Word: stormings
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...Cyclone Nargis can't be blamed on Burma's leaders. But their inaction has indeed been murderous. A week and a half after the storm inundated the Irrawaddy delta with a 12-foot-high tidal surge, flattening countless homes, the junta was still blocking much of the aid proffered by foreign nations. Although three U.S. military cargo planes were allowed to offload relief supplies in Rangoon, the World Food Program estimates that the amount of aid reaching storm victims is just a fraction of what's needed. Hundreds of international disaster experts are still awaiting visas to enter the country...
...Ruling by Intimidation For years, Burma's ruling military has filled its state-run media with rants against the West. Even after the storm, the government's mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper, demanded vigilance from the Burmese against "foreign nations interfering in internal affairs of the state" and "stooges holding negative views...
...patients have diarrhea, a potential harbinger of killer epidemics. A Rangoon doctor says his hospital has run out of fully trained medical staff and is now sending interns to the disaster scene. International health officials warn that as many people could perish in the aftermath of the storm as from the cyclone itself. "I've had long experience of emergencies and I've never seen anything like this," says Julio Sosa Calo, head of mission in Laputta for the German relief group Malteser International. "What we're doing now is too little compared to the need." To make matters worse...
...junta's disregard for its citizens proved itself again on May 10, when the government decided to continue with a constitutional referendum that international observers say is designed to cement its hold on power. Although the sham plebiscite was postponed for two weeks in some of the worst storm-affected areas, other devastated regions were forced to hold the vote. Thousands of soldiers were mobilized to guard polling stations; hundreds of trucks mounted with loudspeakers fanned the nation, urging citizens to vote. Critics wondered how many lives might have been saved if some of those resources had been redeployed instead...
Aung Than Htay's injuries seem slight until he tells you how he got them. The arms of the 30-year-old fisherman are grazed from wrists to armpits. A week before, he had clung to the trunk of a palm tree as a 12-foot storm surge carried off his wife, his infant son, and his four-year-old daughter. "My wife tried to hold on to my waist, but the water dragged her away," he says. He clung to the tree for three hours. When he finally descended, the water in his village of Ka Ka Yon still...