Home pagePress CenterIn the Media Derek Mitchell, a senior fellow with the CSIS International Security Program, was quoted by US News and World Report, "Political Obstacles Slow Disaster Aid for Myanmar."
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Derek Mitchell, a senior fellow with the CSIS International Security Program, was quoted by US News and World Report, "Political Obstacles Slow Disaster Aid for Myanmar."
Myanmar's deep reluctance to admit the additional teams left a small number of aid workers already in the country struggling to cobble together deliveries of food and water to as many as 1 million people left homeless. "This regime is extremely paranoid and isolated and xenophobic," says Derek Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The prospect of having all kinds of people from all over the world doing work they cannot really control or even monitor is troubling to them."
The U.S. military offered to send Navy ships to aid in relief efforts. But the regime in Myanmar might not find that to be a reassuring offer, particularly after listening to years of senior U.S. officials' condemnations of the country's military leaders. "Even under the best of circumstances, nations that know the United States is out to get them would be suspicious," says Mitchell.
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