Left Flank

Alvaro Vargas Llosa runs down a list of what is wrong with how Myanmar's junta is abusing its authority.

Myanmar has given us one of the most admirable women alive, Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and the world's most repugnant regime. Until May 2, the military government led by army chief Than Shwe was competing for that title with Zimbabwe's racist tyrant, North Korea's lunatic autocrat and Cuba's bumbling Castro brothers. But then Cyclone Nargis happened--and the junta seized the opportunity to edge ahead of its rivals.

It is hard to say what was worse: concealing the magnitude of the cyclone that was about to hit the Irrawaddy Delta region from the population and making no preparations, even though the meteorological system had given the government 48 hours advance notice; grossly lying about the number of victims once the tidal rise swept a vast swath of the southern part of the country; denying foreign relief agencies access to the country and shunning help from other governments for days; forbidding civilians to distribute what little aid was available because that responsibility was solely in the hands of the soldiers. Or going ahead with the referendum designed to ratify a constitution that took 14 years to write, all of whose articles can be summed up in four words: We will rule forever.

Many people, including Myanmar's generals, have alluded to the incompetence of the U.S. government in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 by way of comparison. But there is no real comparison. The Katrina disaster was the unintentional product of bureaucratic government. The Myanmar catastrophe is the result of a political mind-set--that is, of cold-blooded decisions aimed at protecting the military government from the threat of instability. The same thinking drove decisions in 1988 and in 2007 that resulted in the massacre of unarmed civilians, including Buddhist monks, because they wanted free elections.

And, Reason's Kerry Howley lets us see how the junta has bungled its own propaganda (don't fall asleep watching the Burmese news reports!). Relief agencies accuse the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) of hoarding premium rice and distributing rotten and poorer-quality grain. Myanmar-not even as competent as the North Koreans!

Joshua Kurlantzick adds three reasons India considers the Burmese junta's suppression of anti-government riots an «internal matter (link removed)»: China; natural gas; and, security problems in its own southeast. Far from supporting the protesters as it did in 1988, India is signing production-sharing contracts with the Burmese government and building roads and pipelines between Myanmar and India. 

At the same time, as India's economy booms and it watches China gobble up oil and gas deals around the globe, Indian leaders covet Burma's petroleum riches, which will become even more internationally important as mature fields in the Middle East decline. (Burma may have as much as 300 billion cubic meters of gas, and India itself has few domestic sources of petroleum.) India is building a network of road links to Burma, and trying to get Burma to agree to a pipeline to northeastern India. Showing its interest, in 2004 India hosted thuggish junta chief Than Shwe for a lavish state visit to India, the first by any Burmese leader in 12 years. «India and not China should be getting this gas. It is vital for the economy of eastern India,» Nazib Arif, the former secretary of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, said.

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Yet some Indian opinion leaders are beginning to question this unthinking support. Unlike an authoritarian state like China, India will never be able to provide the same level of blanket assistance for Burma, without criticism back in Delhi, at the United Nations, and from India's new partner, the United States, which worries about Delhi's relationship with rogues like Burma and Iran. Perhaps recognizing this, the Burmese generals still have favored Chinese oil and gas companies over their Indian competitors, inking larger deals with China.

How many other nefarious (and desperate) regimes are left to grant Myanmar diplomatic cover? Meanwhile, monks are disappearing.