May 06, 2008... Helping Myanmar/Burma.

Prior to its independence, Myanmar/Burma was the wealthiest country in southeast Asia because it was the world's largest exporter of rice, and a significant exporter of hard-woods and oil, etc. Today, Myanmar, is the poorest country in southeast Asia, its peoples are destitute, and any wealth from the country's oil and logging exports--drug trafficking excluded--is expropriated by a vicious Junta and its associates, domestic, regional and international.

Huge criticism has been levelled at the Junta and its associates, to the effect that toppling the Junta and installing Aung San Suu Kyi as the democratically legitimate leader would be a problem solved. However, the real root of the problem lies with the unpopular fact that the Myanmar peoples are composed of at least a dozen feuding factions including the supposedly peaceful monks. For instance, no sooner had Myanmar achieved independence than its leader, General (Bogyoke) Aung San, Aung San Suu Kyi's father, was promptly assassinated by a rival. Since then, it has been downhill all the way for Myanmar.

It would be a comparatively simple matter to militarily dispose of the Junta, as the biggest dog in the yard, to leave Myanmar the assumed responsibility of the west. But given that Myanmar is akin to Afghanistan with jungles, and has a population the size of the UK's, it would be fair to say that Myanmar would be like Iraq on steroids, as a problem.

There are also the problems that Myanmar is populated with approximately 2-million Chinese nationals, and Myanmar is in China's backyard.

As a consequence of the cyclone which has wreaked havoc to many in Myanmar, the west is demanding that the Junta permit the supply of food-aid, medical-aid and provision of temporary shelter. In response, the Junta are demanding that they be paid to permit this to happen. A state of affairs akin to that which pertained during the Kosovo crisis, when the Albanians demanded, and received, millions in payments in order to allow aid and charitable donations to be delivered to their brothers in Kosovo.

Given the normal quality of contemporary life in Myanmar, this aid can be delayed. The people of Rangoon may be reduced to candles in lieu of electricity, for example, but their predecessors lived without electricity for thousands of years without distress. What must be confronted at this time is the internal divisions in Myanmar. This is because until the feuding factions in Myanmar come to realise that it is not in their interests to be in a state of eternal conflict with one another, foreign aid is simply perpetuating the problem, as it does in Gaza.

With that in mind: Withholding aid at this time, instead of the west clamouring for and being held financially hostage to its provision, may provide the necessary motivation for this to happen. Aung San Suu Kyi should be vigorously encouraged to exit Myanmar for the foreseeable future, since her remaining in Myanmar is counterproductive to the extent that by claiming her exit would undermine the legitimacy of her position is tantamount to admitting that she has no legitimate position to defend. And the west should permit Myanmar refugees to come to the west including the EU and the US, as a better alternative to helping with aid and providing blood-money to the Junta and its associates.