I have a point which some scientists do agree with:
This 22000 Myanmar death toll has been upped to 100000 on 7 May 2008 similar
to they way it went all up to 285000 for Tsunami Dec 2004 and the UN reports 1.5
million severely affected. The important point is that the public and the policy
makers are as static as they can be since the Tsunami 2004 time. But people
being what they are, help and succour are readily forthcoming from all over as
for the Tsunami. When will the horse start eating?
My point regarding leadership lack of awareness is this:
Modern Civilisation is taking refuge in specialists and it is a society of
specialists. But as Wendell Berry, the author of the 1975 best seller put
it:"The stupidest peasant or tribesman is more competent than the most
intelligent worker or technician or intellectual in a society of
specialists"(The Unsettling of America:Culture and Agriculture,Avon,1980,p22).
The establishment, including media in modern civilisation are averse to opinion
of unorganised citizens or villagers or just people. For example when I wrote to
the Science and Tech ministry in my country about my work on Indian dams and how
India dams, because of the peculiar hydrology of the Indian monsoon, may be
causing worldwide earthquakes, they ignored me. They did not ack my work. Its
important because the archimedean lever effect on faults of the surge wave of
forces and bending moments unleashed by the weight of all the water masses
behind Indian dams at their center of gravity at 23,78.75 in India is, as I
have shown, a predominant cause of worldwide earthquakes. And because of the
effect of friction on the two sides of the fault sufficient heat may be
generated to cause cyclones a la Myanmar! The blog which has been reviewed as a
new plausible explanation of the effect of Indian dams is free and the URL is
http://earthquakecausedbydams.blogspot.com
The companion URL which predicts earthquakes based on this establishment of a
cause of worldwide earthquakes is
http://predictingquakes.blogspot.com
See my predictions and take your breath away!
Unless modern civilisation learns to implement respect for human rights,there is
no hope for democracy anywhere and man-made disasters will make life difficult
if not impossible(sparrows are extinct in Mysore,Afghanistan and Iraq are
devastated and the price of oil has risen nore than 500 percent). Bush GW(Gone
Wild) and Con Rice(The price of rice has risen because of the West's gluttony
and waste) are u listening?


Madhusree Mukerjee <lopchu@...> wrote:
I recall that India also turned down international aid for the
tsunami, although it failed to send relief to the Nicobars for two or three
weeks. On the day of the tsunami it sent relief ships to Ceylon, but only three
helicopters to the Andamans. These helicopters evacuated armed forces personnel
from Car Nicobar, but could do nothing for the Nicobarese. When a ship was
finally loaded and sent from Port Blair, it didn't carry any drinking water! Aid
piled up in Port Blair because the local administration had no clue how to deal
with such an emergency. At the same time, foreign aid workers such as from
Doctors Without Borders waited in vain in Port Blair for permission to go to the
Nicobars, while people continued to die there for lack of medical care.
Not until a huge outcry, generated in part by this webgroup, finally forced New
Delhi's hand was the army sent in to rescue, evacuate and bring relief.
Democracy finally wrestled down the totalitarian instincts of the Indian state.
In the meantime hundreds must have died waiting for rescue.
Two ships have apparently left Port Blair for Burma, with relief. Can anyone
provide details?
MM

Tsunami offers lessons for Myanmar aid effort

JAKARTA, May 8 (AFP) May 08, 2008
A region closed to the press, a regime reticent to open its borders to aid
workers, an overwhelming catastrophe -- there are worrying similarities between
Myanmar's cyclone and the 2004 tsunami.
The most striking parallel is physical: villages wiped out, bodies floating in
paddy fields, aerial images of a swamped tropical coastline and descriptions of
a six-metre (20-foot) tidal surge.

Analysts said there were also similarities on the political level which may shed
light on the international community's humanitarian response and its efforts to
work with the secretive Myanmar junta.

"There are numerous parallels between the disaster in Burma (Myanmar) and that
of the tsunami in Aceh, and some differences," Damien Kingsbury, a Southeast
Asia specialist and associate professor at Australia's Deakin University, told
AFP.

The 2004 tsunami struck Aceh on the far north of Sumatra, a sensitive zone of
conflict between the military and Acehnese separatists which Indonesia was
reluctant to open to foreign reporters and aid workers.

Jakarta struggled with questions such as how to welcome relief workers but not
foreign journalists, how to manage international aid without being accused of
interference, and how to control a hostile domestic opposition in the midst of a
disaster.

Confronted with a death toll of almost unimaginable proportions -- close to
170,000 dead -- the government eventually ignored the advice of the military and
opened the region to reporters and aid workers alike.

Initially it sought to limit the foreign presence to three months, but soon
after the doors were opened it became apparent even in far away Jakarta that the
disaster offered a chance for peace.

A peace deal was struck in 2005 between the Free Aceh Movement and the
Indonesian government which still holds today.

Kingsbury said that with no sign Myanmar's regime is prepared to make
concessions to its democratic opposition, even at a time of crisis, this might
be where the lessons from Indonesia's tsunami end.

"In Aceh the Indonesian military was reluctant to let in aid workers but was
overruled by the government," he said.

"In Burma, the military is the government.

"Most likely then, while this could be a catalyst for real political change, it
will lead to more, if selective, repression."

With some estimates putting the death toll at 80,000-100,000 from Cyclone
Nargis, many aid agencies are still awaiting visas to enter Myanmar.

Despite the obstacles, Myanmar's military rulers have defied calls to postpone a
constitutional referendum on Saturday which many observers see as a bid to
legitimise their grip on power.

Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy has
said it is "extremely unacceptable" for the vote to proceed in the aftermath of
the storm.

Ian Holliday, of the University of Hong Kong, said the Myanmar regime's main
priority was to pass its new constitution.

"It's desperate to get its referendum done and dusted and really wants to shut
the country down for that," he said.

"But it knows it cannot cope with the sheer scale of the challenge it now faces
and it knows that if it's seen by the population to be standing in the way of
aid it could pay a big price."

Following anti-government riots last September which were violently put down by
security forces, Holliday said the junta might have no choice but to let the
foreigners in.

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