Washington (AP) – Day after day, Chinese rescue teams carry children and elderly people with collapsed buildings while the cameras repel the thanks for grateful survivors from all over the world. Russian medical teams show hospitals on the ground erected in a flash to take care of the wounded.
In particular absent from the consequences of 7.7 gross earthquakes In the poor Nation of Southeast Asia, Myanmar: unique, well-equipped and well-equipped research teams and response teams in the United States.
At least 15 Asian and Western government rescue teams The crews have landed to reach hundreds of workers, as well as initial commitments of financial aid reaching tens of millions of dollars, while the death toll on March 28, exceeds 3,000, according to the government of Myanmar. The cameras showed the Vietnam team on arrival, walking in the square shoulder at the rescue behind the flag of their country.
While the military junta of Myanmar and the civil war have posed challenges, the US government worked with local partners there to succeed in providing aid for decades, especially after deadly storms in 2008 and 2023, according to help officials.
The American government overshadows the rescue capacity of other nations in experience, capacity and heavy machines capable of bringing people to live the rubble. But in Myanmar after the last earthquake, the United States has distinguished themselves so as not to have a known presence in the field beyond an evaluation team of three members sent days after the earthquake.
“We all fear what would be the human impact” of the dismantling of President Donald Trump of the American agency for international developmentsaid Lia Lindsey, principal advisor in humanitarian policy for Oxfam, who rushed to provide tents, covers and other aid to survivors.
Now Lindsey said: “We see it in real time. We see it in an increase in suffering and increased death. ” »»
A retirement from decades of American policy can fuel the absence
The United States, the largest economy in the world, has long seen its strategic interests and its alliances served by its position as the first humanitarian donor in the world. The earthquake of Myanmar is as close to a non-presentation that the nation had recent memory during a major and accessible natural disaster.
Current managers and former private and government say that the Myanmar disaster indicates some of the results – for people in need on the ground and for us to stand in the world – of the Trump administration of the decades of American politics. This approach argued that Washington needs both the difficult power of a strong soldier and the soft power of a robust help and development program to dissuade enemies, win and keep friends and direct events.
Secretary of State Marco RubioIn Europe for a NATO rally, rejected a suggestion that the administration gives up influence abroad by canceling thousands of its assistance and development contracts, including for disasters. He told journalists that those who complained were the aid groups, whom he accused of taking advantage of help in the United States.
“We will do our best,” Rubio said on Friday. “But we also have other needs against which we must balance. We do not move away. “
He stressed “many other rich countries in the world. They should all intervene and do their part ”.
The main Democrats of the Senate wrote Rubio this week, urging him to increase assistance to American disasters in Myanmar – and quickly. In addition, the Senator of Delaware, Chris Coons, a democratic member of the Senate Committee for Foreign Relations, spoke of watching a program of news from the disaster showing the Chinese government teams at work.
“It hurt my heart to see where, instead of a USAID team … leading the answer, there was a RPC team that was celebrated for saving certain people in the rubble,” said Coons.
The Trump administration of 2,1 1/2 months, through the teams of the Elon Musk government ministry, has frozen USAID funding, dismissed thousands of contracts and dismissed all except a handful of its staff in the world. He accuses the Waste Agency and to advance liberal causes. The Myanmar Quake has been the first major natural disaster since the start of this work.
The Trump administration and some Republican legislators say they will reappear a reduction in assistance and development programs within the framework of the State Department, adjusted their closer interpretation of work which serves American strategic and economic interests.
The first announcement of the aid arrived a few days later
A few days after the Myanmar earthquake, the United States made its first aid announcement: it sent an evaluation team for three members of non-specialist advisers from a regional USAID office in Bangkok, Thailand. By coincidence, like hundreds of other USAID employees in the world, the three had received notices for layoff from the Trump administration on March 28 in the hours following the earthquake, the current and former USAID officials confirmed.
The administration also promised $ 2 million in aid and announced on Friday $ 7 million. But there is a much larger number in play.
This total of $ 9 million is overshadowed by approximately $ 2 billion in payments and goods previously rendered that the Trump administration has owed non -profit humanitarian groups and other foreign government and non -governmental entrepreneurs and non -governmental partners. The Trump administration suddenly closed USAID and foreign assistance payments from the USAID and the State – including for the work already carried out – on January 20, the day of the inauguration.
Combined with suddenly resistor assistance contracts and freezing on USAID and state aid and development payments, the United States debt obliges aid operations and greater companies to reduce its services to people in need and reduce staff. Some small organizations have been driven from its activities. It was even before the earthquake of Myanmar.
Under the court order, the administration slowly makes property on these payments.
In the meantime, non-profit groups must rely on reserve funds that they would normally use for unforeseen disasters such as the Myanmar earthquake to pay the bills that the United States should have paid, said Lindsey, Oxfam official.
Asked about the burden that non -governmental organizations – another name for aid groups – say that USAID’s unpaid return invoices are accompanied by their work, said the State Department in an e -mail: “The American government cannot say how NGOs manage their funding.”
As a general rule, the United States itself would have provided $ 10 to 20 million dollars in the initial phase of response to a disaster such as the Myanmar Quake, with a long-term aid and reconstruction, said Sarah Charles, who led a response in the event of a disaster and global humanitarian affairs in USAID in Biden administration.
“We have a long history in Burma,” said Charles, adding: “It is an environment in which the US government has operated in recent decades.”
Normally, the United States would also have had 20 to 25 specialized disaster workers in the field as little as 24 hours, said Charles. This number would have jumped at 200 or more if the USAID had stolen from urban rescue teams from California and Virginia. They deploy autonomous units, with dog managers and the ability to feed and provide water -specific water, said Charles.
The Trump administration has kept contracts for the rescue teams of California and Virginia under pressure from the legislators. But contracts for their transport are raised among the thousands of USAID contracts that the administration has canceled. This did not leave the quick way to move the research and rescue teams when the disaster has struck, said Charles.
Great Britain has promised $ 13 million in aid and said it will equal up to $ 5 million in private donations, and others have promised financial assistance. At least 15 countries have sent tens or hundreds of rescuers or rescue, including Russia, China, India and the United Arab Emirates, according to Myanmar officials.
China shares a border and close links with Myanmar. Chinese rescuers had their first success on Sunday, less than 48 hours after the earthquake, when they joined the local population to draw a man from a seriously damaged hospital in the capital of Naycyitaw.
On Wednesday, Chinese rescuers had withdrawn nine survivors, including a pregnant woman and a child. In Mandalay, Chinese rescuers saved a 52 -year -old man who trapped for almost 125 hours.
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Rising reported from Bangkok. Matthew Lee and Didi Tang contributed from Washington and Jill Lawless from London.
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