Transcript of the above video: 

In the aftermath of the rather tragic earthquake out here in Southeast Asia which did have an impact here in Bangkok, but admittedly more tangentially, so the epicenter of this thing was in Myanmar. And really, deep condolences for everybody associated with that event. 

The point I am trying to make in this video though is, and I am kind of raising the question just apropos of almost nothing, but I was just thinking about Myanmar has just been subject to really not the greatest set of circumstances that a nation can go through, to say the least. My question posed by this video is will Myanmar see some kind of assistance internationally in the aftermath of this? And a question posed is will it see United Nations' assistance, and if so what does that look like? Because the reason I bring it up is for years in the back of my mind, I have always kind of thought Myanmar might benefit from something akin to UNTAC, the technical advisors in Cambodia. That was a program that went in some years back, in the '90s if I recall, the late '80s into the '90s, where the UN went in there and in a sense tried to create a framework or an environment wherein Cambodia could kind of reorganize itself in the aftermath of all the Khmer Rouge stuff. And Hun Sen came in and he was sort of heading the thing and they had the, what was it? The year of the two Prime Ministers or whatever it was but it was always viewed from people I talked to, UNTAC was always viewed as kind of a mixed bag and by some as a failure because it culminated in like this election that resulted in two Prime Ministers and then they just kind of up-stakes and left and that was viewed, "well it was kind of disingenuous". Say what you will on that. I actually think overall UNTAC probably did more good than harm. I don't think it did any harm per se, but I think it did more good than anything. If for no other reason, it created a focal point for some level of sophistication and activity so that economic activity could commence, and then it created sort of a kernel if you will, a crux if you will, from which to create what do you want to call it – “Civil Society”. It started the process of going through the motions of bureaucracy, and going through the motions of public forum discussions, going through the motions of committee meetings and discussions on how things are going to be, and this created a momentum in its own right that then in my opinion, led to some overall forward motion for Cambodia and now we see the Cambodia of today. Was UNTAC perfect? No, I don't think so. But was it overall a benefit? I do think it was. 

So in the aftermath of this Myanmar situation, one, I think Myanmar could just benefit from just general aid, I don't think that's a controversial notion. Secondly though, could there be some benefit to having sort of a neutral, honest broker type to sort of assist in the rebuilding of Myanmar moving forward? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that, but I think it's definitely at least worth thinking about if not exploring.