ANALYSIS: Myanmar set for political, economic shocks

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As bloated bodies are counted and survivors face disease and hunger in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, dramatic scenarios are foreseen in a country that has changed little since an army coup 46 years ago.

These range from a revolt led by disenchanted army officers to the specter of the entrenched, xenophobic junta allowing thousands more to perish rather than risk its grip on power by opening gates to the outside world.

"If a split in the Burmese military between reformist and hard-line elements doesn't occur now, it will never occur," said Donald M. Seekins, a Myanmar expert at Okinawa's Meio University.

In continuing to march to their own, longtime tune even in the face of such a disaster, the generals who rule the country also known as Burma are comparable to Zimbabwe and North Korea, which insist on controlling the distribution of the relief goods while keeping foreign aid personnel on their soil to a minimum.

Myanmar's attitude to disaster relief has seemed resolutely out of step with a globalized world that takes for granted its duty to step in and help out in other countries' hour of distress.

As time was running out for many survivors last week, the regime seized food shipments, ensnared foreign aid experts in red tape and insisted its own nationals could do the job themselves.

More than 60,000 people are officially listed as killed or missing, but the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, Shari Villarosa, fears that more than 100,000 could eventually die. Other estimates are even greater.

A death toll of 100,000 would rank Cyclone Nargis "daffodil" in the Urdu language as the world's fifth worst natural disaster in four decades, and the worst in Myanmar's modern history.

The Southeast Asian nation's options are drastically limited.

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