On bad government

Today the government of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) allowed a U.S. plane with relief supplies to land. Nine days had passed since Cyclone Nargis struck the nation, but the military junta in control of the country had previously refused U.S. aid. The current official death toll is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000, but some estimates predict that it will rise to above 100,000 once aid workers reach the remote areas.

Allowing one U.S. plane to land doesn't do much good, unless it is followed by a larger-scale end to restrictions on foreign aid. But the generals in control of Myanmar continue to deny visas to foreign aid workers. They fear that if they let the foreign relief workers in, they won't be able to maintain their iron grip on the country. As the New York Times noted, "By keeping foreign assistance out, though, the generals must be ready to accept the deaths of hundreds of thousands more people, according to foreign relief officials. At the moment, this is the choice it appears to be making." The generals even had the audacity to put their names on the few boxes of aid they had allowed to enter the country.

I've thought a lot about the role of government and human suffering. Mostly I've considered it in the context of government corruption or the stereotypical Latin American dictatorship. You often see officials running off with millions of dollars while the majority of the population lives in poverty. But the situation Myanmar is bad governance on a grand scale, with about 1.5 million people in urgent need of basic necessities. This isn't a situation in which the government mis-allocates funds or wastes resources. This isn't a matter of inaction. This is a situation in which the government is taking affirmative steps to prevent the welfare and safety of its citizens. This is selfishness and power-mongery taken to the extreme. Myanmar officials would rather sit idly by and watch 100,000 of their citizens die than risk losing control of the country. I can scarcely think of a more damnable behavior, with the possible exception of ethnic cleansing or government-backed genocide. Unfortunately, the result in this case may be the same.

Hopefully that one plane will be followed by plenty more, and the country will loosen up enough to save at least some of the cyclone victims. But I feel very sorry for the thousands of innocent people who are doomed to misery, starvation, and disease, just because they happen to live in a country governed by men who would rather watch them die than risk losing power.