Cyclone Nargis: The death knell of the military junta

Time to act

Just as nature abhors a vacuum the humanity of our tortured earth has to begin to abhor despotic governments that care more for entrenching their regimes rather than rising up to the challenge of the government they portend to run in service of their people.

This is no time to highlight the hypocrisy of America’s criticism of Burma having failed to perform when Hurricane Katrina struck, we should take the lessons from that event to realise that a quick response to disaster, calling on all resources available to the global community is the only way to alleviate present suffering.

No relief from suspicion networks

With a stranglehold on government for 46 years and a network of spies with a extremely paranoid aversion to foreign interaction, one would have thought that network serve any purpose in disaster relief but it really serves no useful purpose for succouring suffering.

It just beggars belief that the military junta are incapable of helping their people and would not relent in their obduracy to accept ready help from professional disaster relief agencies to help their people.

Referendum trumps disaster relief

100,000 people have probably died from effect of cyclone Nargis and we can expect a similar number to die from the tardiness to get relief to them – there are dead bodies floating in the water and on land and I do not think the people are anywhere near the point of organising themselves to start mass burials.

They must be smarting from the outrageous dereliction of duty of their government to address their predicament when their help and support is most needed.

The absurdity of it all is we have a disaster of epic proportions, the worst that has ever hit Burma and they have set their priorities for a referendum to take place today – the army has been deployed to monitor the referendum rather than do disaster relief.

Their end is nigh

The military junta has no doubt lit the fuse that would lead to their terminal decline, their referendum and stranglehold on government would not save them.

Having not ever learnt to mobilise their huge army for civil activities, they can never have the logistics to manage this disaster, where their visa offices should be running in overdrive admitting foreign aid relief professionals, they have been closed for public holidays not to resume till Tuesday.

Appeals falling on deaf ears

Meanwhile, the pictures on my television leave me amazed that there is no groundswell of utter condemnation from the so-called friends of Burma – where has the compassion of humanity gone?

This attitude leaves all disaster relief agencies in a quandary; their appeals are failing on deaf ears because no one believes their donations would get anywhere near the suffering Burmese because of those nasty generals.

Change and regime change

There is ever good deed in charging those generals with crimes against humanity and every good cause to engender regime change just as should be done for Zimbabwe and North Korea.

We cannot continue to countenance the suffering of our fellow mankind brought on my other men for their gain much as we should have the greater cause of ridding our world of all governments that lacked the expressly given mandate of the people they assert rule over.

The uprising that would sweep the military junta of Burma from power would be bloody but they will go so much for what they did by failing to do what they should – no people can allow such idle despots to continue to rule over them for much long, a year or maybe more, but they will go and good riddance, it would be.

Laura Bush on Burma is VP material

A rotten junta

The reason the Burmese junta has held unto power for 46 years has been predicated on their ability to govern the people and meet their needs.

However, it is clear that when a government lacks legitimacy amongst the people it governs, it clamps down on dissent, opposes freedom of expression, upholds tyranny over democracy and becomes a reclusive enclave reluctant to admit outsiders.

In what is a gross dereliction of duty; the government failed to warn the people of the approaching cyclone Nargis nor did they prepare the people for the impeding disaster that is set to claim well over 4,000 lives by official estimates.

Selfish military self-preservation

For a society that is so militarised, one would expect all resources and assets would be brought to bear in alleviating the suffering of the people in the face of such a disaster but is it evident that the military has only been concerned about entrenching itself rather than bringing good governance to the people.

The shameless situation that is reminiscent of the way the Russians handled the Kursk submarine disaster is now evident in Burma because they sure do not have resources, capability and know-how to handle the disaster and they have failed to realise that as members of a global community help abounds to bring succour to the people.

The junta would rather see their people die and suffer than to seek help; it is genocidal in context and basically unforgivable.

Call for action

It is time for all nations to really turn the screws on these generals; we at least owe the people of Burma as members of our humanity that much if not more that they be freed from these unconscionably evil people.

Seeing Laura Bush address a press conference on these matters this evening gave me the impression that she might well be an ideal candidate as John McCain’s running mate – in which case, neither Obama nor Clinton would have a chance over that Republic ticket – they need to clear up that Democratic nomination contest, PDQ!

Nigerians: Ngozi at World Bank, Ibrahim in Burma

Nothing to write about

I have refrained from writing anything about Nigeria until I found seriously uplifting news that makes my very proud of my Nigerian heritage.

