Working Paper
Waseda University Global COE Program
Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration(GIARI)

2009-E-4

Natural Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance in Asia:
The Case of Myanmar

Miki HONDAl, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor,
Global-COE, Waseda University
October 2009l

Miki HONDA is currently a visiting assistant professor of Global-COE, Waseda
University, and a lecturer for Kawamura Gakuen Women’s University. She earned a
Ph.D. in international relations from Waseda University in 2006 and is also a memberof the international advisory board of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Responsibility toProtect in Brisbane, Australia.

1 Introduction
In May 2008, the international community was frustrated with Myanmar’s1 resistanceto humanitarian access after the country was hit by the large-scale cyclone named‘Nargis.’ Western nations as well as neighboring countries tried to persuade the military
government to open up the country and to let in aid supplies and rescue personnel,
however, the junta refused to accept them. Myanmar criticized the humanitarian access,calling it ‘humanitarian intervention.’
This paper looks further into the Myanmar case, focusing on political negotiations
among the international community, regional community and Myanmar. The Myanmarcase is the first in which controversy over humanitarian access after a natural disasteroccurred, and it involves the principle of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (generally called
the ‘R2P’)2 vulnerable people from crimes against humanity. In this case, a number ofWestern nations asked for the invocation of the R2P principle proposing that the UN
Security Council should pass a resolution to authorize emergency relief delivery andimpose this on Myanmar if the junta was either unwilling or unable to cope, and where
significant loss of life had occurred. If a state fails to protect its people does it thenbecome the responsibility of the international community to protect that state’s
population? This paper makes a modest attempt to answer that question.

2 The Case of Myanmar: Cyclone Nargis
During May 2 and 3, 2008, the strong tropical cyclone Nargis directly hit Myanmar,
making landfall in the Ayeyarwady Division and affecting more than 50 townships.
Damage was most severe in the delta region, where the effects of extreme winds werecompounded by a 3.6 meter storm surge.
As of 24 June 2008, the official death toll stood at 84,537, with 53,836 still missing
and 19,359 injured. Some 2.4 million people were severely affected by the cyclone, outof an estimated 7.35 million in the affected townships, according to the United Nations
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).3 It was the worst natural
1

Various entities use or reject the name ‘Myanmar’ and some refer to ‘Burma.’ In thispaper, the author uses ‘Myanmar’ according to the United Nations usage. However, it
does not mean that the author supports the military junta in the country.
2
Responsibility to Protect, generally called ‘R2P,’ was initiated by the Canadiangovernment and several other actors in 2000. It is concerned with protecting vulnerable
populations from four specific crimes: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing andcrimes against humanity. The principle was included in the 2005 General Assembly
resolution, and a year later it was unanimously reaffirmed by the Security Council
Resolution 1674. The details of the principle are mentioned later in this paper.
3‘Myanmar Cyclone Nargis OCHA Situation Report No. 51,’ by the Office for the1

