BurmaNet News, October 10, 2008

[Editor]

October 10, 2008 Issue # 3575


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Top general to campaign for 2010 election – Saw Yan Naing
DVB: Generation Wave distributes leaflets in Rangoon
DVB: Cyclone victims forced into reconstruction work
SHAN: Ceasefire groups divided
Kachin News Group: Rise in prostitution in Kachin State

ON THE BORDER
IMNA: Chin people fleeing famine after plague of rats destroys crops
Irrawaddy: Motorcycle smuggling big business on Burma border

BUSINESS / TRADE
Irrawaddy: Tay Za joined Maung Aye on visit to Bangladesh
DVB: Junta leases 50,000 acres of farmland to Bangladesh

HEALTH / AIDS
AFP: Myanmar bans nine Chinese milk, dairy products

INTERNATIONAL
Baptist Press (US): USCIRF urges action on Kazakhstan, Burma

OPINION / OTHER
Christian Science Monitor: When nations kill their own – Gareth Evans


____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

October 10, Irrawaddy
Top general to campaign for 2010 election – Saw Yan Naing

Brig-Gen Thein Zaw, the minister for communications posts and telegraphs,
was scheduled to arrive in Myitkyina, the capital of the Kachin State in
northern Burma, on Friday to launch a campaign for the 2010 general
election.

Ma Grang, a resident of Myitkyina, told The Irrawaddy that during his
visit Thein Zaw would urge residents to vote for the junta-backed
political parties in the multi-party election in 2010.

Thein Zaw is in charge of the Union Solidarity and Development Association
(USDA) in Kachin State. The USDA, a regime-backed civic association, is
expected to form two political parties—the National Prosperity Party and
the National Security and Development Party—to contest the 2010 elections,
according to USDA sources.

“He [Thein Zaw] will come and monitor the lobby campaign,” Ma Grang said.
“He will visit local residents around Myitkyina and will ask them if they
need help.”

Thein Zaw will be guided by USDA members while visiting residents in the
area.

Ma Grang said that USDA members have been organizing local residents and
encouraging them to show their support for the 2010 elections. Some people
who demonstrate strong support will be presented with telephones, he said.

The general election is the fifth step of the junta’s “seven-step road
map” to democracy.

In related matters, Aung Wa, a resident of the Sino-Burma border area,
said leaders of Christian groups in Myitkyina have been summoned by local
authorities and promised gifts of telephones if they support USDA
candidates.

In May, USDA members played a major role in monitoring and organizing the
national referendum on the state constitution.

In September 2007, USDA members also played a key role in the bloody
crackdown during the civic uprising. In 2003, USDA members staged a deadly
attack on Aung San Suu Kyi’s motorcade, in which about 100 people were
killed.

____________________________________

October 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Generation Wave distributes leaflets in Rangoon – Nay Thwin

Underground youth activist group Generation Wave distributed leaflets
around Rangoon yesterday to mark the one-year anniversary of the group’s
founding, witnesses said.

A resident of Rangoon said he had seen the leaflets around the former
capital.

"I saw the leaflets they distributed underneath the Pansodan bridge pass,
and in Thingangyun and Thuwanna townships," he said.

“The leaflets contained a logo with a thumbs-up sign and a message that
said 'Be free from poverty'.”

He said he had seen the leaflets stuck on electric poles and on vehicle
windshields.

"Municipal workers who were nearby immediately took away the leaflets they
saw but the leaflets were spread out all over the place so they couldn't
remove all of them straight away," the witness said.

Generation Wave spokesperson Moe Thway said the group had planned to
distribute over 100,000 leaflets in cities all across Burma.

Moe Thway said the group aimed to mark its one-year anniversary and to
remind the people of Burma and the SPDC government that there was a group
actively fighting against the dictatorship in the country.

Generation Wave was formed with about 30 members on 9 October 2007
following the monk-led demonstrations in September last year.

Moe Thway said the group now has about 100 members operating in different
places across Burma while about 10 have been detained.

Famous hip-hop singer Zayar Thaw, a prominent member of the group, was
arrested by government authorities on 12 March this year and remains in
detention.

____________________________________

October 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Cyclone victims forced into reconstruction work – Htet Yazar

Residents of cyclone-devastated townships in Rangoon have complained that
they are being forced by local authorities to do unpaid reconstruction
work, preventing them from earning money.

