JUNTA PLAYING GOD AT THE EXPENSE OF THE SUFFERING PEOPLE

_{Sai Wansai
Friday, 9 May 2008}

It seems, international patience is fast wearing thin for the Burmese junta’s indifference and insensitive to humanitarian assistance offer in the wake of Cyclone Nargis devastation, which left more than 22,000 death, some 41,000 missing and a million or so homeless.  And with the passing days, the death toll has to be corrected upwards. The US envoy in Rangoon is now already speculating that,  given the magnitude of devastation, the death figure might be approaching 100,000 and  one and half million inhabitants in dire emergency needs. according to UN assessment team.

 The frustration to get things moving are so great that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who founded the aid group Doctors Without Borders, told reporters in Paris, “We are seeing at the United Nations if we can’t implement the responsibility to protect, given that food, boats and relief teams are there, and obtain a United Nations’ resolution which authorises the delivery and imposes this on the Burmese government.”

The concept of  R2P or “responsibility to protect” was recognised by the United Nations in 2005. Accordingly, if a government failed in its responsibility to protect, either willing or unwillingly, humanitarian intervention could follow, even if  this means intervention that violates national sovereignty.

Most recently, an American official, Ky Luu, director of the U.S. office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, raised eye brow by saying , that an air drop, without Burmese junta’s approval, was one option being considered as it continued to stall on accepting assistance from the United States. However,  Defense Secretary Robert Gates quickly shot it down saying that he couldn't imagine that happening.

It would serve the Burmese junta well to take this God-send opportunity from the United States for it would be absurd and irrational not to take advantage of Washington's enormous ability to deliver aid quickly, which was evident during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.
 
For now, the junta’s first priority should be to help the people in devastated areas as soon as possible and abandon its constitutional referendum for the moment. The junta should also bear in mind that by failing to act quickly and decisively, many thousands of more lives will be lost unnecessarily, when the means and ways are available within easy reach. Consequently, the junta is going to be held responsible and guilty by international community for its failed judgement and self-serving attitude of total control or playing God to the unfortunate suffering people of the cyclone devastated areas.

_{The author is the General Secretary of the exiled Shan Democratic Union - Editor}