disaster in the recorded history of Myanmar. Nargis moved across southern Myanmar
on the evening of May 2, leaving a trail of death and destruction before petering out thenext day. It devastated much of the fertile Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon, the nation’s
main city.
According to two disaster research institutions4, there are five main causes for why
this was Myanmar’s worst disaster.5 Firstly, the pathway of Nargis was unusual in thefollowing two points; its movement and power. Most cyclones which spawn in the Bayof Bengal move to the north, however, Nargis went to the east, according to the Center
for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University (CSEAS).6 There have been only six
similar cases in the last 58 years, the center says. A further point is that Nargis gained
power 24 hours before it landed in Myanmar. At one point, Nargis was a Category 4
cyclone, with sustained winds of 210 kilometers per hour (130 miles per hour).7 The
typhoon lost strength before coming ashore on May 2 as a Category 3/4 storm, but it
still carried very powerful winds and heavy rain when it struck the low-lying coastal
plains, causing severe damage.
Secondly, mangrove forests which usually protect residential areas in the delta areafrom the high waves of the Indian Ocean were devastated by the cyclone andthemselves caused damage in the area. Thirdly, the country is far behind in disasterprevention infrastructure and shelters, banks and alert systems are underdeveloped.
Fourthly, simple frame houses were easily destroyed by the three-meter high or more
tidal waves. Fifthly, rescue activities were delayed due to political reasons as the juntain Myanmar refused humanitarian access to Western nations.
Three days after Nargis passed, on May 6, the Myanmar representation in New York
formally asked the United Nations for help. As of May 7, the government of Myanmar
had not officially endorsed international assistance, but stated that they were, ‘willing toaccept international assistance, preferably bilateral, government to government.’8
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), United Nations, 24 October 2008.
InterRisk Research Institute & Consulting, Inc. (IRRIC); Center for Southeast
Asian Studies Kyoto University (CSEAS)
5InterRisk Research Institute & Consulting , Inc. (IRRIC) at
http://www.irric.co.jp/opinion/more/048/index.html (accessed June 4, 2009)6
http://www.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/cyclone/1-Meteo_Geomor_Map_JP.htm (accessed on
Aug. 15, 2009)7
NASA Earth Observations at
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=19863 (accessed on Aug.
15, 2009)
8
CNN.com/asia at
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/06/myanmar.relief/index.html
42

Myanmar’s neighbor, Thailand, was the first country to send medical and foodsupplies (worth US $100,000) via the Thai Red Cross.9 Additionally, Chaiya Sasomsap,
the Minister of Public Health of Thailand, stated that the Government had already sent
medical supplies valued at more than one billion baht (US $31.3 million) to Myanmar.
Furthermore, the Government of Thailand dispatched, upon the permission of the junta,
20 medical teams and communicable disease suppression units. Samak Sundaravej said
that if Myanmar allowed Thailand to help, the Thai Air Force would provide C-130
aircraft to carry the rescue teams there, stating that, ‘This should not be precipitately
carried out; it has to have the permission of their government.’10 The rescue teams werepermitted to land in Yangon on May 7, carrying drinking water and construction
materials.
The junta also permitted Italian flights containing relief supplies from the United
Nations, and 25 tons of emergency equipment such as stretchers, generators, water
purifiers, and consumable goods.11 The flight arrived in Yangon and was the first aid
flight from a Western nation, preceded only by the aid from Thailand.
Many other nations, international institutions, NGOs and private companies fromaround the world immediately offered assistance to Myanmar. Many proposed to sendmoney and donations of food and medical and emergency supplies to Myanmar without
delay, however, most of their officials, supplies and stores were kept waiting in Thailand
or at Yangon airport. Political tensions raised the concern that some food and medical
supplies might become unusable, even before the junta officially accepted internationalrelief efforts.
The biggest challenge for those wishing to provide humanitarian assistance was toobtain a visa for entry into the country. The junta declined to issue visas for all
emergency personnel and instead only issued visas to a limited number of people. Some130 UNICEF staff, who were all working in the country before the cyclone, wereredeployed with government permission to help out in the recovery effort. But another
100 UN staff could not gain visa clearance to enter the country.12 According to WhiteHouse spokesman Dana Perino, the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) was ready to send a Disaster Aid Response Team into Myanmar,and two US Navy ships -- already nearby for a disaster relief exercise and loaded withwater and other key aid staples -- headed towards Myanmar, but a request for visas met(accessed Aug. 3, 2009)
Thai Rath Newspaper, 7 May 2008.
10
Thai Rath Newspaper, 7 May 2008.
11
Thai Rath Newspaper, 8 May 2008.
12
AFP, 6 May 2008.
93

