Post Tsunami Posturing..

-- S. Nanthikesan

December 26^th 2004 showed us that it takes less than 20 minutes to wipe away communities, dismember families, destroy what has been built over life time and leave survivors with grief as their only possession. At such enormous costs, it also taught us many lessons. We learnt the cost of not being forewarned and be prepared to respond to disasters; We clearly recognize that while nature may not pick and choose the weak and the poor to destroy (though it sure seemed that way) longer term consequences of natural disasters are unambiguously loaded against the weak and the poor– for it is their livelihoods that are the most vulnerable to nature’s destructive forces. To put it simply, it is our existing social arrangements that lead to disproportionate consequences to the weak. Any relief and reconstruction effort should recognize this reality.

In this light, I think it is useful to focus on the post tsunami posturing of many actors involved in the relief and recovery (RR) efforts. Posturing may be useful in the arena of courtship but in RR efforts, posturing has a demonstrable tendency to distort the actual needs and conditions of the affected and to shift focus away from the effectiveness of RR efforts.

I am certainly not referring to the folks who walked miles to give food and water to the affected during the first few days after the disaster – their efforts made a difference - In fact, the support provided by local individuals and civil society groups were critical in the first few hours since administrative machinery of the state, LTTE and many of the local NGOs took time to grasp the magnitude of the disaster and mobilize and respond to this sudden catastrophe; Nor am I referring to the ordinary folks who, without stopping to count, emptied their wallets for the needy. There has been an overwhelming outpouring of spontaneous goodwill and support from individuals and civil society - enough to restore faith in humanity even among the most cynical of us. Indeed the private contributions far outstrips the contributions of donor countries…In terms of confirmed pledges and already paid sums, private individuals accounted for $565 million compared say for instance, to the $124 million (Source: UNOCHA).

Such generosity in the face of human tragedy is almost unprecedented in the history of disasters. Take for instance, Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan. According to the IRC, about 3.3 million Congolese have died since 1998 as a result of war; and BBC reports that thousands could have died in Afghanistan in early this year due to cold weather. We do not see thousands of first world tourists disappearing in both these places; we do not see widespread international media coverage highlighting the many dimensions of these tragedies; and in the rich countries, we do not see an outpouring of human sympathy towards the affected. Whatever the motives for the ‘spontaneous’ response of the ‘international civil society’, the response of the ‘international community’ (read donor community of a handful of rich nation states who arrogate to themselves the role of shaping ‘official’ international opinion) displays an array of posturing.

It seems that in many instances, relief and reconstruction efforts are being guided not by the needs and wants of the affected. To the ‘posturers’ the plight of the victims serve as a useful prop to advance their own standing and image.

Posturing - The geopolitical kind

Undoubtedly there has been an overwhelming response from countries and INGOs to the call to provide resources and services. Far more than when cyclone and flooding took over half a million lives in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in the early seventies. Not that there were no hiccups initially – for instance, US first responded by pledging less than what it planned to spend for the inauguration party of the President that was held shortly after the Tsunami disaster struck.

But soon everyone caught on to the geopolitical implications of the game. Everyone was tripping on each others wallets to reach out for the tsunami affected. Their motives were not always well concealed…

• US Secretary of State made it plain that their support to Indonesia should make it clear to everyone that US is a friend of the Muslim World;
• Some simply wanted to go on record as the most generous - Minister of North European country X would tell his/her aid agency privately to make sure that they give more aid (per capita) than country Y.
• India’s choice to appear to be UN Security Council material was readily apparent (it is trying to become one of the permanent members of the security council of the UN)…Consequently, while their own people in remote Andeman and Nicobar islands were desperate for assistance, India would send ship loads of assistance to neighboring country.

Posturing as Technical Assistance - the oldest trick of the trade

The US has already accounted the assistance provided by US Marines (one of the fifteen or so militaries that were ‘assisting’ Sri Lanka) as assistance delivered and deemed it worth millions!

Well, the US is not alone in this. It is old news that many donors have this time-tested practice call tied aid – they give the South money to pay salaries to their own citizens and profits to their own companies required to be hired to deliver assistance. As the Sri Lankan government and many of the locals have pointed out, much of the aid goes outside the country in the form of exorbitant salaries to foreign consultants. This happens even though there is significant local capacity – if there is a shortage that is all the more reason why that needs to be enhanced. Without knowing the local context and the terrain, many experts descend and disappear without a trace of improvement in the lives of the affected. Those local NGOs and individuals who are familiar with the scene, need not be seen or heard or are shaped into the agenda of International Assistance. Villagers and camp dwellers complain that they see several SUVs and car loads of people coming and talking to them but no action seems to follow.

It is a small wonder that less than 30% of the affected are getting some form or relief in Sri Lanka. The rains have started and the poorest continue to languish in unlivable temporary shelters in many camps, find their fate being shaped by decisions made miles away by people and institutions they don’t know.

