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Response to tsunami examined
Official from State Department says U.S. financial commitment 'likely to go way, way up'
by Steve Hinnefeld, Herald-Times Staff Writer
January 14, 2005
Despite early criticism of the U.S. government, Americans have responded promptly and generously in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, a State Department official said.
"Americans, I think, instinctively lean forward," said Peter Kovach, director of the office of public diplomacy with the department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. "I think that's true from the White House to Main Street."
Kovach, speaking at an Indiana University forum and a news conference Thursday, said the government's commitment of $350 million to the effort is "likely to go way, way up." And the amount has been matched by U.S. corporate and individual donations, he said.
Now the challenge will be to continue the effort as the focus shifts from disaster relief to reconstruction of devastated coastal areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, Malaysia and other countries.
Kovach said the effort began this week with a meeting of donor nations and organizations in Geneva, Switzerland.
"I think the world brought their A team and put a lot of money up front," he said. "This, in a way, signals a new stage, to begin to repair infrastructure damage and put these societies back together."
The tsunami, caused by a massive earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, killed at least 150,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
While other natural disasters have caused as many deaths, the tsunami was extraordinary in its scope, affecting 10 countries on two continents, said Michael Hamburger, an IU geological sciences professor who studies earthquakes and tidal waves.
"I think this is really perceived as a global catastrophe," he said.
IU's Asian Culture Center and other groups sponsored the Thursday forum to give students and others a chance to understand the disaster and learn how to respond to it.
Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan and IU Bloomington Chancellor Ken Gros Louis and Dean of Faculties Jeanne Sept welcomed participants, and IU faculty spoke about the social context and media coverage of the disaster and other topics.
Kruzan told more than 200 people at IU's Alumni Hall that the Bloomington community is reaching out to people affected by the disaster. "Our message to you is a simple one," he said. "We care. We are with you."
Peg Sutton, an education professor, has worked on and off for 27 years with colleagues in Sumatra, the Indonesian island hit hardest by the tsunami.
She said reconstruction could be complicated by a long-running military conflict in the island's Aceh province between the government and the secessionist Aceh Freedom Movement.
"It's a tricky situation," Sutton said. "Aceh's been cut off from the outside world for a long time, and there is a history of mistrust and abuse on both sides. Nobody knows what this disaster will do for the ongoing dynamics of the conflict."
The two sides have ceased hostilities as a result of the tsunami, and some observers hope the disaster will lead to a peace agreement.
"So far, mercifully, everybody's been cooperating on the ground," said Kovach, the State Department official.
He said the United States got "a bit of a bad rap" for taking a few days to mount a massive response to a disaster that struck the day after Christmas, with its dimensions not immediately understood.
"I think our coordinated effort, our being essentially the first people to hit the beach with a means of delivering relief, has dissipated that," he said.
He said the American military has played a key role, with two naval task forces, dozens of airplanes and helicopters and about 14,000 personnel involved in delivering aid. While Indonesian leaders have called for U.S. and other foreign troops to leave by the end of March, Kovach said the relief effort has been carried out in cooperation with local governments.
"Respect for sovereignty was the underlying principle of this whole thing," he said.
Hamburger said there has been international cooperation in efforts to understand the disaster and start to put in place a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean region.
He said an effective warning system must include community education — making sure people know to get to high ground when the sirens sound.
There's also an expense to an effective system, he said, with deep-ocean detection devices costing in the millions of dollars.
"I think now it will happen — unfortunately after the disaster has taken place," he said.
Reporter Steve Hinnefeld can be reached at 331-4374 or by e-mail at shinnefeld@heraldt.com.
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