The Globe: Burma Cyclone

The Blogger is currently overwhelmed by an assignment and will be toiling all through this night and probably the next couple, trying to earn diaper and formula money. But I did want to point your attention to the disaster currently unfolding in Burma, a country close to my heart.

A cyclone ripped through on Saturday, and the international community now fears that the death toll will reach 100,000 -- a massive, massive calamity in a country of 50 million. The catastrophe included a tsunami-like wave that floored low-lying areas and swept boats and houses and people out to sea.

I was in Burma about a year ago to report on the litany of human-rights abuses the country's people have suffered under 40 years of brutal military dictatorship. I met with former political prisoners, ex-child soldiers, internally displaced people, landmine amputees, refugees to Thailand, rebel soldiers and underground aid workers. The stories they told me are heartbreaking and unforgettable and, sadly, quite typical (I will be posting them here in the near future). Now it is likely that the coming months will see famine added to the people's woes; the cyclone appears to have devastated the rice-growing region that feeds the country.

So far, the military dictatorship has gotten low marks for its response to the disaster, and appears to be more concerned with clinging onto power when it holds its kangaroo constitutional referendum on Saturday. Already some dissident groups and geopolitical observers are speculating hopefully that this disaster will finally topple the government. But I think that's unlikely (Wasn't the post-Katrina fiasco supposed to be the undoing of the Bush Administration?). Instead, the very vulnerable people will go on suffering and the junta will have the cyclone as cover and distraction when it finalizes a constitution that was never meant to do anything but solidify the generals' power over the beleaguered, weary, and now storm-shocked masses.

For those considering making a donation, the Red Cross is always a good place to start.