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Post by auntieannie on May 14, 2009 19:22:33 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2009 19:25:32 GMT
Yes, I was aghast also, but I can't say that I am surprised. When I went to Burma, I had never seen people so afraid of everything. Everybody wanted to talk to me, but they all insisted that we continue walking and never stay in the same place. They would look furtively in every direction the whole time.
And that was years ago.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 14, 2009 21:32:29 GMT
I continue to ask: why does the UN do nothing?
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2009 21:42:17 GMT
The UN has no power.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 14, 2009 22:16:49 GMT
As far as I can tell, it automatically has the right to intervene in cases such as that of Burma. Am I completely wrong, or is it a case of the UN preferring to be toothless?
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Post by spindrift on May 14, 2009 22:31:19 GMT
No-one seems to take any notice of the U.N.
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2009 23:36:32 GMT
The U.N. like K2 said has no power.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 14, 2009 23:58:23 GMT
Obviously it is better to talk, bemoan, & hand wring:
Burma/Myanmar: "Facing Up to Our Responsibilities", Gareth Evans in The Guardian
12 May 2008
The Guardian
If the intransigence of the Burmese generals continues, it is a very real issue whether in the name of humanity some international action should be taken against their will – like military air drops, or supplies being landed from ships offshore – to get aid to the huge numbers who desperately need it right now, in the inaccessible coastal area in particular.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner opened up a hornet's nest when he argued last Thursday, as others are now doing, that this is a proper case for coercive intervention under the "responsibility to protect" principle unanimously endorsed by 150 heads of state and government at the 2005 UN World Summit. His proposal that the Security Council pass a resolution which "authorizes the delivery and imposes this on the Burmese government" met with immediate rejection not only from China and Russia, who are always sensitive about external intervention into internal affairs, but from many other quarters as well.
It generated concern from the UK and others, including senior UN officials, that such an "incendiary" approach would be wholly counterproductive in winning any still-possible cooperation from the generals. It also provoked the argument from humanitarian relief agencies – who know what they are talking about – that simply as a practical matter any effort to drop supplies without an effective supporting relief on the ground would be hopelessly inefficient, and maybe even dangerous with the prospect of misuse of medical supplies.
These are strong arguments, and they weigh heavily in the policy balance. But as the days go by, with relief efforts impossibly hindered, only a trickle of the government's own aid getting through, and the prospect of an enormously greater death toll looming acutely within just a few more days, they are sounding less compelling, and at least need revisiting.
My own initial concern, and it remains a serious one, with Bernard Kouchner's invocation of the "responsibility to protect" was that, while wholly understandable as a political rallying cry – and God knows the world needs them in these situations – it had the potential to dramatically undercut international support for another great cause, to which he among others is also passionately committed, that of ending mass atrocity crimes once and for all.
The point about "the responsibility to protect" as it was originally conceived, and eventually embraced at the World Summit – as I well know, as one of the original architects of the doctrine, having co-chaired the international commission that gave it birth – is that it is not about human security generally, or protecting people from the impact of natural disasters, or the ravages of HIV-AIDS or anything of that kind.
Rather, "R2P" is about protecting vulnerable populations from "genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity" in ways that we have all too miserably often failed to do in the past. That is the language of the 2005 UN General Assembly resolution, and Security Council resolutions that have followed it, and it is only in that context that the question should even arise of coercively intervening in a country against the express will of its government. And even then, the responsibility to protect norm allows the use of military force only with Security Council endorsement, and only as a last resort, after prevention has failed, when it is clear that no less extreme form of reaction could possibly halt or avert the harm in question, that the response is proportional to that harm, and that on balance more good than damage will be done by the intervention.
If it comes to be thought that "R2P", and in particular the sharp military end of the doctrine, is capable of being invoked in anything other than a context of mass atrocity crimes, then such consensus as there is in favour of the new norm will simply evaporate in the global South. And that means that when the next case of genocide or ethnic cleansing comes along we will be back to the same old depressing arguments about the primacy of sovereignty that led us into the horrors of inaction in Rwanda and Srebrenica in the 1990s.
But here's the rub. If what the generals are now doing, in effectively denying relief to hundreds of thousands of people at real and immediate risk of death, can itself be characterised as a crime against humanity, then the responsibility to protect principle does indeed cut in. The Canadian-sponsored commission report that initiated the R2P concept in fact anticipated just this situation, in identifying one possible case for the application of military force as "overwhelming natural or environmental catastrophes, where the state concerned is either unwilling or unable to cope, or call for assistance, and significant loss of life is occurring or threatened".
