http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19400&Submit=Submit

Having failed to induce change in Burma by dangling the carrot of reduced sanctions, the US is now calling for a

Sept 2010 edition of The Irrawaddy

war crimes investigation of the country’s military rulers.

Diplomatic eyebrows were raised in March when UN Special Rapporteur Tomás Ojea Quintana issued a report recommending that the UN form an international Commission of Inquiry (CoI) to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma. But other than the UK, Australia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, no country rushed to support the proposal. The silence of the US was particularly deafening, but in August the Obama administration officially threw its support behind a CoI.

When the Quintana report was released in March, the US was enmeshed in an attempt to implement its new policy of “pragmatic engagement” with the Burmese military. Although sanctions remained in place under the new policy, the US held out the possibility they would be relaxed if the junta responded to calls to institute democratic and human rights reforms.

The regime, however, has arguably been even more obstinate since the engagement policy was introduced, and the announcement by the US that it supports the CoI may be the culmination of a recent series of setbacks for the Obama administration in which it was either rebuffed or ignored by Naypyidaw.

In March, the regime issued what has been almost universally described as unfair election laws and refused once again to release political prisoners, resulting in the US saying categorically that the election will not be free and fair. And in July, disclosures regarding Burma’s nascent nuclear program and military ties to North Korea in violation of UN Security Council resolutions resulted in direct US criticism and warnings.

US support for the CoI was welcomed by Burmese opposition leaders and exiles. Aung Din, the executive director of the US Campaign for Burma, called it “the right and timely action by the Obama administration” in response to the regime’s efforts to prolong its hold on power by holding a sham election.

But while the US support for a CoI may have provided momentum to the process, it remains to be seen whether and how the US will turn its backing of the investigation into action.

According to David Williams, a constitutional law expert at Indiana University in the US who has visited ethnic regions inside Burma: “The most effective route would be to get the UN Security Council (UNSC) to authorize a CoI, because ultimately Burma will not come before the International Criminal Court (ICC) without Security Council referral.”

The issue could be brought before the UNSC after the annual General Assembly vote on Burma later this year. However, China and probably Russia would oppose any such resolution.

China and Russia abstained in a UNSC vote on setting up a CoI for possible war crimes committed in Darfur by the Sudanese Army and its proxy militias. China followed a policy of “non-interference’” in Sudanese affairs, even as it supplied the regime with oil revenues and weapons enabling it to carry out violence against its own people in Darfur.

This does not mean, however, that hopes for a CoI on Burma are a lost cause. A CoI was eventually established for Sudan after months of high-level advocacy and a blizzard of media reporting on the fighting in Darfur.

According to Williams, a back-up plan would involve the UN secretary-general conducting the CoI on his own authority, “perhaps with a General Assembly resolution in support.” Another first step could be to introduce a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where Thailand currently holds the rotating Presidency.

Even if the UNSC could be sidestepped in initiating a CoI, prosecuting Burmese junta leaders for war crimes in the ICC would be even more difficult. First, the CoI has to establish that war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed. Second, Williams told The Irrawaddy that the only viable way for a case against the Burmese regime to go before the ICC is through the UNSC.

“The UN Security Council can refer a case to the prosecutor,” he said. “When a case begins this way, the Court has jurisdiction even over crimes occurring in states that are not parties to the Rome Statute, such as Burma. This path therefore seems the most promising. Darfur came before the ICC by this route.”

The groundwork for establishing a case against the Burmese generals has already been laid. The Quintana report said that the “gross and systematic” nature of the abuses and the lack of action to stop them indicated “a state policy that involves authorities in the executive, military and judiciary at all levels.”

It said; “According to consistent reports, the possibility exists that some of these human rights violations may entail categories of crimes against humanity or war crimes under the terms of the Statute of the International Criminal Court.”

Benedict Rogers, the author of a recently released biography of Burma’s ruler, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, said he believes that there is sufficient evidence for a case to be made.

“Over many years, the United Nations itself has documented evidence of the widespread and systematic use of rape, forced labor, the forcible conscription of child soldiers and other violations that count as war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he told The Irrawaddy.

Ethnic-based NGOs such as the Karen Human Rights Group, the Shan Women’s Action Network and the Free Burma Rangers have all issued reports outlining such crimes, which Janhabi Nandy, the manager of policy and advocacy at the Nobel Women’s Initiative, described as constituting a breach of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) principles agreed to by the UN in 2005, whereby states are expected to protect their own civilians.

Once again, however, a solid case against Burmese leaders will not be enough to get it to the ICC. In January 2007, a UNSC resolution was proposed based on the R2P principle calling for an end to the grave violations of human rights in Burma. However, China and Russia vetoed the resolution, claiming that the internal affairs of a state did not belong in the UNSC and that the situation did not constitute a threat to international peace and security.

So given the fact that establishing a CoI will be difficult in its own right, and bringing a case before the ICC is a long shot at best, observers are asking what this chess move by the US is intended to accomplish.

Although firm sanctions have always remained in place and never been lessened, the US has been criticized since the institution of its pragmatic engagement policy for failing to make clear the consequences the junta would suffer if it didn’t respond to US overtures. The US call for a CoI may therefore be the stick that many have been waiting for the US to wield.

Former National Security Council official Mike Green told The Irrawaddy, “Frankly, the administration sometimes appeared too eager at the start, and probably should have had more sticks to go with the carrots so that the junta understood the engagement was not unconditional.”

The CoI move might also be an attempt to increase pressure on the regime’s senior military officers ahead of the upcoming elections and foment divisions within their ranks.

John Dale, an analyst of Burmese politics who teaches at George Mason University in Washington, DC, said the move signalled a concession by the US “that [its] diplomatic efforts to influence the junta to hold free, fair and credible elections will not be enough to steer Burma toward democracy.”

The ultimate impact of the US announcement, however, will be determined by its follow-through. The US said it is currently consulting with international partners, and if the US can garner enough support to actually begin a CoI, then some of the generals may think twice about repeating their more egregious abuses in the future.

However, there seems to be little pressure coming from Burma’s neighbors in Southeast Asia, and if regional and international allies shy away and the now joint call by the UN and US turns out to be hollow, it may actually strengthen the regime’s apparent self-perception of being able to act internally with impunity.

http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/08/dispatch_from_sindh_children_at_risk_from_disease

http://www.rte.ie/news/worldreport/

In the ad-hoc child malnutrition facility at the Railway Hospital in Sukkur, mothers cradle and nurse their toddlers, all

Mother Zeina feeds Zamina. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

emaciated and weakened. A row of beds runs either side of the ward in the brown and gray-painted Raj-era hospital.

