Mick Hartley

An interesting contrast at the Guardian's CiF. Martin Jacques has a car-crash of an article on Burma which might usefully be subtitled, How to disappear up your own arse with the help of some standard Left boilerplate. The urge to give aid to the stricken Burmese (sorry, Myanmarese) is part of the Western imperialist mindset, he argues: they're perfectly capable of dealing with their own problems.

On the other hand, here's Timothy Garton Ash:

This weekend, unless Burma's generals rediscover in their shrivelled souls some remnant of human decency, there will take place in the Irrawaddy delta one of the most grotesque events in the political history of the modern world. While dead children still lie face-down in muddy flood waters after a devastating cyclone, while survivors become sick with life-threatening diarrhoea, while international aid workers are prevented by the military regime from bringing in supplies that could save them, Burmese citizens will be herded into makeshift polling stations to approve by plebiscite a constitution that is designed to prevent the results of a democratic election held 18 years ago ever being respected. The results of the referendum will be falsified, of course, as they already have been in other parts of the country, where 93% of voters were said to have been in favour, on a turnout of more than 99%. Down in the Irrawaddy delta, you can be sure the dead will vote early and vote often.

This from a junta that last year brutally crushed mass protests – led by Buddhist monks in their crimson and saffron robes – which were much more purely non-violent than those in nearby Tibet. This from a regime which, over decades, has reduced what was historically one of the more prosperous places in southeast Asia to one of the poorest and most oppressed. If ever a country needed regime change, it is Burma….

I have no doubt that we have a responsibility to act in this case, and that we have just cause to do so without the explicit consent of Burma's illegitimate rulers, who are letting their people die rather than letting in international aid. Unlike over Iraq, I would credit even George W Bush with right intention here. I suppose you could Noam-Chomskyishly argue that the interests of the west might be served by gaining influence over a buffer state between India and China (and, yes, Burma does have oil), but I don't think that's why a US ship is standing off the delta with helicopters and supplies. Proportional means? Yes, air drops and a "sea bridge" for aid would seem proportionate to save the lives of certainly tens of thousands, and potentially hundreds of thousands, of men, women and children….

The responsibility to protect has to be exercised responsibly: that is, with a careful, informed calculation of the likely consequences. I conclude that we should use every means except that of military-backed unilateral – or western "coalition of the willing" – action, which has few reasonable prospects, is arguably not the last resort, and would not have right authority. This does not mean we do nothing. We have a responsibility to act by every other means available, and there are many forms of "intervention' short of the military. (For us ordinary citizens, that includes ensuring the charities that do operate there have sufficient funds. In Britain, one good way to do that is through the multi-charity Disasters Emergency Committee, dec.org.uk.)