Myanmar’s cyclone and China’s earthquake highlight a question that the United Nations often struggles with: What to do when a country’s people need outside help, but the government rejects it?

Myanmar is still only allowing a “trickle” of aid and a handful of international aid workers into the country, the UN said on Tuesday, reaching only about a quarter of the 1.5 million people affected by the cyclone that killed more than 22,000 people.

Meanwhile, China has welcomed foreign money and supplies, but not international rescue teams to help survivours of the earthquake that has killed nearly 12,000 people. While China has responded quickly to its disaster, the Government of Myanmar is “simply not up to the task”, said British Ambassador John Sawers on Tuesday. He called it “shocking” that Myanmar’s top leader, Senior General Than Shwe, has not taken Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s calls since the cyclone struck. Ban, in “immense frustration,” said he has had to ask regional leaders to press the case.

Rejection of outside aid by governments in times of crisis is not unprecedented. India did so after the 2004 tsunami, China after floods last year and following the 1976 Tangshan earthquake that took more than 240,000 lives. The United States also turned down offers of help from the UN and other nations after Hurricane Katrina. Such decisions are generally made out of national pride and in efforts by governments to demonstrate their capability to care for their people.

Myanmar’s case appears particularly dire. UN officials believe the Government’s inability to quickly aid victims and prevent the spread of disease could double the death toll. France’s foreign minister Bernard Kouchner last week called Myanmar’s tepid response to outside assistance a crime against humanity, and demanded that food be airdropped in even without permission to fulfill “the responsibility to protect”. That proposal was rejected by the UN as both impolitic and impractical.

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