Three year-old Zamina was malnourished before the floods hit, but the flight from the family farm in Thulla to this heaving city in northern Sindh worsened the tiny girl’s condition considerably, says Dr Sakina Jafri, pausing to speak as she moved from bed to bed.

“With the threat of disease all around, young children are most prone,” she said. “And when they are so young and are malnourished, it only adds to that level of vulnerability.”

UNICEF Director Anthony Lake says that almost 9 million children are at risk of disease, an alarm call rung out in tandem with World Food Program head Josette Sheeran’s warning of a second wave of disaster looming even as flood waters slowly recede.

Authorities have also struggled to cope with a growing number of cases of severe diarrhea and malaria caused by dirty water that offers a perfect breeding ground for insects and disease. More than 500,000 cases of acute diarrhea and nearly 95,000 cases of suspected malaria have been treated since the floods first hit, the U.N.’s World Health Organization said last week.

The big fear is a cholera outbreak, given that little or no capacity is in place to deal with what could be a devastating epidemic. Cases have been reported in Sindh province on recent days, but the Pakistani Government has not yet officially announced anything. Cholera can kill within 48 hours if not treated, and is highly-contagious. Once identified it can be treated quickly, usually with basic rehydration solutions.

These children receive a few hours education in the morning at their camp, run by the Institute for Business Administration in Sukkur. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Over 6 million people have been displaced by the floods, with over 3.5 million of these in Sindh alone. 1.2 million homes have been damaged or destroyed – five times as many as the Haiti earthquake. While some of the homeless are in camps set up by the military and NGOs, the majority are pitching down wherever possible, constructing ad-hoc shelters and often sheltering under beds or blankets in the baking heat.

The Sindh Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said that there were almost 900,000 people in camps and spontaneous settlements in the province as of 28 August, figures that may not be inclusive of more recent displacement. In any case, sanitation facilities and clean water are absent from most camps, compounding an already parlous public health environment and laying the ground for the spread of disease. Even as the waters in Punjab and the north of Pakistan, towns and cities in Sindh remain at risk, with evacuation orders issued for 400,000 people in Mehar and surrounding areas.

Hunger is a problem now and emergency rations are needed for adults and children, as well as therapeutic feeding needed for severely affected young children such as Zamina.

It is a problem for the Government as well, with implications for the country’s economy. After briefing the country’s cabinet, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani last week worried aloud about food insecurity due to the damage to agriculture, and follow-on impact on social welfare.

“The floods have inflicted damage to the economy which may, by some estimates, reach $43 billion (£27.9 billion), while affecting 30 percent of all agricultural land,” he said. Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, with cotton the main cash crop. Textiles, which are cotton-dependent, are the country’s biggest export. The next wheat harvest is at risk after the floods destroyed more than 500,000 tons of seed stocks in Asia’s third-largest wheat producer.

Village under water in rural Sindh. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Hunger and malnutrition are major issues now, but food shortages will be a problem in the near future as well. With millions of acres of cultivable land under water, it is uncertain to what extent such terrain can be readied for the next planting season, which should start in October, or if people will be able to return home in time. With so many draught animals drowned in the river, it will be difficult for farmers to prepare the ground, which will be covered in heavy silt.

Zamina’s mother Zeina knows this, her head bowed and her words translated through Dr Sakina. She nurses her youngest, an eight-month old boy, while a nurse feeds Zamina.

Life will be immensely-difficult for her and millions more families in the same position from now on. “I have nine children”, she says. “My husband and the other children are in a camp. What will we do now? We just don’t know,” she laments.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19410

After three suicide attacks in Pakistan during the past week, doing flood relief means dealing with insecurity as well as the threat of disease

This woman pictured at a Saudi-run camp at Abad, Sindh province. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

ON THE ROAD IN SINDH PROVINCE, PAKISTAN – The bridge leads out of Sukkur to the town of Larkana, a two-hour drive to the north-west and closer to the restive province of Balochistan, home of a long-running separatist movement and, more recently, al-Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban.

The turmoil caused by the monsoon floods has brought trouble to towns and cities that have been relatively calm and secure. Coming downhill over the ramp of the bridge, a crowd of around three hundred mainly men and boys were blocking half the road, fists raised and pointing toward whatever traffic came their way. Too late to avoid the group, we swung off as some made less-than-hospitable gestures in our direction, taking the first right near the foot of the bridge. However that was not evasive action, it was the intended route, and the whole thing was over in a matter of seconds.

Later we heard that a group of around 2000 people had blocked the road. All were homeless after floods inundated their homes in southern Pakistan, and were voicing their anger at the slow relief effort. No violence was reported, but with word out about the group, traffic avoided the road until the evening.

This type of incident has been repeated across Pakistan since the floods first hit the country’s north almost 6 weeks ago. Anger at the country’s Government and with individual politicians is rife, in Pakistani media reports, and in interviews with people affected by the disaster.

The country’s military, however, has at least been seen to be working, with neatly-arranged camps run by the Pakistani airforce sitting either side of the bridge where the angry crowd gathered. The army has the logistical capacity and manpower to be effective, in a way that the civilian Government does not. It is another reminder of the power of the military in a country that has been ruled by the army for more than half of the time as an independent state, since 1947.

A Pew Research Center poll published before the floods showed eighty-four per cent of Pakistanis to be dissatisfied with the way things were going in their country, with inflation, terrorist bombings, and American drone strikes to blame. Three-quarters disapproved of the job being done by the country’s President, Asif Ali Zardari, who has since been shorn fof much his powers by constitutional amendment. The Pakistan Peoples Party-led coalition has been in power only two years, and despite the the much-criticised relief effort, seems safe from any coup for now. The Army may not want to be blamed for the hardships that now face the 20 million Pakistanis affected by the flood.

