Left Flank

Matthew Lee pursues the question of which countries can aid Myanmar, by what the UN calls the "right to protect" (R2P). The Burmese case doesn't fall into the four categories, genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity, that would trigger R2P. That would rule out UN action. Mark Leon Goldberg, however, advocates a less rigorous criterion: "...the international community is permitted to violate the sovereignty of a country when that country is unwilling or unable to prevent mass atrocities from being visited upon its own citizens."

Although western-donated aid is mostly stymied by Burmese authorities, Chinese and Indian-donated aid has reached Myanmar, according to Lee's reporting. Spencer Ackerman confirms this willful obstructionism, and pleads for a solution, even by force. I think Lee is onto a pertinent issue: not R2P, but how states disburse aid.

...developments this week lead Inner City Press to wonder why China does not develop and publicize its own humanitarian machinery, its own Chinese Bernard Kouchner. It could fly aid into Yangon, and film itself doing it. It could say, "we don't need these Western NGOs, we'll do it ourselves." Supposedly China hired a U.S. public relations firm to burnish its image. Where are they? Then again, the Chinese mission has not done an on-camera stakeout interview outside the Council since October 2007.

On the other hand, or foot, at the Security Council stakeout after China's Amb. Liu said that China flew into Yangon "tents and money," one wag muttered, "And guns." Still another said that the French oil industry active in Myanmar ought to be delivering aid. We will continue to explore these issues.

There's a difference between France's hunger for limelight and PRC's quiet approach. Could this be the foundation of a Bolton-PRC alliance against UN empowerment explicit in R2P? I'm not comfortable with the notion of world government, but that doesn't rule out governance. There needs to be accountability somewhere, whether it's Beijing's responsibility or aid NGOs.

10% is the Burmese junta's disaster score, the amount of cyclone survivors NGOs have assisted, according to Save the Children's Joe Lowry. Alright, maybe 25%, if UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes!

In what appeared to be a bid to get the regime to stop hindering the relief effort, the UN launched a $187m programme of emergency food and relief for Burma.

The appeal, launched in New York by Mr Holmes, said contributions by member states would be used to fund 10 UN agencies and nine charities working to relieve the suffering of the Burmese.

However, the amount of aid that has got into the country thus far has been severely limited. The UN believes that, as of last Wednesday, just 276,000 of the 1.5m cyclone survivors had received any relief supplies from UN agencies or nongovernmental organisations.

Some western governments are considering whether they can carry out humanitarian operations in the country without the consent of the Burmese regime.

«There is no substitute for the regime's consent for letting in aid,» said one British official. «But if that consent is withheld, the alternative is that tens of thousands of people are left to die.»

I would say, it's time for the USS Essex Strike Group, currently deployed for Operation Cobra Gold near Thailand, to redeploy.

UN Charge d-Affaires Shari Villarosa offers as succinct an answer for why the Burmese junta refuses international aid.

SHARI VILLAROSA, Top U.S. Diplomat in Myanmar: There is some recovery efforts going on. There is some aid coming in and getting distributed, but still not in large quantities.

And, late this afternoon, we got the bad news that the foreign ministry is going to turn down not only our request to send in disaster assistance experts, but that of all the aid agencies that were hoping to send them in.

RAY SUAREZ: Did they give you any explanation for that decision?

SHARI VILLAROSA: No.

RAY SUAREZ: Are they letting similar offers of aid go through from, for instance, regional neighbors?

SHARI VILLAROSA: Not really.

What we -- they -- they will accept aid from anyone, including the United States, but in terms of commodities. But they don't seem to want the people.

And, the way some diplomats are acting at the UN, is that any wonder?

"We can intervene in the hours, or minutes, to come," said Mr. Kouchner, referring to French ships nearby. But they have not yet been given the go ahead, the Associated Press added.

Meanwhile, Kouchner's proposal of forcing aid into the country gained little traction. Confrontation would not be helpful, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs David Holmes said Thursday, a stance echoed by the European Commission, China, and other nations.

"I can understand the sentiment of France's foreign minister, but I don't think it's the solution," says James Schoff, associate director of Asia-Pacific studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Cambridge, Mass.

"You could get to a point where [the UN] could just do drops from the air. But for the whole assessment process – I don't see how you could do that without working with locals on the ground," he continues.

