving population, the U.S. fully backs Israel's criminal blockade of the Gaza Strip.

John Ging, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, described the situation April 30 in Britain's House of Commons:

    Today, there is no solid waste collection in over 50 percent of the municipalities in Gaza, as there is no fuel for the rubbish trucks. Sixty thousand cubic meters of raw and partially treated sewage is pumped out to sea every day, again simply because the treatment plants have run out of fuel...The Costal Water Utility now reports that because of the regular power cuts and a lack of diesel for back-up generators, 30 percent of Gazans have running water for only four to eight hours per week, 40 percent once every four days and the remaining 30 percent every other day...

    The economy has also collapsed as no raw materials for manufacturing or construction have been allowed into Gaza since June 2007. This has resulted in almost 80,000 people losing the dignity of work, bringing the number now queuing for UN food handouts to over 1 million...

    All too often, solutions to the most pressing, basic and obvious humanitarian needs, if delivered at all, are delivered late and only after the inevitable crisis occurs. Ninety percent of Gaza's 3,900 industrial companies have closed since June 2007, resulting in 80 percent of Gazans now living below the poverty line.

Certainly, anyone with a shred of decency wants to see all necessary humanitarian aid to Myanmar delivered as quickly as possible. But do the residents of Gaza or Sadr City deserve any less?

No one should be under any illusions about the "humanitarian" aims of the U.S., which is only interested in dispensing aid if it furthers the reach of U.S. power. The words of revolutionary journalist John Reed, describing U.S. offers of food aid to impoverished countries following the First World War, still ring true today:

    Uncle Sam is not one ever to give anybody something for nothing. He comes along with a sack stuffed with straw in one hand and a whip in the other. Whoever takes Uncle Sam's promises at their face value will find himself obliged to pay for them with blood and sweat.

[industria]

Why the propaganda campaign for international intervention in Burma?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8946

by Peter Symonds
Global Research, May 11, 2008

The catastrophe wrought by Cyclone Nargis on the Burmese people has provoked an extraordinary campaign by the US and allied powers, and in the international media, demanding that the military junta open its borders to aid and aid officials as well as to American military aircraft, troops and warships. Once again an attempt is being made to stampede public opinion with heartrending images of desperate survivors and devastated towns, accompanied by an incessant drumbeat condemning the Burmese regime for its inadequate aid efforts, its insularity, and its failure to accept international, especially American, aid.

One should immediately pause and recall the outcome of similar “humanitarian” exercises. In 1999, the plight of Kosovan refugees was exploited by the US and its allies to wage war against Serbia and transform the province into a NATO protectorate largely “cleansed” of its Serbian minority. In the same year, Australia, with the backing of the US, used the violence of Indonesian-backed militias to justify a military intervention into East Timor to install a regime sympathetic to Canberra’s economic and strategic interests. After nearly a decade the local populations in both countries continue to live in appalling conditions, with none of their fundamental needs having been met.

Undoubtedly a huge social tragedy has taken place over the past week. Official Burmese figures put the number of dead and missing at more than 60,000. UN officials estimate the death toll at 100,000 and the number of people severely affected by the cyclone at nearly 2 million. Much of the huge Irrawaddy delta has been devastated by the storm surges whipped up by Cyclone Nargis, which swamped the low-lying land. Entire towns and villages have been washed away, leaving scenes that recall the destruction produced by the December 2004 tsunami along the coasts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.

It is also true that the Burmese junta is a brutal regime that has repeatedly gunned down anti-government protesters in order to maintain its own power and privileges. Its rescue efforts are certainly hampered not only by the economic backwardness of the country, but also by the regime’s callous indifference to the plight of the Burmese people. Given the current media campaign, one should approach all press reports with considerable caution. But there is little doubt that many cyclone victims are being left to fend for themselves—as indeed were the survivors of the 2004 tsunami by governments of the worst hit countries.

No one, however, should place any credibility in the protestations of concern from the Bush administration and its allies. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted on Wednesday that Washington’s cyclone assistance was “not a matter of politics” but rather “a matter of a humanitarian crisis”. “What remains is for the Burmese government to allow the international community to help its people,” Rice declared.

