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UN urged to bypass Burmese junta
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May 13, 4:19am
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•http://www.nationalpost.com/news/stor...
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When would it ever be better to intervene?
From the page:
"As the crisis in Burma grows, aid workers and politicians are calling on the United Nations to invoke a doctrine that would allow the delivery of aid without consent from the country's military regime.
If invoked by the UN Security Council, the principle of "responsibility to protect" would permit the international community to bypass the military junta and protect the hundreds of thousands of Burmese at risk of disease and starvation after Cyclone Nargis. An intervention could be as simple as air-dropping food or as confrontational as sending in troops.
Burma has allowed a few airplanes loaded with supplies to land in recent days, but is still refusing to admit hundreds of aid workers to deliver the goods, preferring to have the military distribute supplies.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, said Monday aid workers in Burma have been able to help only one-third of the people in need.
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Eight years ago, Lloyd Axworthy, then Canada's foreign affairs minister, established the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) to explore the concept of responsibility to protect (known as R2P), partly as a response to the international community's failure to act during the Rwandan genocide.
The doctrine holds that when a country is unable or unwilling to protect its people, the onus is on other countries to step in.
The United Nations adopted the principle in 2005 to protect vulnerable populations against "genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity" in such a situation. Experts say the clause could also legally be applied to a natural disaster such the one in Burma.
"You clearly have a government that is impeding -- thwarting, in effect -- any comprehensive effort to protect its people, to save its people," Mr. Axworthy, now president of the University of Winnipeg, said Monday."
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