Analysts are hard pressed to recall a natural disaster where the UN's "responsibility to protect" – a phrase conceived in 2005 largely in response to atrocities in Rwanda and Darfur – has been invoked.

There is probably no other possibility for delivering aid to Burma right now, Mr. Schoff continues, other than slow diplomatic gains and persistence. In a few days, Burma might come around, he says.

Go, Kouchner! Don't get me wrong-the Burmese junta is acting execrably. The Chinese are treating Myanmar like their own vassal state. The UN, for all the good will of the secretary-general and a few others, is full of itself. Dump the goods on the border, marked Myanmar even, and leave. Unless one wants to consider Myanmar another DPRK, and just starve the junta and the population into submission, that is. But, will anyone accept that?

The US is still waiting for the green light to start relief flights into Myanmar, to assist Burmese citizens recovering from a 190 kph Cyclone, nicknamed Nargis, and a 3.5 meter wave on May 3. The Burmese government has learned from the North Koreans to beware of foreign benefactors for internal security reasons. I would expect the Burmese junta to request some sort of handover at the border, to allow the junta to change the markings on food and control distribution.

However, the odds against a successful operation are mounting.

Another WFP official said three planes were waiting on tarmacs in Bangkok, Dhaka and Dubai with 38 tonnes of supplies.

Myanmar's generals had issued an appeal for international assistance, but have been dragging their feet over issuing visas to foreign aid workers.

WFP spokesman Paul Risley said aid agencies normally expect to fly in experts and supplies within 48 hours of a disaster, but nearly a week after the Myanmar cyclone, few international groups have been able to send reinforcements into Myanmar.

State media are reporting a death toll of 22,980 with 42,119 missing, although diplomats and disaster experts said the real figure from the massive storm surge that swept into the Irrawaddy delta is likely to be much higher.

»The information that we're receiving indicates that there may well be over 100,000 deaths in the delta area,» Shari Villarosa, charge d'affaires of the US embassy in Myanmar, said in a teleconference with reporters in Washington.

The Economist points out another effect of the tragedy: further strain on IGOs' ability to provide food.

Demonstrating its warped sense of priorities, the government is insisting that its referendum on a new constitution—which the superstitious junta has scheduled for the «auspicious» date of Saturday May 10th—will go ahead in areas unaffected by the cyclone. In affected areas voting will be delayed by 14 days.

The constitution, scripted during a drawn-out and farcical process overseen by the generals, will give them the power to continue intervening in politics at will, if and when there is a nominally civilian government. It would also reserve 25% of parliamentary seats for army officers, giving them a veto over constitutional changes. It is hard to see how they could hold a proper vote amid such devastation. However, with many reports of people being coerced to vote «yes» and intimidated if they called for a «no» vote, it is clear that it never was going to be a proper vote anyway.

Yet, some Burmese see an opportunity to bloody the junta's nose.

"This is an opportunity for opposition groups to make limited gains," says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, head of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "There will be mounting pressures on the government because of its inadequacies. Opposition groups have the upper hand." The disaster could also foster political reconciliation between Burma's government and the outside world, following a pattern from other natural disasters from Pakistan to Indonesia, experts say.

"It could be quite catalytic, like the [2004] tsunami in Aceh," says John Virgoe, the International Crisis Group's Southeast Asia project director in Jakarta, Indonesia. "Indonesia does show how game-changing these disasters can be: The tsunami allowed both sides to say, 'Let's put aside our differences,' " he adds, referring to a cease-fire that ended a running conflict between the Indonesian Army and rebel separatists in Aceh.

Mr. Virgoe and others, however, are quick to caution against drawing a direct parallel to Burma, which has shown disdain for dialogue with political opponents and sent mixed signals about even accepting foreign aid workers.

(...)

Speaking from the Thai-Burmese border, Nyo Myint, head of foreign affairs for the main opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, says many survivors in the Irrawaddy delta lack drinking water and food. "Some wells have been filled up with dead bodies. [People] are trying to get drinking water from small ponds, but they are also covered with bodies," he says. "Transportation is a problem because the jetties and the ferryboats are gone.... The only way is to have an airlift supported by the US or [others]."

Since receiving its first international shipment from Thailand Tuesday, Burma has accepted aid from longtime friends China, India, and Indonesia. The US upped its aid pledge to $3 million Wednesday.

