渥太华市民报:两个国家的故事

Enoch

[渥太华市民报 5月17日 英文报道 ]

http://www.canada.com/ottawaciti ... f-af55-ee1318d34c39

A tale of two countries
China came together like a real family in taking care of its own disaster victims this week -- but it's a lousy neighbour
Errol P. Mendes, Citizen Special
Published: Saturday, May 17, 2008

BEIJING - Being in Beijing on Monday when the earthquake hit China offered me a perspective that humankind is a collection of national families, with some functional, but others, burdened by dysfunctional leaders, barely able to survive. China demonstrated the functional model, Burma the other.

Within hours of the earthquake, the top Chinese leadership put together a major rescue operation that saw Premier Wen Jiabao heading to the epicentre of the earthquake in Beichuan country in Sichuan province. With the death toll potentially as high as 50,000 and thousands injured, the Beijing leadership of this one-party state quickly marshalled more than 50,000 troops and many more police and firefighters to search for survivors together with medical doctors and nurses (including two Canadians) to care for the wounded.

On Chinese news broadcasts, scenes of the broken bodies and the dead (including hundreds of children in collapsed schools and buildings) brought the whole country together as a family. The rush by Chinese citizens across this vast country to provide blood, money, supplies, and even driving to the scene to augment the ambulance capacity, was overwhelming.
An injured child is cared for after he arrives at a landing point in Sichuan Province following the earthquake that has killed tens of thousands of people in China this week.View Larger Image View Larger Image
An injured child is cared for after he arrives at a landing point in Sichuan Province following the earthquake that has killed tens of thousands of people in China this week.
Guang Niu, Getty Images
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The dispute with the rest of the world over accusations of human rights abuses in Tibet and the protests over the Olympic torch seemed forgotten as the leadership accepted help from many countries.

I was in China to discuss the human rights challenges facing the country with Chinese intellectuals, and I was impressed with the solidarity of the Chinese people. On the streets and in meeting rooms, the talk was over nothing else but the rescue efforts and the need to do more for the survivors.

However, I was extremely saddened that the same level of response and concern was not evident by the Chinese leadership as regards another natural disaster in a country not very far from Sichuan, in neighbouring Burma. There the death toll could reach 100,000 in the wake of deadly Cyclone Nargis, with tens of thousands missing.

The indescribable cruelty of the Burmese junta over restrictions on international assistance and UN relief agencies is endangering another 1.5 to 2.5 million survivors whose lives are dependent on food, water, shelter and medical care reaching them in the coming days. The pathetic claims by the military leaders, who insist they can handle the relief operations, are belied by the facts.

While China has offered some assistance to the Burmese, it could be of greatest assistance in convincing the criminal leadership in Burma to accept the full amount of international aid and relief operations, instead of focusing on their insane efforts to constitutionally entrench their power base through a rigged referendum. The Burmese must be permitted to become a functional family again despite the efforts of their leaders.

Even though they struggle with immense hardships, there are stories of Burmese who are filling in the vacuum of leadership by sharing their own rice supplies with others, students handing out money for food and Buddhist monasteries sheltering the homeless.