mental health/well-being & diversity
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WANGO is the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations. This was the first online conference with participants from NGOs world-wide.
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"The Simultaneously National & International Crisis as a Generic Type”
When I was a doctoral student, I chose to specialize in International Relations and Development Issues. Generally, the development literature contained all kinds of theories about development in general, development in Third world countries, primarily former colonies, attempting to identify the impediments to growth, etc..
Development issues were studied in the context of 'area studies', not related to what is going on elsewhere in the international system. My view was that international relations and development issues were inextricably linked, and the powers-that-be and their academic ideologies did not view that as an appropriate focus.
There was one little book that reviewed economic fortunes as they changed with each European treaty since the Congress of
Today, the connection between 'national' development and 'international' development and international relations is very clear: it is the cause of many challenges vis-à-vis equitable development, quality of life, destabilization of societies and the delicate balances of 'ethnic communities', and the diversity that has traditionally existed in societies; it also provides for much hope and promise in alleviating unimaginable levels of poverty and degradation, etc., on our planet and cooperation for the well-being of all, as we do know now that resources are finite and environmental issues are very intricate.
The theory and perspective are even more relevant today than they were before and at the time I formulated it. The connections are a lot more immediate, as evident in the recent 2008 financial meltdown, or OPEC's substantial increase in oil prices in 1973, and in numerous other events in different places, and in international relations and conflict, which the popular development theories did not explain.
Many Third world countries almost went bankrupt, and their five-year economic plans shelved, and there was absolutely no international fund to help them. The 2008 financial meltdown is a 'watershed', and we all will live with its effects for decades. It is of 'security' interest to all countries, and may well turn us all into 'serfs', as the peoples of the earth do not know its origins. Claiming in
The Tsunami – Reflections from Afar.(Written for Community Contact, Montreal, QC, Canada, and Geneva Post, Geneva) Ivan Pereira served for 5 years on Executive Board of the World Conference of Religions and Peace (WCRP) in Canada and is a founding member.Ivan D. Pereira
Satish Kumar, former Jain monk and presently ‘Gandhian activist’, was on the CBC Radio show, Tapestry, on Jan. 6, 2005. He argued for a “reverential ecology” with “a sense of the sacred”. He continued that too much emphasis is put on economic success and it is “like churning sand to make butter”. Sand, of course, is a big-ticket item among“Westerners” and butter is still yellow gold to SouthAsian cooking, despite its known health hazards.
WHAT & WHERE:
The West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center posted the following (updated on Jan. 5, 2005): “The December 26 (2004) earthquake produced the largest trans-oceanic tsunami in over 40 years, and killed more than any tsunami in recorded history. Earthquake parameters (USGS): Latitude: 3.3 N Longitude: 95.8 E Origin Time: 00.58 UTC on Dec., 2004. (04.58 PST on Dec. 25, 2004). Magnitude: 9.0
The earthquake originated in the Indian Ocean, at depth of 30 km (18.6 miles) below mean sea level, 160 km (100 miles) west of the coast of Northern Sumatra. It is the largest earthquake since the 1964 Alaska earthquake of 9.2 magnitude and the 1960 Chile earthquake of 9.5 magnitude, and tied for 4th largest since 1900. The geographical extent was 1200 km (750 miles) of faultline that slipped 20 m (60 ft) between the India and Burma plates, with the Burma plate rising several metres over the India plate to create shock waves.
It caused 104 ‘run-ups’, over the following days, instances of waves hitting coasts around the world, including Alaska, B.C., Halifax, Nova Scotia, etc.. It created a ‘tsunami’ (soo-nah-mee), ‘tsu’ for harbour and ‘nami’ for wave in Japanese, that destroyed coastal areas across in various countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, and places as far as Somalia. Waves were 50 feet high and kept coming every 30 minutes for more than two hours. The earthquake led to several aftershocks over the last seven days, of 4 and 5.8 magnitude off Sumatra. Deaths to date are over 150,000 and counting.WHAT IS A TSUNAMI?
A tsunami is a series of waves generated by earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions, or meteorites hitting the earth’s surface.
Typically, regular wind-driven waves are 10 to 15 seconds apart, with wave length of 150 metres. A tsunami, however, has wave lengths of 100 km, and may take an hour for each wave to hit.
In the Indian Ocean tsunami, there were 5 to 6 waves with 30 minutes apart over two and a half hours, at speeds of 300 km to 500 km an hour as it slowed down in shallower waters closer to the coast – the speed of a passenger jet. As it gets closer to shore, the waves are higher, and these were 50 feet high. The first wave is smaller, and causes a drain away from the shore (a reported 200 yards in Sri Lanka), and the second wave is much bigger, and subsequent waves slowly diminishing in strength.
WHO KNEW AND WHEN?
Preliminary reports indicate that nobody knew in the coastal areas until it hit, and nobody knew what a tsunami was, or recognized how it behaves.
However, a team of researchers at the Department of Geology, University of Madras (India), did ‘predict’ the earthquake and reported it on December 22, 2004, to a 15-member Government delegation of the Department of Science and Technology visiting from New Delhi. It was expected on Dec. 26, at 00.30 GMT with a magnitude of 6 or 7. They were off by 28 minutes and 157 km from the actual epicentre. Because expectation was 6 to 7 magnitude, they “didn’t expect the extent of damage it will cause to the Tamil Nadu coast”.
According to the theory of planetary alignment under certain conditions, the U. of Madras team claims a prediction rate of 75-80% within time frame of 3 to 4 days.
Within 15 minutes of the actual earthquake, the ITIC (International Coordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific) sent a report to the 26 member states of the IOC/UNESCO, including Australia, China, Japan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Indonesia, (India, a non-member, did not receive notification).
