"The June 12 panel--?Cyclone Nargis: Whose Responsibility to Protect?”--produced sharp disagreement not only about whether the Burmese regime?s dilatory response to the cyclone constituted a potential ?R2P situation,” but also more broadly about the role of this new doctrine in the aftermath of natural disasters. While none of the panelists or audience members found much to praise in the junta?s humanitarian response, some sought to understand the ?paranoia” that the country?s leaders bore to the outside world. They concluded that outsiders eager to help victims of the cyclone would have to either work around the barriers erected by the fearful and suspicious generals, or look for those in the regime more open to engagement with outsiders. The regime, one participant noted, was far less monolithic than it appeared from the outside. Others felt that the regime?s state of mind mattered far less than the effect of its behavior on its own beleaguered citizens. One participant catalogued the lethal diseases, including HIV and malaria, which had proliferated in Burma owing to a moribund public health system—at a time when the sale of natural resources was enriching members of the regime. The unnecessary death of perhaps 100,000 citizens made the regime criminal even before the cyclone struck, which meant that Burma had arguably been an R2P situation for years. This participant and others nevertheless did not view the regime?s neglect of its citizens in the aftermath of the cyclone as meriting the application of the 2 responsibility to protect. Another participant, however, said that the very real possibility of mass death from neglect meant that the Security Council should have taken up the issue and noted that the council had even rebuffed a proposed briefing by UN humanitarian coordinator John Holmes..."