Some of the displaced are sleeping in the open. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Burma became independent less than six months after Pakistan, and has been ruled by army since 1962. However, despite the longevity of military rule and the resources available to the army, the Tatmadaw was accused of indifference to the suffering, death and destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis in 2008. By contrast, in Pakistan, over 60,000 soldiers are now working as temporary aidworkers with military helicopters ferrying supplies to millions of people who need shelter, water and food. Pakistani embassies around the world have been ordered to expedite visas for aidworkers, in marked contrast to the situation in Bangkok in May 2008, when aidworkers waited for week, without reply, after applying to enter Burma at the regime embassy in Thailand

Delivering aid in Pakistan is a risky business, much more so than in the Irrawaddy Delta. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had to halt two flood relief distributions so far, due to rioting by people who were to receive the aid. As well as saying it will carry out bomb attacks in the US and Europe, the Pakistani Taliban has threatened foreign aidworkers, who must plan their work accordingly – often limiting the time available to work in the field and meaning that certain areas can be declared off-limits.

A wave of sectarian terrorist attacks since last Wednesday has killed 109 people in various locations across the country, signalling that the Pakistan Taliban is trying to capitalise on the disarray caused by the floods. The most recent hit the town Lakki Marwant, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa yesterday, killing 19 people. However Islamists remain widely unpopular. In the last election, the religious party previously aligned with the Taliban polled two per cent.

The Pakistani military stands accused of playing a double game by the US, with the recent Wikileaks affair detailing that US officials believe elements in the country’s army and intelligence to be supporting militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, the Pakistani army has engaged in concerted military action against the Taliban and other militants, successes that could now be washed away by the floods. The US is continuing with drone strikes in these regions, such as North Waziristan, while the flood-affected regions are dotted with US Government-donated shelter material.

Militants such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for the 2008 Mumbai hotel attacks, are working on flood relief, usually in the guise of front charities, as LeT is, by letter of the law, outlawed in Pakistan. The spirit of the law is another thing, however, with New Delhi believing the group to be working closely with Pakistani intelligence.

However the Government in Islamabad has moved to close militant-linked relief efforts, hoping to stave off what some fear might result an upsurge in popularity for such groups. At the same time, accusations are being bandied around that politicians and officials are trying to guide relief to supporters and constituents.

Even as the floodwaters recede in the north, and in Punjab- the country’s breadbasket and and source for the bulk of the army’s elite – levees and dykes continue to be breached in Sindh, the southernmost province. This disaster is far from over. Cropland has been destroyed, the threat of disease, including cholera, is everywhere, food shortages loom, and over US$40billion damages have been inflicted on an already-brittle economy.

Floodwaters stretch to the horizon. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

http://the-diplomat.com/2010/09/02/after-the-flood-in-pakistan/

Garhi Khuda Baksh, Sindh Province, Pakistan – As the floodwaters slowly recede and the Indus River empties into the

Without shelter, some flood-displaced people just shelter under furniture. Garhi Khuda Baksh. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Arabian Sea, the full impact of what Pakistan’s Foreign Minister on Wednesday described as the worst disaster in the country’s history is becoming clearer.

A death toll of just over 1600 is set to rise, with the sad likelihood is that more dead bodies will be found as the waters drain. Rotting carcasses of hundreds of thousands of drowned livestock will add to the threat of disease, as the river drains into the sea and the dead animals are exposed to the blistering 40 degree heat

Over 3.5 million are thought to be homeless in Sindh, with six million displaced nationwide. The threat of epidemic is real, with people on the move in blistering heat amid vast, often stagnant, floodwaters. Aidworkers have reacted with alarm to reports of cholera in northern Sindh province. “If there is just one case of cholera, then that can lead to hundreds, if not thousands, given that this is an airborne disease and spreads quickly”, said Dr Wasi Aslam, based at the Railway Hospital in Sukkur.

Over four weeks after the disaster began, thousands of flood survivors and evacuees can be seen on roadsides, still without any tents or shelter. The United Nations says donors have paid around 63 percent of the US$459 million needed to fund flood relief over the next three months. However, to date, only a fraction of those who need aid have received it, and the evidence of this can be seen at roadside and in fields all over Sindh. While many are in camps, with tents provided by NGOs or by the Pakistani military, others have nothing. Anger is growing, with roadblocks and protests in Sukkur and other towns, expressing disgruntlement with the relief effort.

Outside Garhi Khuda Baksh, Sindh Province, men, women and children lie under upturned beds which have been propped up at an angle with sticks or broken-off tree branches. Those I spoke with understand clearly what the disaster that has befallen their country means. “We have been set back thirty years”, said Fatima, a mother of seven ,and one of twelve people seeking shade under a rough-and-ready shelter made from plastic sheeting and bamboo, loosely tied-down with rope and a peg on two corners, running diagonally from top-right to bottom-left.

At the floodwaters near Shadad Kot, aidworkers are delivering relief to isolated communities and evacuating people weeks after the disaster. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

“We had four hours notice to run when the warning was shouted from the mosque. We have had almost four weeks here in the sun since”, pointing around at the camp, sitting twenty meters from a contingency flood barrier set up to protect the massive mausoleum in the background, the final resting place of slain former Premier Benazir Bhutto.

Even as the floodwaters dropped in the north and centre of the country, more towns in the far south of the country were threatened, with the low-lying town of Sujawal submerged on Sunday. Rising waters, as the River Indus slowly empties into the Arabian Sea, were threatening the towns of Jati and Choohar Jamali, where official warnings were issued to residents to evacuate.

Emergency relief operations focus on evacuations, disease prevention, shelter provision and feeding the homeless. However for the immediate and longer term, the people, aid agencies and the Pakistan Government must think about how to rebuild the shattered regions affected by the flood. It will be a mammoth reconstruction task to rebuild and rehabilitate roads, power stations, schools and health facilities.

The damage wrought on the country’s agricultural economy means that people will needs food aid for months, in some cases well over a year, depending on when planting can be done in the flooded areas, once the water is gone. The immediate losses are immense, and will stretch an already indebted economy even more. Pakistan’s external debt is set to reach US$74 billion by 2014, with annual debt servicing three times the US$1billion spent on health care by the Government.

Shadad Kot, almost deserted after an evacuation order was issued. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

According to Pakistan’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the country has lost half a million tonnes of wheat, 1.6million tonnes of rice paddy, 7.6 million tonnes of sugarcane and 2-3 million bales of cotton. An estimated 23% of the year’s harvest was washed away, including a quarter of the cotton crop – which is a vital input into the country’s textile industry.

