June 2, 2008
Gates Accuses Myanmar of ‘Criminal Neglect’
By ERIC SCHMITT
BANGKOK — In the strongest remarks yet by a high-ranking American official, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said on Sunday that Myanmar was guilty of “criminal neglect” for blocking large-scale international aid to cyclone victims, and that more Burmese civilians would perish unless the military regime reversed its policy.
But despite the rising anger and frustration with Myanmar’s military leaders, Mr. Gates said that defense ministers meeting in Singapore over the weekend had unanimously opposed any plan to violate Burmese sovereignty and forcibly provide relief supplies.
As a result, he said, it was probably a matter of days before the Pentagon withdrew four Navy ships carrying supplies that have been “steaming in circles” for days in the waters off Myanmar’s coast, waiting in vain for permission to ferry their cargo to areas hit by the storm.
“It’s becoming pretty clear that the regime there is not going to let us help,” Mr. Gates told reporters in Singapore before he headed to Bangkok on the third leg of a weeklong trip to Asia. “I’d say that unless the regime changes its approach, changes its policy, more people will die.”
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who joined Mr. Gates at the meeting with about a dozen reporters, said that the government of Myanmar had already given permission for 95 American C-130 cargo planes to land in Yangon, the country’s main city, but that much more could be brought in from the Navy vessels. The relief flights have ferried in more than 1.5 million pounds of supplies, mostly food, water, mosquito netting and plastic sheeting for shelters.
At least 135,000 people are dead or missing since a cyclone struck Myanmar on May 3, in the world’s biggest natural disaster since the Asian tsunami in 2004.
“Even though aid is beginning to flow,” Mr. Gates said, “so many parts of the Irrawaddy Delta are cut off from any kind of transportation that it’s really going to require helicopters to get assistance to them.”
The United States Navy vessels, led by the amphibious assault ship Essex, have on board a total of 22 helicopters, medical equipment, relief supplies, water purification systems and Navy and Marine Corps personnel — all offered to the government of Myanmar to assist cyclone victims.
When asked whether the Myanmar government’s actions were tantamount to genocide, Mr. Gates stopped short of that accusation. “This is more akin, in my view, to criminal neglect,” he said.
At the meeting of defense ministers, Myanmar’s military junta defended its response to the cyclone, saying that it had promptly provided relief to all storm victims and that it expected the country to quickly recover, The Associated Press reported.
“Due to the prompt work” of the military government, food, water and medicine were provided to all victims, said Maj. Gen. Aye Myint, the deputy defense minister, adding, “I believe the resettlement and rehabilitation process will be speedy.”
Mr. Gates, normally understated and unflappable under the most pointed questioning, flashed anger on Saturday at the regional security conference when asked about American efforts to deliver aid to the cyclone victims. He noted that the United States had tried at least 15 times in the past month to get Myanmar’s leaders to allow more international aid into the country to no avail, and he called the government “deaf and dumb” for obstructing relief efforts.
“We have really exercised our moral obligation above and beyond the call,” he told reporters on Sunday in Singapore.
Mr. Gates said that at a private luncheon on Saturday for defense officials from two dozen countries, mostly in Asia, minister after minister voiced unhappiness with Myanmar’s restrictions on aid, making it an uncomfortable meal for Myanmar’s deputy defense minister.
In contrast, Mr. Gates said that the chief delegate from China, Lt. Gen. Ma Xiaotian, had described the importance of international support in dealing with the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province of China that killed more than 68,000 people, and had expressed China’s appreciation for the international community’s response.
Mr. Gates said that the ministers drew the line at using force to distribute aid in Myanmar. “There is great sensitivity all over the world to violating a country’s sovereignty,” he said, “particularly in the absence of some kind of U.N. umbrella that would authorize it.”
When asked whether that reluctance might be a consequence of the United States’ decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Mr. Gates said there was no connection.
In a wide-ranging discussion with reporters in Singapore, Mr. Gates addressed several other issues, including responding to statements that General Ma of China made on Saturday objecting to the United States’ missile defense system, which the general called harmful to regional stability.
“It’s hard to see a limited capability such as we have and will have in the future undermining the offensive capability of either Russia or China,” Mr. Gates said. The United States would have a relatively small number of interceptors to use against a strike using scores, if not hundreds, of long-range missiles, he said.
Mr. Gates was also dismissive of General Ma’s assertion that China’s development of new, long-range missiles was for defensive purposes. “It’s hard to see an intercontinental ballistic missile as a defensive weapon,” he said.
In Bangkok, aides to Mr. Gates said that the secretary had made clear in a meeting on Sunday afternoon with the Thai prime minister and a dozen top Thai military officers that the Bush administration would frown on any attempt by the military to seize power in Thailand.
A week of antigovernment protests in Bangkok have stirred fears that the military might stage another coup, two years after a similar street campaign against the prime minister at the time, Thaksin Shinawatra, led to his removal. Thai military commanders have denied reports that the army was plotting another takeover.
“Our position is pretty consistent,” Mr. Gates said in Singapore. “We want to see democratically elected governments, and we will convey that.”
Most of the meeting between Mr. Gates and the current prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, focused on the stunted relief efforts in Myanmar, senior defense officials said. Mr. Samak voiced his own frustration with the Myanmar government, aides to Mr. Gates said, and he gave the secretary a detailed historical analysis of the junta.
Copyright 2008The New York Times Company