Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Asia and Pacific Affairs Mr. Eni F. H. Faleomavaega (Democrat, American Samoa) mentioned in a hearing on May 20, 2008 that he hoped to visit Burma in the near future so that he can access the situation on the ground with his own eyes.
A Congressional delegation including at least two of the following members of the Sub-Committee on Asia and Pacific Affairs should be invited to visit Burma, along with its chairman
Donald A. Manzullo, Ranking Member (Republican, Illinois, 16th District)
Diane E. Watson, (Democrat, California, 33rd District)
Gary L. Ackerman (Democrat, New York, 5th District)
Dan Burton (Republican, Indiana, 5th District)
The Congressional Delegation should start the visa process and hopefully the Burmese government would invite them as soon as possible.
- 1
- 2
The Cost of Consensus
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
Even more than Ban's, ASEAN's prestige and reputation is riding on a good outcome in Burma. Long derided as an ineffectual talk shop, the regional grouping admitted Burma to its fold in 1997 on the logic that engagement with the generals who run the country would temper their behavior. To its neighbors' profound embarrassment, the junta has grown more repressive, not less, over time. "Let's put it this way," says Ooi Kee Beng, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. "If ASEAN does not show enough initiative and [ease] the crisis, then it would lose all credibility. It has no choice."
Critics of the initiative say ASEAN's diplomacy has been way too drawn out. "[Their attitude is] let's have a meeting and hold hands and hope this all goes away," says a Western official in the region. "It's sad that a lot of people who live far away were quick to respond—not just the U.S. but Europe and Japan—while the association that is supposed to take care of Southeast Asia is just coming to the table." Simon Tay, chairman of Singapore's Institute of International Affairs, credits ASEAN for extracting permission to coordinate the international relief effort, though he hastens to add that more headway is imperative if lives are to be saved. "It was an achievement to open the door," he says. "It will be a second and larger challenge to go in thru that door and do the heavy lifting for relief."
Sadly, the doorway remains too narrow even for aid already agreed to. In one example, Singapore sent its first medical team into Burma—a crew of four doctors and eight nurses--on Thursday, three full days after Burma said it would welcome such assistance. And the 10 helicopters Burma agreed to take from the U.N. won't likely be flying until the weekend because various technical issues are still being negotiated. With so many people still struggling for survival on the delta, every delay in reaching them can be measured in lost lives. "The rule of thumb is that 10 days is the point at which things significantly shift," says a Western relief coordinator currently organizing aid for Burma. "After that secondary fatalities can radically increase due to cholera, typhoid and other diseases."
Ban knows the grim math. ASEAN leaders do, too. On Sunday they will co-host a multilateral donors' conference in Rangoon in an effort to raise the billions Burma needs for recovery and, as Ban put it Thursday, coordinate the flow of aid "in a more systematic and organized way." If the U.N. chief's mission comes up short, the issue could quickly shift from how best to work with one of the world's most repressive governments to the unprecedented challenge of staging a multilateral humanitarian intervention in defiance of the recipient nation's own government.
With Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop in Singapore and Jaimie Seaton in Bangkok
© 2008
- 1
- 2
Discuss