TSUNAMI IMPACT: Aid Could be 'Getting Too Much'

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Aid Could be 'Getting Too Much'
By Julio Godoy

PARIS, Jan 17 (IPS) - After the race to give more and more to tsunami victims comes a test of the opposite; who will be among the first to say that enough is enough.

The French group Medicines sans Frontieres (MsF) was among the first non-governmental organisations to stop collecting donations for people hit by the tsunami. The group acted early on a growing sentiment that aid for the tsunami-hit should not divert attention - and resources - from others in need.

MsF stopped after it reached its aid target. "We estimate that MsF have already received more money across the world than the amount we can use in the different areas affected by the tsunami," the group's director-general Pierre Salignon told media representatives in Paris. MsF raised 40 million dollars within the first ten days..

"This decision might appear to be against the general current of solidarity and mobilisation among donors, but we believe it is a question of honesty vis-à-vis our contributors," he said.

Salignon said MsF continues to campaign for more resources for other crises. "We continue to work against the great pandemics of our times, especially AIDS and tuberculosis, and assisting the victims of forgotten conflicts, such as the war in the northern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Darfur."

The MsF decision lent spark to a growing controversy. Several NGOs condemned the decision. MsF could have made clear that "private contributors can continue donating to other organisations," said Franck Hourdeau, direction of Action Against Hunger.

"Different humanitarian organisations have different objectives," he said. "In four years time we will still be helping in Indonesia while MsF will have ended its duties there in three months."

Jean Francois Mattei, president of the French branch of the Red Cross said he was "surprised" by the MsF decision. "Neither the International Red Cross nor other organisations have reasons to stop receiving donations," he said.

"After the phase of urgency will come the phase of reconstruction, and that will take a lot of money," Mattei added.

French official spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said "there are many NGOs that need funds, that's why all donations are welcome."

The MsF view has, however, won support in high places. United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland had declared he does not like to refer to the tsunami without recalling also the "20 forgotten emergencies" elsewhere.

"I am now as afraid for the situation in Darfur as I was at the peak, nearly, in the summer," he said as relief efforts after the tsunami rose dramatically. "I am just desperate to get attention to the 'tsunami' coming in Congo every three months."

Some of the media too have raised doubts over the outpouring of tsunami aid. "Because the victims included so many tourists, the media machinery (in Europe and North America) has been running at full capacity," Arne Perras wrote in the liberal German newspaper Die Suedeutsche Zeitung.

Perras acknowledged that this marked "a globalisation of compassion and of aid which has surpassed the boldest expectations" but warned that it could be "a momentary effervescence and not a durable solidarity." Once the compassion receded, "the worldwide fight against poverty could suffer."

Perras said private donations must legally be used only for the cause they were given for. "This present outburst of solidarity is also binding such a giant amount of money that it begs the question whether it is not crowding out other crises."

Commentators point out also that major European countries have not done what they really needed to - budget 0.7 percent of their gross national income (GNI) for development aid in line with the United Nations target.

The satirical French weekly Le Canard Enchaine wrote that a disaster like the earthquake in the Indian state Gujarat in January 2001 did not get anything like this kind of attention in Western media.

In this case, it said, the media has gone for the story because "the tsunami occurred the day after Christmas, and it took French victims. There is nothing better to bring a catastrophe closer to us." (END/2005)

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