with no response.13 With the death toll reaching 22,000 dead and 41,000 missing, many
aid agencies were still awaiting travel visas to enter the reclusive nation.14
The foreign media was also shut out from the country restricting the flow of
information about the disaster to the outside world. Journalists from Reporters Without
Borders and asylum journalists of the Burma Media Association were refused entry.
Some of them were even arrested and received unjustifiable sentences for giving
emergency supplies to the disaster victims.
Researchers from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the UnitedStates and the Emergency Assistance Team (Burma) jointly released a report titled‘After the Storm; Voices from the Delta,’ in which they claimed that the junta obstructed
relief to the victims of the cyclone.15 The junta arrested aid workers and journalists, andseverely restrained the release of accurate information even in the wake of the worst
natural disaster to befall modern Myanmar. The report charges that these abuses may
constitute crimes against humanity through the creation of conditions whereby the basic
survival needs of victims could not be adequately met, intentionally causing great
suffering, serious injury and damage to citizens’ mental and physical health.
Subsequent to the disaster there has been an international campaign to seek justiceand criminal accountability on behalf of the victims in Myanmar. The Swedish
government and the European Union called for the attention of the international
community to be focused on the crimes being committed by the junta against its own
people. In particular, since the emergence of the International Criminal Court, focusing
on those offenses which constitute international crimes such as crimes against humanity,
genocide and war crimes.
Four major factors can be considered as reasons why Myanmar refused international
aid. Firstly, the military government is deeply suspicious of the outside world,
especially as the international community has frequently strongly criticized Myanmar
for human rights abuses. The junta nullified the results of the 1990 election that the
National League for Democracy won decisively and refused to hand power over to the
NLD leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Since then, Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 14of the past 20 years -- allegedly for presenting a threat to national security. Many otherhuman rights violations including state-sanctioned torture, rape and children’s and

13

AFP, 6 May 2008.
AFP, 6 May 200815
After the Storm; Voices from the Delta, by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health, 27 February 2009.
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minorities’ rights abuses have been reported to the UN.16 On the occasion of Cyclone
Nargis, many nations required the junta to deliver the aid via UN- or charity-affiliatedagencies. The junta is dissatisfied with such a ‘Western’ way.
Secondly, it seems that for the junta, humanitarian access from the West is seen as athreat to its sovereignty. The junta always asked Western nations to bring emergency aid
by aircraft and not directly across the land border about which it is very sensitive evenduring an emergency.
Thirdly, the Myanmar military pretended to its people that it was in control of thedisaster. Using the state-run media, the junta appealed to the international communitythat it was doing well.17 The Myanmar government-run newspaper, New Light ofMyanmar, reported that emergency aid had been brought into the country by air andthat rescue teams delivered it to the 2.4 million disaster victims without delay.18
Fourthly, and this might be the most important reason, in the midst of the cyclone’s
devastation, the junta went ahead and held a referendum on a new constitution on May
24. Myanmar TV broadcast messages urging people to vote ‘yes’ in a referendum thatcritics said would strengthen military rule.19 A marketing campaign showed pictures ofpeople voting as a song played with the lyrics, ‘Let’s go to cast a vote with sincere
thoughts for happy days.’ Similar notes were posted on ballot boxes. The New YorkTimes said it appeared that some resources for cyclone victims were diverted to the votecampaign. In some cases, according to the Associated Press, generals’ names werescribbled onto boxes of foreign aid before being distributed.
On May 24, Myanmar’s ruling generals announced that a new constitution, viewed by
critics as a pro-junta sham, had been overwhelmingly approved by voters. The
referendum was approved by more than 92% of voters, the state-run media reported.20

3 Political Negotiations on Humanitarian Access
The refusal of humanitarian access by the junta greatly irritated world leaders. The
United States and Australia led international calls for the junta to ease entry restrictions
and to allow disaster relief to reach the cyclone-hit areas. New Zealand Prime Minister
Helen Clarke said her country’s help would not be distributed through the military16

