CYCLONE Nargis' furious winds swept away all veils of pretence from the rulers of Myanmar. In the week since the deadly storm inundated 5,000 square kilometres of the Irrawaddy delta, that benighted country has been revealed as critically ailing - not just in its vulnerability to natural disasters, but in its ability to deal with them. If the mat huts and the subsistence lives of the millions of delta-dwellers now homeless were not testament enough to an economy in crippled neglect, the slothful response of the military administration to the disaster is utterly shameful.

The greatest role of an army in peacetime is in mobilisation for disaster relief. With virtually nothing seen to be done on the sodden ground while Nargis' death toll climbs into the tens of thousands, the regime is instead erecting impediments to the aid agencies and supplies massed at the ready to pour into Myanmar.

So far, 24 countries have pledged assistance totalling around RM100 million in cash and kind. The UN and its World Food Programme is on route with tonnes of food and medical supplies. China has sent in 60 tonnes. India, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia are also standing by, awaiting only the visas that will let them get their people and material into the stricken country.

But Myanmar's embassies and agencies overseas are not handing them out. There is no greater indication of how out of touch Pyinmana has become, not just with its own people and the world, but from sheer common sense. All regimes and governments are ultimately judged not on their politics or ideologies but how well they care for their people. If the regime wishes to preserve its integrity against foreign influence or, worse, forestall perceptions of how badly it needs foreign assistance at this time, it is dooming its own people to fatal hardship and itself to total disrepute.

It is shameful that such political considerations should even arise in the present circumstances, let alone prevail. For all the fractures of present-day geopolitics, disaster relief is the last redoubt of concerted international action at its most salutary. Keeping it out only further delegitimises the regime.
Myanmar seems less averse to granting entry to its regional neighbours than to Western agencies, and we wish Malaysian aid workers a safe and useful mission there. But they must be but the advance parties of an army of aid - the world should not bear this tragedy in callous disregard, even if Myanmar's junta does.