Published in May 2008 on the World Issues website, this article looks at how hidebound the western world is when trying to provide aid to a region devastated by a natural disaster, when that region is in a country controlled by a dictatorship:
As the true size of the catastrophe caused by the cyclone in Myanmar begins to emerge, so also does the size of the problem regarding the provision of aid to a country where the borders are firmly closed by a dictatorship. Today we heard that the World Food Programme had, effectively, walked away from the problem because two shipments of food aid had been impounded by the military government. Were the charity right to do so and, if not, then what is the best way of resolving such an impasse?
The world is already aware that, inside that country, there is a peace-loving population that has been repressed for over twenty years by a military government that eliminates or imprisons anybody who stands against it, including democratically-elected politicians. The western world has done little about this, except wring its hands via the United Nations. So is the current impasse the result of the actions of a brutal and uncaring government, or the uncaring inaction of a pretentious and shallow outside world? Read the full article