UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to visit Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta region this week. He will lead a group of UN relief workers to distribute relief goods to those who have not been attended to by the military regime.
It wasn’t clear as to whether the UN official has already been given a go signal by the military regime to enter Burma or not. As of late, Burma’s government continues to ignore requests by international relief missions to come in and distribute the relief goods themselves because they feel that the relief goods are not getting directly to the recipients. In fact, the UN official has not made headway to reach Burma’s senior general Than Shwe, who was trying to elude the UN official’s request for a formal dialogue concerning the on-going humanitarian relief mission in the country.
I don’t think it is a good conduct of the Burma’s military leader to continue to ignore the call of the head of the United Nations to open up its doors to international humanitarian missions. If China was able to welcome international relief workers to its soil in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated the country, why can’t Burma? It is a big question that haunts millions of people worldwide because the military regime continues to downplay the sufferings of its own people, many of whom are on the brink of death due to severe hunger and thirst for clean water and medicines.
Perhaps, it is for the world to decide what’s next should the military regime continues to impose its will by not allowing the UN relief mission to distribute the relief goods for the needy population in the delta region.
Now, the idea of invading Burma was a recourse that came out from those who were pestered by the callousness of the military regime’s leader.
But immediately, Russia and China rose up against the idea. For them, it was against the country’s sovereignty. But the United Nations has invoked that if there’s a need to save the people because the faults of their own government, international pressures could not be avoided.
With China’s on-going relief efforts, there is doubt that it would be able to help Burma. On the other hand, Russia has never extended any help by any means to uplift the sufferings of the Burmese people at this time. In short, it was only good in articulating things but no action was done to help those who are in dire need of relief assistance. Next time, don’t talk if you can’t extend any help. Sometimes, it is much better to be silent and yet
you’re doing something to help. Anyway, it is no longer an eye opener knowing that Russia is also a country that is notorious for human rights violations. And I doubt it very much if Russia will ever lift a finger to extend any assistance to the cyclone victims. If it does, it would be much better. If not, then the souls of those who died may haunt the memories of its uncaring leaders.