Assholes of the Week: The Myanmar Ruling Junta

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's military regime distributed international aid Saturday but plastered the boxes with the names of top generals in an apparent effort to turn the relief effort for last week's devastating cyclone into a propaganda exercise.

The United Nations sent in three more planes and several trucks loaded with aid, though the junta took over its first two shipments. The government agreed to let a U.S. cargo plane bring in supplies Monday, but foreign disaster experts were still being barred entry.

State-run television continuously ran images of top generals — including the junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe — handing out boxes of aid to survivors at elaborate ceremonies.

[From Myanmar junta hands out aid boxes with generals' names - Yahoo! News]

This is far beyond irrational. First their country gets slaughtered by a natural disaster. Then they refuse the free flow of aid workers, and refuse the shipping of help shipments. Why? Probably paranoia that the powers-that-be are going to try to use the disaster as an excuse to topple the junta.

Then they allow aid flights, but confiscate the material. Why? This one puzzled everyone, until now. The aid was eventually distributed, only plastered with pro-regime propaganda.

This is just plain dumb. All they had to do was allow the shipments, then after the aid was distributed use their monopoly on communications to claim that it was the regime that helped their people. The UN gets to help people in need, the local ruling group gets to save face, and the victims get some relief. Everyone wins.

But no. With fatality figures approaching the 500,000 mark in a country with an estimated population of almost 48 million, these people decide to run a political exercise.

Assholes.

The sad thing is that with China sharing a 2,000 Km border, it makes you wonder why the Chinese haven't sent a subtle word to these people to get their acts together and stop drawing so much attention to the area. They are just probably straddling the fence, seeing how this mess develops to see how THEY can take advantage of it.