Work has been done on tsunamis since 1964, and in 1999 a Master Plan was put in place to deal with tsunamis. The Master Plan states in part: “Since 1987, technological innovations such as enhanced communication networks, improved seismic analysis techniques, and low-cost, high-power desktop computers have added greatly to the expectation that improvements recommended in the Plan can be realized for the benefit of member states”.
So, one can assume member states knew what a tsunami was and had a ‘plan’ to deal with it, such as evacuation, etc..
The USGS (US Geological Survey) sent out ‘e-mail alerts’ as well to its members who subscribe, including individuals at no cost, such as Philippe Choquant (a blogger in France). Choquant reports of receiving an earthquake alert 3 hours before the tsunami it generated hit the coast of Thailand, and he wonders why people at beaches and coastal areas were not informed and evacuation procedures followed to save lives. The USGS e-mail alerts come from “Do_Not_Reply@ghtmail.cr.usgs.gov”. It says it is an “information tool, not an earthquake or tsunami warning system”.
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) scientists also acted quickly and issued an ‘Information Bulletin’ within minutes of what they thought was an 8 magnitude earthquake, later upgraded to 9.
One can assume various countries knew 2 and 3 hours in advance that big tidal waves would hit the coastline because of the earthquake. Furthermore, there are ships in the Indian Ocean, satellites, and weather stations that could have provided information. Attached are photos courtesy of DigitalGlobe.com, a private company dealing with high resolution aerial and satellite photography.
The Associate Director of South Asian Studies at John Hopkins University (US) was vacationing with her family at Triton Hotel, 70 km south of Colombo (Sri Lanka): She writes in a local Sri Lankan newspaper that “the first wave hit at 9.15 am. The water receded 200 yards. No one knew. The manager gave mops to workers to clean up. No one said get off the beaches”. The “second wave hit at 10.00 am local time” with waves of “8 to 10 metres high”. “There was another wave every 15 minutes until 11.30 am”.In Phuket, Thailand, a hotel manager reported 5 to 6 waves 30 minutes apart between 9.00 am and 11.00 am.
PROGNOSIS and AFTERMATH:
Various countries, the World Bank, and the UN are involved in relief efforts. The response has been relatively quick. An estimated $3 - 5 billion has been pledged in loans, lines of credit, and grants, but Kofi Anan (Secretary General of the UNO) has pleaded that the money is urgently needed immediately for food and to prevent disease.
This writer researched the 1970 cyclone in East Pakistan as part of his Ph.D. thesis. A UN Weather station in the Bay of Bengal telexed to its Geneva HQ three days in advance that a massive cyclone, worst in the century, was growing in the Bay of Bengal and moving toward the East Pakistan coast (now Bangladesh). Each report was forwarded by telex 6 to 12 hours later to the Government of Pakistan in the West (1800 miles away).
At the same time, the Pakistan Government had dispatched General Tikka Khan with 3,000 crack Pakistani troops to Dacca (East Pakistan state capital) to intimidate local inhabitants not to separate. These troops were later accused of atrocities and crimes against the civilian population.
In this context, the East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) regional government was only notified 3 hours before the cyclone hit. It is estimated 1 million to 3 million died and got washed away from a population of 70 million then. Official death count was ‘estimated’ at 500,000 and less. Some Bangladeshi decision-makers have noted the handling of the cyclone was ‘the last straw’ in its troubled relationship with West Pakistan and there were even questions about strange ships doing ‘weather research’ in the Bay.
So, whether it is folly, or policy, or negligence, or too many other priorities engulfing government and decision-makers, one does not know at present. However, the death toll in the tsunami is grossly underestimated. Many still under the column of missing or unaccounted for; and this column is totally meaningless for ‘local residents’.
Bakri Musa, in the Malaysia Kini News, Jan 3, writes: “Alas, having the information is one thing and doing something with it is another. We will soon know what various authorities did with the information they had. Only then would we be able to apportion the blame and responsibility between human foibles and nature’s fury”.
If these governments in the region, in the golden arch from Sumatra to Sri Lanka, are charged in the International Criminal Court for criminal negligence, etc., they will quote scriptures and wax eloquent about ‘nature’s fury’, and about moving ‘heaven and hell’ (as India’s Prime minister has) to help the victims and their families.
Many of these coastal people (fishermen, ‘low’ castes, ‘indigenous’, poor, and ‘middle class’) have stood their ground in the past and not ‘moved’. Most are now probably dead. The money in relief will not go to them as they exist no more, but land of ‘unknown ownership’ will be given to developers and business interests who survived (who also have savings, insurance, etc), and this ethnic cleansing will be called ‘rebuilding’ the infrastructure and communities.
That’s addressing the challenges of ‘development’ for you, and the world will be impressed with the ‘coming together’ and ‘bonding’! It would have cost ‘less’ to have invested in these communities in the first place over the past decades and not spent excessively in military hardware not related to security interests, etc..
NOAAA January, 2005, magazine issue states: coastal areas “could be restored in a few years, but the most severely impacted nearshore marine systems could take centuries to fully recover”. Allen Clark (Executive Director, Pacific Disaster Centre) sums up: “The real tragedy of all this is that the system is there, the technology is there, it just wasn’t in place in the Indian Ocean when the thing hit”. (Reported in IOC, UNESCO).
It is indeed tragic that whenever a ‘natural disaster’ or one of human origin hits Third world countries, the death toll is so much higher than similar events in the West. As building codes and other infrastructure improves, and communication and other systems are in place; as pro-active action plans are developed, and people learn to contain communal hatreds and work together in harmony, one hopes in the future the human cost will diminish considerably with these type of ‘events’.
Useful websites:http://ioc.unesco.org/itsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/