A resident of Shwe Paukkan township said one person per household was
required to take part in the tasks.

"We were given orders by the ward Peace and Development Council that one
person per household must help clean up roads and drains – those who
refused to work were denied permission for guest registrations," he said.

"They gave us no money for our work, just a pyi of wet rice for each
person but the rice was not edible."

A woman from Khayan-Thone Gwa township said local residents were unable to
continue with their usual work because of the authorities’ demands.

"We were forced by local ward authorities to rebuild farms destroyed by
the cyclone with no money for the work," she said.

"We earn money with our daily work to feed ourselves but since we have
been forced to do work for the authorities, we could not do any work of
our own."

A Thanlyin township resident said locals had not received any support when
they became ill after working.

"We were forced by the ward PDC chairman U Zaw Win to work but he wouldn't
give us any medical insurance or assistance when we got sick from doing
his work," he said.

____________________________________

October 10, Shan Herald Agency for News
Ceasefire groups divided

Major armed groups that had ceasefire agreements with the Burmese Army are
inevitably divided between "doves" and "hawks," as pressure to surrender
arms and contest the 2010 elections mounts, according to sources inside
Shan State.

In the United Wa State Army (UWSA), considered the strongest ceasefire
group, the division appears to be between pro-Bao Youxiang and pro-Wei
Xuegang factions.

While Wei, who commands most of the brigades along the Thai-Burma border,
and his associates have voiced their support for the majority decision to
resist pressure by the Burmese Army to surrender, at meetings, they are
reported to be privately making their own plans. "The Burmese Army has
offered to buy them off, which means giving them business concessions,"
said a source close to the UWSA in Mongton, opposite Chiangmai. "They
think they should accept the offer and, if possible, retain their arms as
pro-junta militias."

Members of the Wei faction were formerly ex-Kuomintang officers and men.
The Kuomintang was driven out of China following its defeat in 1949. Most
of them are scattered out in Shan State, Thailand and Laos.

Meanwhile, followers of the ailing Wa leader Bao Youxiang are preparing
for "the eventual showdown" with the Burmese Army. "Bao may retire," said
an insider, "but he has placed high hopes in the hard-liners led by his
nephew Ta Long. Many officers at present have been attending combat
courses organized by Panghsang (Wa capital on the Chinese border)."

Ta Long (41) a native of Kunma, is officially the mayor of Namteuk (also
written Namtit), north of Panghsang. "I didn't meet Wei Hsaitang (a
hardline officer who was released from prison last year and later reported
to have been transferred to Namteuk)," said the source. "But he is
believed to be Ta Long's chief counsel in military matters."

Similar reports have been received by SHAN with regard to the
Hsengkeow-based Shan State Army (SSA) North and Mongla-based National
Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State (NDAA-ESS).

A recent report says the SSA-North would be setting up a political party
and had already consulted Maj-Gen Aung Than Tut, Commander of the
Lashio-based Northern Region Command of the Burmese Army. The group has
declined either to confirm or deny it.

"Anything can happen before 2010," said a long-time border watcher, "and I
won't be the first to make any predictions until and after the
electoral law has been announced."

The electoral law is due to be promulgated by the end of the year,
according to some sources. In the mean time, political campaigns by
pro-junta groups have already begun following approval by Naypyidaw of its
draft constitution in May.

____________________________________

October 10, Kachin News Group
Rise in prostitution in Kachin State

The unstable political and economic situation in Burma (which was renamed
Myanmar by the ruling junta) is driving a section of women in Kachin State
into prostitution, sources said. They have been frequenting night clubs.

There are a number of women, especially ethnic Kachin women, who frequent
the 'Northern Star Night Club' in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State
in northern Burma to find clients and earn money every night, said a
resident in Myitkyina.

"Fees are earmarked for the women by the club. Almost all the women drink
whisky to enjoy themselves," a resident told KNG.

Women, who do not get clients in the club, go to the night shops and wait
for prospective customers. This is how they earn money, an eyewitness
said.

According to a resident, despite night curfew in Myitkyina since September
18, the night shops remain open in town. The police are in every street
corner and quarters in the town.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

October 10, Independent Mon News Agency
Chin people fleeing famine after plague of rats destroys crops

Famine in Chin State is causing people to abandon their native homeland,
says an ethnic Chin man interviewed as he approached Three Pagodas Pass,
on the Thai-Burma border.

