Savage paranoia

Chicago Tribune

Cyclone Nargis, which hit the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar more than a month ago, has, by official count, claimed 78,000 lives. Another 56,000 people are missing and as many as 2.4 million desperately need basic humanitarian aid—food, clean drinking water and shelter.

The country's repressive ruling junta, however, doesn't see it that way. The New Light of Myanmar, the state-run newspaper that serves as a mouthpiece for the ruling generals, called the Western media "the enemy who is more destructive than Nargis." The Western media, a recent article claimed, have sensationalized their reporting and exaggerated the suffering of the storm's victims, all in an attempt to "undermine national unity."

What amazing paranoia. And if it were limited to bleating from The New Light, everyone could laugh. But Myanmar's rulers have turned away repeated offers of foreign aid. The xenophobic generals would rather let their people starve than risk allowing outsiders in to help.

Now, they're clamping down on efforts by their own people. Popular comedian and political critic Maung Thura, better known by his stage name Zarganar, was recently taken from his Yangon home by police. His apparent crime? Traveling to the Irrawaddy delta to deliver relief supplies to the victims of Nargis. The military junta is trying to stop the people of Myanmar from helping the people of Myanmar.

It has accused citizens who have shot video of the deplorable conditions in the delta of being "self-seekers exploiting storm victims." It insists, all evidence to the contrary, that conditions in the Irrawaddy delta are better than reported.

In his masterpiece "1984," British author George Orwell described a society where reality was wholly subjective, created by a government propaganda machine known as the "Ministry of Truth." If citizens didn't hew to the government's totalitarian line, they were subject to arrest, torture and re-education. The government's sole purpose: to perpetuate its own existence. Orwell's book was a work of fiction intended as a criticism of totalitarian government.

Today it could double as the Myanmar junta's manual of governance.