A cyclone approaches Burma. Now. Currently gathering strength in the northern Indian Ocean it approaches the Bay of Bengal heading for Bangladesh and northwestern Burma, where hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya, displaced by recent ethnic violence, are living in makeshift tents in low-lying areas. This time, the government and the UN relief agencies are making an attempt to move people out of the way, no easy task, perhaps an impossible task. Five years ago, another cyclone, another time, it was a different story entirely.

In 2008 Cyclone Nargis scored a direct hit on the delta region of southern Burma and the city of Yangon, with winds of 135 km/hr, sending storm surges 40 km up the delta. The destruction was catastrophic and at least 140,000 were reported dead and millions were displaced with entire communities vanished. The death toll was actually much higher than that but the government soon stopped updating the estimates, with their usual technique of it’s only true if we say it’s true, or if we say it isn’t so, it didn’t happen. It was the biggest natural disaster in the country’s history, but the real disaster was not natural at all.

When the cyclone struck international relief organizations and foreign governments immediately sent planeloads of relief supplies and workers to assist. For 10 days they were refused admission to the country, sitting in Thailand waiting for visas and flight clearance. Some planes at the beginning actually landed at Yangon airport, but were refused admittance and sent back to Bangkok, along with their relief supplies. Meanwhile in Yangon, the Generals downplayed the disaster in the delta, saying that they had everything under control and no outside assistance was necessary. People in Yangon which was also hit hard knew differently and individual Burmese in the city themselves organized what cars and trucks and boats they could, with what supplies they could gather, to personally take into the delta regions to do what they could to help. As the week went on the military even blocked, or stole, these personal relief efforts. None of the 500,000 able-bodied soldiers the Generals controlled were seen deployed to help in the delta.

After weeks of diplomatic stalemate, the Secretary-General of the UN made a trip to Yangon to talk to the Generals, after which Big Daddy General Than Shwe announced to the world that relief workers would now be allowed in. The international press heralded the success of the visit, calling it a “major breakthrough” but the Burmese were unimpressed by this news. They knew better than to believe what the Generals say they will do, and they were right. The few foreign relief efforts allowed in were still blocked and restricted from large areas of the delta and many many many thousands of people never received help and many many many thousands more were to die.

Like so many other Burma tales, the mind and body and heart screams “WHY?” but any possible answers seem incomprehensible and perhaps the question itself has no meaning. Now there is a new government and with it changing attitudes. But still, whether the cyclone makes a direct hit or not, there will be people dying this week, the same people who have suffered wretched poverty, recent violent attacks and displacement from their homes. Already hundreds lost their lives when yesterday overcrowded boats attempting to lead them to a safer place capsized. While rainy season cyclones and natural disasters in that part of the world will always be part of life, I for one will be watching how this government, in this event and others, takes care of its people. That’s assuming they consider the Muslim Rohingya “their” people, which is by no means clear.

More earlier posts about the Rohingya at the East West Upside Down blog.

Satellite image from NASA

Rohingya “displaced persons” camp photo AP-Gemunu Marasinghe