The visa holdup for foreign aid workers underscores Burma's dilemma: The Army cannot respond adequately, but allowing outside aid will invite unprecedented scrutiny. "This government is paranoid about foreigners coming in and establishing contacts with the people of Burma," says Aung Zaw, editor of Irrawaddy Magazine, an opposition publication based in Thailand.

Since taking power in a military coup in 1962, Burma's government has positioned itself as one of the world's most authoritarian and isolated. Though the NLD won a landslide election in 1990, the junta rejected the results. And last September's protesters were quickly suppressed.

Many believe the cyclone has created an opportunity for change. "People who I've spoken to in Yangon [Rangoon] are very upset with the government," says Mr. Zaw. "Soldiers who came out against the protesters are nowhere to be seen now."

Mr. Myint, of the NLD, says the government has been unable to prevent looting or provide the basics. "Even in big towns with 100,000, there's only a hundred people receiving government handouts," he says. "They're trying their best, but they can only cover about 5 percent of what is really badly needed."

Yet, even more disconcerting than that partisan bickering, is this exchange between UNSC members France and PRC:

More than $30 million in cash and goods has been pledged, the U.N. undersecretary-general for emergency relief coordination, John Holmes, told reporters yesterday. A handful of U.N. humanitarian workers could soon be able to go to the country to assess the needs on the ground, he said, adding that while entry visas have not been denied, the Burmese authorities have made entry difficult, with high-ranking officials saying visa approval needed to be deferred to "higher authorities."

"I think we are making progress. I hope we are making progress. I don't want to sound too optimistic," Mr. Holmes said, urging Burma's government to temporarily waive visa requirements for humanitarian workers. Asked about reports that the junta is demanding complete control over the distribution of goods, he said: "It will be very difficult for us to accept" such an arrangement.

Still, Mr. Holmes discouraged a "confrontational" approach with the Burmese government, telling reporters that the United Nations has no plans to "invade" Burma. Taking a different tack, the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said yesterday that "it must be checked" whether the junta "could be forced to let the necessary aid into the country," the Associated Press reported.

Asked about Mr. Kouchner's statement during a closed-door Security Council consultation, the French ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, said Mr. Holmes should brief the council on the extent of the access Burma's government has provided to foreign humanitarian workers. "We need to listen to him," Mr. Ripert said.

But a Chinese diplomat told Mr. Ripert that the council, which is charged with international peace and security, should not discuss humanitarian issues. The Chinese official pointed out that the council never discussed the Paris heat wave of 2003, in which 14,000 people died.

Mr. Ripert said he did not think such "sarcastic" comparisons were helpful. "I thanked him for reminding me the difference between a democracy and dictatorship," he said later.

Is this how Beijing, which has committed itself to be Yangon's patron, is going to play an international role?

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The nerve of those farmers!

Who says farmers are inflexible? In rich countries, they have long justified farm hand-outs by pointing to low world prices for food (never mind that low prices were partly caused by their own subsidised overproduction). Without public cash, they said, farmers would desert the land, leaving meadows to brambly ruin. Now that the world is running short of food, the farm lobby has deftly changed tack. Prices for many crops are at record highs, the new line goes, and rich countries need to protect their farmers in order to ensure that their people get fed.

Thankfully, Jagdish Bhagwati and Jeffrey Sachs stress three suggestions to tackle the long-term consequences of the current food crunch that are not mentioned too often.

1. Meat production consumes grain, so, either through lifestyle changes or by removing subsidies, reduce meat production;

2. Bhagwati talks about GM food, and Sachs about climate-proof food, but science needs another Norman Borlaug to revolutionize agriculture;

3. Again, Bhagwati talks about the IMF offering short-term balance-of-payments help, and Sachs about a new Global Fund for Africa, but this crisis illustrates again how small the world is becoming.

But, reform starts with the first big swing, and that's the EU's (and American) subsidies.

With the recent disclosures about DPRK-Syria cooperation at al-Kibar, context is a rare commodity, and The Economist delivers.

Judging by its past behaviour, North Korea would do pretty much anything for cash; there are suspicions that it helped the Khan network supply nuclear material to Libya. That said, providing engineers and designs for Syria's reactor may chiefly have been meant to tweak America's nose, says Michael Green, a former Bush administration official now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank in Washington, DC.

