Helping Those Who Don't Want Help

Humanitarian workers are scrambling to make up for lost time.
The world was in disbelief when the Burmese government closed its borders following a disastrous cyclone that ravaged the country. French and U.S. warships full of supplies sat idly in the Bay of Bengal, waiting for authorization to anchor. Meanwhile, 2.5 million people struggled to stay alive.
It took three weeks before UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, was able to convince Myanmar's top military officials to allow humanitarian workers and supplies into the country. Now more than a month after Cyclone Nargis hit, people are slowly starting to get the help they need.
It looks like diplomacy won out just in time; there haven't been reports of civil unrest or outbreaks of infectious disease, and military action was avoided. But the lingering question is this: How long would we have waited?
A peaceful resolution should always be the goal. Diplomatic channels must be exhausted and every type of political pressure must be exerted before military force is used. But in the event of a natural disaster, thousands upon thousand of lives depend on the quick and efficient distribution of aid.
But how do you get humanitarian aid into a country that is refusing help?
French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, proposed a solution days after the cyclone hit. Mr. Kouchner suggested the United Nations invoke the Canadian-developed "Responsibility to Protect," or R2P - a concept that says the international community has a responsibility to help protect people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, whenever their own government is unable, or unwilling, to do so.
The international community was reluctant to apply R2P to Myanmar, however. Certainly a case could be made that by withholding aid to its citizens, the Burmese government was guilty of a crime against humanity. But R2P wasn't meant to deal with natural disasters, and there was fear that by making its scope too broad, R2P would be rendered useless.
"It's fragile," says William Pace, executive director of the Institute for Global Policy and a member of the Steering Committee for R2P. "There are many powerful governments, especially authoritarian governments, that would love to ruin R2P, and if you make it mean everything, then it means nothing."
Mr. Pace did concede that the principles of R2P could be applied to natural disasters in the future, but would like to see it applied to situations it was originally intended for first, to strengthen its credibility.
But the next natural disaster won't necessarily wait for R2P to gain strength and evolve. Myanmar must serve as a wake-up call to the United Nations to create a new policy - or to make an explicit change to R2P to include natural disasters.
The extent of the damage wrought by Cyclone Nargis is still unclear. There are fears of long-term food shortages as saltwater has flooded many rice farms. And we'll never know how many of the estimated 100,000 deaths could have been prevented if not for delays in getting aid into the country.
But if a government took arms against its people, killing tens of thousands inside of a month, you would hope for swift action from the international community. But in the wake of a natural disaster, isn't government inaction just as inhumane?
Myanmar will be remembered as a diplomatic victory, but we mustn't forget how long it took.
To see a country devastated by a natural disaster and then resist international aid certainly seemed like a unique situation. We can't be so naïve as to think that it can't happen again.

Comments

[chaquino]

Taking this article a step further the idea of helping others who do not want help happens in the public field all the time, the incidence in Burma magnified this reluctance. As someone who works constantly in the frontlines providing much needed information about reproductive health there are constant barriers prohibiting an exchange of information. Its as though this exchange, if allowed, is an impeachment into that individuals values, beliefs, and culture. As a result a public health providers became irratated, angry, and resentful; hence compassion fatigue. It is that feeling one gets when thier efforts are dismissed or ignored repeatedly. But when one takes a step back and views the big picture one theme is constant: Fear...Both parties, the provider and the individual receiving care, are fearful. The individual afraid of what this new information will change in their life and the provider afraid this person will be another statistic. This tragic event in Burma is a reminder that helping those who do not want help happens both globally and domestically, but at the end of the day we still hope that the help we offer will not in by in vain.

[GrainOSand]

"Responsibility to Protect," or R2P - a concept that says the international community has a responsibility to help protect people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, whenever their own government is unable, or unwilling, to do so."

The end.