This year has brought upon several global catastrophes (both in natural disasters and armed conflicts) which contributed to several displacements and losses of lives in the affected areas, requiring immediate humanitarian aid assistance. Some of the main disasters, as well as important awareness raising events are mentioned below.
Humanitarian issues arising from natural disasters
In the short space of a few weeks, in late September and early October, the South East Asia and Pacific regions were hit by tsunamis and earthquakes causing widespread death and destruction. Western Samoa and Tonga were declared in a state of emergency with International Aid agencies still in the midst of assisting with the recovery and rebuilding.
New Zealand aid agencies including NZAID, UNICEF, Oxfam New Zealand, Caritas, World Vision and Red Cross have made considerable financial contributions towards the relief effort in the affected areas. UNOCHA and the Samoan UNDP (which caters for the Pacific region) have been active in providing detailed updated situation reports. Some of these reports have been made available in the UNANZ website. New Zealand Red Cross, Oxfam and Caritas were heavily involved in campaigning to raise money for the IDPs. Several New Zealanders contributed generously.
A recent UNDP presentation at Wellington’s CID office, led a consultation about a new disaster recovery filed book for aid workers. Some of the relevant areas include obtaining accurate information from effected parties and learning how to read between the lines to meet people’s needs. It would be interesting to know if the new filed-book provided some handy tips for aid-workers in the Pacific.
Armed conflict – spot light for 2009: Sri Lanka
Ethnic tension between the majority Sinhala and minority Tamil people has been brewing since the colonial period, enhanced by the British colonial ‘divide and rule’ strategy. The failed Norwegian peace talks in 2002 coupled with the current victory of the government over LTTE have further divided societies especially due to the massive loss of Tamil civilian lives in the Tiger occupied zones in the 1990s.
Prior to the current situation, media reporting was strongly censored in Sri Lanka and the true figures of the number of Tamil civilians who were killed or displaced go unreported. Local NGOs such as Amnesty International recruited Tamil journalists to bridge this gap. Unfortunately, most reports which are published by Amnesty International and even the Economist do not report on the atrocities committed by the former LTTE towards Tamil civilians who oppose them. Therefore it should be realised that bias in reporting occurs at all levels, making it difficult to get an un-biased understanding of the conflict situation.
In March 2009, the UN made an assessment that there were about 250,000 trapped civilians in the ‘safe zones – or no fire zone’. This figure was dismissed by the government as an over-exaggeration. The UN human rights chief has suggested that both parties may be guilty of war crimes.
In May 2009 the UNHRC passed a resolution to assist the government of Sri Lanka to provide humanitarian assistance for the internally displaced people (IDP) in the camp zones. The resolution was adopted with 29 countries of the Assembly voting in favor, and 12 against.
Currently there is a lack of food, medicine and sanitation in the camp zones. Human rights watch and other aid agencies are reviewing the situation constantly as the Government comes into further attack for their lack of competence in providing for the IDPs. Efforts made towards community integration and stabilization will not be realized until basic needs are met.
As usual there are many other humanitarian situations arising from conflict in Iraq, Israel/Palestine, the Congo, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sudan to name a few.
Humanitarian initiatives
World Humanitarian Day took place on 19 August 2009, to raise awareness of humanitarian workers, including UN volunteers who have dedicated their time (and some their life) to work in dangerous humanitarian missions. More information can be found here.
8 May 2009, saw commemorations for the International Red Cross Day to celebrate the world’s largest humanitarian network, compromising of thousands of volunteers across the world. More information about their humanitarian campaign can be found here.
A recent New Zealand poverty awareness campaign, ‘Stand Up and Take Action’ took place on 16-18 October 2009. Organized by The Council for International Development (CID), in New Zealand, Stand Up is an annual international movement aimed at lobbying world leaders to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
On a similar level, Hugh Evans, the pioneer of the Global Poverty Project, launched their global series of seminars in New Zealand this winter. The project is mainly aimed at raising awareness at a grass-roots level. More information can be found here.