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by MIM
The more than 150,000 deaths from the earthquake and tsunami in South Asia are an almost unfathomable disaster, especially for those in the First World who have never seen destruction of this scale. Even the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the destruction he saw in South Asia last week was far worse than what he had seen at war. Still many people in Amerika offered financial donations for relief to the devastated region. MIM applauds these acts of selflessness by Amerikans not generally concerned with people outside of U.$. borders. It is this kind of internationalist sentiment that we work to foster.
But at the same time we have to ask why people don't similarly offer aid to people fighting the repression of a military dictatorship, or deadly attacks from imperialist armies, or economic devastation from IMF and World Bank austerity measures. All of these are disasters for Third World people, literally killing them. The major difference is the apparent non-political nature of the tsunami deaths, and of course the Amerikan government's support for aid to the victims. But the deaths from this tsunami were not from a "natural" disaster, any more than the Amerikan military's "accidental" bombing of a civilian house in Iraq today (January 8) was a "natural" disaster.
As MIM wrote in our theory journal on Revolutionary Environmentalism: "Another phenomenon which is often not recognized as preventable is 'natural' disasters, such as floods, volcano eruptions, and earthquakes. Sure, these are 'natural,' but why are they disasters? The answer in many cases is that the majority of the world does not have the resources to deal effectively with nature's surprises. Many communities cannot be warned to evacuate when necessary, because they do not have television sets or radios. Once such communities are destroyed by natural events, the neocolonies' poverty prevents the reconstruction of the infrastructure - if there was an infrastructure to speak of in the first place."
In South Asia many of the tsunami deaths could have been prevented with an early warning system similar to the one set up in Hawaii to warn the wealthy Pacific Ocean areas of potential tsunamis. A proposal to set up such a warning system was dismissed for lack of funding in the South Asian region.
A system that forces hundreds of thousands of people to live illegally in shacks on the beach because they can not afford housing even though they work long hours every day caused even more deaths. The many fisherpeople and their families killed by the tsunami lived in these conditions while the wealthy in their countries enjoyed fresh fish and comfortable living on higher ground. In South Asia, Amerikan economic and military support that props up corrupt governments which keep the wealth for themselves and their Amerikan partners.
Indonesia is a prime example of this. The brutal military dictatorship in that country has enjoyed imperialist aid and support, particularly from the United $tates which in turn looks to Indonesia for cheap labor for its imperialist corporations. Indonesia massacred more than a third of the East Timorese population in its years long attempt to put down East Timor's independence struggle. In Aceh province, one of the hardest hit areas, the notoriously brutal Indonesian army continued it's persecution of rebels even in the wake of the death of so many people in the region. These armed patrols are deadly to the population both directly, and as a potential problem for aid delivery.
The mainstream media likes to talk about the "indiscriminate" destruction of the tsunami. But it is not indiscriminate that the vast majority of those who died lived their lives in poverty. The few thousand deaths of resort visitors were a tiny portion of the total, and were at least matched by the deaths of resort workers. While CNN highlights the affect of the tsunami on tourists and hotel operators in Phuket, the locals who live in poverty are brushed over with sweeping views of devastated coastland and images of aid delivery.
According to the World Bank, more than 95% of all deaths caused by disasters occur in developing (Third World) countries; and losses due to natural disasters are 20 times greater (as a percentage of GDP) in developing countries than in imperialist countries.(1) But redevelopment aid will focus on the recognized businesses, particularly tourism and larger businesses. Small businesses and illegal squatters can expect to be pushed off of land and out of work where wealthier people can step in to benefit.
Professor Sumner La Croix, senior fellow in economics at the Hawaii-based East-West Center, an imperialist economic mouthpiece, provides a good example of what we can expect from "rebuilding." The tsunami damage is confined to mostly rural areas and so, La Croix says: "Most rebuilding will replicate what was previously in place: vacationers want hotels by the beach; stores will be located near the beach to provide goods and services; and roads go through these towns"(2) There is no mention of rebuilding for the people who lived on the coast and lost their homes and livelihoods.
Economists are predicting good economic performance by Thailand, Indonesia and India in spite of the disaster, again because the people affected were mostly not central to the economies of those countries. La Croix explains: "Despite the severe damage to Aceh's economic infrastructure, the republic's energy (mainly oil and natural gas) production facilities in Aceh and Northern Sumatra seem to have survived intact."(2) So once again La Croix is clear: the industries making money for those running the countries are important, while the livelihoods of the poor are relatively unimportant. Even where 80% of the population died, the economy will still be fine because the imperialists and their puppets did not lose the oil and natural gas production facilities.
