What these kinds of failures of warning (and of relief and response) do is destroy the legitimacy of the government. US First Lady Bush should know: her husband’s downward slide in popularity had much to do with fiasco of the Katrina response.
Myanmar’s military rulers were under fire Tuesday after revealing more than 10,000 people died in the cyclone that battered the secretive and impoverished nation, with thousands more missing. As relief agencies scrambled to get food, clean water and supplies into a country that normally scorns foreign aid, US First Lady Laura Bush accused the regime of not doing enough to warn its people about the storm. The criticism from Bush, one of the most prominent critics of Myanmar, came after the junta acknowledged the death toll was far higher than first announced — and made a rare appeal for help from abroad. “Although they were aware of the threat, Burma’s state-run media failed to issue a timely warning to citizens in the storm’s path,” she said at the White House, using the country’s former name. “The response to the cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta’s failure to meet its people’s basic needs,” she said.
Myanmar rulers under fire over cyclone – LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE
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