Burma is in the middle of a catastrophe—the lives of more than a million people are at great risk and about 100,000 people have been killed. The damage to the country's infrastructure and agriculture caused by Cyclone Nargis will be felt for years. 

The landscape of Burma's Irrawaddy delta is devastated. The bloated corpses of men, women and children lay strewn around the rice paddies. Animal carcasses float down rivers and wash up on riverbanks. Those lucky enough to survive now desperately seek shelter, water, food and medical care anywhere they can. Buddhist temples and schools have been turned into makeshift refugee centers and clinics. 

To Burma's military rulers, however, the goal is still to maintain absolute control over everything—from barring almost all foreign aid workers with expertise in massive aid distribution to intense micromanagement of the distribution of aid. Observers suggest the regime wants all aid to pass through the hands of the military government leaders, because of their well-known penchant for theft, corruption and propaganda.

Sources in the southern Irrawaddy delta told The Irrawaddy the army has barred survivors from entering shelters in certain towns, such as Bogalay and is forcing them back to their shattered villages.

On Friday, the UN’s weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization, reported that occasional tropical showers are expected through next Wednesday, May 14. It also forecasts “a period of heavy rainfall settling in around Thursday or Friday next week.”

As an old Burmese proverb says: “The rain always pours wherever the desperate people go.”

However, the country's secretive military leaders are too busy with the referendum vote to notice. They say the country is not ready to accept foreign aid workers, indicating on Friday that it wants foreign relief but not foreign workers.

In addition, members of regime-backed groups such as the Union Solidarity and Development Association have attempted to hijack relief supplies, according to local charity groups and nongovernment organizations in the former Burmese capital, Rangoon.

Now humanitarian workers fear that the “unimaginable tragedy” is closing in. Survivors still lack water, food and sanitation. The predicted rains this week will undoubtedly affect and expose to the elements those survivors who are struggling to cope in makeshift shelters.

There are also the increased threats of dengue fever and malaria, diseases that manifest from mosquitoes breeding around stagnant water. With so many corpses and animal cadavers infecting water supplies and rivers, the risk of bacterial infection is extremely high—cholera, typhoid, diarrhea and dysentery are all epidemics waiting to happen. Even those who mange to get to refugee shelters are susceptible to increased risks—the collection of so many children in enclosed spaces causes measles and other air-borne diseases will spread quickly. 

Oxfam's regional chief Sarah Ireland warned on Sunday that it “could all combine to endanger the lives of up to 1.5 million people.”

Unfortunately, the rest of the world can do very little except sit back and watch in horror.

France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, has called upon the UN to use its newly approved "responsibility to protect civilians" policy to enter Burma and deliver aid over the objections of the generals. But eight members of the UN Security Council—both permanent and non-permanent—even opposed the French move to have a discussion on the humanitarian crisis and the progress of relief operations in Burma. In the meantime, the French have sent a ship containing 1,500 tons of aid anyway, hoping that the Burmese junta will do an about-turn in the coming days.

One would think that the UN would have enough leverage with the Burmese authorities to at least pressure them to lift the complicated visa requirements that are preventing more than 1,000 aid workers from entering the country. But no.

Beijing has stated that foreign governments should not politicize the issue. Foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said: "We should take full consideration of Myanmar's [Burma’s] willingness and sovereignty."

Sadly, survivors from Burma's devastated Irrawaddy delta are facing homelessness, starvation and disease—each factor compounded by a heartless regime. The world must now decide whether national sovereignty trumps the moral responsibility of alleviating human suffering.

Sovereignty should not mean that governments are free to do what they want within their own borders if it causes the deaths of tens of thousands of its citizens.