ASIA HAND Myanmar's killing fields of neglect
By Shawn W Crispin
BANGKOK - With an estimated two million people at risk of death by disease,
deprivation or starvation and the scant amount of foreign aid that has entered
the country diverted from those most in need, Myanmar's worst case humanitarian
scenario is now playing out in full view of the international community.
As the death toll mounts and the United Nations futilely negotiates with the
country's ruling generals to open Myanmar's borders and allow a multinational
response to the Cyclone Nagris disaster, the moral case for a unilateral US
military-led humanitarian intervention has grown.
Certain US officials have argued behind closed doors for a military
response to the disaster, one that would allow the US navy and marines on
standby in nearby waters to bypass the diplomatic dithering at the UN Security
Council and distribute aid directly to desperate storm victims. Myanmar ally
China has predictably blocked the global body from invoking a "right to
protect" principle, underscoring the cynicism of Beijing's commercially driven
foreign policy.
Yet so far the UN and US have played by the junta's rules, sending aid in by
air force cargo planes to Yangon airport and allowing military officials to
handle in-country distribution. It's altogether unclear what percentage of that
limited amount of aid has actually reached victims, and how much has been
diverted for political purposes to junta loyalists.
Despite the belated shipments, European Union officials say that famine is a
growing possibility for the worst-hit areas, what some are beginning to
characterize as "Myanmar's killing fields of neglect". The official understated
death toll is now up around 38,500, with an additional 27,800 considered
missing; one United Kingdom official and aid agencies have revised up that
statistic to around 200,000, double the UN's previous 100,000 dead and missing
estimate.
It's unclear how many of those new estimated deaths could have been avoided
with a rapid international response to the crisis. Disaster relief experts
earlier estimated that they had a 10-day window to reach victims with
assistance to avoid a massive second wave of deaths. That assessment was
predicated on the misguided notion that foreign aid and emergency personnel
would be allowed into the country, which until now they have not.
On Thursday, the junta provisionally agreed to allow 160 Asian - not Western -
relief personnel into the country, though their movements are expected to be
tightly restricted to Yangon and its outlying townships. The junta has
throughout the crisis insisted it has the situation under control, which by any
humanitarian measure it woefully does not.
Authorities have simultaneously bid to cover up the scale of the disaster, both
by cynically understating official casualty counts and through a Tuesday
directive from Prime Minister Thein Sein to bar foreigners from entering the
delta's worst-hit areas. It has by now become woefully apparent that the brutal
regime is willing to allow potentially hundreds of thousands more to die rather
than lose face in admitting the necessity of UN-led and US-delivered disaster
assistance.
Instead, the military government continues to monopolize aid delivery, despite
its utter lack of expertise and hardware to manage what if handled properly
should be a massive search-and-rescue operation. One Western military official
told Asia Times Online that Myanmar's military possesses only six sometimes
functioning helicopters, nowhere near the size of the fleet needed to reach all
those stranded in the delta's inaccessible coastal areas.
Death by corruption
There is a more troubling question of political will. As the death toll mounts,
the regime advertently continues to prioritize aid delivery to regime
loyalists, soldiers and their family members, apparently to avoid a possible
revolt among the rank and file.
Foreign assistance earmarked for delivery to cyclone victims, including food,
water and mosquito nets, have been hijacked and sold at inflated prices in
local markets, according to a Western diplomat tracking events.
He said that some foreign aid, particularly high-quality Western-made mosquito
nets and blankets, have been diverted and are now on sale in neighboring
southwestern China, where consumer purchasing power is stronger than in
Myanmar. "The government is stealing aid on arrival," said the diplomat. "Many
ministers see this as a pay day, a godsend, for greasing their patronage
networks."
While profiteering from the sale of supplies, the junta is handling the
disaster more as a security than humanitarian crisis. Thousands of storm
survivors have been rounded up in makeshift camps, where they are being treated
more like prisoners than victims. The US Campaign for Burma, an advocacy group,
says that those who have entered the military-run camps have subsequently not
been allowed to leave or meet with outsiders.
Some say there is also an emerging ethnic dimension to the junta's lackluster
response. One well-placed Western diplomat says that the junta has prioritized
Buddhist Burmans over other ethnic and religious groups in its aid
distribution. That skewed distribution, he contends, has been aimed in
particular at the ethnic Karen, which made up a large percentage of the delta's
population and through the Karen National Union have for decades waged a
guerilla war for independence in nearby border areas.
At least one Western government is now considering in response to the junta's
lame response - and potential passive ethnic cleansing policies - to deliver
aid and supplies to border areas in Thailand, where several international
relief organizations are already established. If done, it would inevitable lead
to a mass migration of storm victims out of Myanmar into Thailand, a scenario
Bangkok is clearly trying to avoid, not least through its well-publicized and
early food aid donations to its allies in the junta.
By now, several diplomats, politicians and commentators have pointed to the
UN's "responsibility to protect" principle as possible grounds to violate
Myanmar's sovereignty and force aid upon the country, either through military
air drops or supplies landed through offshore ships.
Unfortunately that won't happen any time soon due to China's intransigence and
veto power on the Security Council. During a UN session earlier this week,
China's deputy ambassador made a spirited case against invoking the principle
to force aid on Myanmar, arguing preposterously that nobody invoked the
principle when France suffered from a recent heat wave which killed thousands
of its citizens.
Some now claim that the UN is playing a cagey "good cop, bad cop" routine with
the junta, where some member states like France publicly argue for invoking the
"right to protect", while other UN officials negotiate with the hard-line
regime to allow in more international aid and workers, including apparently the
160 Asian relief workers the junta agreed to give visas to on Thursday.
Clearly that response is too little, too late, considering the huge scale of
Myanmar's now intensifying humanitarian crisis. And as the military government
pilfers and diverts an unknown but likely large proportion of the foreign aid
so desperately needed by its own citizens, it's more readily argued that it's
the junta that is playing the UN - not the other way around.
As the international community looks on in stunned disbelief, Myanmar's junta
has again invoked it's own perceived "right to kill", which the ruling generals
have historically and frequently used against its own citizens to maintain
their brutal grip on power. As the UN dithers, the fact remains that only the
US military now has the power to avert a wider human catastrophe.
If ever there was an opportunity for the US to make moral use its military
might, a humanitarian intervention in Myanmar is it.
Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor. He may be
reached at swcrispin@atimes.com.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road,
Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