Three quarters of Pakistan’s total exports comprise textiles and agriculture, some of which will now have to imported to meet domestic demand, straining an already weak economy further and draining the public purse just when money is needed for flood rebuilding. The full economic costs and impact will be made in time by the Government of Pakistan, along with the UN and the World Bank. The reality is, however, that the country has been set back years by this disaster, which is far from over as disease and hunger threaten millions.

The Government’s much-criticised response to the disaster has led to a relative popularity boost for the army, which has the logistical and heavy-lift capacity to at least be seen to be operating. Simultaneously, jihadist groups are working on flood relief, and may capitalise on the perceived ineptitude in Government to boost their profile and popularity, not least in regions where they were driven out by the Army in recent years. However their implementation capacity seems to be limited – with a few dozen camps in place, compared with Government/military camps numbering almost 3000, according to officials.

IDPs draw water at the Bhutto mausoleum. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

One positive outcome from the disaster could be improved relations between India and Pakistan. This possibility comes after New Delhi upped its initial offer of US$5million in bilateral aid to US$25million – which Islamabad wants routed through UN agencies. The aid pledge is set against a background of the decades-old dispute over Kashmir and Indian anger over the 2008 Mumbai hotel attacks, which killed 166 people and were blamed on Lashkar-e-Taiba, an al-Qaeda linked group which is now working on flood relief in Pakistan. New Delhi’s offer was slow in coming, two weeks after the disaster started, and criticism of India has been matched by dismay at Pakistan’s slow and apparently grudging acceptance of the offer. The disaster and aid negotiations, might, it is hoped, at least reset India-Pakistan relations to their pre-November 2008 levels. The relief effort would benefit, too, if economic ties were improved sufficiently to allow aid to enter Pakistan from India, thereby overcoming some of the unwieldy logistical and procurement challenges faced by NGOs and international agencies.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LI01Df02.html

IDPs shelter in the shadow of the Bhutto mausoluem. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

LARKANA, Sindh province – It is 40 degrees Celsius in the mid-afternoon. Buffalo submerge themselves in floodwaters covering farmland to cool off. Only their heads are above water as they snort and shake to dismiss the morass of flies buzzing around.

For many among the estimated 6 million people now homeless by the floods in Pakistan, such comfort remains elusive. Many are still without basic shelter and rest under trees, under their carts, and beneath makeshift canopies fashioned from beds, blankets and whatever bits of timber or trees they can find.

On Sunday, teams of foreign and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attempted to reduce the vast deficit by supplying 500 families in Larkana with temporary shelters, along with basic survival kits such as jerrycans and buckets to fetch and store water, and kitchen sets to enable families to cook. A drop in the ocean in a many ways, but something nonetheless.

Larkana’s pre-flood population of around 345,000 has been swollen to over half a million, as the Indus River expanded to 40 times its usual size in places. The roaring, unstoppable river has spawned a tidal wave of people – on the roads, into towns and cities, all seeking refuge, shelter, food and dry land. A vast ebb and flow of water and people, and of tear  for the vast losses incurred.

“My farm is under water, and we will not be able to plant even if the water goes,” said Shabaz, one of the 500 heads-of-households in the line-up to receive the material.

With millions of people needing assistance amid pulverized or deluged infrastructure, a much-criticized government intervention, and a laggard response from the international community to a disaster that unfurled slowly over weeks, tensions are rising.

Some people displaced by the flood are sleeping rough, 4 weeks after the disaster. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Shelter material is proving difficult to procure – with a nationwide shortage of the wooden or bamboo poles needed to transform plastic sheeting into viable shelters or tents. The destruction wrought on roads and infrastructure means that, even if such material is sourced elsewhere, it is far from easy to get it from A to B.

For Sunday’s small outlay, it required careful planning and management to ensure that people understood that 500 families would be provided with the material. A police presence was necessary to pre-empt any surge in numbers from the many thousands awaiting their turn nearby, or any rowdiness at the drop-off point.

Fetching water outside the mausoleum. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Such concerns all add to the security challenge that must be dealt with, in a country where threats have been made against foreign aid workers by the Tehrik-e-Taliban (Pakistan Taliban). A rumor that three foreign aid workers had been killed in Swat in the northwest of the country in recent days, has not been confirmed, according to a security source working with NGOs who requested anonymity.

In the days since the rumor broke, Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, said, “The government has, of course, a whole security strategy for aid workers and no aid worker has been hurt in Pakistan in the last several years.”

Choices, conundrums and conspiracies are everywhere. Floodwaters diverted onto farmland to save cities become allegations of oligarchs and elites deliberately saving their farms and mills, while deluging impoverished smallholders.

At Sukkur, the main town in northern Sindh, the rising, roaring river was diverted to prevent inexorable pressure building up on a massive dam on the town’s outskirts, which if breached might have inundated the city. The choice faced by the authorities – to save the city or save the land – doesn’t wash with the thousands of farming families who travelled 20, 30 or even 50 miles (80 kilometers) on foot to Sukkur only to find that shelter and other relief were in short supply.

Still, respect for the old, feudal order persists. Hundreds of homeless people are camped at the Bhutto family mausoleum, outside the family’s home village at Garhi Khuda Baksh. The massive structure, with its Taj Mahal-esque domes, can be seen for miles around – a white opulence in aesthetic contrast with the green rice paddies all around, and in contrast with the misery and suffering of the displaced women and children sheltering from the heat inside the relative cool of the compound, 15 meters from the final resting place of Benazir and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former president.

Resting place of Benazir Bhutto, front. Behind lies her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

The late Mrs Bhutto – who served twice as premier – retains enormous respect in Sindh, unlike her husband, current President Asif Ali Zardari, who was criticized for visiting Europe as the flood crisis broke several weeks ago.

Prior to the disaster, his popularity rating was a meagre 20%. A perception that the government is corrupt and feckless, and that the country is beset by militants has likely hindered the amount of donations by Western countries. For a natural disaster that has displaced an estimated 20 million people and submerged one-fifth of the country, financial support has lagged far behind that offered to victims of the Haiti earthquake and other recent disasters, including the 2005 Pakistan earthquake.

Not everyone is happy with the assistance provided, this man in Sukkur included. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

United States Agency for International Development (USAID) shelter material – emblazoned with the motto “From the American people” – dots the outskirts of towns and cities, even as some foreign NGOs balk at distributing the kit. The ordinary Pakistanis awaiting aid are far less picky, despite findings from a recent Pew survey that shows six out 10 Pakistanis regard the US as an enemy. Nonetheless, US drone strikes in Taliban strongholds in Pakistan’s north have continued as flood relief is disbursed.

