Left Flank

The official death toll in Myanmar is, as of Friday, 77,738 (and approximately 56,000 missing). According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, over 60,000 planeloads of aid have been delivered. Ban called the situation a "human tragedy".

Yet, in an interview on PBS, Secretary-General Ban, discussing the recent international debate over "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P), called R2P "important", but related to criminal acts. Ban distinguished between political and humanitarian matters, and refused to consider R2P in the humanitarian context of the Burmese emergency. This contradicts what John Boonstra argues:

The debate over R2P in Burma, of course, is essentially a political one, as the issue is no longer the death and destruction caused by Nargis, but that caused by the exacerbating and obstructionist tactics of the country's ruling junta. As Gareth Evans, the author of the report establishing R2P, wisely reminds us, intervention in the case of a natural disaster is only even possible under the aegis of R2P if a government's calculated disregard for its citizens amounts to a crime against humanity. The doctrine was not intended as a shortcut for the international community to provide relief in desperate cases of natural disaster.

On PRC, Ban characterized the post-earthquake situation as "humanitarian", and then commended the Chinese government for its performance.

The R2P debate is more about UN "inside baseball" and NGO assertiveness than helping Myanmar or PRC. If any state is so deficient in its relief capabilities, western states, as expert as they consider themselves, should catch them up. But, this is all a horrendous red herring. It's development, stupid! If it were not for the fact, that developing states, like Myanmar and PRC, have burgeoning populations in disaster-prone areas, there would be less need for more relief capabilities. The UN needs to lead on sustainable, environmentally-sustainable development away from marginal areas, not create world government.

Is it any wonder pundits are sidetracked by this notion of forcing aid on states when aid NGO specialists make arguments like Marines (via Matthew Yglesias, "Aid From Above"):

The plane swoops in low and its cargo bay slowly opens to reveal a landscape devastated by flood, war or drought. Men in jumpsuits pull levers sending massive pallets of emergency food supplies trundling out and down to the desperate masses below. The plane pulls up and away and the job is done. Aid has been delivered to the needy.

This is the telegenic aid fantasy that has hooked some politicians and appealed to some columnists as a viable option in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. Dropping pallets of aid from the sky seems a straightforward, elegant and technological solution to the difficult political problem of the Burmese government's refusal to allow enough humanitarian workers into the country to deal with the disaster.

Except air drops are not the aid equivalent of smart bombs. Running a humanitarian effort from the skies, like running a purely airborne war, is fraught with problems.

For a start it requires excellent intelligence. Yet no one knows exactly where the worst affected areas are, or how many people are suffering in each place. We don't know if people are on the move, or what diseases are starting to appear, or exactly what state their homes and infrastructure are in.

Has the nonprofit sector conveniently assumed the worst, and avoided the deeper question of how to alleviate the need for intervention? But, there's no national legislature to woo with inflated budgets and dire prophecies. As a donor, please don't tell me I have to give indefinitely. Death and taxes, maybe, but NGOs don't last forever!

I recall The West Wing's fictional Bartlet Doctrine.

When Kundu was first mentioned in season 2, it is led by President Nimbala. In January 2003 of the series' timeline ("Inauguration, Part I"), the Arkutu-run government of President Nzele (described as a "sadistic madman") begins an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Induye in Bitanga, killing 200 people. The violence soon spreads outside Bitanga and into the countryside. In President Josiah Bartlet's second inaugural address ("Inauguration Over There"), he announces the new Bartlet Doctrine for the use of force: America shall intervene whenever there are humanitarian interests at stake. With that new doctrine, Bartlet sends a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, the 101st Airborne Division, and a Marine expeditionary unit, a force of 11,000 troops in total, to Kundu ("The California 47th"). As of the episode "Twenty Five," US forces are still operating in Kundu.

So, before you accept Anne Applebaum's plea...

If we fail to persuade the junta to relent soon—despite what I hope are assurances that Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the American military will bring only food, not regime change, much as we all might like to see it—then we have to start considering alternatives. According to some accounts, the U.S. military is already looking at a range of options, including helicopter food deliveries from offshore ships, or convoys from across the Thai border. The U.S. government should be looking at wider diplomatic options, too. The U.N. Security Council has already refused to take greater responsibility for Burma—China won't allow the sovereignty of its protectorate to be threatened, even at the price of hundreds of thousands of lives—but there is no need to act alone. In fact, it would be a grave error to do so, since anything resembling a foreign "invasion" might provoke military resistance.

Unfortunately, the phrase "coalition of the willing" is tainted forever—once again proving that the damage done by the Iraq war goes far beyond the Iraqi borders—but a coalition of the willing is exactly what we need. The French—whose foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, was himself a co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières—are already talking about finding alternative ways of delivering aid. Others in Europe and Asia might join in, along with some aid organizations. The Chinese should be embarrassed into contributing, asked again and again to help. This is their satrapy, after all, not ours.

Think of it as the true test of the Western humanitarian impulse: The international effort that went into coordinating the tsunami relief effort in late 2004 has to be repeated, but in much harsher, trickier, uglier political circumstances. Yes, we should help the Burmese, even against the will of their irrational leaders. Yes, we should think hard about the right way to do it. And, yes, there isn't much time to ruminate about any of this.

...or, Ivo Daalder's and Paul Stares' slightly more diplomatic proposal...

The United States and Britain should join with the French government and introduce a resolution in the UN Security Council demanding that the Burmese government accept the offers of international relief supplies and personnel, let them to enter the country immediately and without interference, and allow the UN to take charge of the humanitarian mission. To make the case, Washington should show detailed imagery of the suffering and the extent of devastation in Burma (as it did so effectively in the cases of Bosnia and Darfur to shock a disbelieving United Nations).

The resolution should hold open the possibility of additional measures - including air drops of relief supplies - if the government did not comply at once. And the Security Council could commit to return to the matter in 24 hours, assess Burma's response, and consider additional actions.

...read what a soldier has to say about helping the Burmese.

I wonder if TIME's editors think while the US military is busy invading Burma whether or not they should just go roll in and invade Tibet as well?  The TIME editor makes it sound like it would all just be so easy if the US military will just show up and the Burmese military will just give up and everyone will be singing kumbayah.  Where have I heard this scenario before?  You have to be really disconnected from reality to think launching a third war, in jungle terrain, with poor infrastructure, against a Chinese ally is really a good idea.

And, also, as China Hand points, the SPDC's clumsy propaganda efforts aside, the Bush administration rightly acquiesced to Yangon's demands to dump the aid and keep the advisors.

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.

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?