Teresa Luque Romero: The causes that have made the Myanmar's cyclone a maze with no exit: A disaster converted in a nightmare.

The causes that have made the Myanmar’s cyclone a maze with no exit: A disaster converted in a nightmare.

Degradation, corruption, politic interests… induced a natural disaster to be converted in a humanitarian tragedy much more serious that what it should have been.

On the night of 2-3 May 2008, Myanmar, known before as Burma, was devastated by the cyclone Nargis, a natural phenomenon without precedents. The most shocking disaster in Asia since the tsunami in 2004 . The results of this cyclone were disastrous with 22.000 deaths and 40.000 disappearances. Nargis was the most powerful cyclone to strike Myanmar within living memory.

The Minister of humanitarian help and settlements in that time, Maung Maung Swe declared in a news conference that the worst part of it was not the cyclone it self but the huge wave that was produced as a consequence of it "The wave reached 3.5 meters high, spread and inundated half of the houses in low-lying villages " "They could not escape anywhere ". So as a result, the coastal areas of low-lying Ayeyarwady (formerly Irrawady) Division were the hardest hit.

Lets start by explaining that Myanmar has been governed by a military dictatorship since 2 March 1962 when the civilian government, which started in 1948, was overthrown and military rule began. The government has been under direct or indirect control by the military since then. The government based its actions in the combination of the soviet- style nationalisation and central planning.  In this way, Burma became one of the world’s most oppressive systems in the world.

This dictatorship caused numerous protests. One of the most important of them was the one carried out in 15 August 2007 by the Buddhist monks in Rangoon when five huge columns of monks (one of them with more tan a kilometre of length) went over the centre of the city and Shwedagon Temple, the most important temple of this deeply Buddhist country. As a witness of the sixth day of the protest declared “People joined together their arms around the monks, applauding and cheering them” (el Confidencial , 2007).

In terms of international relations, as it happens in North Korea nowadays, the rulers of Burma would not welcome international intervention in any aspect of life and policy of the country because it would be a threat to the military government. But on the other hand the role of the international community could not afford to leave Burma alone.

After Cyclone Nargis devastated the country, the international community was quick to offer sympathy and support, within a week; twenty-four countries had pledged financial support totalling US$30 million. However, the world was shocked because of the decision of the military government witch initially refused to accept humanitarian assistance, which shows the obvious lack of concern for cyclone victims and its blatant disregard for world opinion. It was not until 6 May, after the international pressure, that the regime decided to accept some external help but with very restrictive conditions as they were highly concerned about a possible foreign armed intervention and also a possible external interference in their internal commandment.

It is not known why the regime’s response was so slow but it was probably due, at least in part, to Maypyidaws preoccupation with its constitutional referendum, scheduled for 10 May. The government decided to go ahead with it in the less cyclone-affected areas of the country and postponed it two weeks in the most damage ones. This is way they did not want international intervention to interfere in the country refusing to accept aid donations and not allowing foreign aid workers into the country, which caused the greatest concern in the world. It was also made clear that only “ friend” countries with their NGOs were going to be allowed to enter in Myanmar, in this way, the naval vessels loaded with aid supply sent by the United Nations, Britain and France were denied permission to land in Myanmar or to deliver supplies by helicopter.

As a result, on 12 May, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared his “deep concern and immense frustration at the unacceptably slow response to this grave humanitarian crisis” other world leaders expressed similar sentiments, for example UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In contradiction with this, members of the dictatorship were trying to make people believe that the worst part of the problem was resolved, for example the 7 May when Senior General Than Shwe stated that the situation was returning to normal, even when thousands of victims were still waiting for some help and bodies were still lying in the streets.

As a result of the visit of Ban Ki-moon to the country the same month and the work coordinated by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign aid workers began to have more liberty to enter the country and to supply more of their help. Even so, the control of the Myanmar government was still really strict.

So as a conclusion, we can see that sometimes politics are more based in self-interests than in what the society really needs even tough this is an extreme case. Firstly it is necessary to emphasize that they should have had preparedness to preventing human health in case of cyclones and tsunamis, but on that way, Myanmar was a undeveloped country so the absence of this emergency preparedness resulted in death happen immediately during the impact phase. But the most important thing in this case is that they did not take the measures to deal whit the disaster after it happened. It is known that in countries affected by disasters local governments often have to take the initiative to make certain policy changes or implement programs and training, in alignment of being prepared as a community. But as we have seen before, this was not the position Myanmar government took versus the Nargis Cyclone. And as a result the life of thousands of people was truncated.

REFERENCE LIST:

Yawnghwe, H. (1997). Breaking from history: Repression and protest in Burma. Harvard International Review, 19(4), p.36.

SELTH, A. (2008). Even Paranoids Have Enemies: Cyclone Nargis and Myanmar's Fears of Invasion. Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal Of International & Strategic Affairs, 30(3), p. 379-402.

Seekins, D. M. (2009). State, Society and Natural Disaster: Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (Burma). Asian Journal Of Social Science, 37(5), p. 717-737.

Lateef, F. (2009). Cyclone Nargis and Myanmar: A wake up call. Journal Of Emergencies, Trauma & Shock, 2(2