Washington has committed US$200 million for flood assistance, more than any international donor so far. American charity, however, is better-described as a private matter and historically these donations and philanthropy have far-outstripped official aid – undercutting the sneering from Europe about America’s alleged indifference to humanitarian issues. However, for this flood, American private contributions estimated at $11 million have lagged behind those for other disasters. The Haiti earthquake prompted $560 million in American donations.

The relatively low death toll in comparison with other recent disasters – fewer than 2,000 people so far – and the slow unfurling of the disaster as the floods spread over weeks, are likely to have contributed to the relatively slow response.

The Pakistani Taliban has offered 2 million rupees (US$23,360) in aid for victims of the devastating floods, saying that donor governments were slow to cough up, as they did not trust the Pakistani government. The Taliban earlier urged the government to reject aid from Western countries.

China is making its presence felt, already rebuilding roads in northern Pakistan that lead into western China’s Xinjiang province. A commentary on state-run Xinhua’s website waxed lyrical, even as Beijing’s contribution was a fraction of Washington’s.

“At a time when flood-hit Pakistanis desperately need a helping hand, China spares no efforts in providing them with timely assistance, sending rescue teams to the country’s worst-hit regions, not to mention the at least 120 million yuan [US$17.7 million] worth of humanitarian supplies it has already offered.”

However, oil-rich Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia have been criticized for tight-fistedness, with Riyadh upping its initial $20 million pledge to $80 million, while official pledges and donations from other Gulf states have been paltry – though the OIC says that member-states have pledges totalling almost US$1billion in aid, either in cash or in kind, ready to go. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani accompanied Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal to a relief camp at Muzaffargarh, and took an aerial view of the flood-hit areas on Sunday.

Half-hearted competition for hearts and minds is ongoing, with the government and militant-linked charities trying to outdo one another in providing aid to the stricken millions. Meanwhile, Christians and other religious minorities affected by the disaster complain they are being discriminated against in the relief effort.

One Sindhi aid worker, who asked not to be identified, said of the flood and the relief effort – “What is happening will add to Pakistan’s problem of governance. We have no leadership, and the ordinary people – they do not know or care about whether it is democracy or a military government. But they will see that vast numbers of their kind were neglected.”

* article closely-matches reports done for CBC Canada on August 30/31

http://www.tribune.ie/news/international/article/2010/aug/29/building-dykes-of-courage/

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-220700-impressions-hands-on-at-the-dykes-of-courage.html

http://www.herald.ie/world-news/huge-challenge-faced-by-the-resolute-victims-2315605.html

Women and children camped out at the roadside after their homes were destroyed. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

On the road in northern Sindh, Pakistan – Dirty, tired and bedraggled, Imran beckons us over to the womenwho fled their village. They came thirty miles on foot only to spend almost three weeks here in the dead heat at this makeshift camp outside Sukkur in southern Pakistan.

“Take some photographs”, he implores. “You sure this is OK?”, I reply, our conversation translated from Sindhi to English and back again by Nizam Ud Din Bharchood, a long time charity worker for Hands, a NGO based in southern Pakistan. “Go ahead, he insists!”, assured Nizam.

Under normal circumstances, foreigners cannot take photos of women or girls in Pakistan, but Imran waives this, showing a canny insight into how best to raise awareness about his people’s plight. The ladies, adorned in their assorted pinks, greens and orange veils, clasp their children close and sit atop a rusted old bed, one of the few possessions they managed to carry from one of their houses.

Photo taken, Imran tells me more about their plight. “We are here twenty days now, without any shelter and only a little food”. That is some ordeal, for women and small children. One woman pipes up, unsolicited. “Some people dropped off food here and we give thanks for that”, she said. “But it was done in a disrespectful way – they just threw it off the back of a truck, like they were feeding animals”.

Nizam says that so many people need help, it is impossible to meet needs even now, four weeks since the Indus first spilled over the levees and onto people’s land, over people’s homes and into people’s lives. “Many are angry and upset, that is why that lady is so unusually outspoken”, he opined.

With well-established local links and networks in the vast, agriculture-dominated rural Sindh province – where the now-flooded Indus empties into the sea – Hands is well-placed not only to deliver aid, but also to help well-funded foreign humanitarian organisations gain access to where needs are greatest, quickly and effectively.

Young lady prepares to cook for her family, now camped out at a school, Shikarpur, Pakistan. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

A clinic has been set up nearby, in Adhitakri, a rock-strewn wasteland 10 miles outside Sukkur. With cases of water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid on the rise, and people reporting skin infections and diarrhea, a lack of healthcare threatens to undermine aid efforts in areas like food and shelter provision. The floods have destroyed 400 clinics or hospitals country-wide, so it is time for aidworkers to get hands-on.

However with or without aid, people here are resolute, and are helping themselves as best they can. All along the roads through the province,

This young flood refugee is happy to get some basic shelter tarpaulins. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

thousands are on the move with their few possessions, many stop with their families wherever they can find a dry patch of ground or shelter. Others are better-off, resting in camps run by the Pakistani authorities or by the UN and NGOs, many of whom are funded by USAID in a land where America is sometimes viewed with suspicion, sometimes with grudging admiration and sometimes with outright hatred. Just ask USAID chief Raj Shah, who says he was threatened by militants at a camp for displaced people just down the road from here, in Sukkur in Sindh Province, on Wednesday last week.

Later on, at Shahdad Kot, about a two hour drive away, I meet volunteers from the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), who say their organisation has conducted thousands of rescue operations across the ever-widening flood waters.

“Today we took 89 families from the villages and farms”, said Jawad, a volunteer with PFF, as he points across the rice paddies to a spot on the horizon. Only now the cropland around the villages and farms is six feet under water, and we are standing on a hastily-piled dyke made of rock, sand and topsoil.

At our feet the water cascades over the hard-shoulder of what was a road running through the farmland, along which the farmers would ordinarily drive their gaudily-decorated tractors and dirt-encrusted carts, towed by donkey or camel. Now their only way out is by boat.

