Twice in recent days unprecedented natural disasters have struck little-known parts of Asia.  On May 3, Cyclone Nargis Blasted across the Bay of Bengal and launched headlong into Myanmar (formerly Burma), devastating the Irawaddy Peninsula and destroying 75% of the manmade structures in 5 provinces, including the capital city of Yangon (formerly Rangoon), this according to sources inside the military government.  Estimates that more than 75,000 people have died and millions remain homeless are not exaggerations.

Compounding the problem, Myanmar’s military junta government, nearly as xenophobic as N. Korea, has maintained a strict policy of turning away foreign visitors in order to control the population and assuage the possibility of revolution in this often unstable part of South East Asia. 

Then on May 12, an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter Scale rocked the Eastern part of Sichuan Province, China, destroying buildings and trapping thousands inside the rubble.  Latest estimates are that over 50,000 people have perished in the aftermath of the violent quake, and more than 2 million are left homeless.  Four days after the temblor struck, Chinese military troops were only beginning to arrive in many of the hardest hit villages and townships. 

A stark contrast marks the difference between the two disasters, however.  China’s Communist government, making a play on the world stage this year for the first time, with the Beijing Olympics, understands it is their responsibility to save as many lives as they possibly can and accept aid from whatever quarter it might arrive.  Myanmar’s military junta, on the other hand, holds no such ethic.  A French freighter, bearing over 1,000 tons of rice and emergency medical supplies was turned away from the port at Yangon today, with protests that France had sent a warship, ostensibly to take advantage of Myanmar’s weak state.  Initial aid, sent the day after the disaster, reportedly didn’t reach the needy areas for nearly 48 hours, and then only after the military had removed all the protein bars and other “useful” commodities.  The government of Myanmar has been accused of withholding aid from its people on a global scale by France and other U.N. member nations.  Today the French ambassador to the U.N. warned that the government's refusal to allow aid to be delivered to people in need or in danger "could lead to a true crime against humanity."

Where governments and even the United Nations cannot work, though, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), which were already working in the area to fight poverty and disease, are acceptable to the authorities.  Most notably among the organizations already accepted and registered in Myanmar, New Mission Systems International, an organization YCC Global Outreach has long supported, has gained unprecedented entrance and is on the ground delivering food and medical aid wherever they can.  NMSI’s Executive Vice President, J.D. Whitney, currently stationed in Fort Myers, Florida is making an appeal for financial gifts and grants in aid to meet the crisis in Myanmar.