Canada joins international indignation at continued imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi

World Leaders Outraged....

"Canada has repeatedly called on the regime to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners, respect the human rights of the people of Burma, and engage in a genuine dialogue with the democratic movement," said Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson in a statement issued late Wednesday, noting Canada conferred honorary citizenship on her last October.

Other countries are also expressing displeasure:

"Given the terrible human tragedy that has unfolded in Burma, the Australian government has recently tempered its remarks so far as the Burmese military regime has been concerned," said Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, using another name for Myanmar. "But this particular matter cannot go without comment."

Smith expressed "regret" over Suu Kyi's extended detention.

In Washington, President George W. Bush said Tuesday he was "deeply troubled" by the detention order, but stressed the United States would continue to provide cyclone aid. He called on the regime to free all political prisoners and begin genuine dialogue with Suu Kyi that would lead to a transition to democracy.

I've recently been reading James Orbinski's An Imperfect Offering, and it occurs to me how related are the 1999 NATO "Humanitarian War" in Kosovo and the current, unspoken, "aid for compliance" game that's occurring between the international community and Burma's Junta right at the moment. Ethically - can we demand compliance with political goals in exchange for aid? Does that compromise our independence, and muddy the already murky ethical waters around providing humanitarian aid to a government that consistently redirects, taxes, or outright steals assistance meant for some of the poorest people in Asia?

In 1999, MSF spoke out vociferously, and refused to take sides in the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia as it systematically eliminated Kosovo of it's 90% ethinic Albanian Muslim majority. They served and treated sick people on both sides of the conflict, as always, believing that it can not allow its aid to become related to the military action given out by NATO.

In Burma today, the Junta have extended Suu Kyi's house arrest even further, prompting complaints from the international community who had at least an unwritten, if not overt, expectation that the generosity of global partners would influence the junta to treat Suu Kyi fairly. The flaws in this logic are vast, however it underscores the idea that aid quite simply can not be related to politics, no matter how noble the issue. Suu Kyi deserves to be let out - and her people deserve her to be positioned as the rightfully elected leader - however tying aid to her release implies a sort of "dog-and-pony-show" framework for aid which can only be manipulated by Burma much as it was manipulated by DRC and Rwandan government forces in the Great Lakes disaster, in the years after the 1994 Rwandan Genocide (also from Orbinski's book).

International Community:
Say what you mean, and say what you want and expect from the rogue Junta government. Don't dress it up with aid as "bribes." Don't pave the way for the junta to take aid as a bribe for good behaviour. Burma's junta signed two legally binding human rights treaties - enforce them. Act on them. Serve the people, but hold the leaders accountable. Don't expect that your goodwill will result in a humanitarian act from an inhuman government.

Panties for Peace!

I absolutely had to put this out there:

Myanmar protest gets junta's knickers in a twist

MONTREAL, Canada (AP) -- Canadian women are being asked to volunteer their undergarments in an international effort to shame Myanmar's ruling junta into giving citizens greater access to humanitarian aid and human rights.
Organizers launched the Canadian edition of the Panties for Peace! campaign this week with a call for women to send their underwear to the Myanmar embassy in Ottawa.
The campaign plays off regional superstitions that contact with women's panties can sap a man's power.
Activists claim the fear is shared by the leaders of the country's military regime.

Spearheaded by a pro-democracy group based in Thailand, the campaign was launched in the fall to draw attention to human rights abuses against women in the country.

To send your panties to a Burmese embassy, click here for a list.

UN Warns: Second Cyclone to hit Burma

The Times is reporting that Burma is at risk of a second cyclone disaster, as the Pacific tropical storm may make landfall within 24 hours.

Burma's population is still reeling after Hurricane Nargis destroyed whole villages and left the people, already poverty-stricken and without useful aid from their government, without food, clean water, and shelter. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has already raised the death toll estimate to more than 127,000 in short-term casualties alone - not even counting the deaths expected from long-term consequences such as water-borne illness and infant mortality. Burmese officials put the death toll estimate at 39,000, with 28,000 missing. This is hardly a surprise, as the Burmese government lacks the capacity (and perhaps the political will) to post an estimate as high as the ICRC. Meanwhile, the UN estimates that 1.5 million have been affected and are in need of aid to survive, despite reports aid has been continually delayed and misdirected by the junta.

Amid these worrying reports, I can't help but wonder if these aid czars have memories of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami on their minds, thoughts of the criticism, the widespread misdirection of funds and chaos on the ground. I wonder how much this experience is influencing the current response to Burma's crisis?

Some of the only real footage from inside Burma

...is available through Democratic Voice of Burma, a free-radio type media site operating in Netherlands to provide free access to independent media. Several videos of post-cyclone Burma are available, including this one.