However, the water in the southern reaches of Sindh province – the deep south of Pakistan where the almost-2000 mile Indus empties into the Arabian Sea – is continuing to rise. An One million more people have to vacate areas under new threat, just west of Karachi, as the flooded river, seemingly-immovable, meets the irresistible sea. With high tide, there is nowhere for the water to go, but sideways, over the dykes and levees, before covering more homes and land. This means an estimated total of six million people are now homeless due to the flood.

Trailer loads of rocks lined-up to reinforce flood dykes, Shikarpur, Pakistan. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

For aid workers, it is a massive challenge, riven with dilemmas. Given that so much infrastructure has been, well, washed away, it is  difficult to know how to get shelter to people and/or how to get people to shelter? How to stop the spread of cholera, typhoid, malaria – while planning how to get 4 million homeless people back to their homes and land once the waters recede. It all brings to mind Martin Luther King’s line that “we must build dykes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”

Mosque and cemetery flooded near Shahdad Kot, Sindh Province, Pakistan. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

]]> http://www.simonroughneen.com/aid-and-poverty/hands-on-at-the-dykes-of-courage-the-sunday-tribune/feed/ 0 http://www.simonroughneen.com/aid-and-poverty/pakistan-floods-awaiting-succour-in-sukkur/ http://www.simonroughneen.com/aid-and-poverty/pakistan-floods-awaiting-succour-in-sukkur/#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:59:11 +0000 simon r http://www.simonroughneen.com/?p=3144

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/08/26/pakistan-dolphins-play-as-floods-bring-intense-suffering/

Watching the waters rise again. Shahdadkot, Sindh province. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

SUKKUR, Pakistan. On the road in from the airport, the water shimmered under the moonlight as men, women and children sat in the dark, near the would-be lakeshore. During the day, river dolphins can usually be spotted in the nearby river. It sounds idyllic, you might think, but not so. This dusty and ramshackle town is at the front-line of one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters in living memory. Usually there is no water lapping up at the roadside, and the only people there would be those out for an evening snack after the daytime Ramadan fast. But since torrential monsoon rain sent the Indus River spilling onto towns and farmland the length of Pakistan, an area the size of England has been deluged.

In downtown Sukkur, I spoke to Ashraf, who said he had left his family at the outskirts, before coming into town to buy some food. “We managed to gather up some of our possessions before the waters came, but we did not have much warning. Our home is under water completely. I have enough money to feed my children for another couple of days, that is all.” Like a few more flood victims I encountered, he had to pay three times the normal price for a bus to the city, as opportunists capitalise on people’s desperation, to make a quick rupee.

Nature’s unwitting cruelty followed up, here and there, then, by man’s calculated greed. The last time a natural disaster hit this country, 80,000 people died in just thirteen seconds when an earthquake rocked Pakistani Kashmir. This time, the death-toll is much lower and the disaster is unfolding slowly over many weeks. However, the impact is vast – running the entire 1,976 mile length of the Indus River from the mountainous north of Pakistan, where that 2005 quake hit, to these flood-prone plains in the south.

Everywhere cases of diarrhea, cholera, skin diseases, as well as malaria and dengue, are growing. Almost 5 million people now have no access to clean water, an irony akin to Coleridge’s line about “water water everywhere and not a drop to drink.”

These children were displaced by the flood and have now spent 2 weeks sleeping outdoors on the outskirts of Sukkur, Sindh Province (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Millions of acres of land remains under water, and, out of the mind-boggling 17 million thought to be affected by the floods, around 800,000 people remain beyond the reach of aidworkers or the Pakistani army. Many are cut off by the rising waters that dissolved bridges and submerged roads. This disaster seems as vast as the swollen country-long lake that the Indus River has become. That said, the real human suffering and loss can be obscured by or sanitised into mere statistics – with people’s lives traduced by the actuary-level numbers required to account for such vast destruction.

The name Sukkur is derived from the Arabic word for intense, according to some historical accounts that date the place-name to Umayyad conquerors who marched east to this region over a millennium ago. For aidworkers trying to help the displaced who are now – for want of a better word – flooding the town, the epithet seems apt. Brian Casey worked at the forefront of relief operations in Haiti after the recent earthquake and in Burma after the 2008 Cyclone Nargis – with Irish NGO GOAL. He says that the extent of the slowly-unfurling crisis in Pakistan comes close to these massive disasters – “people are hungry, people are getting sick, and we don’t know yet how much worse things will get as the water rises in places. And at the same time we have to think about how to help people rebuild homes and farms once the waters recede.”

Outside the city, Nizam Ud Din Bharchood of Pakistani charity Hands takes me to a string of ad-hoc campsites along the

Some managed to gather their possessions before the advancing waters submerged their homes (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

highway. At one, around thirty women and children sat under trees in the dust-infused forty-degree heat. “Some of these people are here almost three weeks, without shelter, without regular food or water”, he says. “The men have gone into the city to see if they can get work somehow.”

Hands has been helping out with food and medicine since the start of the flood, and is partnering with GOAL to reach more people. Back to numbers again, and these are rising in tandem with the still-swelling waters, in an odd sort of danse macabre. 4 million Pakistanis are now homeless, and another 600,000 are threatened down-river in this southern region, meaning they might have to flee as well with two more weeks of monsoon rains possible.

When the water surged, Mohammed Ramza had less than a day to pack up with his family, and move, along with all his neighbours, to the roadside outside Sukkur. “Our homes were destroyed, we managed only to save a few animals”, he said, pointing to a half-dozen goats sitting in the shade, their ears tugged-at by a trio of giggling children, none of whom are more than five years old. Ignoring maternal admonitions to leave the animals alone, they compete to play up for the foreigner’s camera, some temporary respite from their still-unfinished ordeal.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19305

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=23017

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/southasiamasala/2010/08/27/pakistan-floods-%e2%80%93-awaiting-succour-in-sukkur/

Some of those lucky enough to have received shelter await sunset and the end of the daily Ramadan fast. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Under 40 degree heat, people displaced by the flood have little protection so some do what they can. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

The overflowing Indus has left an area the size of England under floodwater. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19279

Burma Foreign Minister Nyan Win concluded a three-day goodwill visit to Timor Leste on Sunday, after being met by protestors at Dili’s international airport on Friday.

According to a Timorese journalist who requested that his name not be used, a small group of mainly university students clashed with police at Presidente Nicolau Lobato Airport.

Juvinal Diaz, who attended the demonstration, said that although the rally was peaceful, police seized banners and placards protesting the visit. According to eyewitnesses, Nyan Win was unable to leave the airport for more than an hour while the demonstration took place.

