Burma’s Misery Under Junta Continues
Burma’s ruling junta has requested aid and rescue personnel from Bangladesh, India China, and Thailand to help its relief work for sufferers of Cyclone Nargis, while still holding up the granting of visas to many experts from other nations, a United Nations administrator said Wednesday. “I understand that Burma has requested specifically that neighboring countries can help them with the response,” said Amanda Pitt, a spokeswoman working for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). “I think they want 160 personnel from these four places, just general personnel who are able to come in to bolster the Burma government’s relief efforts,” Pitt explained at a news conference in Bangkok.
Thailand, China, India and Bangladesh border Burma, and among its main trading partners. Their governments have generally been more helpful to Burma’s military administration than those of western democracies, which have forced economic sanctions on the nation to rebuke the junta’s recurrent crack downs on its own population and denial of democratic reforms.
Burma’s people have lived underneath military dictatorships ever since 1962.
The government requested global aid after Cyclone Nargis, devastated its central coast on May 2 & 3, but it has held up on allowing visas to relief experts attempting to enter the secluded country to help smooth the progress of the disaster relief work.
The storm killed over 100,000 inhabitants leaving about 1.5 to 2 million people in need of basic necessities.
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