During the 2004 Asian tsunami I personally donated some money to MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without Borders), a humanitarian organization working in the disaster area in Indonesia.
Along with many other friends within my community, we also put up a donation box and collected money which we handed over to a Korean aid group that did the relief work in the disaster zone.
We felt very satisfied because we knew that our monetary aid, however small it was, reached the victims who really needed it.
Another natural disaster ravaged Asia on May 3 this year. This time the deadly and furious Cyclone Nargis ransacked my own country, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
According to the Red Cross estimate, more than 120,000 people may have died and 2.5 million people have been affected while thousands more are still missing.
Touched by the immense suffering of the people and massive loss of life in the country, my friends and I joined Myanmar communities in Korea, donating and collecting money for the victims.
But we are terribly disappointed and frustrated over the reckless actions of the Myanmar military government.
It blocks most of the international aid for the victims and denies entry to virtually all experienced and professional foreign relief workers.
Incompetent and inexperienced soldiers and pro-government aid workers stroll at a snail's pace toward areas where the injured and victims are dying from diseases and lack of shelter and food.
Reliable sources in Myanmar reveal that the junta does not allow ``outsiders" access to the most devastated zone, and that all kinds of aid and financial support should be channeled through the military.
The military is also reportedly intimidating and harassing monks and well-wishers in Yangon, Mandalay and Monywa who are collecting material and food aid for cyclone-affected people.
So we are not sure whether our money for the victims could reach its target destination without being blocked by the junta that even dares to divert some international food aid for its own consumption or for sale on the black market.
In early December 2007, I attended a special ceremony called ``A Night For Democracy In Burma" at a hotel in Seoul. This extraordinary event was sponsored and organized by former South Korean President and Nobel peace prize laureate Kim Dae-jung.
Hundreds of Myanmar people including democracy activists and ordinary citizens showed their solidarity and support for the ``just" cause in Myanmar by joining the Korean people and foreign dignitaries on the grand occasion.
The former president lavished expensive and delicious food and drinks on the multinational guests. At the beginning of the gathering, a power point presentation on the daily sufferings and struggles of ordinary Myanmar people was made, attracting the attention of all attendants that filled the big hall.
Seeing my fellow Myanmar citizens on the screen, living in fear under a repressive government, that is more concerned with its own control of power than the livelihood and welfare of the people, made me so sad that I could hardly fight back my tears.
A painful thought suddenly came to mind: ``Here I am being served expensive and delicious meals and drinks at a grand hotel while millions of my fellow Myanmar citizens at the same time are suffering from acute hunger and malnutrition."
I was conscience-stricken, and Iost my appetite. I then decided to only drink water, for that was what all ordinary people in Myanmar could afford.
But time has proved that I have been seriously wrong: thousands, if not millions, of people in the disaster zone could not even get clean drinking water for several days let alone food and other basic necessities in the aftermath of the powerful cyclone.
The junta has halted, blocked, prevented and diverted some international aid from reaching the hardest-hit areas. With no help in sight and with no one coming to their rescue, many of the victims are forced to drink water contaminated with both human and animal corpses.
With the death toll increasing every day and the situation on the ground deteriorating, there have been mounting calls for humanitarian intervention or responsibility to protect by the United Nations, forcing its Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to call an emergency meeting last Wednesday at the U.N. headquarters.
But nothing dramatic should be expected of the United Nations and its Security Council given the veto-wielding members of China's and Russia's persistent and perpetual opposition to every proposal made by the UNSC on Myanmar.
A visit to Myanmar by the prime minister of Thailand last week has produced no tangible result except the fact that he was ``impressed with" the works of the military government for the victims.
Religious and government organizations, nongovernmental organizations and individuals across the globe are collecting and sending money, food and other basic aids that may never reach the real victims.
The reality is that the United Nations and world leaders are still huffing and puffing while the cyclone victims are perishing and dying as the clock ticks away.
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