The visit comes as Timor Leste, the official name for the country also known as East Timor, continues its quest for membership in the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). Dili needs agreement from all current Asean member-states before it can join.

Speaking on Friday, Timor Leste President Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta said, “We want to increase our relations,” adding that “this is in accordance with Timor-Leste policy, which aims to improve relations with neighboring countries.”

Timorese Foreign Minister Zacarias da Costa will visit Burma soon, according to Ramos-Horta, to foster commercial ties between the two countries.

Oil and gas aside, Timor-Leste is highly import-dependent, with a mainly subsistence economy. Timor’s energy revenues are paid into a national petroleum fund, aimed at ensuring responsible and sustainable spending and retaining sufficient cash after offshore oil and gas reserves are depleted. While the current government has been criticized for over-spending from the reserves, the system is in marked contrast to the opaque natural resource economics in Burma, which exports most its oil and gas.

As seen by the airport demonstration, not everybody is happy with Dili’s attempts to form a closer relationship with the military government in Naypyidaw.

Zoya Phan,the international coordinator at Burma Campaign UK, told The Irrawaddy that she believes Nyan Win’s visit to Burma is part of the junta’s campaign to gain recognition for the upcoming Nov. 7 elections, which have been dismissed for their restrictive campaign measures.

She said, “East Timor should reject this fake election and pressure him [Nyan Win] to enter into genuine negotiations with democracy forces and ethnic groups.”

Timor-Leste is a former Portuguese colony which was invaded by Indonesia shortly after the fall of the military dictatorship in Lisbon in 1974, which brought about Portugal’s rapid withdrawal from its colonies. An estimated 200,000 Timorese, out of a population of around 700,000, died during the occupation, which lasted until 1999. The country’s post-independence Constitution says that Timor-Leste should show solidarity with other oppressed people’s around the world.

In the past, Ramos-Horta has vociferously condemned the policies of the Burmese junta. Ramos-Horta shared the Nobel Peace prize with Bishop Carlos Belo in 1996, five years after Burma’s jailed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi won the same award.

During Nyan Win’s weekend visit, Ramos-Horta said that a national dialogue toward reconciliation in Burma should be implemented, and that Aung San Suu Kyi should be freed to participate. The statements echo remarks he made in February, when welcoming the new Burmese ambassador.

Asked whether Dili is softening its stance on Burma, Ramos-Horta’s spokesman said that this was not the case, stating that “Timor-Leste keeps supporting the sanctions against Myanmar at the United Nations.”

Asean membership would require Timor-Leste to accede to various economic and free trade agreements, though not necessarily immediately. However, some membership provisions could adversely affect Dili’s scope to develop its non-oil economy, according to Shona Hawkes of La’o Hamutuk of the Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis.

Nyan Win’s Dili trip came directly after an official visit by Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo, who encouraged Singaporean businessmen to visit Timor-Leste. He was reported in Singaporean media as saying, “We want Timor Leste to do well, to show that other small countries facing difficult circumstances can also succeed.”

However, Yeo reportedly poured cold water on Dili’s Asean membership bid, which may mean ambitions to join the bloc by 2012 will not be realized. Shona Hawkes told The Irrawaddy that although Timor-Leste has made a start on its Asean membership, apparently some member-states have concerns that Dili lacks the resources to attend and contribute to the bloc’s 800-plus meetings per year. President Ramos-Horta’s spokesman confirmed in an email that Timor-Leste has postponed its prospective accession to Asean, “due to delays in the process at the national level”, and the need for further training for Government staff.

Nonetheless, Dili will host Asean Regional Forum gatherings in November and December, with Thailand supporting the staging of the 5th ARF Experts and Eminent Persons Meeting.

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=120399

When the US lined up as the fifth country to back a Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma earlier this week, it did more than just back the surprise March recommendation – By Simon Roughneen for ISN Security Watch

The move marks an about-turn on Washington’s Burma policy, which had, for a few months at least, been predicated on the hope that the junta would defy precedent and respond to foreign inducements.

The first move came from Burma in February 2009, according to US officials. Afterwards, months were spent in Washington devising a new policy on Burma, which when announced, did not change that much in practice, as it retained sanctions. However, the US suggested that these measures could be relaxed, pending reforms in Burma.

To this end, Barack Obama became the first US president to meet with a representative of the Burmese government when he sat four seats away from the junta prime minister in Singapore in November 2009 at the inaugural US-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

However, the overtures were rebuffed or ignored, leaving the Americans looking somewhat naive as they were strung along by Burma’s military dictator, Senior-General Than Shwe. In what might have been a final straw for the US, the junta last week announced a 7 November date for the country’s first election in 20 years, but it has ignored appeals to release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 2,100 other political prisoners. The electoral laws were criticized for their restrictive nature, prompting Suu Kyi to boycott the polls.

The junta front party known as the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) benefits from state resources, and is thought likely to win easily – similar to the last elections in 1990 when the military party was deemed a shoe-in, only to be resoundingly beaten by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, a result which the junta promptly ignored.

This time around it is thought that the military leaders will not take their eye off the ball. The 7 November date comes a week before Suu Kyi’s house arrest is up, meaning that she will be locked up at home when the election takes place.

Burmese exiles and opposition groups let it be known that they were skeptical about the US overtures to the junta, which other ASEAN member-states spun as vindication of their own long-standing but fruitless ‘engagement’ with the Burmese rulers, which garnered plenty of lucrative natural resource contracts but little in the way of democratic reform.

The reality is that the US was and is seeking to curb China’s growing influence around Southeast Asia, and that Burma is a minor part of this bigger issue.

Despite Burma being a source for hundreds of thousands of refugees and millions of migrant workers – many illegal – fleeing economic stagnation and repression at home, neighboring countries appear to be happy with the status quo. Allegations that the Burmese junta is working with North Korea on a nuclear weapons program and is in breach of UN Security Council resolutions against Pyongyang doubtless contributed to the US decision to back the inquiry.

However, despite the security implications for neighbors such as Thailand, there seems to be little apparent concern in or pressure coming from Southeast Asian capitals, aside from occasional exasperated-sounding remarks from the foreign ministries in Jakarta and Manila.

