Word: junta
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...what is the world doing about it? Not much. The military junta that runs Burma initially signaled it would accept outside relief but has imposed so many conditions on those who would actually deliver it that barely a trickle has gotten through. Hundreds of foreign aid workers have been denied visas and blocked from visiting the stricken areas. Shipments of food and medicine have been seized. After more than 10 days, the U.N. World Food Program said it had been able to deliver only a fraction of the food required for the emergency. "I've never seen anything like this...
...same gang that unilaterally invaded Iraq. (Though considering how that turned out, maybe it shouldn't be.) But others have taken up the cause. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has called for the U.N. Security Council to authorize outsiders to bring in and deliver aid no matter what the junta says; David Cameron, leader of Britain's Conservatives, advocates direct airdrops to the Burmese people. The European Union's foreign policy chief said, "We have to use all means" to get aid to those still at risk...
...uninvited foreign intervention likely to happen? Any relief operation would be fraught with risk. Air-dropping food into the Irrawaddy Delta could cause even more chaos, in the absence of military or relief personnel on the ground who can distribute supplies. And given the junta's xenophobia and insecurity, it's a safe bet any outside troops--or worse, foreign relief workers--would be viewed as hostile forces even if the U.S. and its allies made clear that their actions were strictly for humanitarian purposes. To save the Burmese people without their rulers' consent, in other words...
...which is to say that the junta can probably rest easy. The realities are that states rarely undertake military action unless their national interests are at stake, the world lacks consensus about when coercive measures in the name of averting humanitarian disasters are permissible and the war in Iraq has given interventions of any kind a bad name. But try telling that to Burmese like San San Khing, who has lost her money, home, food and two children and now suffers in a refugee camp in Kaw Hmu township. "We urge the U.N. and foreign governments to provide assistance ... without...
...blame the Burmese military junta for Cyclone Nargis either. But you can blame it for seizing aid shipments and refusing to admit aid workers. Nargis exposed the horrors of Burma--not only for the cyclone's victims but also for the survivors, whose lives are imperiled by the junta's inaction and who will still be stuck there after the world loses interest. It's a reminder of Lord Charles Bowen's take on the Book of Matthew...