Predatory Posturing

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that international community has the monopoly over Posturing. Our own boys and girls are giving them the run for their money, if you’ll pardon the pun. We seem to display a remarkable aptitude for a brand of posturing with predatory practices. While JVP may be doing valuable service elsewhere, it is also reported that JVP members commandeered relief vehicles and distributed supplies to the camp residents to appear as if they are responsible for the relief efforts. In similar vein, TRO ‘took over’ the management of relief camps in the East from civil society organizations after local NGOs and CSOs have done the hard work of getting things going in the first few days.

While the others may need to make an effort to do their predatory posturing, it seems to come effortlessly to the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) – the main actor mandated to delivering RR efforts. That RR efforts in Sri Lanka are moving at geological pace and are not likely to get better any soon has begun to be recognized beyond the boundaries of the refugee camps. Yet the government continues to act as if it has the capacity and strategy to meet the urgent needs facing the tsunami affected. Larger the scale of operations, the larger the political stakes for the GOSL to control all efforts; total control of all activities seem to be the only GOSL, or rather the only presidential, strategy for tsunami assistance. Despite the abysmal performance of GOSL channels in delivering RR thus far, authority seems to become increasingly centralized in the presidential office, further paralyzing the entire efforts.

Instead of addressing the tension between its determination to exercise absolute control to reap political mileage, and its woefully inadequate administrative capacity to effectively deliver the urgently needed assistance, GOSL continues to posture – to appear to be decisive and in control it moves to open schools in Tsunami affected areas within 10 days of the disaster without any consultation with the affected. It should be noted that the decision to open schools in early January was taken when many schools were still serving as refugee camps and many had to be relocated against their wishes at short notice!

Even more pernicious is its effort to have clear distance 100 feet or 200 feet from the coast line (all arbitrarily decided from the top without even a semblance of attempt to consult communities that will be affected by this decision) – it is plausible that this concern for the coast dwellers is also the way by which the tourist industry (in close collaboration with the minister of tourism– who also happens to be the brother of the president) is going to use this opportunity to get rid of its long standing fly in the ointment – the subsistence fisher-folks - who happen to be an eyesore for the beach loving tourists and competitors for precious beach-front land…

Some ‘entrepreneurial’ NGOs also join the ranks of posturers. In trying to attract foreign assistance, they undertake token projects in token areas to become ‘national’ NGOs. In their assessment, the ability to work effectively to meet the needs of the affected in the particular local area takes a backseat to expanding the opportunities to seek additional funds.

Victims of Posturing

Without sound practices of asking to what end, to whom and how the money will be spent, RR efforts setup the stage for assistance to flow towards invented needs and entrepreneurial middle persons rather than fulfilling the needs of the affected.

That is not the only problem with posturing. Not only it impinges on the lives of those who are affected by the tsunami, it has consequences to those affected by other disasters as well. Speaking of disasters and those who lost their livelihoods in the span of few minutes, we are reminded of the Muslims of the North who were driven out by the LTTE on few hours notice. These refugees are continuing to languish in refugee camps for over fifteen years without any serious RR effort. It will be difficult for these refugees to understand why everyone around the globe who are trying to assist their eastern brethren, have paid no attention to their fate for the past fifteen years. Or for that matter, homeless beggar in the streets of Batticaloa may wish she was affected by tsunami rather than by structural poverty that had deprived her livelihood.

This is not an argument to reduce the funds for Tsunami assistance. But a reminder of the need to explore possibilities of broadening the definition of Tsunami affected so that RR efforts could also be linked to the plight of those affected by class and ethnic wars.

The need for most donors and I/NGOs to advertise where and how many tsunami victims they have assisted may not be compatible with the time and effort needed to have a consultation process across a country to address how the issues of equity can be addressed.

In Sri Lanka today, posturing not only purchases political power but it also useful for economic mobility. The RR efforts are going to affect millions of people and going to bring in $1.5 billion. This is going to make many non-tsunami affected very, very well-off very, very fast – while the bottom of the heap may see a trickle here or there. Given our past experience of managing such large public investment (remember Accelerated Mahaweli Development Project and how in the 80’s Mahaweli was diverted to (allegedly of course) race courses in Australia by the Minister of Mahaweli),

Defense Against Posturing

If we have business as usual approach, down the road, many more posturers will appear and the most vulnerable and the weak among the affected will not stand a chance against the collective might of the posturers and pilferers.

One way to protect the affected from the consequences of posturing is to link the relief efforts to longer term reconstruction efforts and link them both to a vision for a just and democratic society–against which we can hold posturers accountable. An active grass roots discussion about the vision for the changes we seek through our reconstruction efforts is vital - do we simply reconstruct the pre-tsunami society and thus reproduce the vulnerabilities of the period, or do we need to use this disaster as an opportunity to create a society less vulnerable to disasters and less unequal – that can turn out to be a model for the rest of the country.

Second, is to hold actors accountable – not in any ad hoc way, but institutionalizing accountability mechanisms in the relief efforts. Clearly, neither the GOSL nor the LTTE could be trusted to put these resources to use in the interest of the most marginalized. The INGOs and many local NGOs are likely to be equally complicit in the plunder. This leaves us with the urgent need to prioritize and be creative in building the institutions and the capacity to hold actors accountable.