The UN resolution does not pick up this specific language, but it does refer to "crimes against humanity", and the definition of such crimes (in the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court, as well as in customary international law) embraces, along with widespread or systematic murder, torture, persecution and the like, "Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health".
There is, as always, lots for the lawyers to argue about in all of this, not least on the question of intent. And there will be lots for the Security Council to quarrel about as to whether air drops and the like are justified, legally, morally and practically. But when a government default is as grave as the course on which the Burmese generals now seem to be set, there is at least a prima facie case to answer for their intransigence being a crime against humanity – of a kind which would attract the responsibility to protect principle. And that bears thinking about, fast, both by the Security Council, and the generals.
Gareth Evans is President, International Crisis Group; Co-Chair, International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty; Member, UN Secretary-General's Advisory Committee on the Prevention of Genocide.
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Post by hwinpp on May 15, 2009 2:28:05 GMT
The government doesn't care about any measure the outside world takes. They have everything they need and they've China and India as friends.
An embargo, as ASSK has called for, would only make things worse for the population.
What some countries can do is kick the offspring of the leaders out of their schools and universities.
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Post by normal on May 15, 2009 2:49:45 GMT
bixa, if the UN could do anything don't you think they would have done it a year ago when thousands were killed in cyclone Nargis??
When aid was refused by the junta and hundreds of people rotted in the streets?
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Post by bixaorellana on May 15, 2009 3:08:40 GMT
That's my point with the article posted above. Why all that horror went on, the UN debated & issued statements & researched and ........... But they COULD have done something.
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Post by normal on May 15, 2009 3:38:03 GMT
No.
The junta is a recognised government like it or not. By recognising the junta as being the legal gov. of Burma they have effectively pulled their own teeth.
The UN has to follow rules too.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 15, 2009 4:07:02 GMT
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Post by spindrift on May 15, 2009 7:35:21 GMT
I wouldn't wish intervention by the so-called Superpowers on any country. Look at Tibet, Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2009 7:40:24 GMT
The blue helmets have been useful a few times when they are helping to maintain the peace in a fragile region, but they should never be used as an invasion force. That is not what they are meant to do anyway.
As for economic sanctions, that just hurts the population, not the people in power.
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Post by normal on May 15, 2009 7:41:27 GMT
139. The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapter VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity
And that's where it gets foggy. The junta said that any attempt to rescue their citizens would be looked upon as an act of aggression. An attempt to lessen their authority. AND they would have been right.
There is nothing other than mineral rights in Burma to make a foreign government eager to attempt any type of rescue. Read no oil
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Post by auntieannie on May 15, 2009 19:35:08 GMT
Part of what infuriated me is the idiocy of that man's act... Because of him looking for glory - I suppose, (I swam in Aung San Suu Kyi's garden and slept in her house... whatever...) she is put in an even more difficult situation that she's ever been.
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Post by normal on May 17, 2009 8:08:54 GMT
Question: was it one man's act or was the man hired by the generals? They would like nothing better than for her to just "go away". A prison term would suit very well. Her house arrest had already been extended by a year, and that was almost up.
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Post by auntieannie on May 19, 2009 19:31:35 GMT
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Post by hwinpp on May 20, 2009 2:41:48 GMT
I've heard she's admitted that she let the man stay because he had cramps in his legs.
This could of course be misinformation spread by the government.
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Post by auntieannie on May 21, 2009 20:24:49 GMT
so, human kindness is bad?
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2009 20:28:43 GMT
That's a big debate in France where helping illegal refugees is against the law. But at least people are proud to go to trial for that.
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Post by hwinpp on May 22, 2009 2:20:39 GMT
You mean me, AA?
No, I don't think kindness is bad. But is the short drama of a trial, with the outcome clear, worth an extra 5 years in detention? What will all the people in the country think for whom she's a beacon of hope? It's a bit silly to think the government wouldn't have found out... unless the government sent Yettaw there in the first place.
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Post by auntieannie on May 22, 2009 18:58:55 GMT
not you hw. you feel like a really nice person!  no, I meant in general. because you used the sentence "she's admitted she let him stay because he had cramps in his legs". the more I hear about this story, the angrier I get. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2009 5:03:40 GMT
How quickly Aung San Suu Kyi has dropped out of the news again! I guess the rest of the world does not have much of an attention span.
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no, I meant in general. because you used the sentence "she's admitted she let him stay because he had cramps in his legs".