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Regional Press Review 16 May 2008
May 16, 2008
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Regional Press Review 16/05/08
This week,
Myanmar’s continued resistance to foreign aid in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.
Indonesia’s plan to raise fuel prices.
And China’s rapid response to the recent Sichuan earthquake.
A powerful earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter-scale struck China’s southwestern province of Sichuan on Monday.
Despite a rising death toll and infrastructural damage on a massive scale, the Chinese government was commended for its rapid rescue mobilization.
Singapore’s Straits Times noted that over fifty thousand soldiers have so far been mobilized to affected areas, along with well-equipped relief workers and volunteers from neighbouring towns.
The speedy emergency response after Monday's quake, and the oversight of relief operations by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself, are a credit to the devotion and the organisational savvy of the state apparatus.
The paper also noted the relative transparency of the rescue effort.
Information flows critical in disaster situations have been reliable in both state and private media, a reverse of the attempted cover-up during the 2003 Sars outbreak in Guangdong.
In stark contrast to China’s preparedness and response to the Sichuan earthquake, the Myanmar government faces increasing criticism for its response to the cyclone that devastated the Irrawadddy delta on May 3.
According to official state radio, the death toll from Cyclone Nargis has risen to almost 38,500, with almost 28,000 people missing.
But the United Nations has warned that the number of dead likely exceeds 100,000, and that many more may die unless aid reaches up to two million survivors.
To date, the Myanmar government has been very selective in allowing foreign aid experts into the country.
A proposal by the UN Security council to step up pressure on Myanmar to grant full access to foreign aid workers was rejected by China and Indonesia. Thailand’s The Nation newspaper was critical of this.
When a government fails to protect its own citizens on such a mammoth scale, the international community must act to save lives. This is not Iraq, there is no need to prove or disprove a nuclear weapons programme. It is obvious for all to see. How can we wait and watch the Burmese people die in front of our eyes because of the non-interventionist principles practised by Asean? Such principles have been cleverly used by the junta to continue oppressing their own citizens.
The Myanmar government insists that it is coping with the situation by itself. Singapore’s Straits Times.
Myanmar's cyclone victims are still exposed to nature's mercy more than a week after because the junta has shown it fears seeing its power dissolve away if it threw the country open to foreign aid and personnel. The generals are nourishing a fraud in making the sufferers think the military government alone will provide for them.
Despite the devastation, Myanmar’s leaders went ahead with a planned, constitutional referendum on May 10, which they promised would transform the nation’s political landscape. However, Malaysia’s New Straits Times warned it was due to the effects of the cyclone that the country would never be the same again.
If the wrenching transformations wrought by the cyclone also include the decline and fall of the military regime that has astounded the world with its deadly determination to keep out "foreign influence", perhaps the proverbial "winds of change" that have for so long eluded Myanmar took a very literal expression that fateful May 3.
ASEAN has also been criticized for its slow response to the situation in Myanmar. Singapore’s Straits Times stressed the need to develop a disaster quick-response system.
ASEAN, as the region's formal political grouping should not be placed in a permanent position of just saying how sorry it is whenever a member nation is stricken by a massive natural occurrence, with people dying in their thousands. The 2004 tsunami, which struck Indonesia the hardest, taught the organisation's member-nations the need for some form of institutionalised mechanism that could activate relief work and the dispatch of military manpower at short notice.
In Indonesia, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono faces increasing opposition for his government’s plan to increase fuel prices at the end of this month.
If fuel prices were to remain at current levels, this would mean higher fuel subsidies. The Jakarta Post was critical of parliamentary opposition to a fuel price increase.
If they use their intelligence and reasoning properly, these politicians who claim to defend the interest of the people should have supported the proposed direct subsidy to the poor rather than the existing and rising commodity subsidy. Commodity subsidies often do not reach intended recipients. Fuel subsidies, for example, benefit the rich more than the poor.
Finally, the paper added that strong leadership was required in light of the immense political pressure.
… the choice for the President is clear, whether he will back off to please the rich or steadfastly move forward and free this country from the moral crime of supplying the rich with heavily subsidized fuel. If he does the courageous thing, then he will possibly win his second term with the support of the poor.
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