Human Rights Watch, Freedom, and other international NGOs have addressed thehuman rights situation in Myanmar. The UN has sent a human rights envoy several
times to the country to investigate alleged abuses.
17
AFP, 3 June 2008
18
Myanmar.com at http://www.myanmar.com (accessed Aug. 3, 2009)
19
CNN, 10 May 2008
20
AFP, 2 June 2008.
5

regime in Myanmar but via the UN.21 Japan, UK, and UN-affiliated organizations also
asked for the junta to send the aid via the UN or charity organizations. However, thejunta did not change its attitude and a natural disaster was turning itself into a‘man-made calamity.’
Various international leaders expressed outrage at the delays in allowing aid into
Myanmar. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commented, ‘I want to register my deep
concern and immense frustration at the unacceptably slow response to this grave
humanitarian crisis.’ Ban also warned of the threat of infectious disease taking hold.22
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates commented that Myanmar was guilty of ‘criminal
neglect’ for blocking large-scale aid to victims, and that more Myanmar people would
perish unless the military regime reversed its policy.23
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that this was a proper case forcoercive intervention under the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) principle which had
been unanimously endorsed by 150 heads of state and government at the 2005 UN
World Summit.24 The French minister was angered by the response of the junta to anoffer of French aid. One French naval ship loaded with 1,500 tons of medical equipment,
food and water was waiting off the coast of India for Myanmar government
authorization to enter territorial waters. But the junta leaders accused France of sending‘a warship.’25 Kouchner said, ‘We won’t give aid to the junta, even if they would accept
it. We will use our own channels in the country.’
Kouchner called Myanmar’s refusal of foreign aid ‘a crime against humanity.’ Hewanted to invoke the R2P saying that the world had to fulfill its responsibility to protect
the victims with or without the regime’s permission. The United States and Australia
also argued that the international community should live up to its responsibility toprotect and deliver aid without the regime’s consent.26 These kinds of statements byWestern leaders both hardened Myanmar’s attitude and aroused the antipathy of China
and Russia -- both Security Council members -- as well as Indonesia, Vietnam andSouth Africa.
China’s UN ambassador, Liu Zhenmin, argued that it was not an issue for the
Security Council. ‘The current issue of Myanmar was a natural disaster and the situation
21

AFP, 6 May 2008
UN News Centre, 12 May 2008, at http://www.un.org
23
The New York Times, 2 June 2008
24
The Guardian, 2 May 2008.
25
Los Angeles Times, 7 May 2008.
26
Cyclone Nargis and the Responsibility to Protect, Myanmar/Burma Briefing No. 2,
16 May 2008, by the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.
22

6

should not be politicized,’ Liu said.27 Experts warned that Southeast Asia nations andIndia, one of the few countries which maintained close relations with Myanmar, mightalso take exception to any intervention in Myanmar.
The stalemate was finally broken by ASEAN countries, mainly Thailand andSingapore. ASEAN and neighboring countries played an active role in changing themind of the junta to allow international aid after the initial refusal. ASEAN appealed tothe international community to send relief supplies through Thailand, and decided todevelop rescue activities and send medical personnel in cooperation with the UN. It set
up a task force for redistributing foreign aid via Thailand.
After encouragement from British and American envoys, Thai Prime Minister Samak
Sundaravej persuaded Myanmar’s government to accept Western aid. In this way,
thanks to the efforts of ASEAN and neighboring countries, Myanmar allowed aid
supplies from the west but foreign humanitarian relief personnel and journalists werestill not allowed visas.

4 R2P Discussions Emerged
The French Minister Kouchner’s invocation of the R2P generated concern from Britain
and some UN officials. They said that such an inflammatory approach to Myanmar
would be counterproductive in winning any still-possible cooperation from the junta.
And it also provoked arguments from some humanitarian relief groups that any rescue
efforts, such as dropping supplies from the air, without an effective support relief on the
ground would be hopelessly inefficient, and even dangerous with the prospect of themisuse of medical supplies. Besides, Kouchner’s proposal that the Security Council
pass a resolution to authorize aid delivery and impose this on Myanmar met with animmediate rejection from China and Russia, two countries that are always sensitive
about external intervention into internal affairs.
Kouchner’s invocation of the R2P was understandable as a political rallying cry forthe international community,28 however, it had the potential to negate international
support for the ending of mass atrocity crimes once and for all. The R2P was originallyinitiated by the Canadian government and several other actors in 2000. They establishedthe International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) to address
the challenge of the international community’s responsibility to act in the face of the27

