Commentariat

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Gordon Brown spoke for us all when, last week, he described the Burmese government’s dismal failure to respond in an even remotely adequate way to the cyclone that struck the Irrawaddy delta as “intolerable”.

It is 15 days since Cyclone Nargis hit Burma’s Irrawaddy delta. Officially, 78,000 people have died (with another 55,000 missing), but NGOs estimate the figures will go a good deal higher yet. The UN admits it hasn’t a clue how bad things are. Offers of help for the 2.5 million people affected have come from all over the world, and aid organisations have done their valiant best to bring assistance. The situation is dire. There is nothing more certain than that corpses lying around in stagnant water will give rise to disease, yet that is precisely what the few images we have been allowed to see have shown us.

Tom Fawthrop: The junta won’t let in western aid workers. Unfortunately, the south-east Asian nations that could be saving lives in Burma are dragging their feet

Tom Fawthrop: The junta won’t let in western aid workers. Unfortunately, the south-east Asian nations that could be saving lives in Burma are dragging their feet

Thaung Htun: Burma’s natural disaster will not provoke an intervention. Only a war would suffice

While the grim death toll from the earthquake in China is at least relieved by pictures of survivors pulled from the wreckage and a relief effort that has been massive, organised and immediate, the situation in Burma goes from bad to worse. To the catastrophes of flooding and starvation is now being added the scourge of disease, as the first signs of what could well prove an epidemic of cholera are reported. Unless a massive international aid effort is launched from this very moment, the number of deaths in the Irrawaddy delta could rise from the present 78,000 reported dead and missing to twice this figure and even more.

Letter: Simon Jenkins was right to acknowledge the problems of getting aid into Burma but was wrong to suggest we are sitting on our hands

Naomi Klein: The natural disasters in Burma and China have loosened the repressive grip the countries’ rulers exert on their people

Martin Jacques: Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, is promoting military intervention in Burma. This is dangerous imperalist idiocy

Ilana Bet-El: Burma is flooded and devastated, and we are wringing our hands. Do we have a duty to intervene in order to save lives?

John McQuaid: The country’s military regime is brutal and irrational but the international community has few options in aiding the victims of Cyclone Nargis

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Simon Jenkins: The Chinese quake gave relief to western leaders whose hypocrisy on intervention is exposed by post-cyclone inaction

Leader: There is a telling contrast between China’s handling of a natural disaster and Burma’s

Ha-ha. Brilliant. Just when you think the papers are full of stuff that’s
quite tricky to write a column about because it’s too scary (Austria,
Zimbabwe, Burma), or too dull (Charlotte Church would like to remind all new
mothers of the importance of breastfeeding. YES, WE KNOW) – the story, the
titbit if you will, of the year comes along and saves the day.

Contrast the response of two leaders to massive national emergencies within their countries. The day after the Chinese earthquake, in which some 12,000 people at least have perished, the country’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, rushed to the area to which he had already dispatched troops on disaster relief duty. In Burma, 10 full days after the cyclone in which 100,000 are dead or missing - and the UN estimates a staggering 1.5 million people are at risk - the leader of Burma’s military government, General Than Shwe, is in hiding. Even the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has been unable to get through to him on the phone to express his “immense frustration” at what he described as Burma’s “unacceptably slow” response in which fewer than a third of those at risk have received any assistance at all.

The humanitarian disaster in Burma and the junta’s refusal to allow international aid in poses a political and ethical dilemma for the Government, and for David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, that cannot just be put in the “too difficult” tray.

Beijing appears to have learnt from past mistakes. It should push Burma, its recalcitrant neighbour, to be as open as it has been

Beijing appears to have learnt from past mistakes. It should push Burma, its recalcitrant neighbour, to be as open as it has been

Today in Times Comment Libby Purves: Cherie Blair: enough to make you weep David Aaronovitch: Burma - the case for intervention Chris Patten: Who’s afraid of big bad China? Why? Chris Ayres: There will be blood around here too Mick…

The UN, next to useless in resolving international conflict issues, should leap at the opportunity to justify its existence with the Burma cyclone.

Response: Sadly, Burma is not unique. Bureaucy hampers relief efforts in many parts of the world, says Marc DuBois

Letters: The American and French push to deliver humanitarian aid to Burma is a position the UN has an obligation to support