The Bush administration and North Korea fell out badly in 2002 over charges that Kim Jong Il's regime had secretly been trying to enrich uranium (also a potential bomb ingredient) while plutonium production was frozen by a previous agreement. The following year North Korea privately threatened to expand its «deterrent», test it (which it later did) and even sell it. With little to export beyond counterfeit currency, drugs and crises, says Mr Green, North Korea used Syria to up the ante—and the expected compensation for later agreeing to desist.

Now America and Mr Kim are negotiating again as part of a six-party deal (also including South Korea, Japan, China and Russia) to tempt him to give up his bombs. Senior American officials last week acknowledged that they had debated whether to try a combination of diplomacy and threats to end the Syrian project. For Israel, however, the Syrian reactor was an existential threat-in-the-making. There was no green light from the United States, the officials said: «none was asked for, none was given.»

Hoping to avoid retaliation, and to head off the risk of a wider Middle East war, Israel wanted the intelligence that led to the bombing kept secret. Worried that wider disclosure would sink the six-party effort too, America briefed only a score of senior members of Congress at the time.

But now the administration needs Congress's support for a controversial deal that could fall significantly short of the prize that the six-party negotiations were supposed to deliver: that, in return for oodles of energy aid and a lifting of some key sanctions, North Korea would first provide a full and accurate accounting of its nuclear past and later dismantle all its nuclear programmes. Instead it has merely declared a rather modest stockpile of plutonium and dug its heels in. Trying to move talks forward, American diplomats have struck a tentative deal that would allow North Korea to «acknowledge» American «concerns» about uranium and proliferation activities, in return for better verification of Yongbyon's plutonium haul. But the backtracking led Congress to demand the facts on Syria first.

George Bush said this week that by going public, America wanted to press North Korea's (notoriously impervious) Kim Jong Il into fuller disclosure, and send a message to proliferators everywhere. But the Syrian pictures may just as easily lead Congress to demand that America adopt a tougher stance in the six-party talks.

Another casualty could be the NPT itself. The IAEA's boss, Mohamed ElBaradei, says inspectors should have been given information about the Syrian reactor sooner by America and Israel. Yet Syria, had it not chosen to deny all, could have claimed that technically it was doing nothing wrong. Building a nuclear reactor is not against NPT rules, unless done with weapons intent—and that is hard, if not impossible, for inspectors to prove, says Henry Sokolski of the Non-proliferation Policy Education Centre in Washington. However, under a 1992 rule accepted by Syria, it should have alerted the IAEA to its reactor plans before construction started. North Korea, Iran and now Syria. The NPT seems there for the breaking.

Firstly, comes NPT reform and a proper way to share intelligence. And then, the US can deal with its armistice with the DPRK. In that order!

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Reading the summary of Kishore Mahbuhani's Foreign Affairs article, The Case Against the West, this image from Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now Redux popped into my head. The soundtrack blares, Jim Morrison preaching «...the West is the best...»

There is a fundamental flaw in the West's strategic thinking. In all its analyses of global challenges, the West assumes that it is the source of the solutions to the world's key problems. In fact, however, the West is also a major source of these problems. Unless key Western policymakers learn to understand and deal with this reality, the world is headed for an even more troubled phase.

The West is understandably reluctant to accept that the era of its domination is ending and that the Asian century has come. No civilization cedes power easily, and the West's resistance to giving up control of key global institutions and processes is natural. Yet the West is engaging in an extraordinary act of self-deception by believing that it is open to change. In fact, the West has become the most powerful force preventing the emergence of a new wave of history, clinging to its privileged position in key global forums, such as the UN Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the G-8 (the group of highly industrialized states), and refusing to contemplate how the West will have to adjust to the Asian century.

Partly as a result of its growing insecurity, the West has also become increasingly incompetent in its handling of key global problems. Many Western commentators can readily identify specific failures, such as the Bush administration's botched invasion and occupation of Iraq. But few can see that this reflects a deeper structural problem: the West's inability to see that the world has entered a new era.

I wonder if Mahbuhani will talk about Joseph Stiglitz's criticism of the IMF in Globalization and Its Discontents, as undermining its long-term mission to promote stability by fostering the short-term interests of the US financial community?