Saturday, 07 June 2008 20:00 GFP Columnist - Haresh Daswani
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ImageThe recent disasters that hit both China and Myanmar are actually devastating on scales we could not imagine. To put it into perspective, if Brunei had the same disaster, half the population would be dead, and 40% of the remaining population would be missing, and the rest would not have had a home. Myanmar's population is certainly not the biggest, which would mean that while percentagewise it would not sound as disastrous as what it would have been like if it was Brunei, but this is not statistics, this is human life.

The most important thing, everyone wants to help, just as everyone wants to support China. China could get applause for how it is handling the disaster, but it is getting criticism for having shoddy infrastructure in the first place. This openness and transparency (or to the most that China will be willing to present) gives us an idea, however small, of the picture of the disaster, and how we can help out.
Myanmar, on the other hand, is a largely worrying situation. We are all definite and certain that the death toll is largely understated, and for a country with no means or proper infrastructure available to rescue all that could possibly be rescued, or nurse the injured and critical back to health, things cannot get better. 

The worst part is, they blatantly refuse any outside help in trying to alleviate the situation. During the time of great crisis, it is vital that the world be allowed access, however limited or constrained the conditions might be, and be given the opportunity to assist in the situation with as much access to ensuring aid workers do not feel like they have their hands tied to their backs while assisting, yet assuring the political leaders that aid workers are not penetrating the country to incite revolt or steal important information.

In the United States, as in many countries, if the parents obstruct in letting their children have proper medical access when needed, the state has the right to take the children away from such parents and assign them to those who can assure and take care of the children.

I think that if the government is obstructing their own citizens from proper medical care, everyone else should be given the right to help those citizens be liberated from such leaders.

Just like the justification to the whole Iraq war.

The Iraqis were being liberated from their deranged leader. I do not see any difference to how Myanmar is handling the situation. Yet, no action is really being taken against the government of Myanmar.

It is about time that certain steps be taken in assuring that humans need not lose their life over pure illogical tantrums and stubbornness of their own government. If they cannot fight their own government, we all are given the duty to help.

The very same justification to the whole Iraq war.

Otherwise, the whole Iraq war cannot be properly justified. We cannot select which countries we wish to help and which we don't, we have to remain unbiased. If we choose to have a bias, we might as well be open and transparent with our reason.

The world never really had to go through another Myanmar situation, this could be prevented. 

Image: NFP Files



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