If the war crimes probe goes ahead, it will likely come after a UN General Assembly resolution later this year. The matter can then be referred to the UN Security Council, where as things stand, China and Russia would likely oppose the motion. But if the US is seriously backing the commission, then the first stop is possibly for a resolution to be introduced at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where Thailand currently holds the rotating presidency, in September when that body next convenes.

The US is likely now to seek broader support for the commission, so far backed by Australia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the UK. The first port of call is likely to be Ottawa, followed by various EU capitals, to seek a common EU position on the commission of inquiry. The latter may prove difficult, as European countries differ on their position vis-a-vis the junta.

Less-tangibly, it is unclear how this latest US move fits in with recent assertiveness with junta ally China, with Washington forging new links with countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia to hedge against the surging economic power of Beijing. Earlier, at the start of his administration, President Obama pledged an open hand to ‘rogue’ states and erstwhile enemies. Whether or not the Burma about-turn presages similar moves elsewhere remains to be seen.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19262

BANGKOK – After months of diplomatic horse-trading and pressure, Thailand’s appeal court today ruled that Viktor Bout is to be extradited to the U.S. to face terrorism charges. He faces life in prison if convicted, with charges including conspiracy to kill US officers or employees and conspiracy to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile.

Bout maintains that allegations against him are politically-motivated and that he was running a legitimate air cargo business. Mr Bout was labelled a ‘Merchant of Death’ by British Government minister Peter Hain, back in 2000 after years of running his alleged arms trade business with warlords and governments in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

United Nations agencies and several Western governments have reported numerous times that Bout sent arms to dictators and warlords in Africa and Afghanistan, breaking several UN arms embargoes in the process.

In a scene akin to something out of a John le Carré novel, Bout was snared in a 2008 sting operation mounted by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) operatives posing as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) arms dealers, operating alongside the Thai authorities.

In 2009 a Thai court rejected a U.S. request for Bout’s extradition on the grounds that the FARC, a Colombian militia the U.S. has formally labeled a terrorist organization and whose dealings with Bout were the focus of a 2008 U.S. indictment against him, was not a terror group under Thai law.

As a sort of insurance against any ruling against the U.S. extradition request today, American authorities lodged two further charges of money laundering and electronic fraud against Mr Bout before today’s hearing – if their appeal had been rejected, he would have had to remain in jail pending another decision.

The court has recommended he be extradited within three months and now it is up to the Thai Government to decide whether they will follow through with the decision or ignore the advice of the court and release Bout.

For Thailand to do the latter would represent a massive diplomatic snub to the U.S., which has exerted significant pressure on Bangkok to have Bout either extradited. Russia has done the same, hoping to prevent the extradition and have Bout returned to Russia – where he reportedly enjoys close ties with the Kremlin.

Today’s judgment comes as the U.S. is adopting a more assertive stance in southeast Asia, cutting deals with countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia – ostensibly as a counter to China’s growing influence.

The Thai Ambassador in Washington, D.C. Was reportedly summoned to meet American officials earlier this week about the impending judgment, while Republican Ed Royce meanwhile penned a piece published in The Washington Post warning that the U.S.’s long-standing ties with Thailand could be damaged if Mr. Bout is freed, one of several American politicians to speak out on the Bout case in recent weeks. Then six members of Congress – three Democrats and three Republicans – sent a letter to the Thai Government on Wednesday saying that Bout’s release would enable him to resume selling arms to anti-American groups.

For its part, Moscow sold oil to Thailand at cut-price rate, and has discussed selling fighter jets to the Southeast Asian nation, which has become a popular destination for Russian tourists and the country’s post-Communist nouveau-riche.

Some have speculated that there may be a Burma connection to Bout’s arrest. According to analyst Zachary Abuja, writing at the time of Bout’s arrest, “my educated hunch is he was buying surplus Chinese weapons from the Burmese junta.” Bout is reported to have previously bought weaponry on the Thai-Cambodia border, and to have purchased end-user certificates in southeast Asia. The fake certificates allow arms buyers conceal their identity and facilitate purchase from dealers and weapons manufacturers by middle-men. The fact that the US DEA was involved in his arrest has fostered speculation that Bout was in the region for reasons related to the ‘Golden Triangle’ drugs trade, which also takes in Burma and some of the country’s ethnic militias who finance their operations through drug smuggling.

A former military translator, Bout was born in 1967, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, then part of the USSR. He began his arms trading after the collapse of the Soviet Union, buying Russian military aircraft at bargain prices and using his connections to kick-start what became one of the world’s most notorious black-market arms trading schemes

According to Bout’s own website, he is “a dynamic, charismatic, spontaneous, well-dressed, well-spoken, and highly energetic person who can easily communicate in several languages including Russian, Portuguese, English, French, Arabic, among several others. He is a born salesman with undying love for aviation and eternal drive to succeed.”

According to author Moses Naim, in his Illicit – How Smugglers, Drug Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy, Bout “augmented his arms brokerage with conflict diamonds, frozen fish, cut flowers”, filling the holds of his aircraft with these materials for sale back in Europe and elsewhere, after the weaponry had been delivered to a particular conflict zone.

Bout’s sheer chutzpah extended, apparently, to flying missions for the U.S. in Iraq and for UN. As outlined in the book Merchant of Death, by Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun. Bout was hired to fly in arms to a particular group, the authors note, and then was paid by the UN to deliver humanitarian aid to the same area. It is not clear whether the U.N or U.S. Officials in either case understood that Bout was the man behind the front logistics and air transport companies hired for the tasks.

Bout is alleged to have simultaneously armed the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, as both sides fought each other in the years prior to the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Bout is also reported to have armed Charles Taylor, the former warlord and President of Liberia, who in turn may have paid Bout in ‘conflict diamonds’ looted from nearby Sierra Leone. Taylor is now facing trial in The Hague for war crimes, with a high-profile witnesses including actress Mia Farrow and model Naomi Campbell testifying recently.

Bout’s trading empire drew both attention and grudging admiration, including in the 2005 film Lord of War,  starring Nicholas Cage – which is loosely-based on Bout’s career, but does scant justice to the complexity, range and audacity of Bout’s work. Ironically, Cage also featured in the movie Bangkok Dangerous, about a hitman hired by a Thai gangster. which, like Lord of War, was poorly-received by critics. If it was not already used, the title would appropriate for any Lord of War sequel. Bangkok has certainly proved dangerous for Victor Bout, in ways that Afghanistan, the DRC, Iraq, Liberia and Sudan never did.