Are Burma (Myanmar) and Zimbabwe “Bonnie and Clyde” gangsters embarrassing, no end, the 193-plus countries that make up today’s international community?
A freckled Bonnie Parker and thick-mopped Clyde Barrow went on a crime spree in 1932. Both were cut down two years later. Their story anchored the “Bonnie and Clyde” movie.
Today, Burma’s Gen. Than Shwe, in Asia, and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, in Africa, are twins in felony. Their abuse of starving fellow citizens—and human beings—skirts genocide, as controversy on food aid shows.
Mugabe lectured the Rome Summit on hunger while Harare banned the distribution of food aid. Oxfam, Care, Caritas and other NGOs were stopped from feeding one in three of Zimbabwe’s 12.3 million people. “Obscene,” snapped the Australian foreign minister.
Zimbabwe’s infant mortality rate is eight times that of Malaysia. “Children are already suffering,” protested James Elder of UNICEF. Once a South African rice granary, Zimbabwe is now a basket case. Only one in five adults has a job. Inflation exceeds 165,000 percent. A Zimbabwean’s life expectancy is 40 years, less than a Filipino’s 70.2.
Like Zimbabwe, Burma (population: 47.7 million) justified blocking aid after the deadliest cyclone to smash Asia in 38 years. “Nagris” left 134,000 dead or missing. Up to 2.4 million were beggared.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon secured grudging junta approval for supplies and aid workers. We hope “all who are ready to help (will) enjoy effective access to places where it is needed most,” Pope Benedict XVI stressed to 14 Burmese bishops making their mandatory five-year call.
“We don’t need chocolate bars,” scoffed The New Light of Myanmar. Irrawaddy had huge edible frog populations. “Let them eat frogs,” Washington Post titled its report finding that 60 percent of victims hadn’t received aid so far.
“Killing citizens is what the generals know,” the Telegraph noted. “Providing emergency relief seems beyond them.” The junta crushed democracy protests of 1988, the 2007 Saffron Revolution and dissent against its farcical May referendum.
“Yangon has 1.69 billion barrels of oil and other resources. But misrule saddles it with shortages. The Saffron Revolution erupted after the junta jacked up, overnight, fuel prices by 500 percent—roughly the half-monthly wage of a worker.”
Than Shwe’s doctor doubles as health secretary. Of every 1,000 Burmese infants, 106 die before their fifth birthday. Thailand has whittled those deaths to 21. A Burmese’s life expectancy is 60 years, way behind a Singaporean’s 78.
Often pilfered by the military, aid stockpiled in Rangoon (Yangon) hasn’t reached victims. The junta has seven obsolete helicopters. Yet, it refused clearance for 22 US helicopters, standing by in next-door Thailand.
The junta, meanwhile, empties “tented villages.” Worse, the Tatmadaw harass Burmese who help. They detained comedian Maung Thura (stage name: Zarganar) because he gave food, blankets, mosquito nets, medicine. Monks seeking donations for Buddhist relief convoys are threatened.
“This demonstrates simmering confrontation between pillars of Myanmar life at village level,” the New York Times reported. The junta “views such private undertakings as a reproof.”
“Here in Burma, we are born afraid,” a senior monk told BBC. Fear also rules in Orwellian Zimbabwe. Harare bans rallies for its runoff polls. Voters have been beaten while British and US diplomats were detained. “Zimbabwe is now run by the equivalent of a junta,” wrote the UK newspaper The Independent.
“Mugabe is using food as an electoral weapon,” writes Alex Duval Smith, France 24 correspondent. Only Mugabe supporters will receive food doles. “Is the June 27 ballot ... worth the price of people losing their homes and lives for an election that looks increasingly like it won’t be free or fair?”
Burma also grabbed for a fig leaf of legitimacy, while starving citizens. By herding cyclone traumatized voters into a referendum, Burma claimed a “ratified” constitution it lacked since 1988.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Than Shwe marveled to the UN secretary general. “Over 92 percent of voters ratified our new constitution.” And in the joke, Ban Ki-moon replied: “What’s amazing is I keep meeting the 8 percent who rejected it.”
Handpicked delegates took 14 years to write a draft. Few Burmese read it. But the charter locks a quarter of parliament’s seats for the military. They’re immune from prosecution for past crimes. Presidential candidates with foreign spouses or children (Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband was Oxford professor Michael Aris) are barred. Buddhist monks were disenfranchised.
“Is the world willing to accept such an absurdity?” asked Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Vaclav Havel, president of the Czech Republic and former German president Richard von Weizsäcker.
“Today’s greatest atrocity is the blocking of aid from Burmese starving from cyclone Nargis’ aftermath,” they said. “Neighbors in Asean should stop looking the other way ...”
The ASEAN is now linked with the UN to get aid flowing. “ASEAN’s credibility is on the line,” says political analyst U Naing Oo based in Thailand. Saving Burmese lives may turn out to be inseparable from saving ASEAN’s reputation on the 40th anniversary of its founding.
“If Burma sinks, then the much-touted ASEAN community of 2015 and the cause of Southeast Asian integration may well sink with it,” he adds. So will twin Zimbabwe with sham elections as a millstone.
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Email: juanlmercado@gmail.com