A New application for "responsibility to protect?"

In the wake of the Rwandan Genocide, a guilt-racked world struggled to come to terms with its responsibility for populations at risk of violence and mass slaughter. Canadian Romeo Dallaire, who had served as a blue helmet in Rwanda and watched helplessly as people were slaughtered around them, assisted in developing this concept of "Responsibility to Protect," essentially a dialogue around policy change internationally that would allow the UN, or another multilateral body to forcibly enter a situation and act to preserve the lives of populations in danger from which their governments refuse to protect them.

The New York Times headline today was:Myanmar Faces Pressure to Allow Major Aid Effort

By SETH MYDANS

Published: May 8, 2008

BANGKOK — As hungry, shivering survivors waited among the dead for help after a huge cyclone in Myanmar, aid agencies and diplomats said Wednesday that the delivery of relief supplies was being slowed by the reluctance of the country’s secretive military leaders to allow an influx of outsiders. (...)

Despite the emerging scale of the disaster, the Myanmar government has let in little aid and has restricted movement in the delta, aid agencies say. It has not granted visas to aid workers, even though supplies are being marshaled in nearby countries like Thailand.

In response, the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, suggested that the United Nations should invoke its “responsibility to protect” civilians as the basis for a resolution to allow the delivery of international aid even without the junta’s permission.

With a death toll in just one country that could rival the death toll of all of the countries affected by the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, Cyclone Nergis has dealt Burma's junta an almost impossible situation: let go of a paranoid delusion and deal with an influx of foreign aid so that people can be saved (there is no food and no clean water in many areas, and growing areas are flooded. Mass deaths are expected due to starvation and water-borne disease), or leave harmless citizens to die in favour of a deeply paranoid, superstitious regime buried deeply in denial of world opinion.

How could this NOT be a "responsibility to protect" situation?

Fact 1) Burma's citizenry have been at the mercy of the Junta, essentially as a vulnerable population in their own nation, since the Junta took power.

Fact 2) Poverty, chronic lack of services and a poor economy have increased the risk that Burma's citizens will be victimized further by their government.

Fact 3) The Global community has a history of ignoring the Junta's crimes against their people. The Saffron Revolution, in 2007, garnered only verbal chastisements and sanctions (of an already desperately poor country) from world powers, despite the countless deaths of unarmed protesters and a Japanese photojournalist.

Fact 4) Burma's Junta has powerful friends with shady backgrounds of citizen neglect, oppression and denial. China has endorsed Burma's unelected government - putting the citizens at the mercy of the world's next major superpower. In 2007 when the Security Council was to vote on whether to enact the R2P agreement on Burma, China and Russia used their veto under the guise that Burma was not a threat to world security (which seems to miss the point entirely).

Fact 5) Burma's Junta, while spending more on military than any other single category of expenditure, simply is no match for what the world has - a "forcible entry" of Burma for these purposes might actually lead to citizens welcoming the visitors in the streets... unlike another situation we know of...

Support the effort to impose help on Burma's Junta for the sake of the citizens there.

Support for victims of this weekend's Cyclone

The US Campaign for Burma has started a fund for the victims of Cyclone Nargis which has hit Burma hard. The government, and several news agencies, are estimating the death toll at 10,000 and climbing. Wiped out in just one weekend as this storm wiped out villages all along Burma's extensive coastline. An estimated 3,000 more are missing (according to BBC World News).

This is just one opportunity to become involved in some way of supporting the relief that Burma is going to need. This may be the opportunity to drag Burma out of the clutches of the Junta and help them recover at the same time.

the blog, ees what I do.

I have this thing - see, I start blogs and then never complete them. My main blog is in it's 4th incarnation over at dis:adventure.com and I think it's pretty great, if perhaps not updated frequently enough. So why make another blog? Why create another entity that you don't update frequently enough?

Because I had one of those incredible moments today as I listened to the made-up guy on CNN announce the devastation of cyclone Nargis as it hit Burma hard. I wrote an article for the Vancouver Sun last fall during the Saffron Revolution in Burma, partly for a school project and partly for my own interest. I've always been interested in those political pariah states - the ones that "don't play well with others," least of all their own citizens. Burma is one of those writ large - potentially one of the wealthiest in Asia but driven into disrepair and poverty by an intensely superstitious and power-hungry military junta.

My moment seemed to resonate in my soul. I felt like the cyclone had hit a country where I had family or friends. I guess I knew just enough about the situation to know what a disaster like Cyclone Nargis would mean for a populace so completely unprepared, as Burma is. And so, out of that feeling, I started another blog. I hope that this one sticks around awhile. I hope it becomes one that helps me express my concern, gather others, and connect with those who have influence.

So begins blog for burma!