Burma's Second Agony

By Hannah Beech

The people of Burma take omens seriously. For centuries, the vagaries of weather have been scrutinized by astrologers who divine a relationship between celestial irregularities and earthly mayhem. So when a tropical cyclone tore across the country on May 2 and 3, killing tens of thousands and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless in the Irrawaddy River delta and the city of Rangoon, Burmese couldn't help noting the curious timing: exactly a week later, on May 10, the thuggish ruling junta was set to hold a constitutional referendum, a step toward what the military has called a discipline-flourishing democracy. Then the heavens opened and the winds lashed. The gods, it appeared, weren't happy with where Burma's leaders were taking their country.

Cleaning up after a catastrophe is hard work anywhere. But few places are more vulnerable than Burma, also known as Myanmar, an isolated, desperately poor nation of 53 million. Diseases that fester in the wake of such natural disasters could prove as deadly as the storm. Most galling, a 450,000-strong military that had ruthlessly gunned down dozens of monk-led demonstrators last September was seen as doing little to address the country's worst weather calamity in living memory. Faced with such monumental devastation, the junta has said it would welcome foreign help. On May 6, President George W. Bush pledged $3.25 million in emergency aid to a country normally cut off from American largesse by sanctions motivated by the Burmese regime's human-rights record.

One place the cyclone spared was Burma's new administrative capital, Naypyidaw, carved out of the jungle in 2005. No official reason was given for shifting the capital from Rangoon, but locals have speculated that the military had been swayed by soothsayers who predicted that civil unrest and a natural disaster would soon strike the city. Within eight months of each other, both prophecies had come true. "People in Burma are angry about two things," says Aung Zaw, a Burmese in exile who edits a Thailand-based magazine called the Irrawaddy. "They're angry at the military for reacting so slowly. And they're angry at the cyclone for missing Naypyidaw and keeping the generals safe." The long-suffering Burmese can only hope that divine intervention will not be so kind to the generals next time.