_ by Thuria Tayza

According to official Burmese government figures, 22,997 people have died and 42,019 are missing (supposedly dead) in Cyclone hit Irrawaddy delta of Burma. And according to the estimates by the United States, the death toll could exceed 100,000.

And more than two million people are stranded and left homeless in worst effected areas, which are still flooded and yet inaccessible, without any clean drinking water, without any medical supplies, and with very little food to eat. There are now reports of malaria and diarrhoea out-breaks in those areas.

With vast areas of paddy fields submerged under flood water, and with roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, phone lines and electric power lines totally destroyed, the worst effected areas will take more than three years to recover.

Burma’s need for humanitarian aid to storm and flood victims is URGENT. Aid is needed not only for short-term relief, but also for long-term reconstruction.

But the much needed aid is caught in a rather un-necessary impasse.

On one side, there is a group of would-be donors who do not trust Burmese generals enough to hand over the aids into the hands of the Burmese military government. They want to send in not only the aid but also the aid-workers to deliver the aid. They keep the aids RIGIDLY tied to aid-workers. And they even want to use their military_ Navy ships, military helicopters and marines_ to carry out the aid delivery operations by themselves.

But, on the other hand, there is a group of very reclusive and ultra-nationalist and very proud and haughty military generals ruling the country de facto. They do really have suspicions on big foreign powers. And they do not like foreign donors accusing them of being un-trustworthy. They want aid but do not like the idea of foreign aid workers coming and meddling inside their reclusive country. Above all else, they thoroughly hate the prospect of foreign troops carrying out operations (albeit humanitarian ones) on their territory.

So there is an virtually unbreakable impasse going on regarding the aid delivery.

Actually, there is a common intention between the donors and the donee that humanitarian aid is needed for Burma’s storm and flood victims. And the donors have pledged to give aid (albeit in miserably small amounts so far) and the donee military government of Burma has also expressed its desire to get aid, and has even made an unprecedented plea to the outside world for help.

But the donors and the donee are now wasting the precious time by arguing just on the process and procedure and technicalities of the ‘delivery’.

It is a very un-necessary and uneconomical impasse, and the blames goes to both sides.

Whilst the situation is deadlocked in the shameful impasse, the Bling-Bling President of France and his foreign minister’s arrogant remarks which publicly humiliated Burma’s haughty Generals is making the situation un-necessarily more difficult. The French government at first said that they would give only a small amount of aid because they do not trust Burmese military government. Then they added that if Burma wants French aid, French will send navy ships to carry out rescue operations in Burma. And then they made rather hollow and impractical threats that they would invoke “responsibility to protect” power at the UN Security Council to intervene in Burma by use of force with or without consent by Burmese government.

Such arrogant remarks and provocative threats (albeit hollow) might be good for political point scoring in ordinary circumstances; but now is NOT the time to score political points, but to deliver real aid effectively with a genuine good faith. US Secretary of State Ms Condoleezza Rice has said, “It’s not a matter of politics. It’s a matter of humanitarian crisis.”.

And John Holmes, UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said “confrontation” would be unhelpful, and also added “I’m not sure that invading Burma would be a very sensible option.”

The European Union executive has also dismissed the French suggestion of using force to intervene in Burma’s cyclone disaster. An EU Commission spokesman said that diplomatic efforts are the best means of convincing Rangoon to allow humanitarian agencies to provide help.

And, in fact, there is a lot for the Bling-Bling President of France and his men to learn from the nice and wise diplomatic approach taken by the British government. All senior British politicians are consistent in their positions and comments that politics should be cast aside at least once during this immense disaster with immeasurable human sufferings so that humanitarian assistance can be given a first priority. Britain has pledged largest amount of aid so far with smallest amount of political noise or  fuzz. And Britain has very wisely promised that British aids will go through the UN, not provoking the paranoid Burmese Generals with the use of British Royal Navy in rescue operations inside Burmese territory. Moreover, at the security council meeting yesterday, Britain’s UN envoy John Sawers, currently chairing the security council, clarified that the 2005 UN resolution of “responsibility to protect” relates to “acts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and so forth, rather than the responses to natural disasters”.

So, while Burmese Generals need to reduce their paranoia and wrong pride, potential donors on the other hand also should try to avoid unnecessary provocation of Burmese Generals’ well-known paranoia.

