Tsunami: Is the aid getting through to those who need it?

By Kenn Taylor

The number of people killed in the Asian Tsunami may not yet be confirmed (latest figures indicate around 225,000) but one thing is for sure: it has been one of the worst natural disasters of the last hundred years. People have responded accordingly with literally billions of dollars pouring in from government aid to loose change in the corner shop donated to help the hundreds of thousand of survivors who have had their lives destroyed and have been left without food, water, sanitation and shelter. But the waves crashed against the shores of some of the most corrupt and hostile political regimes in the world, so the question must be asked: is the aid getting through to those who need it?

There are real fears that political and military leaders will siphon off the aid money, and that contracts for reconstruction will be given to friends and family. The United Nations is so worried about the books being cooked that it has taken the unprecedented step of appointing an outside firm of accountants – PriceWaterhouseCoopers - to oversee the distribution of aid. This follows the widespread corruption seen in the UN-administered oil-for-food program in Iraq, which saw billions mishandled and the suffering of the general population increase. There are also fears that in many areas help will only be given to those people who are connected to or are supporters off the ruling elites.

One of the worst affected areas was Indonesia, a collection of islands in South East Asia. The country was known for years for its human rights abuses and genocide under the brutal military dictatorship of General Suharto. From 1967, literally hundreds of thousands of people were killed or disappeared without trace, in areas annexed by Indonesia like East Timor, West Papua and tsunami-ravaged Aceh. Anyone opposed to Suharto’s US-backed regime - particularly ethnic minorities - were brutally suppressed and had there lands settled on to let rulers in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta get hold of mineral-rich areas. For years these abuses were kept hidden from the rest of the world by a total media blackout out which saw foreign journalists attacked and killed.

Despite the toppling of Suharto’s regime in 1998, the several leaders that have followed him have been just as corrupt. The amount of money lost to corruption has actually increased and the country has risen 25 places in the Transparency International rankings for the world’s most corrupt countries.

In the wake of the tsunami there have been many reports of aid money misuse in Aceh. Large reconstruction contracts have been awarded on a no-bid basis to state-owned construction companies that are known to be tainted by mismanagement and corruption - and to businessmen with family connections in central government. The Indonesian government has even been accused of ‘fiddling the figures’ on the amount of fishing boats destroyed by the waves, and have listed more than three times the amount of boats than in pre-tsunami statistics.

Relief has also been hard to come by for members of the rebel Free Aceh Movement, who have fought since 1976 for independence from Jakarta. Despite an informal ceasefire between the rebels and the military since the tsunami hit, Indonesian leaders say soldiers have killed 120 rebels for allegedly interfering with relief work. However, a rebel spokesman claims that army attacks had mostly killed civilians.

Indonesia is far from alone in receiving criticism for its handling of tsunami aid relief. Sri Lanka - which lost over 30,000 people in the disaster - has also had its officials accused of plundering relief supplies and demanding bribes from tsunami victims. When it was revealed that only 30% of victims had received any relief by February there was noisy protest in the capital Colombo. The Tamil Tigers - who began fighting to gain independence for the minority Tamil ethnic group in 1983 - has also claimed that the government are denying them aid.

Press agency Reuters also reported that 40% of aid received by Sri Lanka would go on big capital projects like railways and highways, rather than the shattered fishing villages.

India - which refused international help after the disaster - has received criticism from the aid organisation Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, which says that many Indians affected by the tsunami are missing out on help. Oxfam’s Andrew Hewlett - who was in India to assess relief efforts - says that India’s class system has resulted in discrimination on the delivery of aid. “So Dalits - who many would know as ‘untouchables’ - who tend to be at the bottom of the class system, are missing out on some of the urgent assistance which both the government and some major agencies are delivering”.

Donors from around the world have responded with great humanity to the crisis in the Indian Ocean. We can only hope that those in charge of dispensing the aid make sure it reaches those who really need it, regardless of race, political allegiance and power.