The politics of natural disaster

Now that there’s been some time to grieve and the dirty business has started, I believe it’s time to talk about the politics of natural disasters.

First of all, as many pointed out from the beginning but I didn’t want to point out right away, even the most natural of disasters have some human determinants. That doesn’t just mean living in earthquake or tidal wave or fire-prone areas; it also means, as CP Pandya pointed out right here, early warning systems and public education. For earthquakes, wooden buildings are much less vulnerable than concrete. For fires and floods, there are ways of building to reduce vulnerability. And of course there is repair and relief after the fact. Chomsky has recently mentioned in passing the differential impacts of hurricanes in Cuba and in Haiti. Haiti is an occupied country where the state apparatus and organization was systematically first starved and then repeatedly destroyed. Cuba is a society with a high level of social organization and a government with a degree of legitimacy. Cuba got hit worse by the hurricanes and suffered hardly any deaths; Haiti suffered thousands of deaths. Amartya Sen’s work shows how famines also have social determinants (so does Mike Davis’s book, ‘Late Victorian Holocausts’): there are not famines where there is a free press and a reasonably democratic government, because citizens intervene to force the government to get and distribute food. There is, however, chronic hunger in many such countries, because hunger is not so dramatic as famine and doesn’t evoke the same public response.

People have asked why there is more empathy for these natural disasters than for the fully people-caused ones, those caused by economic ‘restructuring’, the destruction of the third world’s fragile systems of social protection in the interests of corporations, and of course those caused by outright war and ethnic cleansing. A fair enough question, but don’t let it hide the fact that there are huge differences between how victims are treated. Even if the initial victims were people along the coasts, and usually coasts are more expensive to be on than inland areas, the process of disaster relief is one in which class differences are preserved or increased – witness the privileging of tourists on the Thai beaches over local victims, as just one example. Incidentally, this is exactly why ecological issues are not actually issues rich and poor can agree on. Wealth and power translates into an ability to insulate yourself from ecological degradation and from natural disaster. It translates into an ability to claim a large share of whatever is left to consume. If the many can be excluded, there can be plenty for the few, at least for a while. And in any case most of the planning is short term.

The other key point that must be made, especially in light of the Bush-Clinton posturing, is the one Monbiot made lately: while it is great that people are generous and giving generously, the very fact that others are dependent on our generosity for the basics of life is the problem. People’s lives should not depend on generosity, and in an equal and just world they would not.

Finally, Cynthia Peters sent a number of items on Aceh – a mainstream article, a WSJ editorial, and some comments on the editorial… read below.

The Australian January 5, 2005

Army Still at War in Aceh

Sian Powell, Jakarta correspondent

THE Indonesian military is continuing to wage war with separatist rebels in the hills of Aceh as world leaders put the finishing touches to a multi-billion-dollar aid and investment package for the devastated province.

As international military and medical teams stepped up relief efforts yesterday in Aceh, where the tsunami killed up to 100,000 people, an Indonesian military spokesman confirmed that only two-thirds of the military’s 40,000-strong force in the province was taking part in the relief effort while the remaining third was engaged in military operations against insurgents.

The rebels claimed yesterday that the Indonesian military has moved more troops into rebel-held territory under the guise of relief operations since the tsunami struck 10 days ago. They say squads of soldiers are preventing hill villagers going to help their relatives on the coast.

“They are still conducting an incessant military operation,” a rebel spokesman, Teuku Jamaika, told The Australian from his base somewhere in the Aceh hills. “There’s no difference between before and after the tsunami.”

Thousands of Australian and US military personnel are at the forefront of the relief operation on the coast of Aceh, with the support of medical and military teams from as far away as Germany and Japan.

The Indonesian embassy in Canberra last night defended the continued military operation against the rebels.

“The Indonesian military in Aceh also has a responsibility to maintain security,” a spokesman said.

“The main task of the military is to provide humanitarian aid but they are also meant to provide security.”

Colonel Djazairi Nachrowi, the head of information analysis at the national military headquarters, said there had been no ceasefire, despite an offer from rebel leaders exiled in Sweden to suspend hostilities until Aceh had recovered.

“At first we thought positively, that GAM (the Free Aceh Movement) had a conscience, and would not use the situation like this, but it turned out they held up (aid transport),” Colonel Nachrowi said.

“We are not offensive, we are defensive.”

There had been no outright attacks on the rebels, he said.

