A Tyrant's Worst Nightmare

These satellite photos of Burma's Irawaddy River, taken before and after Cyclone Nargis slammed into the delta, show the extent of the disastrous flooding that occurred.

Not surprisingly, the Burmese military junta is refusing to allow foreign aid to the victims of the flooding unless it controls the distribution. A disaster like this is a tyrant's worst nightmare, but not for any humane reasons.

Comments

[Quentin]

thank God for the Satellites- one may shut down a 'interference' but the Sat's says it all- loud! Stunning technology for good use.

Indonesia Tsuami all over again.

[Kotare]

Except that when the tsunami hit Aceh, in Sumatra, the Indonesian government straight-away allowed foreign aid to flow into the region.

[Kotare]

BTW, I've tried to leave a comment on your blog, but it says that I need to log in, but I can't find where to log in.

[Quentin]

Oh! well i am not that technical but I will look into it. Thanks for letting me know.

[Yours Truly]

And people kept saying that the chinese are a ruthless bunch with what they (presumably) did in Tibet.These junta fellows in Myanmar are simply inhumane.I'm not in favour of unipolarity(interference from a world power)but should people just simply watch while their neighbours(I live in a corrupt country just south of Thailand)die?The chinese are not interfering simply because they do not wish to lose a valuable arms-trade partner.

[Kotare]

You will have read the debate going on about whether western country should air drop large amounts of aid into the Irawaddy delta without the junta's permission. It's an unusual variation on the idea of invading a country to overthrow a regime that it oppressing its people, or an ethnic minority.

There's an interesting issue here: is there a point at which a regime's human rights violations are so grotesque that other governments have a moral imperative to act, whether or not that goes against a government's right to sovereign action within its own borders? Past experience, such as Tibet, Dafur, and Cambodia, suggests that the threshold is very high.