A further 2.5 million survivors is estimated to be at risk from hunger and epidemics, and based on the trickle of news reports often obtained at great risk to the personal safety of the reporters, relief and assistance is still far from sufficient. The junta wants aid only in the form of donations, but as many have pointed out (and mentioned in my earlier essay In the eye of the cyclone stands immobile the junta) the problem is as much logistical as material. The Burmese army has nowhere near the transport equipment commensurate with the task -- I saw reports that they had just 7 serviceable helicopters, for example.

Furthermore, what aid was sent has sometimes been diverted from the intended recipients.

... previous aid consignments [were] held up by Burmese customs officials or even confiscated to be sold on the open market.

The iron-fisted junta has been accused of hoarding high quality foreign aid for itself while making cyclone victims make do with rotten food.

CARE Australia's country director in Burma, Brian Agland, said members of his staff brought back some of the rotting rice that's being distributed in the delta.

"I have a small sample in my pocket, and it's some of the poorest quality rice we've seen," he added. "It's affected by salt water and it's very old. 

[snip]

Another foreign resident in Yangon claimed that angry government officials have complained to him about the military misappropriating aid.

He said that officials told him that quantities of the high-energy biscuits rushed into Myanmar on the World Food Programme's first flights were sent to a military warehouse.

They were exchanged by what the officials said were "tasteless and low-quality" biscuits produced by the industry ministry to be handed out to cyclone victims, the foreign resident said.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because identifying himself could jeopardise his safety.

He said it was not known what was happening to the high quality food - whether it was being sold on the black market or consumed by the military. 

-- Thisislondon.co.uk, 14 May 2008. Link

On top of this, the generals got their priorities all wrong. In the days immediately after the disaster, the sham referendum on its proposed self-serving constitution seemed to be more important than human lives. Instead of reaching out to the stricken areas, manpower and trucks were used to guard polling stations and move voting boxes around.

* * * * *

 
What is it about dictators that so crave the pseudo-legitimacy of elections, and yet make such a hash of them that they end up looking even worse?

On 27 December 2007, Kenya's presidential and parliamentary elections were so obviously stolen by the 76-year-old incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki that riots broke out and the country briefly descended into ungovernability.

[R]eturns from Central Province, Mr Kibaki's fiercely loyal Kikuyu heartland, were inexplicably held back.... in some constituencies, a large number of voters seemed mysteriously to vote only in the presidential race and ignore the parliamentary ballot -- despite waiting hours in the blazing sun. But the real damage was done in Nairobi, by simply crossing out the number of votes as announced in the constituency and scribbling in a higher number. Election monitors were turned away while the tallying went on. Monitors from the European Union saw tens of thousands of votes pinched in this way.

-- The Economist magazine, 3 January 2008

Three days later, the head of the election commission declared Kibaki reelected. That same evening, after security forces sealed off Nairobi's city centre, he was sworn into office at the State House with a mere dozen or so loyalists to witness it. Its stealth contrasted with the formal inauguration after the previous election, held at a stadium with tens of thousands of jubilant supports.

The country exploded in interethnic violence. The Kikuyus had voted strongly for Kibaki, but the Luo, Kenya's other major tribe, voted mostly for his opponent, Raila Odinga, as did the third main group, the Kalenjin. Towns and cities were barricaded, fires set to homes of erstwhile neighbours, more than 1,000 killed and over 600,000 became refugees, driven out of areas where they had lived for years. [1] 

Kenya had been considered one of Africa's most stable countries before this, but not anymore. Here is a CNN report about the first days of the protests that eventually lasted a month.

In early April this year, another dictator, Robert Mugabe, expected to coast to victory in Zimbabwe's presidential election. Once again, the incumbent was shocked that it didn't go according to plan, and so the announcement of the results was delayed for weeks, giving everybody cause to suspect that the numbers were being tampered with. A re-run is now being held, but already his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai has been forced to flee into exile [2] and opposition activists are being arrested and beaten by security forces and Mugabe's thugs. All this, while 80% of Zimbabweans are unemployed and hyperinflation -- something like 100,000% a year, as if such a number has any meaning anymore -- is ravaging the country.

Dictators not only will pay any price to stay in power, but as these examples show, are even more venal than that: They are prepared to pay any price to give themselves a veneer of legitimacy. You would think the latter is quite unnecessary if they already have power, but evidently, they possess thought processes none of us can quite comprehend.

Survivors from a wrecked Burmese village The criminal Burmese leader, General Than Shwe

And so the Burmese generals, isolated in their new capital of Naypyidaw, felt that holding the referendum was more important than saving their own people.

This being a conscious decision, the question has now been raised: Does this constitute a crime against humanity? The Nargis tragedy might have begun as a natural disaster, but a callous refusal to do one's best in the aftermath could be said to be equivalent to killing the subsequent victims yourself.

No doubt there are going to be differences of opinion as to whether we can interpret international law in this way, and as far as I know, there aren't any good recent precedents to guide us by (thankfully), but I think a case can be made to at least justify, one day, putting the question to a trial.

Of course, that can only be possible when these generals are out of power, but in the meantime, with such a taint, Asean must take a firmer stand. We must treat them as inhuman pariahs. Suspending them from Asean is the signal we must send.

© Yawning Bread