Home  News International News Myanmar gets some help
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Sunday, 11 May 2008 |
After a devastating cyclone, which left 22,500 persons in Myanmar (formerly Burma) dead and another 40,000 nursing wounds, aid is finally tricking in.
The military-ruled country has been slow to allow international assistance following the Cyclone Nargis, which left about 1 million people homeless.
Aid agencies and governments are waiting in the wings to provide water purification tablets, plastic sheeting, basic medical kits, bed nets and food – some of the basic necessities, but the ruling military force is still skittish about trusting outside help. The devastation is too much to be handled locally, so the country needs to accept the international relief on a wide scale to alleviate the country’s disaster, UN officials are saying.
France is suggesting calling upon a U.N. "responsibility to protect" clause and take aid directly to ravaged nation without waiting for approval from the military force in Yangon, which is now being discussed at the United Nations in New York.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters, "We are seeing at the United Nations if we can't implement the responsibility to protect, given that food, boats and relief teams are there, and obtain a United Nations' resolution which authorizes the delivery (of aid) and imposes this on the Burmese government."
The United Nations recognized in 2005 the concept "responsibility to protect" civilians when their governments could or would not do it, even if this meant intervention that violated national sovereignty.
The majority of the victims were washed away by a high water from the cyclone that hit coastal towns and villages of Yangon.
The last report out of Myanmar said 22,464 were killed and 41,054 missing. The death toll is climbing in what is Asia's most devastating cyclone since a 1991 storm that killed 143,000 in neighboring Bangladesh.
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