In reality, all American assistance comes with political strings attached. The Bush administration has offered a paltry $3.5 million in financial aid and is pushing for the entry of US officials, aid workers and military personnel to handle emergency relief operations rather than allow Burmese authorities to carry them out. At the same time, the US and its European allies continue to maintain sanctions against the Burmese regime that have compounded the country’s economic difficulties. In the week prior to the cyclone, the Bush administration strengthened its bans on trade and investment and the freezing of assets, all of which remain in place except for a slight easing of restrictions on financial aid.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested on Wednesday that the UN Security Council be convened to invoke its “responsibility to protect” to override Burmese national sovereignty and deliver international aid, with or without the junta’s approval. The “responsibility to protect” resolution, which has a history dating back to the 1999 NATO war on Yugoslavia, was passed in 2006 as an instrument for the major powers to justify military aggression on the grounds of preventing “genocide, war, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. Kouchner’s suggestion would extent the scope for such interventions to natural disasters such as Cyclone Nargis.

Kouchner’s comments have yet to be publicly supported by Washington, but the suggestion is clearly being discussed within the administration. The US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, declared that most governments were “outraged” by the slowness of the Burmese regime to accept international aid. Alluding to the UN Security Council powers, he added: “A government has responsibility to protect its own people, to provide for its people.... It should be a no-brainer to accept the offer made by the international community.”

Director of the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, Ky Luu, was more explicit. He indicated that unilateral air drops by US military aircraft was one of the options being considered if the junta continued to refuse to accept American aid. Four US warships are already heading towards Burma and Navy helicopters and Air Force cargo planes have been stationed in neighbouring Thailand. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates commented that he could not imagine a military intervention without Burmese permission. Defence Department spokesman Bryan Whitman noted: “If you’re not asked and it’s not requested, it’s considered an invasion.” Nevertheless, it is clear that the military option and its political ramifications are being actively discussed.

The Asian tsunami

As part of the campaign to pressure the Burmese junta, a new mythology is being created to paint the international response to the Asian tsunami as a model of rapid, efficient and compassionate aid delivery by all involved. Contrasts are increasingly being made between the Burmese regime today and its “democratic” counterparts in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand in 2004.

Any objective examination of the 2004 tragedy, however, reveals a very different picture. The huge tsunami waves engulfed impoverished villages around the Bay of Bengal on December 26. For days, as the death toll quickly mounted into the tens of thousands, US President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other world leaders failed to make any statement on the disaster. When they finally broke their vacations, their collective contempt for the fate of the victims was revealed in their perfunctory comments and pathetic offers of aid. It was only after an outpouring of sympathy and donations from working people around the world, aghast at the enormity of the disaster, that the US and major powers began to act.

In the worst affected countries, emergency relief efforts were hamstrung by red tape and political agendas, of both the local regimes and the donor countries. The Indonesian and Sri Lankan governments had been waging brutal long-running wars against separatist movements and were extremely reluctant to allow aid organisations, let alone foreign militaries, into the disaster zones. Far from helping the victims, the Indonesian military seized the opportunity to intensify its operations against Achnese rebels. In Sri Lanka, attempts to establish a joint aid body with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) under the auspices of the 2002 ceasefire collapsed, amid bitter communal recriminations over any official recognition of the separatists.

The Indian government insisted that it would control its own relief operations and dismissed any suggestion that foreign militaries should be involved. The Indian military was particularly sensitive to the presence of international aid workers in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which were among the worst hit areas, because of the presence of strategic navy and air force bases there. More than three years later, thousands of tsunami victims on the islands, as well as in other parts of India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, are still living in squalid conditions in temporary accommodation.

No one in ruling circles in the US or Europe suggested at the time that a military operation should be mounted to override Indian sovereignty or to make unilateral air drops over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In the case of Sri Lanka and Indonesia, the governments eventually permitted the US military to assist in aid operations on their territories. In both cases, Washington’s overriding purpose was political—to forge closer working relations with the militaries of the two countries as well as to set a precedent, which is now being invoked to exert pressure on the Burmese junta.