The twenty-seven-year old man was traveling with forty-one other people
from Chin State, including fifteen children. Many of the refugees in the
group are from Haka, the capital of Chin State, located 705 kilometers
from Rangoon. Others in the group were from Tamu Township, to the north of
Haka in Sagaing Division. The man said it had taken the group about a week
to arrive in Karen State.

“We can barely survive because everyone’s crops and farms were eaten by
rats,” the man told IMNA. “People are leaving their land because they have
nothing to eat.”

Many of the refugees from Chin state are trying to get to Malaysia, says a
source close to a Chin leader in the Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC),
in Chiang Mai. Travel from Chin State to Malaysia will cost each person in
the group 1.5 million kyat, added the man. The Chin Church of Malaysia, as
well as other Chin organizations, is offering support, including help
paying for the cost of the trip, said the Chin man interviewed near the
border. According to Salai Bawi Lian Mang of the Chin Human Rights
Organization, ninety percent of ethnic Chin people are Christian.

Significant numbers of people fleeing the famine have already arrived in
Malaysia, Nai Row Mon, at the Mon Refugee Organization (MRO) in Malaysia,
told IMNA. “The amount of Chin refugees in Malaysia is increasing every
month. The number of Chin refugees in Malaysia has increased to nearly
50,000 since the famine.”

Last month, the head of the Three Pagodas Township Peace and Development
Council instructed ethnic ceasefire groups to notify authorities of Chin
refugees approaching the Thai-Burma border, a source in the NMSP told
IMNA. An IMNA field reporter, however, witnessed checkpoints on the Zemi
River charging Chin refugees 2,000 kyat per person before letting them
pass.

The famine has been caused by a plague of rats, which devastated crops in
the area. The number of rats began increasing in 2006, when “Melocanna
Baccifera” bamboo began flowering and producing large, nutrient-rich
seeds. Rats fed on the abundant seeds, their population skyrocketed and
the animals eventually descended upon farms looking for food. The species
of bamboo flowers only once every fifty years. According to a report by
the Chin Human Rights organization, the flowering bamboo covers one fifth
of Chin State.

The crop destruction comes at a time when Burma is already struggling to
recover from the loss of twenty percent of its rice paddies, which were
destroyed by Cyclone Nargis in May. The boom in the rat population, and
the attendant impact on agriculture of the region, is having severe
impacts. According to an ENC statement made on September 30th, more than a
hundred thousand people face starvation. The Chin man interviewed near the
Three Pagodas Pass confirmed this: “Life was hard for us before the
famine. The rats made it even more difficult. We have no way to defeat
them.”

____________________________________

October 10, Irrawaddy
Motorcycle smuggling big business on Burma border

Since the military government announced in July that it will issue
licenses to unregistered motorcycles, sources say about 1,000 motorcycles
are being smuggled into Burma each day from Thailand and China.

The military government will stop issuing new licenses at the end of
October. Authorities are registering about 300 motorcycles a day, sources
say. A license, which cost about 270,000 kyat (US $223), is valid for two
years.

The current price for a smuggled Honda Dream is around 2 million kyat
($1,700), say sources. A Chinese Kembo motorcycle goes for around 500,000
kyat ($420).

A motorcycle broker in Myawaddy, a Burmese border town opposite the Thai
town of Mae Sot, said about 700 motorcycle are driven across the border
daily to Moulmein, the capital of Mon State.

The broker, who asked to remain anonymous, said a dealer must pay a total
of about 10,000 kyat ($8) in bribes to various authorities in Burma.

He said that from Myawaddy to Moulmein (60 miles) there are about 20
checkpoints manned by either police, the military or armed ethnic groups,
such as the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army or Karen Peace Force, which
have signed ceasefire agreements with the military regime.

In Mae Sai, the Thai border town opposite Tachilek in Shan State, local
sources said perhaps a score of motorcycles are smuggled into Burma daily.

About 200 hundred motorcycles are smuggled daily into Burma from China,
sources estimated. A resident of Ruili, a Chinese border town, said that
before the Olympics in August, about 500 motorbikes were smuggled into
Burma daily, but in the run up to the Olympics, border security was
tighten and smuggling dropped off.

