Transcript: Episode #338: Emergency Declined
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Speaker 1 00:13
She do still
Speaker 2 00:36
experiencing powerful aftershocks as relief efforts continue in the worst affected areas,
Speaker 3 00:47
International Workers are trying to deliberate, but fighting continues between the military and pro democracy forces despite a cease fire, an H, K, I heard from people surviving in hard hit areas the
Host 01:06
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Brad 02:40
Good. And welcome back in our continued coverage of the Myanmar earthquake and the systematic political and infrastructural issues that have exacerbated this, we are joined today by Dean who is going to be giving us an unparalleled insight into what I would say Is Myanmar's capacity, but really it's Myanmar's lack of capacity and the reasons for that to adequately respond to this crisis. So before we get into that, Dean, thank you very much for joining us, and I want to give you the chance to introduce yourself for our audience more completely.
Dean Kyne 03:35
Thank you for having me today. First and foremost, I would like to share a quick disclaimer the views I express in this conversation are my own and do not represent the positions or opinions of the organization I work for. My name is Dean Khan, and I'm a full professor, and this is a study program director at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley,
Brad 04:01
Okay? And let's, let's just jump straight on into this. Obviously, we're dealing with an enormous crisis, and Myanmar is not sort of going through the first crisis. We know that Bagan, for example, has been hit with three major earthquakes. Remember cyclone Argus in 2008 This is a country that has faced a lot of natural disasters. What is Myanmar capacity to deliver aid to affected communities and to respond to the acute needs of a natural disaster?
Dean Kyne 04:37
Yes, absolutely. This is a very good question. I think, in my opinion, I don't think Myanmar has a capacity or a willingness, you know, to, you know, distribute the aid to the effective area. So to better understand that this is the response in Myanmar, it is important to first recognize that. Country has been under the military rule for the better part of the last six decades. Military regimes, you know, both past and present, have prioritized control and political power over the public welfare, and this dynamic has significantly influenced how disaster are managed, or, in many cases, mismanaged. As you know, Myanmar is geographically prone to a wide range of natural hazards, including cyclones, floods, landslides and most recently, upwards, one of the most catastrophic events in the country's recent history was a cyclonagas in 2008 now give struck the ARD delta and Yangon division, with the sustained winds over 130 miles per hour, leading to The deaths of an estimated 138,000 people. It was a humanitarian catastrophe of massive proportions. And what is particularly tragic is that many of these deaths could have been prevented. Several studies, you know, including one by the Australian researchers, pointed out that armies authorities could have had as much as 72 hours notice of the incoming cycle. In fact, India officially won the Myanmar 48 hours before the landfall. Yet they junta Hunter feel to communicate this thread effectively to the population. I was actually a graduate student at Penn State University at that time, and I remember vividly following the news. I was tuned into Voice of America, and the anchor was interviewing the Director General of the country's metrological station. When asked what kind of public preparation was needed for a strong packing wings over 130 miles per hour, the response was quote, you could fix the roof. That moment stuck with me. It revealed the tragic disconnect between the government's understanding, or perhaps willingness to communicate, the severity of the disaster and the actual level of risk facing the population. Here it is also worth noting that the junta was conducting a constitutional referendum at that time. Instead of postponing it in light of the pending disaster, they choose to downplay the severity of the storm. This political prioritization came at an enormous human cost. The lack of transparent risk communication, failure to active management, active emergency management protocols, and refused to accept international aid in early days, all contributed to the devastating outcomes. So when we talk about the disaster response in Myanmar, we can't separate it from the authoritarian context. Disaster governance is ultimately about saving lives. But under the Honda it has been an entangled with the politics secrecy and control. Nagi is a heartbreaking example of harm state failure again, magnifying the impacts of the disaster into full blown humanitarian crisis. When we look into the hunters response to this recent output, one of the most troubling aspects was a heavy restriction placed on search and rescue operations. These limitations severely delayed life saving efforts in most critical hours after the disaster, for example, a Singaporean rescue team was reported denied access to this guy, region where nearly the entire city had collapsed and countless people were entrapped under the rubble. Instead of facilitating immediate health, the military imposed strict costumes that prevented both local and international teams from entering the effective areas in any disaster, the first 24 to 72 hours are vital. Every minute can mean the difference between life. In debt. But in this case, those early hours were unnecessarily lost due to the haunted restriction. There were multiple reports of session rescue operation being delayed or obstruct, not because of the logistic challenges, but because of a lack of cooperation and support from the military authorities. One particular heartbreaking example is the experience of Khin farmer, an Indian humanitarian responder and founder of simply blood, who traveled to Myanmar as part of Operation Hama Indians relief afford that includes 80 member National Disaster Response Force team, medical staff and sublimes he couldn't even reach to the hardest hit areas, like The guy he was stopped in mandali by military authorities, and despite having the skill the will and the support to health, he was blocked at the gunpoint from proceeding. Father, in his own words, he couldn't bear the witness people dying while rescuing efforts were deliberately restricted his account, reported by the Democratic voice Obama underscored not only the Honda's failures to act, but the active obstruction of those trying to save lives. This is not just about logistic failure. It is about humanitarian suppression under the authoritarian rules. Unfortunately, this reflects a broader pattern when the regime prioritized control over coordination even in times of urgent humanitarian needs.