It informs the reason why my blog was blank on the 1^st of October which is the anniversary of Nigerian’s independence from British rule because really there was nothing to write about apart from obvious pessimism and unfounded optimism much of which was covered by bloggers and newspapers – Hey! It is just the opinion of one man.

NOI the MD

News reaches me that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been appointed the World Bank Managing Director in charge of Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia regions, literally 2 and a half continents with just about half the world’s population.

With Europe in the mix, this means her role straddles developed through emerging to developing economies, this might as well help in the cross-pollination of ideas, expertise, investment and resources betwixt the regions under her remit.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala also known as NOI for short; brings commendable, excellent credentials, experience and expertise to this job as a long-standing employee of the World Bank, a Finance and Foreign Minister of Nigeria in the recent past and advanced qualifications in field of Regional Economics and Development.

At the risk of sounding like a praise-singing parrot, I give the floor to Robert Bruce Zoellick, the 11^th President of the World Bank as his words say it all.

“Ngozi brings a unique set of skills and experience to the World Bank Group. As an outstanding Minister of Finance and Foreign Minister in Nigeria, Ngozi helped lead the country's reform program on issues of fiscal prudence, transparency of government accounts, good governance, and anti-corruption.

She led Nigeria's quest for debt relief and helped her country obtain an unprecedented US$18 billion write-off from the Paris Club. Ngozi was also instrumental in helping Nigeria obtain its first ever Sovereign Credit rating (of BB minus) from Fitch and Standard & Poor's.

She is an internationally respected world leader. In addition, she knows the WBG well from her 21 years of service. Her commitment to the developing world is unparalleled. I am delighted she has accepted to join my senior team.”

Now, that is a lady doing Nigeria proud and I like the way that she is address in first-name terms by the president, it shows they have a friendly working relationship which is necessary for this kinds of problems that World bank needs to address after the acrimonious split and rancour in the resignation of neo-Con Paul Wolfowitz.

Talent wins through always

Beyond this, it is worthy to note that the intemperance and vindictiveness of the erstwhile President of Nigeria stood in the way of according this lady a very senior post in the United Nations; however, I think she would be better served in this role than being subsumed into the international diplomacy of United Nations’ insincerity.

If not for the way the headship of the World Bank and IMF has been sewn up by Europe and the United States, she is a more than qualified candidate to lead that bank.

Then the question of qualified Nigerians who cannot seem to get recognition and scope to bring radical useful change in service of their fatherland; take heart, extremely good talent would get utilised in this world by people who recognise what you can do.

Sorting out Burma

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stands as a beacon of hope and realisation of that view.

Another person whose nationality has not been mentioned but has been in the news too many times to be ignored is Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari the Under Secretary-General for the Department of Political Affairs who recently returned from Burma (Myanmar, I am not convinced the people had any say in having their country renamed, in fact, many dissidents refer to their country as Burma) after meeting the despotic junta leaders and the democratic activist and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

It must be a difficult job having to visit and converse with people who have trampled on their people, trammelled their freedoms and targeted their aspirations with tyranny and violence, whilst these self-appointed demonic clones masquerading as human-beings hunker down in some remote forest enclave living the life of “Solomonic” kings.

Time to end the culture of impunity

Unfortunately, our disgust for the happenings in Burma to the pronouncement that the culture of impunity at an end sounds more like a hysterical affectation for mass protest and rhetoric than effective action, but it shows how irrelevant the military leaders have become.

If after keeping Aung San Suu Kyi under house-arrest for years, they are setting conditions for meeting her asking that she abandon her support for international sanctions and her confrontational attitude, I know who has been hostile and there is every reason for that dear lady to be confrontation and more, if she had the means, this is where the internation community should give more muscle to the aspirations of the Burmese.

Well, Senior General Than Shwe, you can go meet yourself; as if she is responsible for the state that Burma now is in; after 45 years in government, I think the army should return to the barracks and the doors weld shut.

It is time for the Burmese to have self-determination and for all the evil the military have perpetrated on the people and the monks, it is high time they were vacated to meet their maker, it is laughable that North Korea can call itself a democratic republic and the senior General who might not become a Field Marshall heads the State Peace and Development Council – whose democracy and whose peace?.

Burma is a people not an army, they should not be run around and hammered by iron fists like newly conscripted recruits in a boot camp – the culture of impunity in Burma, North Korea, Sudan and Zimbabwe must come to an end and by the end of this decade if we can all help it.