pacific forum History of Pacific Forum

PacNet #29 – Burma’s Suffering: Will a Horrific Tragedy Become a Change-Forcing Event?

Tragedies brought about by natural disasters sometimes become powerful forces for change in countries marked by political strife and repression. Cyclone Nargis, a powerful topical storm that inundated the Irrawaddy River Delta region of Burma May 3, could mark the beginning of the end for a military regime that has brutally misgoverned one of the world’s poorest countries, which they call Myanmar, for almost two decades.