WHY is it that the governments of such rich countries as France and Germany have not yet given a cent to help the victims of the South Asian quake? Their failures come at a time of dire predictions that disease, exposure and starvation may add another 50,000 to those who died in the earthquake itself. Is it even comprehensible that a senior UN aid administrator should have wondered aloud how leaders of governments which have given no significant help will be able to look themselves in the face when further disaster occurs.
The UN itself is in no doubt that the Oct. 8 quake produced a catastrophe of epic proportions in which virtually every conceivable difficulty has come together to challenge rescue and aid efforts. Not only must operations to assist the three million homeless be launched in some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world, but the first snows of what is predicted to be a particularly harsh winter are already falling. Within a few weeks, even if roads into the region can be cleared and repaired, they will be blocked by snow. Clearing a way will impose yet another burden on rescue organizers who are already faced with a logistical nightmare.
The UN has virtually doubled its estimation of the amount needed to cope with this disaster; that amount is now over half a billion dollars. As of this week, however, less than thirty percent of the original $312 million had been pledged by the governments of only 20 countries that include Saudi Arabia (SR500 million) and the United Kingdom. Private fund-raising, such as the telethon in the Kingdom (more than SR140 million), has produced cash for such organizations as the Red Crescent, but the big money and the big supplies of food, tents, earth-moving equipment and helicopters, have to come from governments. The niggardly international response to the recent South Asian quake has been in stark contrast to the one following last year’s tsunami when 92 governments gave generously to help the victims. This raises an unpleasant idea. Along the coasts onto which the tsunami smashed were a number of international tourist resorts — in Thailand, the Maldives, India and Sri Lanka. Many of the victims were foreign holidaymakers. This brought the tragedy home to countries such as France and Germany who found their own citizens dead or missing and injured or stranded, left with only the clothes they stood up in. Therefore the governments were swift and generous in their aid.
There were, on the other hand, few if any European or North American tourists in the region of the South Asian quake and therefore no public demand that immediate and effective action be taken to get aid to the area. This time, the UN relief operation based in Islamabad has been allowed to make the running but has clearly not been given the resources it needs to prevent a new disaster among the three million people who have been made homeless and have lost virtually everything. Even UN statements that there is a need for more winter tents than exist in the world have failed to galvanize wealthy countries into action. This is a truly shameful failure that must be immediately addressed and the situation reversed.
