Link Banana

I thought I posted this yesterday… alas, Slate’s Explainer tackles the question of whether it’s Myanmar or Burma that’s refusing to let outside relief workers into the country.

Some err on the side of letting the country itself decide, while others don’t. On the Burma/Myanmar question, both newspapers and countries are divided over whether to recognize the switcheroo. Burma’s military leaders changed the English-language version of the country’s name to Myanmar in 1989, based on the short version of the country’s name in Burmese, “Myanma Naingngandaw.” While the United Nations adopted the new name in June of that year, the United States continues to call the country Burma because the change was never ratified by a legislative body in the country.

Passport has collected a few maps that show the extent of the damage done by the cyclone that struck Burma over the weekend. This before and after set is, as is usually the case with hurricanes, rather striking.

Sad but true: I willfully ignored this because the reported death toll yesterday was only around 350. Today reports are saying that more than 22,000 are confirmed dead and that the number may climb even higher. It also appears that the Red Cross and other aid agencies have been allowed in by the ruling junta.

I’ve been a little behind, but this week-old report on Burma from The Economist deserved sharing. A telling anecdote about the country’s problems:

Alarmingly, despite agricultural plenty, Myanmar has the classic conditions for a famine: acute poverty, poor or non-existent flows of information and crazy policies. In one cackhanded intervention in agriculture, the junta in 2006 ordered every farmer with an acre (0.4 hectares) of land to plant “physic nuts” (jatropha) around the edge of his plot. It was so keen on the crop that it also set up special plantations. The idea was to make biofuels to meet Myanmar’s energy shortage—even much of Yangon spends most evenings in darkness. But Myanmar lacks the refineries to turn the plants into fuel. The policy has been cited by many refugees pitching up at the Thai border as one reason for their flight: typically, the junta has been dragooning farmers into working for no pay in its jatropha plantations, so it becomes even harder to make a living.

It’s times like this that I dislike The Economist’s refusal to put bylines on its storied. Nonetheless, last week’s correspondents diary about traveling along the fringes of Burma is well worth reading.

The moment doesn’t last long, but for a few seconds I can picture what her life was probably like before all this. Perhaps she can too. Then her weariness consumes her again, and she is back to being a victim of all that is wrong with Myanmar.

EDIT (2/07/08): According to More Intelligent Life, it’s Roger McShane (whose website will resize your browser window.)

Paul Watson offers a pathos-laden look into a music school in Burma. It’s interesting, even if not revelatory.

You can feel it walking up the front path, in the breeze of notes from four upright pianos, a baby grand, guitars and traditional instruments that drifts from the rehearsal rooms, where jazz legends such as Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie look down from photocopied portraits taped to the walls.

When the school opened, neighbors told the students they wouldn’t last long. They were still going strong last year, and a few foreign visitors began dropping by, so intelligence agents started showing up. They reminded the students that Myanmar’s security laws hold them responsible for anything their foreign guests do, and if the outsiders strayed into politics, the locals would go to jail.

(via brijit)

The Economist’s Asia.view column brings a necessary reminder about the strong-as-ever military junta ruling Myanmar Burma.

The row over the timing of Mr Gambari’s visit shows the powerlessness of the UN against a regime determined not to mend its ways. It also shows that regime’s cunning: it has managed to turn a debate about the fundamental rights of its citizens into an administrative wrangle about a visa for a visiting diplomat.

As Britain’s ambassador, Mark Canning, has put it, “the name of the game” for the junta is staying off the front pages. The worldwide sympathy evoked by the “saffron revolution” made that seem a hard game to play. But these generals are past masters.