BANGKOK, Thailand -- It is a life-or-death question: If millions of people are at risk, is it acceptable to sit on the sidelines and watch an undemocratic and unprepared regime mismanage a crisis?
With the death toll climbing, foreign leaders and international aid organizations are faced with an increasingly urgent need to balance respect for Myanmar's sovereignty with a moral responsibility to help its population.
Just hoping the government in Myanmar, also known as Burma, will do the right thing may not be enough. And though it appears unlikely they will be called in, several military powers are capable of intervening, whether the junta likes it or not.
"We want to do this in a collaborative, co-operative way with the authorities in Burma," said Mark Malloch-Brown, the British minister for Africa, Asia and the United Nations.
But he stressed "a lot of lives are at risk."
"The international community cannot take 'no' for an answer," he said here Thursday.
Options available to foreign powers include unauthorized airdrops, coastal landings or helicopter operations. But considering the junta's current stance, any such moves could potentially spark a military incident.
Authorization of intervention by the UN Security Council remains unlikely. China, Myanmar's biggest ally, has veto power and has in the past blocked resolutions against the junta.
On Parliament Hill in Ottawa Saturday, about 40 demonstrators gathered as part of a Global Day of Action on Myanmar -- a worldwide effort to pressure the Myanmar government to open its borders to relief workers.
"It is very frustrating," said former Myanmar resident Tha Zul Ceu, one of the demonstrators in Ottawa.
"The generals of the military regime are blocking relief workers. The United Nations has to get into Burma and help those suffering after the cyclone."
Some aid, perhaps just enough for Myanmar's leaders to keep foreign governments from making unauthorized aid drops or boat landings, was getting through two weeks after the cyclone.
But the UN and the international Red Cross say between 1.6 million and 2.5 million people are in urgent need of food, water and shelter. Aid groups have only reached 270,000 so far.
Malloch-Brown estimated 24 C-130 flights a day would be needed to meet the crisis -- far higher than the current level.
-- AP / Canwest
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