|
UN set to take control of tsunami relief effort
The "core group" of nations announced by US President George W. Bush to channel aid to victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami will be dissolved on Thursday after only eight days as the United Nations Mr Bush's initiative on December 29 - which at first included only the US, India, Japan and Australia - appeared to have been prompted by an accusation by Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, that the response of wealthy nations had been "stingy". The UN was included the next day after Mr Bush was criticised for sidelining the UN in a rescue operation involving dozens of countries. Ah... no - because the UN wasn't doing a farking thing besides talk. In fact they stil have not done anything. Translation: the 24/hr catering service at the 5-star hotel has been restored. Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, will take centre stage on Thursday at the hastily convened meeting in Jakarta when he appeals for aid to cover the next six months. Among those attending are Colin Powell, US secretary of state; Junichiro Koizumi, Japanese prime minister; Wen Jiabao, Chinese premier; and other leaders from Asia and Europe. What the fark is Powell doing there? Governments and individuals from around the world have already pledged over $2bn in assistance to help survivors of the December 26 tsunamis, which were triggered by an undersea earthquake off the island of Sumatra and killed 150,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and as far away as the east coast of Africa. UN officials and Washington's allies have tried to avoid public criticism of the core group during its short life, and Mr Tsuruoka insisted the group had been "innovative" and "very effective" in mobilising aid. Translation: They did the shitwork - but now that 24hr catering at the 5-star hotel is restored the U.N. can proceed to take the credit (and a slice of the funds for 'administrative costs (lunches, conferences, and 5-star catering)' of course...) Thursday's one-day summit is expected to focus on the short-term needs of the region for emergency aid and on plans to set up a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean similar to the one already working in the Pacific. On Wednesday donors continued to announce aid pledges. Germany linked its pledge of E500m ($664.5m, ￜ352m) for victims of the Asian tsunamis to the ending of rebel insurgencies in Sri Lanka and in the Aceh region in of Indonesia. Translation: We have an 'out'.... Joschka Fischer, foreign minister, said he would use a trip to the region starting on Friday to press the governments of the two countries to prioritise "national reconciliation" as relief efforts are stepped up in the disaster-hit districts. Translation: Appeasement will work! He noted that government leaders in the two countries could not ignore the "political context" in which the disaster took place. Translation: The tsunami was your fault because you did not appease your rebels..... But Andrew Tan, a Singapore official, warned against complicating the relief and reconstruction drives by "tying them to insurgency problems such as the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka". Unusually for such a disaster, no one has suggested there is an immediate shortage of funds, and diplomats say the challenge over the next few months will be to coordinate the delivery of aid rather than to raise more money. Translation: We are here to focus on taking credit for others delivering aid..... Louis Michel, the EU's development Commissioner, who is touring the affected area, said there was too much emphasis on money and not enough on longer term projects. Such as getting these people totally dependant on U.N. aid. Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-01-05 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=52996 |