John Pilger, a journalist writing for the New Statesman, explained the hypocrisy of the tsunami aid well: "The victims of a great natural disaster are worthy (though for how long is uncertain) while the victims of man-made imperial disasters are unworthy and very often unmentionable. Somehow, reporters cannot bring themselves to report what has been going on in Aceh, supported by 'our' government. This one-way moral mirror allows U.$. to ignore a trail of destruction and carnage that is another tsunami.
"Consider the plight of Afghanistan, where clean water is unknown and death in childbirth common. At the Labour Party conference in 2001, Tony Blair announced his famous crusade to 're-order the world' with the pledge: 'To the Afghan people, we make this commitment, we will not walk away... we will work with you to make sure [a way is found] out of the poverty that is your miserable existence.' The Blair government had just taken part in the conquest of Afghanistan, in which as many as 20,000 civilians died. Of all the great humanitarian crises in living memory, no country suffered more and none has been helped less. Just three per cent of all international aid spent in Afghanistan has been for reconstruction, 84 per cent is for the US-led military 'coalition' and the rest are crumbs for emergency aid. What is often presented as reconstruction revenue is private investment, such as the 35m dollars that will finance a proposed five-star hotel, mostly for foreigners. An adviser to the minister of rural affairs in Kabul told me the government had received less than 20 per cent of the aid promised to Afghanistan. 'We don't even have enough money to pay wages, let alone plan reconstruction,' he said.
"The reason, unspoken of course, is that Afghans are the unworthiest of victims. When American helicopter gunships repeatedly machine gunned a remote farming village, killing as many as 93 civilians, a Pentagon official was moved to say, 'The people there are dead because we wanted them dead.'" (3)
MIM encourages people to take a look at the world around them and see that deadly disasters are created by imperialism around the world every day. RAIL keeps a running tally of some of these deaths on its Imperialism Kills page (http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/rail/impkills.html). These disasters need to be stopped, and no amount of relief aid will accomplish this. We must fight to overthrow this imperialist system and replace it with a system that serves the people rather than the wealthy.
1. The World Bank, www.worldbank.org
2. The Star online, Jan9, 2005
3. The New Statesman, Jan 6, 2005
by the ILPS-Philippines Chapter
January 11, 2005
The International League of People's Struggle (ILPS) Philippines Chapter condemns the U.$. for making political capital out
of the catastrophic tsunami which engulfed a wide swath of Asia, including some
parts of Africa, and killed 160,000 people.
The ILPS Philippines Chapter denounces the crass opportunism expressed by U.S. State Secretary Colin Powell when he said that the U.$. military relief and aid that it is giving Aceh “should change the battered image of the United $tates around the globe after the its arrogant disregard of international public opinion against the invasion of Iraq. He likewise boasted that this aid is a manifestation of U.$. "generosity" and "American values in action."
Instead of sending skilled civilians, the United $tates seized the opportunity to send an array of U.$. warships, planes, helicopters, and more than 13,000 U.$. military personnel purportedly to help Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, countries most affected by the December 26 disaster. The USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier with 6,000 sailors on board, is currently stationed about 28 kms or 15 nautical miles off Aceh while a fleet of Sea Hawk helicopters from same carrier has been flying food, water, and medical supplies in said region where there is an armed rebellion against the Indonesian government. One thousand and five hundred U.$. troops, meanwhile, are deployed in Sri Lanka where there is also an armed rebellion waged by the Tamil Tigers which is fighting for self-determination.
U.$. forces are also using Thailand's Vietnam era air base of Utapao as an airlift hub for the so-called "humanitarian" mission, strengthening potential U.$. military logistical support through Southeast Asia. Conducting the largest operation in Asia since the Vietnam War, the U.$. military said that its forces could remain in the region for up to six months. Six months can always be extended of course until it becomes permanent.
It is well known that strengthening U.$. military presence in Southeast Asia is a major element in the neoconservatives' imperialist project of Pax Americana in the 21st century that presupposes U.$. imperialism's unchallenged global hegemony. Given U.$. imperialism's proven record of economic plunder and destructive wars, the U.$. military deployment augurs a calamity far worse than the tsunami that devastated these Asian countries.
Source of this article: http://www.antiimperialista.com/view.shtml?category=9&id=1105612477