China shows little desire to exert pressure on Burma, Times Online, 9 May 2008, at
http://.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3900686.ece .
28
Gareth Evans, Myanmar: ‘Facing Up to Our Responsibilities’, The Guardian, 12
May 2008.
7

gravest of human rights violations while respecting the sovereignty of states. It sought
to bridge these two concepts with the 2001 R2P report.
In the language of the 2005 UN General Assembly resolution, R2P is concerned withprotecting vulnerable populations from the four specific crimes of ‘genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.’ A year later, in 2006, the R2P
was unanimously reaffirmed by the Security Council in Resolution 1674, which statedthe community’s determination to protect civilians. The Resolution states that it is onlyin that context that the question should even arise of coercively intervening in a country
against the express will of its government, and even then the responsibility to protect
only allows the use of military force with Security Council endorsement. This is as alast resort after prevention has failed, and when it is clear that no less extreme form ofreaction could possibly halt or avert the harm in question. The response should be
proportional to any possible harm and on balance more good than damage will be doneby the intervention.
The Canadian commission, ICISS, included environmental or natural disasters as
possible events after which the international community could intervene if a state failed
in its responsibility to protect its population. But in 2005, when the R2P doctrine wasincorporated into the 2005 UN General Assembly resolution, environmental disasters
were dropped as a reason for intervention. The document just said that it was every
state’s responsibility to protect its citizens from the previously mentioned four crimes of
genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. If a state fails to doso, the document says, it then becomes the responsibility of the international community
to protect that state’s population. The document was unanimously adopted by all
member states but is not legally binding.
Although environmental disasters had been dropped as a reason for intervention, if
what the Myanmar junta did, in denying relief to hundreds of thousands of people atrisk of death, can be characterized as a crime against humanity, then the R2P principle
does indeed come into force. The ICISS reports that initiated the R2P concept in fact
anticipated this situation, in identifying one possible case for the application of militaryforce as an overwhelming natural or environmental catastrophe, where the state
concerned is either unwilling or unable to cope or call for assistance, and significant
loss of life is occurring or threatened.

5 Conclusions
In the Myanmar case, the junta refused humanitarian access from the international
community, criticizing international aid as humanitarian intervention. When we move to8the issue of whether the international community has a right or a duty to offer
humanitarian assistance, the question is always related to the issue of humanitarianaccess and the highly politicized issue of humanitarian action today.
Some Asian countries are willing to allow access during natural disasters. For
example, in 2004 the Indian Ocean tsunami hit Indonesia’s Aceh Province, where thegovernment had been fighting a secessionist movement for more than four decades,
Indonesia both allowed international aid in and drew up a peace agreement which led tothe election of a former secessionist leader as governor of the province. Similarly in
2005, after a powerful earthquake rocked the long-disputed Kashmir region dividing
India and Pakistan, the Pakistan government decided to allow access to internationalrelief agencies, and even to India. Most recently, on the occasion of the Sichuan
earthquake in May 2008, the Chinese government, which in the past has spurned foreignaid, did accept international relief. China also opened a hotline for the US military toincrease communication with its Chinese counterparts, and eased media restrictions.
China’s ‘extraordinary leadership’29 was highly appreciated by international leaders.
However, some nations, especially former colonies, have long seen intervention of any
kind as a threat to their sovereignty, and humanitarian access is no different to them.
Discussions over national sovereignty and international human rights, therefore, always
occur whenever a devastating disaster happens and the regime/government is unwillingto accept international aid. The International Law Commission’s report also references
the debate over R2P, noting the difficulties of applying this concept to disaster
response.30
The response of Myanmar to Cyclone Nargis led to passionate discussions about theright or duty of the international community to respond when a national government
was unwilling or incapable of providing humanitarian assistance to its people. This is acontentious issue raising the sometimes competing principles of national sovereignty
and international human rights. On an operational level, it is also contentious as there isoften local resentment when the international community arrives and makes local
authorities feel ignored or overwhelmed. Those problems seem quite technical and so it
might be useful to bring together a small group of experts from both the legal
community and humanitarian policy makers to tease out some areas of possible overlap

