[Radix] Burma/Myanmar Cyclone Disaster Diplomacy

[Ben Wisner]

Excellent work, Ilan!

Especially since Maureen is still recovering from malaria or dengue or 
whatever she picked up in Indonesia, I appreciate the fact that you did 
this "in association with RADIX" since de facto RADIX is also recovering 
from malaria or whatever!

As the situation unfolds, there have been two opinions expressed about 
the delays on the part of the military government to allow in shipments 
(except from Thailand, India, and China, and now, today, possibly one UN 
cargo plane) and provide visas for waiting experts.  I believe the UN's 
UNDAC team has gotten 4 -- all Asian passport holders -- approved, but 
it has another 36 pending!

One opinion is that the junta doesn't want outsiders around for the 
referendum, which still hasn't been postponed.  The other opinion, 
expressed by an unnamed foreign expert who was already in country when 
Nargis hit, is that the government is so centralized and dysfunctional 
that it is slow at approving everything.

In either case, this is a politico-administrative disaster heaped on a 
socio-economic disasters (fragile housing and low levels of 
preparedness), on top of aa political-ecological disaster (80% mangroves 
removed to make way for fish and shrimp farms).

In view of the governments incompetence now nearly a week later, with as 
many as a million homeless, and as far as I have seen reported very few 
low-draft boats available to take supplies and medical assistance into 
the delta zone (Merlin has obtained and converted a luxury river boat!), 
there seems to be an urgent case for the humanitarian community to 
assert what the French foreign minister calls the "right to provide aid." 

Labor PM of Australia, Rudd, has said, "don't criticize the Myanmar 
government" and just work with them and get aid in.  If such an approach 
were working, I'd agree.  But the window for saving lives and averting a 
massive secondary publish health disaster (diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, 
rat born diseases such as typhus) is rapidly shutting.

All the best,

BEN

Ilan Kelman wrote:
> To Radix:
>
> Based on the discussion here, I have created a Burma disaster diplomacy website http://www.disasterdiplomacy.org/burma.html with some of the material sent to this email list.  Thank you to the authors for permission to use their contributions.  The Guardian, the Chicago Tribune, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the South China Morning Post amongst many other media have published editorials or articles about the possibility for the cyclone to affect the politics in Burma.  There is also a scathing reaction to Laura Bush's remarks (said at the White House, not on this email list).
>
> Back to more knowledgeable and insightful people than those running the USA, with regards to George Kent's questions, I would suggest that seeking "conflict transformation" might be too extreme for all case studies.  Sometimes, a step change or a radical change of direction is indeed seen.  After the January 2001 Gujarat earthquake, India-Pakistan relations proceeded through a rapid thaw, culminating in a summit between the two countries' leaders--which then suddenly fell apart leading to a resurgence in the conflict.
>
> In most disaster diplomacy cases, though, the change witnessed is a quickening or slowing of an already existing peace or conflict process.  Before the 26 December 2004 tsunami, Aceh was heading cautiously towards the possible start of a potential peace process (the proviso-filled language is used deliberately) whereas Sri Lanka's conflict was yet again simmering, likely ready for a trigger.  The tsunami undoubtedly accelerated Aceh's peace process and provided conditions favouring the success of peace, while the tsunami also appears to have exacerbated Sri Lanka's conflict.  But the tsunami did not create Aceh's peace nor Sri Lanka's conflict.
>
> These case studies and publications expanding the ideas and providing evidence for them are on the disaster diplomacy website http://www.disasterdiplomacy.org   The conclusion is that disaster diplomacy has many pathways of being supported and inhibited along with many different paces for those pathways.  See also:
> Kelman, I. 2006. "Acting on Disaster Diplomacy". Journal of International Affairs, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 215-240.
>
> In terms of "What is the reasoning behind the idea that disasters could pave the road for conflict transformation?", in addition to the comments already made, I would emphasise that the reasoning often articulated is the naïve view that seeing other people suffer plus the fundamental drive for the humanitarian imperative should be enough to overcome enmity, to create peace, and to seek a better world.  I do not agree with that view and I am surprised at how often it is assumed to be a truism despite it rarely working, but that is the answer frequently given to the question.  See also http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4733
>
> Regarding "I don't see any reason to limit the inquiry to natural disasters", disaster diplomacy never has been limited to natural disasters.  See, as two examples amongst the many case studies, the 2004 North Korea train explosion http://www.disasterdiplomacy.org/northkorea.html#train and the 1977 plane crash for international body identification http://www.disasterdiplomacy.org/casestudies.html#cid  
>
> I would, though, caution that this differentiation between natural disasters and non-natural disasters is artificial and should be ended.  We should accept the more than thirty years of scientific work corroborated by extensive work in practice that shows clearly that the term "natural disaster" is a misnomer; that is natural disasters do not exist.  See http://www.ilankelman.org/miscellany/NaturalDisasters.rtf 
>
> For the further question "under what conditions can responses to disasters contribute positively to conflict transformation?", several disaster diplomacy papers address aspects of that for specific case studies and then extrapolate to more general rules.  See http://www.disasterdiplomacy.org/publications.html  In summary, irrespective of how disasters or disaster characteristics are classified, they almost universally agree that any form of disaster is unlikely to contribute positively to conflict transformation or to conflict change if the disaster is the only factor involved.  Different degrees of a variety of political and social factors influence a disaster's effect on politics much more than the disaster characteristics.  That is, disasters can affect and catalyse political change, but not create it.
>
> However, there are rich research areas yet to be explored and many case studies are tackled without much depth, so the current view should not be assumed to be the complete or definitive view.
>
> Thank you again for everyone's contributions and please keep the comments coming.
>
> Ilan
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