US Secretary of State Rice bluntly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 2005 that the tsunami constituted “a wonderful opportunity to show not just the US government, but the heart of the American people... And I think it has paid great dividends for us.” Rice now declares that US aid offers to Burma are “not a matter of politics”, but the Bush administration is intent on transforming this latest disaster into a new political “opportunity” to advance its strategic and economic interests in the region.

Strategic interests

The decision of the Burmese junta to selectively accept aid from sympathetic countries such as China, India and Thailand, and not the US, is hardly surprising. The Bush administration has made little secret of the fact that it favours “regime change” in Burma—the removal of the military regime and its replacement by a government, headed by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, more amenable to Washington’s interests and to opening up the country to foreign investors.

The US targetting of the junta has nothing to do with concern for the democratic rights or the welfare of the Burmese people. Washington’s hostility towards the Burmese regime is driven above all by the latter’s close association with China, regarded by the US as its main potential rival. Over the past eight years, the Bush administration has pursued a strategy of strengthening military ties and establishing bases in a string of countries around China—from South Korea and Japan to the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia and around to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Central Asia republics.

Burma is a significant hole in US efforts to “contain” China. The country sits next to the strategic Strait of Malacca—the major sea-lane linking North East Asia, including China, with the energy resources of the Middle East and Africa. Control of such “choke points” has long been central to American naval plans. China has assisted Burma in building various naval facilities and counts on access to Burmese ports as part of its efforts to protect shipping lanes that are vital for its own economy.

The international media is already making criticisms of China for failing to exert more pressure on its ally to open up to international aid. US Secretary of State Rice phoned her counterpart in Beijing this week to push the Chinese government to exert more pressure on Burma. If the Bush administration did decide to press for a UN resolution to intervene, Beijing would quickly become a more direct target of vilification. China has opposed any move to raise the cyclone disaster in the UN Security Council.

There is also a broader economic agenda behind Washington’s hostility to the Burmese junta. For decades, it has maintained a largely shut-in, isolated economy in which military-run enterprises still dominate the key sectors. For American corporations, the country is a new potential source of cheap labour as well as critical resources, including oil and gas. The US administration has quietly allowed the Chevron oil corporation to proceed with its multi-million dollar investments in Burma, but such operations are hindered by bad relations between the two countries.

The Bush administration is no more motivated by humanitarian concerns in Burma than it is in Iraq or Afghanistan. In rejecting the latest lies and hypocrisy from the White House, it is necessary to consider the fundamental issues involved. Why do such catastrophes repeatedly hit the most vulnerable layers of the world’s population? Why do disease, hunger and poverty continue to ravage the masses of Asia, Africa and Latin America?

The resources exist to abolish suffering and want, as well as to minimise the impact of natural disasters such as Cyclone Nargis. Over the past three decades, the globalisation of production has vastly expanded mankind’s economic capacity, establishing the basis for the rational planning and deployment of resources on a world scale to ensure a decent standard of living for people in every part of the globe. Under capitalism, however, this huge economic and scientific capacity is exploited to provide profits for the wealthy few, while the vast majority, including in the major industrialised countries, struggle to survive from day to day.

Poverty and unemployment are no aberration. The vast layers of the world’s urban and rural poor are an essential feature of global capitalism. They form a vast reserve army of labour that is used as a constant downward pressure on the wages and conditions of the working class internationally. The only means for abolishing the immense and deepening chasm between rich and poor is through the revolutionary restructuring of society along socialist lines, so that the burning needs of the overwhelming majority of humanity take precedence over the profit requirements of the few.

[darsie]

The UN is a useless matchbox on the East River - I have seen tits on a bull more useful!

If it was a country that had wealth - then it would be all hands on deck and stuff the government in place.

The fat cats in the Bumese military junta wouldn't seem to give two shits about the citizens they 'serve'.

Let's not forget that it would only take 1% of the world's defence budget (for one day) to feed the whole world for a year.