Burma is caught in a health crisis, but the least concerned appears to be the military junta there. So much so, an international aid group has suspended its massive assistance to fight communicable diseases there, citing lack of cooperation from the government as reason.
Dear readers, the report that the junta is denying freedom of movement to the aid workers to reach medicines and assistance to people suffering from Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, is shocking. Complaints from the aid workers are that the military rulers have created an impossibly difficult environment to carry out their work. What, clearly, is the worry of the junta is that these volunteers would get to know the real situation behind the "bamboo curtain" — where the military rulers carry on with a regime of suppression of the people's will.
Burma is earning a bad name for Asia for the way the military government there sidesteps progress and allegedly maltreats its citizens. The junta faced international condemnation for subverting the democratic process and denying power to Aung San Suu Kyi, the people's leader who won a landslide victory in 1990 and yet was kept out of power and is languishing in house arrest for several years now.
Burma is a land with resources. Yet, it is among the slowest progressing countries in the international development index. Worst of all, the junta is not ready to see the reality on the ground. Burma is one of the worst affected countries in the region in respect of Aids/HIV spread, one among the many fields where the administration's failure is badly reflected. Why, in the first instance, is the junta failing to activate preventive action on this front, like what is happening in other countries?
Burma is not a country that is exposed to the ills of tourism or of a floating population, unlike neighbouring Thailand. It will have been in a position to control the spread of diseases like Aids had there been a real will on the administration's part. But, reports are that 330,000 of its people are suffering from this disease, with medicines rare to find. The situation has led to a rise in the cases of tuberculosis, with nearly 100,000 cases reported annually which, again, is one of the highest rates in the world. Or Malaria, for that matter. Estimates are that some 600,000 people there contract malaria a year.
Withdrawal of the Global Fund to Fight Aids meant Burma lost, albeit for now, some 100 million dollars that the Fund has set apart for the humanitarian operations there. That is the price Burma pays for the secrecy that the military rulers are trying to maintain in respect of the poor nation. Burma is on global blacklist for decades, for the "inhuman" way the government treats its people there, especially the pro-democracy activists. That is also reason why it failed to get-or avoided, in order to escape close scrutiny — the chairmanship of the powerful regional economic bloc, the Asean, this year.
The junta's talks about the launch of a "roadmap to democracy" initiative has not made any material difference to the people yet. Action is lacking in this respect. The panel's activities, including the drafting of a new constitution that promises to provide more freedom to people, remain suspended till March for unexplained reasons. It could simply be that the junta wants to delay the release of the "Angel of Democracy" from the house arrest that she is in for long periods.
Dear readers, global pressure is not working in a way as to change the line of the junta for the better. It is time for strong actions on the part of the international agencies and the West to force the junta see reason. People in Burma deserve a better deal.