“Some TNI (Indonesian military) troops tried to escort a truck filled with aid,” he said.

“When they were on their way there was an indication they would be held up, so there was an exchange of fire. It’s not TNI attacking GAM, but an exchange of fire because humanitarian aid was held up.”

GAM spokesman Teuku Jamaika said military raids had continued in hill areas of Idi Rayek, in Bireuen, Gandapura and Pasongan. Local people had been prevented from leaving their villages to find relatives or simply to help, he said.

“It was prohibited, blocked. If they left their villages there were threats.”

University of Indonesia military specialist Salim Said said GAM rebels would try to attack aid convoys to boost their supplies while the Indonesian military continued its crackdown.

“The operation to obliterate GAM continues, nothing has changed there,” Dr Said said.

“Now another danger has threatened them, but they will still try to crush GAM.”

Kirsten Schulze, a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics and the author of a number of papers on the Aceh insurgency, said counter-insurgency operations were continuing in the province, but she said it should be remembered the military was doing most of the dirty work in hard-hit towns such as Banda Aceh.

“In Meulaboh, there are no military operations,” she said. “In East Aceh, which was not hit hard by the tsunami, yes, there are security operations going on.”

Dr Schulze, in Indonesia to continue her research, said more troops had been sent into Aceh from North Sumatra, but only to bolster the relief effort.

“Without the military, the aid effort would be even slower.”

Bakhtiar Abdullah, a GAM spokesman based in Sweden, said the military had poured troops into the region since the disaster. “The reports we received is that they are moving in more troops under the guise of relief operations,” he said.

The 19-month crackdown on the GAM rebels has become a tender issue for Indonesia. The failure of an internationally-brokered and short-lived ceasefire in 2003 prompted the massive military offensive, and Indonesia has reacted angrily to foreign criticism of various atrocities.

Before the tsunami hit, international aid workers were almost entirely prevented from operating in Aceh, journalists curtailed to an extent which made balanced coverage impossible, and diplomats largely barred from visiting.

Teuku Jamaika said two rebels were shot dead by Indonesian soldiers late last week after an all-out attack, and flatly denied the rebels had attempted to hold up an aid convoy.

“We actually already unilaterally asked the TNI for a ceasefire,” he said.

“We asked TNI to take a defensive position and only attack if we attack first. But it just doesn’t work.”

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[letters can go to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com]

Received from Joyo Indonesia News

also: Note on WSJ Editorial by Joyo Subscriber

The Wall Street Journal Tuesday, January 4, 2005

Editorial

USS Lincoln in Indonesia

Go to the Web site of the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (www.cvn72.navy.mil) and the image that greets you is that of a sailor staring out the open door of a helicopter at the devastation spread out beneath him in Banda Aceh on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Aircraft from the Lincoln have been flying rescue and relief missions since the battle group arrived off the coast of Indonesia on Saturday.

There’s something else amazing about this picture, in addition to the horrific aftermath of last week’s earthquake and tsunami. It’s the presence of the U.S. military — something that was practically unthinkable before the tragedy of December 26. Today U.S. Seahawks are delivering food and water to Indonesian villagers and U.S. Marines are mingling with Indonesian soldiers at the island’s main military airport.

This is happening despite a ban on most military-to-military contacts imposed by Congress in 1999 in the wake of Jakarta’s bloody crackdown in East Timor. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been pushing to restore ties for more than two years now, and such a restoration is also a key objective of the new (and democratically elected) Indonesian president.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s sensible argument is that full U.S. military ties with the world’s largest Muslim nation are an essential part of winning the global war on terror. Indonesia’s democracy is young and fragile, but the military’s influence in government has waned and there is widespread agreement that the military ought to stay out of politics. Indonesians have traditionally practiced a moderate form of Islam, but in recent years several radical factions have sprung up and won adherents. Many Indonesians opposed the war in Iraq, but it’s precisely in this kind of society where contacts between American and Indonesian officers can help reduce misunderstanding.

The welcome that Indonesians are giving American sailors and Marines today stands in marked contrast to the resentment that Indonesian clerics and political leaders have often succeeded in whipping up against the U.S. in the past. Some politicians even refuse publicly to condemn Jemaah Islamiyah, the al Qaeda affiliate responsible for a string of attacks against Australian and American targets in Indonesia.

