Meanwhile in Myanmar

So, Raja Petra Kamarudin is free. Good for him. Meanwhile, in Myanmar, the situation is still dire.

The junta is refusing all help except material aid and aid workers are left scrambling to get visas which are hard to come by. In several airports across Asia, Myanmar military attaches vet those going aboard aid flights to weed out the media and other undesirable elements.

The U.S. is considering dropping aid directly to the Myanmarese, or Burmese if you prefer, as the junta has yet to give its nod for American aid flights. Why? To preserve power ahead of a national referendum on a new constitution still planned for May 10.

The Siber Party of Malayisa (M) believes the junta needs a kick in the pants and more. It needs to be booted out for all that it has done, and not done, since taking over power nearly 20 years ago despite elections that brought in a new democratic government.

Obviously the lessons of 8.8.88 has yet to be learnt.

Obviously the junta believes that keeping Myanmar in its iron grip despite the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis and its thousands of deaths is better than opening up to aid from the world.

Obviously they are afraid they will fall to the possibility of democracy.

Despite the stubborn junta, the world has to help the Myanmarese people. Now in the aftermath of the disaster and after that to ensure the junta does not isolate the nation from the rest of the world.

Cyclone Nargis might have killed thousands, thanks to the incompetence of the junta, but might it also herald the end of the junta and bring about change for the better, not unlike the Sedition Act and Raja Petra Kamarudin.

Only from chaos can order come. And perhaps democracy.