Left Flank

In the meantime, the recent disaster has created some small opportunities for Burma's fragile civil society to reconcile with the army. In the cyclone's aftermath, "[the military] even neglect their own," an expatriate in Rangoon said by email last month. "As I passed some soldiers cutting trees yesterday, I asked if they'd eaten breakfast. Of course not! So, I went back home to get them some bread."

it's a a quirkily optimistic image to a very serious argument about getting rid of the Burmese junta: civil society can do, and Cyclone Nargis is the catalyst.

Burma's civic groups and community leaders have spent years learning how to maneuver around such crushing restraints. "They have faced controls on their movements, on goods and money, on their general freedom for so long, they have learned how to rely on some of these backdoor and relationship systems," said Jones. "They know how to get things done in this environment." Because most foreign aid workers still face visa blockades and are prohibited from entering the hardest-hit regions, the coalition has recruited local doctors and nurses to tend to victims. Only a modest flow of aid from abroad has been allowed into the country, so the volunteers rely on well-connected businessmen to procure chlorine tablets and temporary toilets from local suppliers. Low-level military officers helped secure access to the Irrawaddy Delta, the epicenter of the disaster. And the civic groups have turned to blogs and fundraising newsletters to convince potential donors that their contributions won't go straight into the hands of the junta.

Given the magnitude of the devastation, however, even the most enterprising and resourceful grassroots efforts can only go so far. By the government's count, 134,000 people have died or are missing, and the U.N. says that 2.5 million are still in need of aid. The logistical hurdles of reaching the entire Delta region are beyond the scope of any small-scale operation. But though their reach may be limited, the ability of civic groups to persist with their work is evidence that the junta's control is less than total, according to Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asia expert at Johns Hopkins University. "The fact that they let them have a space, that they have let people act, shows that [officials] on the ground believe the military is not capable of addressing the issues," She says. Such cooperation between local officials and organizers "serves to build trust and networks that bridge divides in the community that the military foster to hold onto power."

In the long run, these kinds of internal networks and linkages are key to any hope for a more open society. As Joshua Kurlantzick argued on this site, neither popular revolt nor international condemnation has led the junta to budge in the past. Over the past month, the generals have acted true to form, limiting foreign aid for fear that "destructive elements" will undermine their grip on the state. By working outside of official channels to deliver humanitarian relief, domestic civic groups have created unlikely alliances within Burma's highly militarized and stratified society: between monks and low-level officials, Delta villagers and city residents, community organizers and military cronies. However precarious these relationships, their potential impact should not be discounted. For ultimately, some analysts say, the catalyst for long-term reform will have to come from within the regime's ruling cadre itself--prompted not only by internal discontent among officers, but also by sympathy for other factions of Burmese society. "The military's mid-level officers would need to see that people are all are suffering, the same as them," says U Win Min, a Burmese exile and political analyst based in Thailand.

This is a much more diabolical, and, in the context of Myanmar's future as a democracy, a more respectful proposal than any neo-con-esque notion of forcing help upon it.