29

Comment by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, The New York Times, 25 May
2008.
30
International Law Commission, Preliminary Event of Disasters by Eduardo
Valencia-Ospina, Special Rapporteur, 5 May 2008, A/CN.4/598.
9

between the R2P and questions about the right to humanitarian assistance.31
In parallel with a theoretical debate on humanitarian access and the R2P, Asia also
needs to prepare for future disasters. Asian nations need to share disaster experiences
and know-how of disaster activities with their neighbors, and make the best of theinternational mechanisms of disaster relief. The international community already has
disaster aid professionals such as OCHA, and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee(IASC), a unique forum involving the key UN and non-UN humanitarian partners on
the strengthening of humanitarian assistance and the primary mechanism forinter-agency coordination of humanitarian assistance.32
Well-known as ‘a treasure of natural disasters,’ the Asian region is the mostdisaster-prone area by far compared to other regions. According to statistics from
CERD-EMDAT, in the period between 1975 and 2006, the number of natural disasters
in Asia accounted for 37.5% of the world total, with Asia accounting for 44.44% ofdamage and 88.87% of disaster victims.33 In addition to geological reasons such ascomplicated earthquake zones, Asia is vulnerable to natural disasters due to its densityof population, poor infrastructure, and the rapid development and destruction of nature.
All those factors are considered to amplify the damage caused by natural disasters.
In addition to developing partnerships with international organizations, Asian
countries need to strengthen cooperation with regional organizations such as ASEAN,
neighboring countries, local authorities, and NGOs such as Medecines sans Frontieres,
Save the Children, and World Vision.
As can be seen from the Myanmar case, ASEAN played an active role to persuade
the junta to allow relief goods into the country. The role of regional actors andneighbors becomes extremely critical. The cooperation and consent of local authorities
are also very important to grant visas for aid personnel, to access remote regions in acountry and to provide effective and timely delivery of assistance. In addition, it isindispensable in an emergency situation to allow access to the foreign media as they canplay such an important role in reporting a disaster situation to the rest of the world,which in turn will attract more attention and cooperation.
31

Elizabeth Ferris, Humanitarian Perspectives on ‘Protection of Persons in the Eventof Disasters,’ 21 April 2009 at
http://www.brookings.edu/speeches/2009/0421_natural_disasters_ferris.aspx (accessed
21 Aug. 2009)32
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (ISAC) was established in 1992 in responseto the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/182.
33
InterRisk Research Institute & Consulting, Inc. and CERD-EMDAT Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, in 2006.
10

Asian countries have different political systems, historical backgrounds, anddiversified cultures, traditions and religions. As their levels of development also differ it
seems hard to find a ‘unified view’ to a resolution. However, disaster-related activities
are one of the fields in which people can cooperate and work together. As in the case of
Myanmar, there are some nations who are unwilling or unable to protect their own
population. Some are skeptical of the rest of the world because of a lack of mutual trust,which is due to historical experiences or the political beliefs and systems of the nation
concerned. Asian countries need to encourage confidence in each other on a routine
basis.

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GIARI Working Paper Vol. 2009-E-4,
October 20 2009
Published by Waseda University Global COE Program
Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration (GIARI),
Waseda University, Nishiwaseda Bldg. 5F#507 1-21-1
Nishi-waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0051 Japan
E-mail: affairs@waseda-giari.jp
Webpage: http://www.waseda-giari.jp
Printed in Japan by TRY-EX Inc.

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