Burma has no motorcycle industry. Most motorcycles are imported from
China, Japan and Thailand. More than 500,000 of the country’s motorcycles
are not registered or licensed, according to Rangoon traffic police
statistics.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

October 10, Irrawaddy
Tay Za joined Maung Aye on visit to Bangladesh – Min Lwin

The Burmese tycoon Tay Za, head of the Htoo Trading Company, accompanied
the junta’s number two, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, on his recent three-day
visit to Bangladesh, according to business sources in Rangoon.

The sources, close to the Htoo Trading Company, said Tay Za led a Burmese
business team, which had talks with the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers
of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) on improving trade between the two
countries, included launching direct shipping lines between Bangladesh and
Rangoon.

Tay Za’s presence in the Burmese delegation that visited Bangladesh was
not mentioned in reports on the trip carried by state-run newspapers.

The delegation reportedly travelled to Bangladesh aboard an aircraft of
Tay Za’s company Air Bagan.

Tay Za, who enjoys close business ties with the military regime, plans to
transfer control of Htoo Trading Company to his elder son, Phyo Tay Za,
according to one source.

The Burmese delegation also discussed with their Bangladesh hosts the
purchase of 100,000 tons of rice from Burma, besides energy cooperation,
the construction of a trans-border road and the delimitation of maritime
boundaries.

A report by the Reuters news agency, quoting a Bangladesh energy official,
said the Burmese delegation agreed to supply natural gas to Bangladesh to
help it produce fertilizer for use in both countries.

Reuters said Bangladesh will establish a urea-manufacturing factory in its
Chittagong region, near the Burma border, with an annual production
capacity of 600,000 tonnes, using up to 200 million cubic feet of gas
daily.

Tay Za is among a number of Burmese military officials and businessmen on
a US sanctions list that freezes any of their US assets.

The sanctions have reportedly hit Tay Za’s businesses, including those
with Singapore links—Pavo Trading Pte Ltd, Air Bagan Holdings Pte Ltd and
Htoo Wood Products Pte Ltd. Pavo Trading is a sister company of the Htoo
group of companies run by Tay Za.

____________________________________

October 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Junta leases 50,000 acres of farmland to Bangladesh – Khin Maung Soe Min

The Burma junta’s second-in-command, vice senior general Maung Aye, has
signed a contract in Dhaka leasing 50,000 acres of paddy fields in Arakan
state to the Bangladeshi government.

The majority of the paddy fields are in Myauk Oo and on Man Aung island.

Although the paddy fields are said to be owned by the military, farmers in
Arakan state say that some of this land has been seized from local farmers
without compensation and they are worried that more land will be seized to
make up the 50,000 acres.

Than Hlaing, joint secretary of the Arakan National League for Democracy,
said land confiscation could have serious repercussions for local food
supplies.

“In Arakan state, we are enduring the consequences of starvation every
day,” Than Hlaing said.

“Despite this, they are confiscating paddy fields and turning the people
into tenant farmers,” he said.

“If they lease out 50,000 acres of paddy fields, I am certain that the
people of Arakan will starve."

Saw Mi Mi Than from the Arakan Women’s Union's Bangladesh office also
condemned the deal.

"We are urging the Bangladeshi government not to lease the 50,000 acres of
paddy fields forcibly seized from the Arakan people," she said.

According to online newspapers from Bangladesh, the two countries have
discussed taxation issues and the demarcation of sea boundaries between
Burma and Bangladesh.

The repatriation of Rohingya refugees is also due to be discussed.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

October 10, Agence France Presse
Myanmar bans nine Chinese milk, dairy products

Myanmar authorities have banned the import and distribution of nine
Chinese dairy products found to be contaminated with the toxic industrial
chemical melamine, state media reported Friday.

The ban comes after the country's food and drug watchdog destroyed 16
tonnes of imported Chinese baby formula and authorities urged people not
use Chinese milk and dairy products because of the tainted milk scandal.

Myanmar's military government found the nine brands to be "contaminated
with melamine that is unfit for human consumption," the New Light of
Myanmar newspaper said.

The ban on the dairy products -- mostly milk powders -- was imposed after
the country's health ministry and pharmaceutical departments tested 16
Chinese brands imported into Myanmar, the paper added.

