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Nargis Poses Humanitarian Dilemma

Burma's Junta Has the West over a Barrel

By our reporter in Rangoon

The stubbornness of Burma's military junta puts the West into a hopeless situation. If the international community wants to provide relief to victims of Cyclone Nargis, then it has to play by the regime's rules. But the West's submissiveness sends a dangerous signal to despots everywhere.

Shari Villarosa is usually known for her strong words. After all, the charge d'affaires of the US Embassy in Rangoon, who in the absence of a US ambassador to Burma is the highest ranking US diplomat in the country, was the first person to talk about a death toll of 100,000 after Cyclone Nargis hit Burma on May 2.

But when asked about the recent Burmese referendum on the army-drafted constitution, with its fantasy result of 92 percent approval for Burma's ruling military junta, she looks uncomfortable. "Our position on that issue is sufficiently well known," is all she will say on the subject. "At the moment, it's all about the humanitarian catastrophe."

The interview in Villarosa's office in Burma lasts a half hour, but the diplomat can not be drawn into making any criticism of the junta. Instead, she makes gentle appeals. It would be good, she says, if the junta realized that the international community and the United States only want to help. "Even China accepted this kind of assistance after the earthquake, and Iran has also done so in the past," says Villarosa. "There, too, we only provided aid and then left again."

Villarosa chooses her every word with care. In doing so, she reveals the difficult situation which the stubbornness of the Burmese military junta has put the international community into.

Everyone wants to help. And everyone needs to help, if thousands more deaths from disease and hunger are to be prevented. But nobody is able to help -- at least as long as the regime does not want them to.

Support for the victims of the disaster can only take place in cooperation with the junta, not in opposition to it. That's something that Burma's military rulers have made abundantly clear to the world.

The military rulers may behave erratically, but they are very familiar with international opinion. The generals follow news coverage of their country carefully, even if they need to get CNN and the BBC translated in order to understand it. They know, for example, that the United Nations sees itself as committed to providing assistance. Admittedly the UN's representatives in Bangkok have sometimes temporarily suspended shipments of humanitarian aid to Burma out of frustration with the military junta, but shortly afterwards orders have come from UN headquarters in Geneva and New York for aid deliveries to be resumed. That creates a situation where the Burmese generals are able to dictate the conditions under which aid can be given. And they are doing just that.

US first lady Laura Bush and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner expressed themselves with strong words at the beginning of the crisis. Now Western diplomats are expressing an equally strong submissiveness. "We cannot make any more criticisms," says one Western diplomat, who preferred not to be identified. "If we did so, the door through which further relief supplies to the cyclone victims must past could slam shut." This is not the time for strong words, the diplomat says. Now is the time for a softly-softly approach, "even if it hurts sometimes."

So no criticism of the junta, then. No critical words about a police state, where citizens are always put in second place -- even after a devastating cyclone, in which, according to the latest estimates, as many as 250,000 people may have died.

The diplomat's words reflect a spectacular turnaround in the attitude of the West. The statement could be seen as a small prevarication for the sake of helping the hundreds of thousands of storm victims -- if it did not have such far-reaching political consequences and such a significant symbolic impact.

If many people's lives are at risks, then criticizing the government becomes taboo: This is the uncomfortable subtext of the new soft Burma policy. It is also an all-too-reassuring signal to despots everywhere.

It appears possible that the regime will now be given carte blanche for as long as the victims' situation remains precarious. However one should not forget that it was precisely the mismanagement by the Burmese junta that greatly aggravated the crisis situation in the Irrawaddy Delta.

The generals may be tempted to draw a fatal conclusion: If they can escalate the situation further by allowing only sporadic assistance to get through to the delta, they will be able to do as they like, without fear of criticism. Particularly for such an isolated and ruthless clique as that which surrounds the reclusive ruler General Than Shwe, that is not an unattractive idea.

In the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, many in the West had hoped that the storm could have the silver lining of deposing the military regime. Frustrated, starved and angry, the people of Burma would surely rise up and bring an end to the regime, or so the thinking went. That way, at least the disaster would have had one positive effect. But the junta has remained stubborn -- and strong. At first they turned down all offers of aid, restored the police state and held the referendum on the country's army-drafted constitution as planned on May 10.

It was not until last Sunday that the regime began to negotiate. The junta went into the talks with cold-blooded tactics -- and taught the West how hard it is to drive a hard bargain when one only has good intentions and a feeling of obligation to save lives.