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As Junta Tightens Grip, World Mulls Intervention

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The Associated Press

Published: May 18, 2008

BANGKOK, Thailand - It is a life-or-death question: If millions of people are at risk, is it acceptable to sit on the sidelines and watch an undemocratic and unprepared regime mismanage a crisis?

With the death toll climbing, foreign leaders and international aid organizations are faced with an increasingly urgent need to balance respect for Myanmar's sovereignty with a moral responsibility to help its population.

Just hoping the government in Myanmar, also known as Burma, will do the right thing may not be enough. And though it appears unlikely they will be called in, several military powers are capable of intervening, whether the junta likes it or not.

"We want to do this in a collaborative, cooperative way with the authorities in Burma," said Mark Malloch-Brown, the British minister for Africa, Asia and the United Nations.

But he stressed "a lot of lives are at risk."

Options available to foreign powers include unauthorized airdrops, coastal landings or helicopter operations. But considering the junta's current stance, any such moves could potentially spark a military incident.

Authorization of intervention by the United Nations Security Council remains unlikely. China, Myanmar's biggest ally, has veto power and has in the past blocked resolutions against the junta.

Some aid, perhaps just enough for Myanmar's leaders to keep foreign governments from making unauthorized aid drops or boat landings, was getting through two weeks after the deadly cyclone of May 2-3.

Tons of foreign aid including water, blankets, mosquito nets, tarpaulins, medicines and tents have been sent to Myanmar, but delivery has been slowed by bottlenecks, poor infrastructure and bureaucratic tangles.

The highest hurdle is political - persuading a fearful and out-of-touch military regime to give up, even temporarily, a bit of its control.

The junta has allowed the United Nations and some other agencies to hand out the aid directly but prohibited their few foreign staff allowed into Myanmar from leaving Yangon, the country's largest city and former capital.

Under intense pressure from Washington and the United Nations, the junta has allowed the U.S. military to ferry in emergency supplies provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Thai and Indian military missions also have been approved, and British, French and Australian warships were converging on the area.

TURNED AWAY

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's junta kept a French navy ship laden with aid waiting outside its maritime border Saturday, and showed off neatly laid out state relief camps to diplomats.

The stage-managed tour appeared aimed at countering global criticism of the junta's failure to provide for survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which left at least 134,000 people dead or missing.

"It was a show," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told The Associated Press by telephone after returning to Yangon. "That's what they wanted us to see."

Meanwhile, a French navy ship that arrived Saturday off Myanmar's shores loaded with food, medication and fresh water was given the now familiar red light, a response that France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, called "nonsense."

Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, said a natural disaster "is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international community to do what it wants to do."

The Associated Press

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