Cheaper Chinese products are widely used in Myanmar, which faces economic
sanctions from the United States and European Union.

Four Chinese children have died so far and 53,000 have been made ill after
consuming milk-products tainted by melamine.

China is struggling to limit the damage to its food safety reputation as a
growing number of countries decide to suspend imports of Chinese milk
products or withdraw them from sale over the scandal.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

October 10, Baptist Press (US)
USCIRF urges action on Kazakhstan, Burma – Elizabeth Wood

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has urged
the federal government to promote democracy, human rights and religious
freedom for people in Kazakhstan and Burma.

Amendments approved in 2005 to Kazakhstan laws require religious
organizations to register under the regional and national Ministry of
Justice offices. USCIRF is concerned a recent draft law that is advancing
in the Kazakh parliament will restrict religious communities.

Burmese citizens continue to suffer more than a year after their
repressive military junta used violence to crack down on peaceful protests
over the government's drastic increase in fuel prices. Thousands of
Buddhist monks joined those demonstrations. The military put an end to the
protests in late September 2007 by killing, beating and jailing
protesters, including monks.

"Burma's military junta has presided over a human rights and humanitarian
disaster that is deepening, not receding," USCIRF Chair Felice Gaer said
in a written release Sept. 30. "The military's many human rights abuses
are a direct challenge to every Burmese, as well as to international human
rights law and regional security."

Gaer recommended the U.S. government begin to assist the Burmese people by
creating an "interagency task force" in the National Security Council and
by appointing a U.S. special envoy to Burma.

USCIRF urged the U.S. government to work with both European and Asian
allies to tighten sanctions and intensify diplomatic engagement with the
Burmese government. The commission also recommended the United States urge
the United Nations to establish requirements the Burmese military must
meet in order to end the country's isolation from the rest of the world.

The international community also must "coordinate its efforts to free all
prisoners, distribute disaster relief, begin the process of democratic
transition, end the abuses targeting ethnic and religious minorities, and
convince Burma's neighbors to stop propping up the junta," Gaer added.

Overall, Gaer said the commission is mostly concerned with the number of
political and religious prisoners that has doubled in Burma over the past
several years. According to USCIRF, there are approximately 2,000
"prisoners of conscience" behind bars in Burma.

"The release of a few does nothing for the thousands who remain in prison
for their peaceful activities to promote human rights and political
freedoms," Gaer said. "Their release must be the most urgent demand of the
U.S. government and its allies."

The U.S. State Department has designated Burma as one of eight "countries
of particular concern," a classification reserved for the world's most
severe violators of religious freedom.

Kazakhstan also is being closely monitored by the commission for its
violation of religious liberty.

Recently, the lower chamber of the Kazakh parliament passed a measure
restricting and governing freedom of religion and belief. The proposal
calls for tighter registration requirements for all religious groups, a
smaller number of religious communities and increased penalties for
members of unregistered communities.

"With this law, Kazakhstan has demonstrated a disturbingly lax commitment
to uphold international human rights standards," Gaer said in a written
release Oct. 3.

USCIRF urged the U.S. government to speak against the law at the Human
Dimension meeting Sept. 29-Oct.10 in Warsaw, Poland.

Joseph Grieboski, president of the Institute on Religion and Public
Policy, called for the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE),
a 56-state regional security organization, to re-evaluate making
Kazakhstan the OSCE chair in 2010.

"We strongly urge the OSCE member states to reconsider Kazakhstan's
chairmanship in 2010 unless the Kazakh government revises the draft law to
be in compliance with OSCE guidelines concerning religious freedom,"
Grieboski said at the meeting.

The commission also called for the U.S. government to work through
diplomatic channels in urging the Kazakh government to revamp or abolish
the legislation.

"Despite Kazakh officials' assurances at the OSCE meeting in Warsaw, this
law neither simplifies the legal requirements for religious communities
nor augments their freedom," Gaer said.

USCIRF also is concerned about religious liberty in Kazakhstan's
neighboring countries. Both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have laws that
require religious communities to register through the government in order
to operate legally. The State Department has named Uzbekistan one of its
"countries of particular concern," and USCIRF has recommended Turkmenistan
be added to that list.

