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Authors, sign in!Among the countless tragedies of the earthquake in China is that it will now be easier to let politics erase several hundred thousand human beings in Myanmar. It's simple: the Chinese government wants help to save lives and the government in Myanmar is determined to waste life.
The only mystery behind Myanmar's disastrous refusal to allow international aid to immediately flow toward catastrophic suffering in the wake of last week's cyclone is why anyone is at all confused about the government's actions. The calculus is straight forward. Myanmar has a lot of poverty. Poor people are an economic burden and a political challenge. Letting several hundred thousand poor people die must seem like a no-brainer to the elites ruling a people who desire and deserve democracy.
Published May 13, 2008 by Darrell Hamlin |
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| Tags:
China
Democracy
Poverty
Comments (2)
What few media reports we have gotten, I've looked closely at the faces there. They seem so vulnerable, so sweet, so unprepared, like children almost. The pain in their faces haunts me. I pray for them every day. We all have accountability in this.
Nora Thomason
Posted by Nora Thomason
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May 13, 2008 5:20 PM
Posted on May 13, 2008 17:20
It's not difficult to draw comparisons between what that government is doing to (and how it regards its) poor victims of disaster - and how the Bush administration neglected and disregarded the needs of the poor victims of Hurricane Katrina. In both cases, the ruling elite have no need for the poor and have no incentive to offer them help.
Posted by Nora Thomason
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May 14, 2008 9:33 AM
Posted on May 14, 2008 09:33