[Editorial] Tyranny Harsher Than Natural Disaster in Myanmar, N.K.

In Myanmar where Cyclone Nargis wiped away the lives of about 100,000 people at once, the current state resembles Stone Age without electricity and communications. While subsidized goods from the international society are arriving at the country’s border region one after another, the military junta of Myanmar is only giving limited clearance out of concern over possible instability in the regime. The ruling faction of Myanmar is neglecting its 1.5 million people nearly dying from starvation and diseases, and is busying itself securing power. It is a regime against humanity.

During the so-called Arduous March period, which began in 1995, North Korea also had tens of thousands of people starve to death due to the lack of food. Statistics on the number of people who starved to death vary from some hundreds of thousands to 3 million. Even after experiencing the disastrous crisis, North Korea has been unable to solve the problem of food shortage, and is surviving on by receiving help from South Korea every spring cessation. North Korea has a lot in common with Myanmar in that it frequently expels agents of international organizations and NGOs working to resolve the problem of food shortage for the North Korean people. It is said that North Korea is facing the most dangerous situation in the past decade following the end of the Arduous March. Good Friends, a human rights organization for the North Korean people, delivering the news of the famine that has started in the farming region, said, “We should be aware that a storm of famine scarier than Nargis is blowing toward North Korea.”

The attitude of Kim Jong Il’s regime is no different from that of the military junta of Myanmar. Despite the severe food shortage in spring this year, North Korea is focusing on unreasonably decrying the South Korean government and refusing help. If Kim Jong Il cares for the pain of the starving North Koreans a little more than that, it is his moral duty to cooperate more actively in the denuclearization process and request help from the international society, including South Korea. To be blunt, a beggar should behave like a beggar.

Myanmar’s commanders are shamefully writing in their names on the subsidized goods sent from the outer world. They resemble North Korean leader Kim who does himself credit every national holiday with the subsidy donated by other countries. In the international society, some are even arguing that “Myanmar should be invaded to save the refugees.”

As the old saying goes, “Tyranny is worse than a man-eating tiger,” the tyranny in Myanmar and North Korea is harsher than natural disasters. The history of mankind has many records giving us the lesson that a regime that starves its people to death is destined to face a miserable end.