For the sake of the dying millions of helpless cyclone victims, the donors and donee on both side MUST try to compromise, reducing the bloated egos and stopping the blame games.

In the current situation, as the EU Commission spokesman has said, diplomatic efforts are the best means to resolve this unnecessary and wasteful impasse. Consequently, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has now requested a meeting with Burma’s senior general Than Shwe to find out ways to deliver more aid to the cyclone victims.

As of now, the problem is not about “giving or not giving” of aid; already a few plain loads of aid has landed in Burma. But the real difficulty lies on getting more aid at a quicker rate into Burma. The difficulty arises because the aid is attached to aid workers’ entry into Burma.

However, there are some possible grounds for a compromise.

First of all, rich countries, which want to give aid but are worried about the military regime using the aid money to buy arms, can give aid in the form of energy-rich biscuits for starving survivors,and plastic sheets for making temporary shelters. Such emergency aid supplies do not necessarily have any use for any military purpose. Of course, Burmese soldiers who deliver those food aids may probably take a pack or two of those biscuits to feed their own children at home. But, so what? Pet-owners in rich countries are even spending hundreds of million dollars on expensive pet-foods for their pets everyday. Foot soldiers in Burmese army are starving and suffering in the same way like their ordinary civilian brethren under the corrupt Generals. Poor soldiers stealing a few packets of biscuits from food aid to feed the hungry mouths at their own homes should not necessarily be a big annoyance for the rich donors.

Humanitarian aids should be “no ties/strings attached”. Causing an unnecessary impasse in the aid delivery by tying non-essential aid-workers to essential aids is just NOT fair.

And, even if the donors insist on keeping an eye on the delivery of their aid, there are people on the ground who can do it without causing an international political fuzz. There are already some UN staffs and NGO workers inside Burma. There are international diplomats. They can at least keep an eye on the aid delivery to make sure that the Burmese army really deliver the aid to the real victims in need.

And actually a few, two or three, UN officials have already got visas and has entered into Burma. The world cannot forget that there is a referendum on May 10 in Burma, and Burmese regime is preparing to rig the referendum, and so does not want any international press and observers inside Burma during the referendum. So, may be, with time, and with patience, probably after the referendum, more UN officials will get visas to enter Burma. But, of course, with the humiliating remarks and hollow threats made by Bling-Bling government and diplomats of France, some damage has already been done and there is little or no chance that the haughty military regime of Burma will grant visas to non-UN western aid-workers, let alone their Navy ships and marines.

But, again, may be (just a ‘may be’) Burmese regime will give entry permissions to personnel from countries in the region which are either friendlier or at least perceived by the regime as less hostile to them. Even this may happen_ if it happens_ only at a later date when things have calmed down. The truth is, the more fuzz and panic created by the outside world, the more nervous becomes the paranoid Generals, and the impasse becomes all the more difficult to resolve.

Rather than threatening them with impractical but very provocative threats of unilateral intervention by force, coaxing the Generals through friendly diplomatic channels (UN or Chinese or ASEAN) may be more effective in getting more and more aids delivered to Burma sooner.

And keeping their mouths shut and avoiding making any more unnecessary hostile remarks by  Bling-Bling government and diplomats of France, and the likes, will also help calm things down better. Whether one likes it or not, Burma is a sovereign country and is ruled by a dogmatic military regime with an army of half a million strong soldiers armed with poor-quality but at least usable modern weaponry from China and Russia, the only way to get things done quickly in Burma is to get the regime’s consensual cooperation.

For any cooperation, there is a vital need for mutual understanding of each other’s psyche or mentality. While big countries have big enough egos to want to make unilateral interventions, small countries also have similarly bloated egos to resist any intervention by any means.

Eventually, the impasse in aid delivery will only be resolved by a comprise; and remember, it takes TWO to compromise. Compromise is a bilateral thing. If unilateral, it will only be a concession. A concession is good only if it can come easily, as with Mitt Romney in the 2008 US primary elections for the Republican Party. But with Burmese Generals who are at least as stubborn as Hillary Clinton, the impasse will only be resolved by a bilateral compromise, with the regime restraining its own paranoia and the donors removing their unnecessary ties from their aids.