Housing, for instance, was a no-go area for Western governments, as it seemed to go beyond emergency aid and drift toward development assistance, which was forbidden. Aceh in Indonesia had received billions of dollars to rebuild after the 2004 tsunami. Burma’s total foreign aid went up slightly in the months after Nargis, but slid back down again by late 2009 to around $5 per capita, a tiny fraction of what was being given to people in Vietnam and Laos next door (both countries under Communist regimes).