"The U.S. government should discuss with the Central Asian governments
better ways to establish a legal framework for religious communities that
takes into account the need to respect international standards and provide
wide legal latitude for them to operate," Gaer said.

USCIRF is a bipartisan panel that advises the White House and Congress on
the condition of religious freedom globally. The president selects three
members of the commission, while congressional leaders name the other six.
The State Department's ambassador at large for international religious
freedom serves as a non-voting member of the panel.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty
Commission, is a USCIRF member.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

October 10, Christian Science Monitor
When nations kill their own – Gareth Evans

At the height of the bloody suppression by the Burma (Myanmar) regime of
protesting monks last year, the heated question was whether the
international community should intervene. In response, a well-known
Chinese professor told an American newspaper "China has used tanks to kill
people on Tiananmen Square. It is Myanmar's sovereign right to kill their
own people, too."

That is about as chilling and abhorrent a statement as it gets for many in
developed countries. It's an apparent apologia not only for Tiananmen and
the October crackdown, but the killing fields of Cambodia, the genocide in
Rwanda, the bloody massacre of Srebrenica, and the crimes against humanity
continuing in Darfur.

The statement reflects a feeling that seems to ignore the developments in
international human rights law since 1945 – from the Universal Declaration
and the Covenants, to the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute
establishing the International Criminal Court. And it seems to embrace the
starkest possible interpretation of Westphalian principles; not only that
what happens within state borders is nobody else's business, but that
sovereignty is a license to kill.

For many others, however, the Chinese professor's statement, while
probably chilling in its directness, and certainly less diplomatically
expressed than it could have been, captures a sentiment that has great
resonance in the developing world. It's also one that has too often been
ignored by enthusiastic human rights campaigners arguing for "the right to
intervene," by coercive military force if necessary, in internal
situations.

While the right of humanitarian intervention might be seen in most of the
developed world as a noble and effective rallying cry, it had the capacity
elsewhere to enrage. And it continues to do so, not least among those new
states emerging from the post World War II period, proud of their
identity, conscious in many cases of their fragility.

To try to resolve this tension between competing worldviews, the concept
of "the responsibility to protect," or R2P, was devised as a new rallying
cry to replace the call for "the right to intervene."

The core of R2P is that sovereign states should retain the primary
responsibility to protect their own people from mass atrocities. But if
they manifestly fail to do so, through either incapacity or ill will, then
it becomes the collective responsibility of the international community to
take appropriate action. Sovereignty conveys no immunity when massive
human rights violations are involved. The emphasis is on prevention and
assistance for states in need. And any further response necessary stresses
using the least coercive and intrusive effective means possible. Force
might be needed, but only in extreme and exceptional cases, and with
Security Council approval.

The R2P concept was proposed by a Canadian-sponsored international
commission in 2001, and it took only four years – just a blink of an eye
in the history of ideas – for the principles to be adopted, without
dissent, by the UN General Assembly.

But celebration remains premature: It is one thing to have a new norm of
international behavior up in lights, quite another (as the Chinese
professor's comment shows) for it to be genuinely universally accepted,
and yet another thing for it to be effectively applied.

The international community's immediate response – and by diplomatic
rather than military means – to the postelection explosion of ethnic
violence in Kenya at the beginning of this year was an excellent example
of the new norm. And it provides very stark contrast to the cynicism and
indifference that greeted the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

But other cases, like the Burma cyclone and the Russian invasion of
Georgia, have been either prematurely labeled or mislabeled as R2P ones.
And while Darfur is properly labeled a case of acute R2P concern, it is
one where the international response has so far been very ineffective.

Three big challenges remain for like-minded governments and civil society
organizations who understand and accept the power of the R2P norm:

First there is the conceptual one of ensuring that its scope and limits
are fully understood, so that it is not seen as either too broad to be
useful or too narrowly militarily focused to be acceptable. Second, there
is the institutional one, of ensuring diplomatic, civilian, and military
capacity is available to respond effectively to new situations.

And last, there is the political one of ensuring that, when preventive or
reactive action becomes necessary, the will is there to mobilize that
capacity.

If we are never again to have to say "never again," these challenges
simply have to be met.

[Editor's note: The original version's subhead misstated the
'responsibility to protect' doctrine.]

• Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister, is president of the
Crisis Group and author of "The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass
Atrocity Crimes Once and for All."