To hell with the generals

Burma (well Myanmar) was recently hit by a massive cyclone which has caused damage that to call catastrophic would be understating things. The damage is well illustrated here where you can compare satellite photos taken before and after the cyclone hit. Before buildings, streets, rivers, trees, a clear blue ocean and more are all clearly visible. After you can seen dirty water, trees and mud.

This is without a doubt a bad thing.

The rulers of Burma though have decided to make it a worse thing. They have delayed allowing aid workers into the country, and in the end have declared that while they will accept aid, they won't accept aid workers. All the food and materials are going into the hands of the military who don't seem to be doing all that good a job at getting it to the people.

The generals have said that they want aid, but not aid workers. I say we should give them exactly that. I propose that the various governments active in the region start airlifting supplies and dropping them into the affected regions with nice brightly coloured parachutes. They should tell the Burmese government what they plan to do, and also tell them that they will be sending an escort around those craft who will only act in self defense. And in each crate of food or tents or medicine or sleeping bags or any of the other numerous things the people of Burma need, throw in a few radios or portable TVs and some batteries, and throw in a few flags from the countries providing the goods, just so they know who's looking out for them.

The generals are demanding the aid on their terms so that they can control the distribution and the people. So we should short circuit their control over both in one fell swoop. There are too many people suffering to let us allow a bunch of petty minded tyrants to stop us from helping.

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