The price of underdevelopment: Provisional death toll in Burma reaches 10,000

The tragic loss of life and property in Burma this weekend is a microcosm of a world of inequality. With thousands presumed to be dead and even more displaced, it leaves the mind to ponder why human beings, already poor and oppressed, must suffer through such horror. And while we know natural disasters like cyclones do not discriminate, they do have the unique characteristic of shedding light upon the aforementioned global inequality. Here is the latest dispatch from south Asia, where a cyclone recently ravaged what was already one of the poorest countries in the world.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government has a provisional death toll of 10,000 from this weekend's devastating cyclone, with another 3,000 missing, a diplomat said on Monday after a briefing from Foreign Minister Nyan Win.

"The basic message was that they believe the provisional death toll was about 10,000 with 3,000 missing," a diplomat present at the meeting told Reuters in Bangkok.

(Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

This is a tragedy of epic proportions. Just think for a moment about natural disasters. No country is immune to natural disasters in one form or another. Because of this, they have the capacity of separating the "haves" from the "have nots" with respect to this geopolitical/economic phenomenon we call development.
I remember being struck by the extent of the disaster wrought by the earthquake in 2003 that killed 15,000 people in southeastern Iran and thinking to myself: that could never happen here.
And again in 2004 when 350,000 people were killed as a result of a tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
That could never happen here.
And, I was basically right. Large-scale tragedies of natural origins have been all but made extinct in the more developed nations of the world--we cannot control the natural impulses of the globe, but we can (and do) prepare for the worst.
This is not to say that every country affected by the tsunami of 2004 was of the less developed variety, of course. But consider that in the hardest hit country, Indonesia (150,000 dead, 500,000 displaced), more than half of the population lives on less than two dollars per day.
Now consider that the costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States, in both lives and property, was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. More than 1,800 people lost their lives when storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico overcame New Orleans' outdated levee system (this is 1,200 fewer than the 3,000 pro-democracy demonstrators who were killed by the Burmese government in 1988).
Before Katrina, the most destructive hurricane was Andrew, which cost 65 people their lives back in 1992.
Andrew made landfall as a Category Five storm, with more powerful winds than the Cyclone that hit Burma.

Do the math
Of the events that are generally considered to be the top ten deadliest natural disasters to hit the United States since 1900 (these include forest fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, eruptions and blizzards) the combined death toll does not rise to the level of the 2003 Earthquake in Iran. Further, at roughly 14,000, it is only marginally higher than the death toll in Burma, which some experts believe will eventually rise well above 10,000.

Natural disaster uncovers man-made disaster

Burma, known to some as Myanmar, is another in a long line of failed authoritarian states. Controlled by the military, Burma has long been one of the poorest and most corrupt countries on the planet.
Its government has a track record of human rights abuses and, because of this, is shunned by the United States, Britain and many other western governments.
And so, even in the wake of such an immense tragedy, do not expect the Burmese government to accept a great deal of foreign aid (even from nations who do not recognize the authority of the military to rule Burma). The Burmese people will continue to suffer under a military regime that couldn't govern its way out of a wet paper sack.
Militaries, it seems, are best kept back in the barracks and are no substitute for liberal democracy.
Burma's economy is not diverse--its practically a single-commodity economy--and this fact will become all too evident as reports from the devastated "rice belt" region are made known.
Illicit drugs aside, Burma is as dependent upon rice as many of the old Banana Republics were on the potassium sticks.
This is a man-made disaster, in truth. Burma is practically a case study in the failure of military-led governments to care for the basic needs of citizens.
The vast majority of all developed countries are liberal democracies where tragedies are barely comparable.
Say a prayer for Burma.