The frantic hopes of more than two million Burmese survivors of Cyclone Nargis, many clinging on to life, are now critically dependent on the efforts of the Asean nations to achieve the desperately needed international aid breakthrough.
General Tan Shwe, the junta's top general, who has repeatedly blocked the proposed full-scale UN aid operation and denied easy access to the devastated Irrawaddy delta area, apparently promised the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon in a meeting on Friday that all foreign aid workers could after all be allowed in. The junta's number one had previously refused to even take telephone calls from the UN chief in New York.
However, the military regime has already made their preferences clear. They have permitted their Asean neighbours to lead the aid operation rather than make the UN the prime conduit for all aid arriving in Burma. (Burma is a member of Asean, which is composed of ten south-east Asian countries.)
The Burmese generals view the prospect of a massive influx of western aid workers and UN disaster experts as a Trojan horse intended to bring about regime change. Aid workers remain sceptical that General Tan Shwe's agreement will really allow them to operate in an unfettered way. They fear that whatever progress is made, the reluctant generals' agonising negotations and procrastinations will continue.
Despite many thousands of Burmese people in the devastated areas having been reduced to drinking water from puddles and eating the few remaining grains of rice, the Burmese prime minister, General Thein Sein, provided a surprising take on the crisis, telling the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, who is in Rangoon, that "the rescue and relief phase of the operation was ending, and the reconstruction and rehabilitation could start".
In the three tragic weeks that have elapsed since the disaster, more than 130,000 people have died. Hardly a peep was heard from Asean countries in the first week after Cyclone Nargis struck. In July 2005 Asean leaders signed an agreement on disaster management and emergency response to highlight the importance of regional cooperation in coping with natural disasters. Why no rapid disaster response? Most of the media have not picked up on the irony that Burma happens to be the current chair of the Asean committee on emergency response and natural disasters.
Asean, with its history of cosy diplomacy and non-interference in the affairs of members, provides the Burmese generals with a diplomatic comfort zone which they hope to manipulate to their advantage, maintaining total control over aid distribution and the burgeoning internal refugee population.
Judging by Asean's shameful record on Burma, the junta has little to fear from an Asean taskforce arriving in Rangoon. After the monks led courageous protests against the military dictatorship last September and world leaders called for further sanctions, the Asean summit held just after the brutal crackdown avoided any strong condemnation. Burma, the delinquent member of the Asean club, got away with a killing spree with no more than a slap on the wrist.
Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, three Asean countries that figure prominently in the regional relief operation, are also the three nations that have profited handsomely from Burma's abundant natural resources including natural gas, oil and minerals. Trading with the devil has been a good business, lining both the pockets of Burmese generals and business tycoons including former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. So a little gentle pressure from Asean friends to allow a mite more UN aid into the country does not sound too threatening to the generals.
The regional body is now celebrating its 40th anniversary as a political and economic forum with close trading links to the US and the EU. But what has been for much of its history a club of dictators Indonesia's General Suharto, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew (now replaced by his son), several military regimes in Thailand, and the Sultan of Brunei, could never be counted upon to be a wildly enthusiastic supporter of a pro-democracy movement in Burma.
Today, out of 10 member states, only Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Cambodia hold democratic elections. Asean has paid scant attention to human rights, NGOs and civil society in its deliberations, and criticism of Burma has usually been the product of western pressure.
However Thailand and Indonesian leaders can hardly have forgotten that when their countries were struck by the tsunami in 2004, international aid on a massive scale arrived, and tens of thousands of lives were saved. There were no government-imposed obstacles to the delivery of aid. Will they now dare to stand idly by and allow tens of thousands of Burmese to die, with the generals blocking the aid under the noses of an Asean taskforce?
This regional organisation is known to be toothless. But this time it is linked to the UN in an attempt to unblock the aid pipeline and vastly increase the scale of the aid operation in line with 2004 tsunami standards.
Under the agreement Asean and the UN will be working in partnership to unload and distribute aid, although the degree of access to the Irrawaddy delta area remains unclear. An Asean-UN conference to address the humanitarian crisis later this week has raised the stakes for all parties concerned.
An Asean parliamentary lobby group has urged that "Asean MPs must not allow this agreement to be yet another empty promise and diversion tactic of the Myanmar [Burma] military junta. Delays on aid supplies and expertise must not tolerated."
The experience of tsunami in 2004 showed that Asean's "non-interference" policy is irrelevant in the face of natural disasters, and the further calamity in Burma will have a disastrous effect on the whole region. This is not a time for timid diplomacy and deferential respect for despotic sovereignty. It is a time for relentless pushing and snapping at the heels of the generals, to obtain more and more concessions and inroads to the invisible tens of thousands who have yet to receive a single drop of aid.
The regional grouping this year is celebrating its anniversary with the slogan "One Asean at the heart of dynamic Asia". If the Asean charter with its grand objective of establishing an Asean community by 2015 is to be more than another hollow pipe dream, the group sorely needs to demonstrate its effectiveness and dynamism in its handling of the humanitarian crisis in Burma.
Political analyst and Burmese academic U Naing Oo, based in Chiangmai, northern Thailand, sees this as Asean's biggest challenge. "This is a tough job for Asean, but its credibility is on the line". Saving lives in Burma may turn out to be inseparable from saving Asean 's reputation from ridicule, if it fails to do an effective job in dealing with the callous obstructionism of one of its members. If Burma sinks, then the much-touted Asean community of 2015 and the cause of south-east Asian integration may well sink with it.
