World should use "all means" for Myanmar aid: EU

By David Brunnstrom and Ingrid Melander

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The international community should use all possible means to get aid through to victims of Myanmar's cyclone despite the reluctance of the military junta, the European Union's foreign policy chief said on Tuesday.

The United Nations says more than 1.5 million people are struggling to survive and up to 100,000 are dead or missing after cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar on May 2. Spain said failure to allow aid in could amount to a crime against humanity.

Foreign aid has only trickled into the devastated Irrawaddy Delta of former Burma because its secretive military rulers have so far largely barred international relief operations.

"We have to use all the means to help those people. The United Nations charter opens some avenues if things cannot be resolved in order to get the humanitarian aid (to) arrive," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters as EU aid ministers began an emergency meeting on Myanmar in Brussels.

Asked if aid could be flown in without the approval of the Myanmar authorities, he said: "Whatever is necessary to help the people who are suffering."

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has suggested invoking the little-used U.N. principle of a "responsibility to protect" victims if Myanmar continued to bar foreign aid teams.

The United Nations recognized the concept in 2005 to protect civilians when their governments could or would not do so, even if this meant intervention that violated sovereignty.

But U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs John Holmes said last week that "confrontation" with the military junta would be unhelpful.