Miliband on Burma, Britain and the world
The UK is ready to support "any and all" United Nations action to help the people of Burma. So said foreign secretary David Miliband in the House of Commons.
But what does that mean in practice? Well, it seems it includes - at least in theory - the possibility of using military force to get help to the many thousands of people who desperately need it after the devastating cyclone 10 days ago.
I spoke to him at length yesterday for a special edition of The World Tonight in which we undertook a detailed examination of British foreign policy: what it is, and what it should be.
I asked him about the newly-adopted United Nations doctrine known as the "responsibility to protect" - or R2P in the jargon - which lays down that the international community has a responsibility to act to protect people who are at risk of genocide or ethnic cleansing. But might it also apply in cases of natural disaster?
"It certainly could," said Mr Miliband, "and we have been absolutely clear in New York over the last 12 days that all instruments of the UN should be available."
So I asked about sending in military escorts for aid convoys, even without the consent of the Burmese authorities. You could try it, he said, but don't forget that the Burmese army is something like 400,000 strong. "No one should think that there is an easy or quick answer to this ... but all options are being looked at."
The Miliband vision of what Britain's foreign policy should be based on is made up of four distinct elements, which he labels (i) counter-terrorism; (ii) preventing and resolving conflicts; (iii) encouraging a transition to a high growth, low carbon economy; and (iv) reforming international institutions.
We discussed them all - and you can hear the programme by clicking here.
I'd be interested to know what you think.
UPDATE: There's an interesting contribution to the Burma intervention debate by Martin Jacques on The Guardian's Comment is Free blog here.
UPDATE: There are FCO transcripts of my conversation with the Foreign Secretary here and here.
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I hope that Britain, will help the international community i.e. Burma, China and other parts of the world....
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Milliband hinted at desiring more of a rules and law-based universal society, hinting that a new distribution of power in the UN was desirable.
He was never asked (and would certainly never support) the sine qua non of an effective supra-national order:
the surrender of a degree of sovereignty to a supra-national organization.
Is it possible for our journalists to understand and put this question?
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David Milliband cannot be serious in his view that military force is justified in cases like Burma, or is he? All I can say is that his good Marxist father, Ralph Milliband must be spinning at an accelrating rate in his grave. Humanitarian imperialism always struck me as an oxymoron. As proof that this is not always completely transparent, I cite the recent news that the Pentagon is asking the Iraq government for 58 permanent bases after the formal occupation ends. But if that many bases are made permanent then the occupation itself must be considered a failure. If humanitarian imperialism is to become acceptable it must not become a permanent colonialism by evacuating the occupied country after it has been stabilized. An example of humanitarian imperialism gone badly wrong is the UN-US invasion of Somalia in the early nineties where imminent famine and civil war between tribal warlords impeded the effective delivery of food aid. The international force was forced out of the country by one rather weak warlord Mohammad Aideed after he - temporarily - gained the upper hand over the country.
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Re #3
Assumes a false premise: that the invasion of Iraq was for humanitarian purposes.
The invasion was for oil, Israel and advanced bases. Now retired Pentagon officers have made this clear.
For oil and bases, the occupation was a reprise of the failed British initiatives of 1916-1926. The same mistakes are being repeated.
If one were to advocate "humanitarian imperialism", then he should make his legal justification quite clear. Such a rationale should also apply to such cases as the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, Zimbawe, etc.
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There is a need for a followup though much delayed, newsworthy postings to important subjects such as the Burma humanitarian intervention question. Though this is rarely done, since the subject may return in various guises in the future, I want to submit the following news item from the Financial Times of Thursday, September 4, 2008. Entitled "Burma's junta gave best help in cyclone, says UN", it criticizes the widespread perception in the West that the Burmese military government, scorned Western demands to allow aid into the country and did little on its own to help its stricken citizens. The following quotes should help refute the erroneous notions about what actually happened and refute the articles condemning the Burmese junta which still occasionally appear in the Western press. "The Burmese authorities were by far the greatest providers of medical assistance to its population after cyclone Nargis despite the widespread international criticism of a poor response by the military junta, according to an analysis released yesterday. A report summarised in the latest issue of the World Health Organization's Bulleting says government doctors, nurses, and midwives were far more active in offering treatment and medicines to cyclone survivors than non-governmental organisations and individual volunteers. The findings partially contradict perceptions based on the reluctance of the Burmese authorities to reveal the extent of the crisis and its slowness in allowing foreign officials and private charitable assistance to help with relief operations. While there were widespread unmet medical needs after the cyclone in May, Richard Garfield from the WHO's health and nutrition tracking service, who coordinated the study, said: We discovered to our surprise because of such bad PR that there was large-scale mobilisation by government around the country. Although the study was conducted on behalf of the Burmese authorities, the UN and Asean, Mr
Garfield insisted that the findings were objective. The study, which covered nearly 3,000 households most affected by Nargis in southwest Burma, also identified that among the survivors, diarrhoea and the common cold were by far the most widespread problems, rather than trauma, wounds and more serious infectious diseases such as cholera as some experts had warned..............The study also found that the most effective assistance came from countries near Burma [since] it was more culturally appropriate and got there in time."
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