Brad 11:58
And so I know that you touched on this, but I think it's a very important question to pose in the wake of Nargis, which I think many of us view the response to Nargis as emblematic of a military that was not prepared to handle disaster management and was very concerned, as you say, with maintaining control. But the logical next step to my mind, and I think to many people's minds, is for the military to start building domestic capacity for disaster relief, so that when another disaster happens, they will not be embarrassed in the same way, they will not be unable to provide aid. They will not have to, in their minds, make a decision between delivering humanitarian aid and maintaining control over the country. And yet, it seems that that did not happen. And indeed, it seems that if any progress was made under the NLD government as well, and I don't know how much would have been made in that time. Right now, it seems that that is not helping the current situation. So the big question here is, after such an enormous catastrophe like Nargis, why did we not see a focus on building domestic capacity to do disaster relief.
Dean Kyne 13:27
That is a really a good question. What I think is that the government doesn't have a plan under the authoritarian rule the control of the power is much more important than the public welfare and in the rest when there is a disaster hit, the ultimate goal of managing disaster is to save the lives and minimize the injuries and damage to the properties and human environments. That is the ultimate goal every every organization share during the disaster or every government share has set that goal in the disaster management efforts, but under the authoritarian regime, I don't see any evidence of having that goal, and their goal is to weaponize the disaster and to have that enhance their power and control over the country. So when you don't have that ultimate goal, it is. Quite difficult, you know, to put the thoughts to plan, to build the capital capacity, to better prepare, mitigate, respond and recover from the disaster. That is the reason that we don't see the government doesn't consider or the military, Honda doesn't consider building capacity to effectively cope with managing disasters.
Brad 15:38
And I wonder if you're able to give us a sort of parallel view here, under a system of government that would have been preparing for disaster management, a government that would be interested in minimizing the loss of human life, in minimizing infrastructural damage, in mitigating the secondary harm that comes from these disasters. What would be the difference? What would we be seeing in Myanmar, under a government that is focused on protecting its people, compared with what it is that we are seeing right now?
Dean Kyne 16:16
So the first thing after this upgrade, you will be seeing, you know, session three schools, the local, local professional search and rescue team will be reaching out to those places. The second the the military junta, will be dispatching, you know, the search and rescue workers, you know, their military personnel, their police you know, and also other you know, volunteers you know, do help those such and risk affords in order to minimize save the lives and minimize injuries And And second, what you will be seeing is that helicopters will be flying over those you know, areas of bringing those people you know, injured it or just pulled it out from their debris. They will be, you know, immediately dispatched to the hospital venue on their medical needs. We don't see those kind of, you know, immediate response, because the government doesn't have that particular goal.
Brad 17:35
I mean, yeah, it's very sad. And so you, you, you mentioned right there, local search and rescue teams. And I wonder then, if we look at not the national, federal level of response, but if we look at local levels in the wake of things like earthquakes and cyclone artists and so on, and understanding that the government, especially under the military regime, is not particularly eager to help people, and we saw this very horrifically during the COVID period as well after the coup is Has there been any development in local capacity and local resilience to disasters, even without the national level governmental assistance.
Dean Kyne 18:26
So I don't see any activities you know that focus on building local capacity to better prepare and mitigate, respond and recover from a distance to after the pandemic or even previous military regimes. The only observation during the civilian government under the NLD was having a plan to establish local emergency operation centers, EOC and also emergency management plan. These were like an initial, you know, development you know, to build stronger local capacity in order to respond to disasters. Certainly, after the 2021 coup, it was gone.
Brad 19:34
Yeah. And so let's then look at what is actually happening from the from the military regime. At the moment, we've heard so many different things, some of them probably true, some of them probably exaggerated, but it seems like the military number one is only actively engaged in in rescue operations. And relief operations in territories that they consider to be firmly under their control. So for example, within epidural and number two, it seems that the military is actively trying to prevent some of the the rescue operations and relief operations. So we'll, we'll focus on the first one. First is the military engaged in any sort of rescue and relief operations? And if they are, are those operations restricted to the territories that they see as as under their control completely?
