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?

A novelist would be hard-pressed to top Chhun Yasith's story. Yet, beyond his humble beginnings in a Long Beach strip mall, and with California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in his camp, still Chhun looks like a bit player in a larger campaign. It's just not democratization.

Some observers said the American government's aggressive pursuit of Mr. Chhun stands in marked contrast to the aborted investigation the FBI carried out into a 1997 incident in which grenades were thrown into an election rally, killing 16 people and injuring more than 100 others, including an American who formerly worked for the International Republican Institute. An initial FBI probe was all but abandoned after evidence pointed to bodyguards for Mr. Hun Sen.

"I find it extremely curious," Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch said. "They went after this ragtag bunch that was not in power and did not systematically commit human rights abuses for many years like Hun Sen has and they, for political reasons, dropped the investigation into the grenade attack which many think derailed any chance of a serious multi-party political system there."

Other analysts have described the charges against Mr. Chhun, who promoted a Cambodian rebellion openly from a Long Beach strip mall, as a quid pro quo for Cambodian help in rounding up members of a an Islamic terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiya.

I guess the Bush administration is signaling which project, democratization or GWOT, is more important.

Attempting to follow the constitutional struggles between RP President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Senate, and the Supreme Court is like witnessing a family feud where no one can recall the genesis of the dispute, but everyone is certain their escalating barbarity will keep the family together.

The Senate rejected Wednesday a Supreme Court proposal which, while allowing former Socioeconomic and Planning Secretary Romulo Neri to testify at the upper chamber's broadband investigation, barred senators from asking questions involving Neri's conversation with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

After the caucus among the senators, which lasted a couple of hours, Senate President Manuel Villar said most senators believed that the proposal would diminish the powers of the Senate to call any witness or resource person to an inquiry, or to ask certain questions.

«We strongly feel about this…We are doing this not only for us but for future senators,» he said in Filipino.

Villar said: «We cannot agree to a compromise. We reached a consensus to reject the offer. I am really against that because it would show the Senate has no balls, we don't want to look like we're being trampled on.»

As much as I respect Manuel L. Quezon III's opinion on the NBN-ZTE scandal, it seems other Filipino voices have lost faith in the "family", the government, and also have lost faith in their role to exert extra-constitutional pressure on the government through the hackneyed device of a popular revolt. Lest I sound like the NDF, let's take some radical thoughts to heart:

Clearly there is nothing wrong with the Filipino. What is wrong is this nebulous, amorphous "system." I hadn't thought of it before, and previously it had no name. The system is our public life - how we behave in public spaces. What I meant by "civilising" Philippine politics is the creation of civility in our society - the lack of this feeling that we need to eat or be eaten. That we can let go of our guard and live relatively safe lives in public because we have trust that public institutions will work for (more or less) the majority. Isn't this what we mean by justice?

Seriously, I find a lot that's notable in Benjamin de la Pena's Design of Our Democracy and these critical comments.

This revision of the Micro-ocracy proposal (which I shall now call the Micro-Federal Democratic System), seeks to alleviate the following problems: eliminate the Manila monopoly, as since the Congressional vote is province-wise, and the Manila area is one province, it is only the national government capital, but not the economic and social one; avoid a «Serbian mistake», by making sure that no one region or ethnic group has the majority in provincial council vote. Incidentally, AHYH made sure that the «one-man autocracies» would diminish, as the one-man offices are taken from Councils: district, provincial, and then Congressional. Most importantly, no one faction has power. Not the media oligopolies, or the election barons. The elite would be regionally limited. And because, hopefully, secessionist and ideological rebellions would finally be discouraged by giving them a piece of government, military spending would decrease, and the budget would focus on better things, like education, and alternative fuel research, and medicine.

Again, this is just another proposal, coming from one proposal. I am encouraging criticism from various sectors, and their own offers of revisions. In this way, through constructive argument, and the sharing of opinions, we would finally be able to get to a working manual, something that we can thrust on the oligarchs and their elected monarchy and say—this is what it's all about. Not personalities, and not parties. A real, substantial, structural reform, different from the American, different from the Marxist. One that is a balance of the two. And, hopefully, one that works.

But, beware the Philippine version of the politics of "The Wire".

Am I missing something?

Timor Leste's president, Jose Ramos Horta, recovers from five surgeries in Australia after an assassination attempt in Dili, and suspect Amaro da Costa is greeted with smiles and handshakes.

Is this guy running for president?