At first, the world held its breath to see if the military junta ruling Myanmar was going to bow to the realities of the tragedy that struck there Saturday and ask for outside help -- or just sit tight and remain isolated behind its iron veil, ignoring the immense suffering of its people in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.
Living under tyranny
How do you persuade dictators to put aside their grip on power, to stop thinking of themselves first or at least stop fearing loss of control long enough to allow relief workers to do their jobs? This is almost always the first hurdle when a natural disaster strikes people living under tyranny.
Fortunately, Myanmar's military henchmen seem to have blinked after realizing the depth of the cyclone's destruction and have asked for foreign aid. Still, the Myanmar bureaucracy has not exactly moved with the alacrity. Paperwork to allow relief workers to enter Myanmar, also known as Burma, is slow to come. But Myanmar's people are suffering. The death toll is at 22,000 and rising. And there is no guarantee that all the aid will reach victims, or even that the junta will be more help than hindrance to the relief effort.
It is difficult enough to deal with the after-effects of a natural disaster under the most enlightened of governments, but when these events strike in undemocratic regimes the tragedy often is compounded by these governments' rigidity and general incompetence. Cyclone Nargis and its target offer the latest example of a need for a global pact on natural cataclysms, an agreement recognizing the universality of human suffering after such events and creating a mechanism that allows humanitarianism to supersede all the other ''isms'' for a time.
There is plenty of proof that the humanitarian impulse can transcend geopolitical enmities. When an earthquake devastated the southern Iranian city of Bam, killing 26,000 people in December 2003, the U.S. military provided aid to residents there.
Lamentably, there are times when leaders of hostile nations just cannot overcome political and ideological concerns. When another quake struck in Iran in 2006, relations between Iran and the United States had deteriorated. Tehran accepted Russian and Italian help in the days immediately after the disaster but was lukewarm to a U.S. offer of assistance.
Choose humaneness
Likewise, Myanmar is accepting aid from United Nations agencies but has so far demurred on offers of U.S. help. We can only make the offer, with sincerity. Then it is up to the other party to choose between ideology and humaneness.
Let's hope that in the coming weeks the Myanmar dictators can put concerns for the welfare of Cyclone Nargis' victims before their own fears of losing control of the beleaguered country.