Dean Kyne 20:34
So in my observation, I don't see the active engagement in the response, even in the areas, you know, where they have a complete control. It was very sad to see the aid distribution that there were also cholera practices, you know, the they distribute it. But the person who is in church in the village or the city, they corrupt and they resell and repurpose the the the AIDS, you know, so the victims didn't receive the necessities, you know, from the age distribution and in the affective areas, in the other areas You know that was under the resistant group control, even local NGO organization, you know, if they would like to travel and distribute their their donation, their supplies, they were blocked, and the checkpoint were very long, and they going to reach to those areas. So they don't, they don't, they ignore, you know, distributing aids to those areas under the resistance group. I just
Brad 22:15
want to clarify, because this is quite interesting with the with the corrupt aid distribution practices. We do hear a lot of stories of the military intercepting international aid, or the military intercepting even domestic aid that was raised or that was going to be delivered through non military controlled organizations and networks distribute like intercepting that and then selling it for profit. Are you saying, however, that there were cases where the military was trying to distribute aid themselves, and local authorities who are corrupt, were taking even the military's aid? Is that correct?
Dean Kyne 23:06
Well, yes, the first of all, you know, the the eight distribution is at the minimal level, you know, and we don't see, you know, in public, you know the evidence of distributing, the aids the second, when they dispute, distribute at the minimal amount. There was also corruption involved. Those, you know, the the leaders, you know, in the communities, they they are supporters of the military junta. So they have a corrupt practices. You know, they state those aids, they resolve for their profit, and they didn't distribute to the affected people.
Brad 24:05
Wow. And so I want, I want to look at the actual, what we might call sabotage here, and the cases that we've heard rumors of. And I wonder whether you can, you can give us any examples and tell us what is true and what is not true. We've heard stories that, of course, as you say, aid is being intercepted and stolen. We've heard stories of aid workers, legitimate, recognized, professional aid workers, being forcibly redirected away from the places where they wanted to be delivering aid. We've heard that in some places there is a curfew in effect that is preventing aid workers from working during the night, even while people are trapped in buildings. And we've heard that the military are forcibly recruiting some volunteer workers into the military of. These cases. Do you know whether any of these are true, and if they are true, do you know how big the scope is?
Dean Kyne 25:08
Yes, this is a good question. And this is a the current issues is, you know, after the disasters people are facing, and the eight workers, you know, they, as I mentioned before, there were evidences that, you know, they are not allowed to move freely. There were a lot of restrictions, and also, and sometimes they will be forced, you know, places not to go if those are places under the control by the resistant groups and also the volunteers, you know, the male volunteers, they are also vulnerable to be forced to enter into the military because, you know, they are lack of forces, so they are trying to force the volunteers to recruit. So you can find those evidences, you know, many reports you know, by the reliable meteors, you know, it is very sad, the devastation, you know, created by the military after the disasters have led to many compounded, you know, disasters and now people are really facing the humanitarian crisis situation
Brad 26:54
and so. So I want to clarify, though, specifically on on the cases of forced recruitment. Do we have any number for that? Do we have any concept or scope for how many people might have suffered that? So
Dean Kyne 27:15
for me, for my observation, I don't have exact numbers, but I think the report seemed like the scope has been very wide, and because they need badly to recruit their new military members,
Brad 27:37
fair enough. The other one is, I've heard a report from Mandalay regarding an organization that you're probably quite familiar with, the Pew. So he who are paramilitary organization that, to my understanding, has successfully intimidated aid workers for I'm not entirely certain why they would do this. By understanding is they suspected the aid workers of being connected with revolutionary organizations. I would like to better understand this and what knowledge we have of this situation. Is it the case that non military, so technically civilians who are ideologically in support of the military are engaging in intimidation tactics against rescue workers and and relief workers.
Dean Kyne 28:37
I think the public and civilians who are not a member of the pew, sorry. They have great appreciation for helping them. You know, they have expressed, you know, gratefulness and thanks to many international communities, you know, who provided the aid, who sent the session risk routines? So that is the attitude and mindset of the public. However, the pure society group has a different mindset, you know they, they, they disrupt the distribution of AIDS. You know, to the public, you know that do not support the military junta and they would like to suppress, you know, people who do not support, who do not show support to them, military so that that is what we are seeing now, and they are the a big source of destruction. To the aid distribution as well. This is another layer,
Brad 30:05
but this is so this is very difficult to understand, because the Pew soti are civilians, and so if they are intimidating aid workers, and they are intimidating rescue workers, the logical conclusion is that they are intimidating those who are attempting to help the members of their own local communities, unless they're traveling very far in order to carry out these intimidation operations, they would be causing further harm within their own communities, possibly causing the suffering and the death of people that they personally know and they personally have lived alongside. It's a little bit difficult to understand why a person would do something like that. Do you have any insight into this mindset?