The decision by the winner of October’s election, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to open Aceh — the scene of a long-running secessionist conflict — has allowed U.S. aid to flow directly to the areas where it is most needed. Only last week, the province was off limits even to aid workers.

The Lincoln is part of one of the largest military relief operations in history. At least a dozen more U.S. warships are on their way to the region, and Australia, Singapore, France and Russia have sent military planes or vessels. The U.S. is leading a humanitarian coalition of the willing to get aid to the victims more quickly than the slow-moving United Nations is able.

If this terrible tragedy carries any useful lesson, one is that bans on military ties are usually counterproductive. We’ll never know how many more lives might have been saved had the U.S. military had a better working relationship already in place with the Indonesian military.

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Note by Joyo Subscriber

The argument against resumption of U.S. military aid does not focus on natural catastrophes caused by force majeure, it involves the training and equipping of Indonesian troops by US special forces to repress, abduct, torture, maim, kill, terrorize, and massacre thousands of their compatriots in E. Timor, Aceh, W. Papua and elsewhere — because the victims, many of whom were university students, wanted a more open democratic society to replace the extremely brutal and corrupt Suharto military dictatorship the U.S. supported for 33 years. How ironic that students struggling against a repressive military to implement professed and hallowed American ideals would be tortured and murdered by U.S. trained soldiers.

Indonesia has no credible foreign military threat. To defend itself internationally it needs a very small highly trained high tech force like Singapore’s. The only reason the TNI serves like an occupying army in every nook and cranny of its own country is because the only thing it does well is terrorize its own people while stealing as much as it possibly can. The TNI are such lousy citizens that usually when natural disasters occur they are no where to be found, and if and when they ever do lend a hand its used to stuff some more illicit profits into their pockets.

Moreover, it is widely known by the U.S. government, the Pentagon, State Dept., NGOs, int’l institutions and agencies, that the Indonesian military is deeply involved in prostitution, arms dealing (to their foes to keep the insurgencies going), human trafficking, gambling, loansharking and protection rackets, raking off large cut from all large projects, among other heinous crimes. The situation is such a drain on the country, and its so pervasively systemic, that only a systematic, far-sweeping concerted approach, supported by implacable political will would have a good chance of succeeding over the medium- and longer-terms. Right now, the TNI must fan the flames of the insurgencies because it needs them to have a reason to maintain tens of thousands of troops in resource-rich secessionist provinces and to self-perpetuate its own highly profitable criminal activities.

Look at how abject poverty-stricken and devoid of infrastructure resource rich Aceh and Papua are! If they were independent states they’d be as wealthy as Brunei. It is estimated that the military and national government have misappropriated and ripped off tens of billions of dollars from graft and criminal activities in these provinces, but less than one-half of one percent (0.5%) has been used to improve the lives of the local populac. No wonder that had internationally monitored referenda been held in Aceh and Papua in recent years, it is widely believed that the secessionists would have won resounding victories.

Evidence is mounting that the TNI is exploiting the tsunami catastrophe for economic and political gain, and it is using it to continue torturing and killing insurgents. Likewise, the U.S. is using the disaster to reestablish relations with the military under the pretext that the most affected areas are hotbeds of terrorism.

With TNI’s history of terror and astonishing rapaciousness, and the Indonesian government’s notorious reputation for siphoning off huge amounts of international aid and loans–the Disaster Donor Conference to be held in Jakarta may be more aptly named: ‘Int’l Conference On How To Snatch Food Out of the Gaping Mouths of Starving Tsunami Victims and Sell for Profit.’

Moreover, journalists should stop mimicking the official propaganda. Coverage of the disaster itself has been superb, but it leaves much to be desired in terms of telling the truth about the military, political and economic situations. Exxon-Mobil’s enormous power and interests in Aceh have been virtually blacked out. Why?

Aceh is receiving more international attention in a few days than in all previous history combined. It would be a crying shame if the valiant struggle of the Achnese people is not told by journalists. The TNI has systematically liquidated every key moderate leader and spokesperson, including prominent environmentalists, journalists, human rights activists, lawyers, students and academics, community leaders. It has acted viciously, sabotaged peace talks, plundered the province, and it has been disposing massacred corpses in mass graves for decades.

The full story of the TNI’s involvement in unspeakably horrific crimes against humanity and U.S. support for those crimes both explicit and implicit must be told before there’s any consideration of renewing U.S. military cooperation and aid.