Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC last week that Cyclone Nargis had been turned into a "man-made catastrophe" from a natural disaster because of the negligence of the ruling generals.

While Mr. Brown is right that Cyclone Nargis has been turned into a “man-made catastrophe,” it may also be the result of man-made economic, political and historical
factors.

Cyclone Nargis should also be viewed in light of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that clearly warned that as a result of global warming, tropical cyclones “will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical sea surface temperatures.”

Global warming is largely caused by emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Roughly 75 to 80 percent of carbon dioxide emission results from burning fossil fuel such as diesel, petrol and gas as well as emissions released into the air by various industries and factories. The United States, the world’s largest consumer of energy, is the biggest polluter, emitting about 6,000 million tones in 2005, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The US’s rate of emission was about 25 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

The US is followed by China, western European countries, Russia, Japan and India, respectively.

Failing to take more effective actions against global warming, these countries have even increased their rates of emission in the past five years.

Cyclone Nargis is a political problem because of the isolationist, xenophobic views of Burma’s military government.

The junta misinformed the people about the cyclone, and also failed to take appropriate action before and after the storm. According to M. Maharatra, the director of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), regular advisories were issued, starting on April 26, to the Burmese authorities that a strong cyclone would strike Burma.

Ignoring the IMD warnings, Burma’s Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) issued inaccurate and inadequate information, failing to inform residents in the storm’s path.

Cyclone Nargis, however, was not only about winds and tides. It’s also about history. Burma’s military governments have never had a disaster relief plan for just such an event as Cyclone Nargis.  The area is home to hundreds of rivers and tributaries and only about 3 meters above sea level. The 2004 tsunami should have been taken as a warning.

When the winds and tides of the cyclone were over, the politics of aid began to unfold. Regardless of the dead and homeless, the junta refused to allow international communities to help the victims. The New Era, a Bangkok-based Burmese language newspaper, reported on May 8 that the Burmese Ministry of Foreign Affairs instructed the embassies around the world not to issue visas to international aid workers and experts, saying Burma would only accept money and aid supplies and it already had its own experts. Shamelessly, the junta seized the World Food Programme’s aid supplies and deported some aid workers.

Moreover, there were reports that the army and the junta’s Union Solidarity and Development Association hijacked aid packages.

China, India and the Asian countries have also contributed to the present problem by their hands-off policies which have in effect reinforced the regime’s hubris, leading up to the current international stand off.

These are some of the man-made problems at the local, regional and global levels. Unfortunately, the cost of this “unnatural” disaster is being paid by the people of Burma.

Sai Soe Win Latt is a graduate student in geography at York University in Canada.