Dean Kyne 31:00
So what I view them is not the general public. I view them as like a plaintiff of the military regime, Army, and this is just a different uniform. So their mindset is the same as the military, who doesn't care the welfare of the public.
Brad 31:30
I mean, it's horribly depressing to see people working against aid possibilities and aid workers. So let's then turn away from the domestic capacity, and let's look at the International capacity. And I want to give you a bit of lateral freedom to tackle this issue as you see fit. The way that I perceive this is that there are three major questions with regard to the international community's ability to provide aid. The first question is the pragmatic question, what sort of aid can be offered that would genuinely be beneficial to the people of Myanmar right now? The second question is political. How can that aid be offered, and is it possible to offer the aid in a way that does not strengthen the military and that does not become subject to the military's capacity to manipulate the aid. And the third question, perhaps the most difficult question, is the moral dimension. To what extent should the international community, or could the international community take it upon themselves to say these people are suffering and we have a responsibility to help them, and if the military is going to try and make that difficult for us, we have a responsibility to find alternative methodologies through which we can help these people, regardless of what the military wants, but, but I want to give you the space to discuss this topic in whatever way you see appropriate.
Dean Kyne 33:09
All right. Thank you. So the first question is, you know, like, what will be the best you know offer to give public during this disaster, even after the this is even so. I think you know you need to understand the context of this particular country, which is really complex, as I mentioned about the authoritarian government context that is really lack of the, you know, focusing on the Public Welfare and also lack of the ultimate goal for disaster emergency management. And also, one more thing that I would like the international community to understand is that this kind of disaster is will require a lot of efforts and resources to fully recover, and it will be, like many years, maybe even more than 10 years, you know, to fully recover. So there are not only the AIDS, you know, for the business necessities, but also we need to consider about rebuilding, you know, the public infrastructures, the properties. You know, this is also very. Important to look at and consider how the international communities could contribute to rebuilding. You know, Myanmar, after this, Sakai out grid. And nowadays, you know, when you look at people need, not only food and shelters, but also in the response, immediate response, the initial clearing of different are very crucial and people could not afford and it is really costly to remove in a normal government in in a developing developer countries, you know, they're clearing the deep reds on the streets and sidewalks will be fully responsible by the the government, but now people have to struggle how to remove those deep risk by themselves. So these are the you know, things to consider about in the process of responding and rebuilding. You know, in the long term, short term recovery, long term, short term period, there will be different needs, you know, and also resources they will need. So I think that you know that that is very important dimension to consider among the international donors, international communities. You know when you are distributing the aid. Now, when you look at the Palmer, the military doesn't control the entire nation and the military controls only 20% of the nation. And the revolution level, revolutionary groups have control, like 80% of the countries, so it is very important to distribute to those you know, different groups of different political groups you know, who, who is also in charge recently, in their control areas. That way the aids can be distributed more effectively and making sure that the aids can reach to the the people who are affected by the disasters, and also people who are facing the economic hardship you know, like un recently published a report, half of the population you know, is living under the 67 cents per day, and they estimated like about 60 million population requiring the Aung needs, you know, Aung humanitarian aid. So that needs to be taken into consideration, to politically, you know, distribute, you know, the aid, not only at the one hand of the military regime. Um, the last question, I guess it was the moral or ethical aspect of the eight distributions. So when you look at the disasters, you know, depending on their scale and impacts people, especially those who are in the developing countries. They lack resources. They lack the government supports, you know, and I think the current earthquake has a unimaginable impacts and skill before the disaster, then people are people in a extreme poverty condition, and government doesn't have any concern about the public welfare, just concerned about their power and control and weaponizing the disability. Disasters in such a situation, the other countries needs to consider seriously the human aspects of the disasters we all cannot ignore, You know, so, referring to my recent research studies, I we, the world is trying to achieve the sustainable goals. You know, SDGs, there are 17. We have been working hard in order to achieve those goals. But the previous disasters during the past 20 years have reversed the progress of those goals, especially the disasters they impact on the poverty and resiliency. So if we don't help to rebuild after the disaster, build back better. You know, I believe the war cannot achieve sustainable development goals as we wish, and the country like Myanmar will be in the poverty situation if they do not receive the health, they did not receive the support, you know, to build back better and and they couldn't achieve their political goals. You know, where the freedom and human rights are branded under the democratic governance. And
Brad 42:25
specifically on this development front, because I know that this is something that you've you've written about in the past, the the impact of the natural disasters on a country's ability to develop Myanmar. You know, I think from 2010 to 2020 Myanmar did incredible things to to make progress with regards to development, whether it was, you know, technological development or infrastructural development, and just generally opening up and trying to to match pace with with her neighbors, but natural disasters are not really something that we can completely prevent. They're not something that we can control. What impact your natural disasters themselves and what impact does the efficiency of government response to natural disaster have on a country's ability to continue developing in the long term.
