[Opinion] Myanmar’s Catastrophe

Satellite images of Myanmar taken by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are shocking. Tropical cyclone Nargis, which battered Myanmar over the weekend, turned the beautiful land and blue rivers into literally “utter war zone.” Although Myanmar`s military junta announced the number of people killed or missing was estimated at 63,000, Shari Villarosa, the Charge d`Affaires for the United States Embassy in Rangoon, claimed the death toll could top 100,000. This is the worst damage since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people.

Despite the ongoing efforts to provide immediate assistance and humanitarian aids from the international community including the United Nations, the Myanmar`s military junta, which is notorious for its dictatorship, is reluctant to accept a helping hand. A considerable number of international aid agencies such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies failed to get permission to go into the country due to selective visa issuing by the government. The U.S. navy ship dispatched for relief efforts is stranded on the offshore of Thailand since the government has not allowed it to enter the country. Many experts say that the military government refused to accept the relief assistance and aid supplies because it feared such outside contacts could shatter its authoritarian regime.

The secretive military regime is denounced as one of the most brutal regimes in the world, along with North Korea. The military junta took power though a coup d’état in 1988 and changed the English version of the country`s name from Burma to Myanmar. Isolated from the outside world, the regime has maintained its iron-fisted rule in the country for over past two decades. One of the most outrageous things committed by the military leadership was capital relocation, in which they moved even further into the shadows of jungle in Naypyidaw, 320 kilometers north of Yangon, in 2006. The relocation had been preceded under tight secrecy to the extent that the public servants were forbidden to move in with their family.

Experts believe that the fear of attack from the West, the United State in particular, drove Myanmar`s military junta to move its capital into the jungle. That is why the government has shown unwillingness to accept the dispatched navy fleet. The sensation of horror that the West could turn the muzzle toward them at any time may be the result of their evildoing they have committed. How long could the illegitimate military regime manage to stifle the nation and the people in order to sustain its reign? It is a pity the people of Myanmar remain cut off from the reach of outside help due to the military-controlled leadership even after suffering the devastating disaster. Our sympathy goes to the residents in North Korea whose conditions are said to be not much different from Myanmar.

Editorial Writer Chung Seong-hee (shchung@donga.com)