Myanmar, or Burma as it used to be known, has experienced far more than its fair share of tragedy over the past 75 years or more. The death and destruction caused by yesterday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake is the latest in a litany of suffering which this beautiful but benighted South-East Asian nation has endured.
I have visited the areas close to the epicentre of the earthquake many times in the past. I have been in Sagaing, Mandalay and the capital, Naypyidaw. The scenes of the devastation there are heartbreaking, because they are scenes of devastation affecting places and people I know well.
Roads, bridges and buildings have been destroyed in a poverty-stricken and conflict-ridden country with poor infrastructure
The exact death toll is unknown, not least because independent media and civil society are so repressed and the country closed off to outsiders by the ruling military junta. But it can be assumed that hundreds, probably thousands, of people have been killed.
Roads, bridges and buildings have been destroyed in a poverty-stricken and conflict-ridden country with poor infrastructure. The 1,000-bed hospital in the capital, Naypyidaw, has been declared a ‘mass casualty area’. Doctors and nurses are struggling to cope with the numbers of injured lining up. With the damage to infrastructure, the ability of the wounded to reach hospitals, or for relief teams to reach the wounded, is severely hampered.
It is a sign of the severity of the disaster that Myanmar’s illegal military regime has appealed to the international community for aid and declared a state of emergency. ‘We want the international community to give humanitarian aid as soon as possible,’ junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told AFP.
The junta has a long and well-documented history of refusing or blocking humanitarian aid, or weaponising it. When Cyclone Nargis – the second deadliest named cyclone of all time – hit Myanmar in 2008, the military dictatorship at the time initially declined international aid. It took persistent high-level diplomacy by the UN Secretary General at the time, Ban Ki-moon, combined with international pressure, to get relief into the country.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the military hoarded supplies of oxygen, masks and vaccines for themselves, attacked medical facilities, arrested doctors and denied ordinary people basic medical care. In the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha in 2023, and Typhoon Yagi last month, it was a similar story.
On top of this, the regime – which seized power in a coup in February 2021, overthrowing the democratically-elected civilian government led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi – has been waging war on its people. A relentless campaign of air strikes and ground attacks by the military on villages across much of the country, targeting civilians among the ethnic nationalities and pro-democracy resistance, has resulted in the displacement of over 3.5 million people. The regime blocks access to most of the affected areas of the country for international aid agencies.
In recent months, the United Nations and the World Food Programme have been warning of an intensifying humanitarian crisis, with several million people facing famine and 15.2 million – almost a third of the population – plunged into food insecurity.
Indeed, Myanmar’s military is expert at causing humanitarian catastrophe, not responding to it. It is a regime responsible for mass atrocity crimes – including the genocide of the Rohingyas and crimes against humanity and war crimes against the country’s other ethnic groups. Its past track record in handling humanitarian emergencies has been disastrous.
So the junta’s appeal for help should be taken seriously. Given our colonial history with Myanmar, the United Kingdom has a responsibility to lead the response. The United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and the European Union (EU) must all play their part. Despite recent cuts in overseas aid budgets by the United Kingdom and the United States, this is an emergency. We must all step up.
But in so doing, our governments must insist that the junta end all restrictions on aid organisations and aid workers, and allow them unhindered access to all affected areas of the country. They must ensure that people in areas outside the regime’s control also receive the aid they need. Governments and agencies must understand that the military is only in control of less than a quarter of the country’s territory, while the rest of the country is either disputed, or under the control of ethnic and pro-democracy resistance groups. There are multiple administrations in the country, reflecting the resistance to the junta.
It is vital that international aid is channelled through local aid agencies along the country’s borders, with significant experience in cross-border delivery, and that aid that is delivered through agencies working within the country is not misappropriated, stolen or blocked by the junta.
India was the first country to offer assistance to Myanmar, and that is very welcome. But to truly help the people of Myanmar, India should end its economic, political and military support for the regime. Weapons provided to the junta have killed many more civilians than this earthquake, and so a global arms embargo must be properly implemented. It is time to cut the lifelines to the illegal junta and provide a lifeline to the people.
For too long, Myanmar’s plight has been ignored and forgotten. For too long, over 20,000 political prisoners – including the democratically-elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi – have been left to rot in jail. For too long, the world has turned a blind eye to the unfolding humanitarian and human rights crisis in Myanmar.
Yesterday’s tragedy puts Myanmar back in the international spotlight. It is time for the international community to act, both to help the victims of this disaster, and to address the chronic injustices in the country, and hold the perpetrators accountable. The people of Myanmar deserve better.
Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist and writer, and author of three books on Myanmar. He has visited Myanmar and its borders more than fifty times, and is the co-founder and deputy chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission
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