Taking credit for the goodwill of the world.

There is something odious about the regime in Myanmar that is quite beyond belief. The world has watched as Myanmar's ruling military junta have opposed the efforts of the world to help their desperate people (estimated to be up to 2 million people in dire need of assistance, in the most recent information on the matter). The junta is requesting that aid be delivered without any foreign workers being allowed to accompany it. They say that they will then distribute it.

When I first heard this, I was very suspicious of their motives. My interpretation was that they wanted to take the credit for providing aid to their people. Just think about it: if the man who gives you the box of free food and medicine is in a military uniform, from whom would you think the aid was from? To whom would you be grateful? By the simple expedient of preventing foreigners from distributing it the Burmese government could achieve two aims at once: they would prevent the oppressed Burmese people from learning that the outside world cares about them and is assisting them - and they would create the false impression that the Burmese government does, actually, care for its people and is doing something about it. To allow the Burmese government to distribute the aid is to allow two very big lies to be told, therefore.

Now, that is what I thought when I heard of their conditions. I did not imagine, however, how far the Burmese government would take their deceptive ways. According to a recent Associated Press report, the military government in Burma is handing out aid packages that HAVE BEEN RELABELLED. Stuck on them, in large letters, are the names of Myanmar junta generals. The cynicism of this deception is quite appalling.

I would like to give you the names of the generals who are relabelling food aid - but I can't. You see, one name was mentioned in the AP report, but when I checked back later, the name had been edited out of the online report. I find this odd. It seems to imply that AP have been contacted by the Myanmar government and told where to get off.

So, instead of being concerned about the 2 million endangered citizens of Myanmar, the generals are concerned about turning it into a propaganda opportunity.

All of this makes me wonder why the international community has tolerated this particular regime for the last 46 years. It seems to me that something decisive should have been done a long, long time ago, on behalf of the Burmese people. Yet, nothing is done - and I don't suppose anything concrete ever will be done. The people will just suffer on. The ones who don't die that is.

So, we now have a curious situation in which the world is in a double bind. If the world stands by and does nothing, the people of Myanmar will suffer and die (for their "masters" will do nothing to help them). However, if the world sends aid for the people of Myanmar, their masters will take the credit for it, reinforcing their stranglehold over this choking people - and so they will suffer on. Either way, the people of Myanmar will suffer.

Not to send aid, is to watch the Burmese die. To send aid, is to reinforce the Burmese regime. What a situation.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and ten months, and Tiarnan, twenty-seven months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind, niño, gênio criança, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)