Aid to Burma/Myanmar? 100,000 dead?

[justTripn]

It sounds like the tragedy in Myanmar (used to be Burma) almost matches that of the Christmas Tsunami in Asia several years back. The only reason we aren't hearing about it is the horrible, horrible Myanmar government is so closed, they aren't eager for help and they aren't cooperating with aid workers--handing out visas to aid workers. Nevertheless, it seems that World Vision is already in and has been welcomed to help.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/0 ... index.html

It seems the weakest link in this chain is the Myanmar government, not foreign aid, but it is so frustrating. The organization I worked for so long ago in neighboring Thailand, Food for the Hungry, is ready to go and claims to have just worked at similar disaster in Bangladesh. They are a Christian (protestant) relief and development organization.

http://www.fh.org/

Watch out for the junk mail from these people.

Other great organizations that are typically involved with these things:

International Rescue Committee, a charity started by Albert Einstein. They don't do the junk mail! Oh they claim to have landed a team in Myanmar already:

http://www.theirc.org/

UN High Commissioner for Refugees. They are in Thailand "poised to go" according to their website"

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home

Americares--very patriotic American relief organization--flies in medical supplies and food--"ready to go"

http://www.americares.org/

Doctors without Borders (They are already there!)

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/ne ... fm?id=2662

[blacknblue]

Dunno for sure, but heard on the national news that the U.S government is ready to send in mucho dinero and many troops in aid. But the government in Burma won't have it.

[CX]

I saw on Yahoo that the UN has suspended all aid because their government was seizing all aid shipments at the ports.

[Alelou]

Here's a perfect situation where we wish the whole world could join together and run these bozos out of of the country. Of course, that's what they're afraid of...

S

[justTripn]

It's like trying to help the Klingons. Not to make light of the situation, but ARGGGHHH!!!! I hope that government topples over this!!!!

[Asso]

A fair hope.
A feeble hope.

[blacknblue]

The major news orgs (BBC, Reuters, AP, Major US networks, etc) are reporting that the international health organizations and the UN are afraid of an "apocalyptic" epidemic if they don't get medical aid in their NOW.

Figure it this way. No homes. No clean water. Sick kids. No doctors. No vaccines. One sick kid infects ten others. Measles. Whooping cough. TB. Cholera. Scarlet Fever. Influenza (how many different strains are out there this year anyway?), Mumps. Typhoid. Malaria?

And NO DOCTORS. NO medicine. NO clean water. No food. No shelter. No blankets. No shovels to bury the rotting bodies, and nobody healthy enough to dig the graves or fight off the scavengers. Or brush away the flies that will be landing on the corpses and then spreading the disease into the open sores on the sick babies and the few pitiful scraps of rotten food that people might manage to scrounge.

Rats. Fleas. Bubonic plague.

[justTripn]

It's already apocalyptic.

[Asso]

Apocalyptic.
Yes!

[Elessar]

Dunno for sure, but heard on the national news that the U.S government is ready to send in mucho dinero and many troops in aid. But the government in Burma won't have it.

Yeah they won't let a single U.S. Marine on their soil...

Can't say I blame em... I know what I'd be tempted to do if I were there. A little good ole REGIME CHANGING.

Yeah it's pretty nasty... has any of this crap been cleaned up from the last one in Christmas 2006?

This part of the world is kinda used to this, I mean it happens pretty often, but it's still a tragedy that help isn't allowed to get in. I would wonder how this kind of climate effects the population over a long period of time.

[JadziaKathryn]

Yeah they won't let a single U.S. Marine on their soil...

Can't say I blame em... I know what I'd be tempted to do if I were there. A little good ole REGIME CHANGING.

Exactly. If you wanted to hold on to absolute power, would you let well-trained military forces in? Ones who might spread wild ideas about freedom to the people? I think not. Mind you, we mustn't try to change so many regimes that we overstretch the military...

Of course it'd be great if the government toppled from within over this, but it's not as though there are a lot of people to fill the power vacuum that would create. So then you have to say, "We can have a corrupt junta or we can have total anarchy." To me, this is pretty much six of one and half a dozen of the other. It just depends whether the neighborhood hooligans are on the government payroll or not. It rots either way.

Those poor, poor people.

[blacknblue]

*sigh*

Pack 'em up and ship 'em here. Why not? We have the room, and we might as well. Sooner or later the UN is gonna end up making it look like it was all our fault anyway. So bring them here and get it over with. Shoot the junta goons and fetch the poor people here so they can have a fighting chance to start over. Eventually we will end up with productive citizens, and China can have some extra territory to spend money defending.

[JadziaKathryn]

We might have the room, but we decidedly don't have the infrastructure to deal with an entire country of refugees, or the available jobs, or the money they'd need to get started...