by Will Cade

Every news agency around the world is covering the disaster relief efforts for the cylone ravished country of Burma (also known as Myanmar). 22,000 Burmese are dead, and allegedly some 1.5 million more are facing starvation and disease in the days to come. The Burmese Government, led by its Military Council, is currently accepting some aid packages from beyond its beyorders but is refusing aid workers and media crews. The media is covering every detail of these events as they unfold, yet only a few articles have even mentioned probably the most pertinent question: why would a government refuse help?

In my experience, people only refuse help if they are proud, they can actually handle it themselves, or they have something to hide. Being that corpses are still rotting in the streets days after the cyclone has passed, the Burmese Governemnt obviously can’t handle this on its own. On the same note, I don’t see how any government (even a military Dictatorship) could feel proud when its people are starving and dying in the street. So what possible explanations does that leave us, or, perhaps more accurately, what is the Burmese government trying to hide?

The Burmese Military Leaders are notoriously suspicious of westerners, even during times of stability - if that word can even apply to a country which brutally represseses any political opposition. When non-violent protests began in multiple cities in 2007, the government deployed riot police who at times fired live rounds into the crowds. The government later raided Buddhist monasteries to detain political dissidents. The exact accounts of these events are still disputed, in part because the government refused western journalists access and allegedly blocked all access to the internet.

If this repressive trend continues, we may never learn why the Burmese Government is refusing aid. The sad fact is that the Burmese government cannot seem to keep all information within its borders: the rising death toll is updated almost by the hour.