Dean Kyne 43:26
Yes, you are absolutely right. We can't control all the natural disasters are unavoidable. I think Myanmar is geographically prone to natural disasters, you know, including cyclones, flood, landslides, art quilts. But we can minimize the vulnerability, reduce the disaster risk and build the resilience communities to better prepare, mitigate, respond, recovery. With that, the ultimate goal of managing natural disaster to minimize the the to save the lives and to minimize the injuries, loss of properties, and, you know, minimizing damage to the human environments that can be achieved when we can build the resilience communities better preparing for the future disasters, we can still minimize and add the losses and damage and achieve the ultimate goal
Brad 44:59
Absolutely. Of them and and on this topic like now, we are currently faced with a military that clearly is not interested in delivering aid, and with a country so broken and fractured and divided and and affected by conflict, it is not, I think, feasible to expect a national level resiliency to natural disasters, and we touched on community resiliency earlier in this interview, and I believe you said that you haven't seen any real community level resilience activities, community level development into into disaster capacity. Is there any thing that you think local levels can do, whether this is, you know, individual communities, or whether it's geographic regions that have, you know, at least some stability at the moment and might be controlled by a single organization? Is there any capacity for this lower level unit to build capacity to start preparing for natural disasters, to start making themselves more resilient to natural disasters? Is that a possible step that could help mitigate future disasters?
Dean Kyne 46:17
Absolutely, absolutely, it is possible. But you know, since the military regime doesn't have any concern, any attention to the public welfare, I don't think the the any, you know, government related organization may not be feasible, you know, to begin with. So I think the national government organizations, you know, at the local level, they can, first, you know, educate the public. You know, they inform me about the potential rates of their geographic specific. You know disasters rates and teaching them how to prepare them. You know how to respond, how to recover. And one example could be like community emergency response team, you know, cert, you know this is, like, very popular volunteering local emergency management teams in in us, so they can also train those volunteers you know to be professionally trained volunteers, in case they will be the first responders to the their communities members, and they don't need to wait for nation or you know, state, You know responders to reach to their impacted area. So this is the best way to begin with, you know, after this disaster. And I think NGOs should be funded, you know, to conduct these kind of activities, you know, in the community levels.
Brad 48:19
And I think that's really interesting, because when we when we think of capacity building, when we think of resiliency, first and foremost, what we think about is shelters, stockpiles of food, stockpiles of of, you know, medicine, setting up physical facilities that cost a lot of money and require a lot of stability, peace time, stability to actually build safely. But you've, you've pointed out a very important thing here, education alone is incredibly valuable in this, in this endeavor, and is this, do you think it's possible to carry out education and and training, even through platforms like zoom, for example, so that, so that it can be delivered even safely during a time of conflict? Is there? Is there capacity for this?
Dean Kyne 49:16
All right, so I think that decent learning, you know, virtual learning is also possible. I think in this kind of training, I think we need to have, like a training of trainers, you know, first, so we need to produce those local trainers, you know, by the professionals, you know trainers, and once we get those you know local trainers, those local trainers can re train their local community members. So I think your question of. You know, utilizing the online technology is feasible. And given that, given that, you know, nowadays, the stuff, Link, internet is also available in those areas where internet is not available, right, provided by the state. Fascinating,
Brad 50:22
so that that opens up a very interesting opportunity and a very interesting possibility for for building community development. So I want to, I want to thank you for for coming on. I want to thank you for sharing the insights that you shared with us. I think it's, it's very difficult in times like this, when there are so many things happening simultaneously in so many parts of the country, and everyone is focused on immediate concerns, it's very difficult to get a clear picture and a clear long term picture, and so we're very lucky to to have someone like you who can, who can put things into perspective for us.
Dean Kyne 51:00
Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity for the final thoughts. And I would like to say, you know, the people in Myanmar, you have to be very strong. And for the international community members, please continue with what you have been doing and please support to the Fed deaf individuals. Members,
Host 51:36
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