Out of Harm's Way: linking disasters and development

Another one bites the dust

2007-09-05T19:54:00.000+09:30

I'm yet another blogger moving to Wordpress.

Why? Because it's infinitely more user-friendly. Oh, and they let me have the URL I wanted. :)

My new address is: http://outofharmsway.wordpress.com

On the priorities of journalists

2007-08-30T09:50:00.000+09:30

This news story appeared in a number of newspapers this week, and while the content of the article makes it clear that these allegations are mere "rumour" at this point in time, it does raise questions about why journalists publish such stories...too often stories about PNG (and Melanesia more generally) reinforce stereotypes of madness, irrationality etc...why not report on the HIV/AIDS epidemic sweeping through PNG, rather than the alleged hysteria of local people?

Papua New Guinea police to investigate claims AIDS patients buried alive
The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea: Police and health workers in Papua New Guinea were investigating unverified claims by an HIV-positive woman that people with AIDS were buried alive by their relatives who could no longer care for them, an official said Tuesday.
Margaret Marabe, who reportedly spent five months working to raise awareness about the disease in the South Pacific nation's remote Southern Highlands province, said she had seen weary AIDS patients buried alive.
"I saw three people with my own eyes," Marabe told the Post Courier newspaper for its Monday edition. "When they got very sick and people could not look after them, they buried them."
The acting director of Papua New Guinea's National AIDS Council, Romanus Pakure, said police and health workers were being sent to the Southern Highlands to investigate the claims.
However, he questioned why Marabe had not approached the police before taking her story to the media.
"The lady may be a loose cannon; we are not happy it's come out like this," he said.
Pakure conceded that the stigma against people with HIV was very strong in the countryside, where education about the disease is scarce.
Similar claims of AIDS killings have been made in the past but none were verified, he said.
"There were reports maybe five to 10 years ago of people being buried alive. There were also reports of people being thrown in the river or burnt alive," he said.
The council and other health agencies were moving ahead with programs to raise knowledge about HIV/AIDS and teach families how to care for people with the disease, Pakure said.
Marabe could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Anne McPherson, a spokeswoman for the organization where Marabe works as a volunteer, said she had not heard of Marabe's claims before they appeared in the local newspaper.
Papua New Guinea, which shares an island north of Australia with Indonesia's easternmost Papua province, is among the hardest-hit countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
Officials have estimated that the adult per capita infection rate lies between 1.28 percent and 2 percent, and have warned that some isolated pockets of the country face HIV rates as high as 30 percent.

'Custom'

2007-08-08T13:29:00.000+09:30

I often find myself returning to this poem. It's by Grace Mera Molisa (Black Stone, 1991). It's probably controversial, and it obviously doesn't present the complexity of custom, and it's somewhat negative...but I still like it...I like it aesthetically and it's a bit of a touch-stone for me to come back to when people are challenging me about my "right" to be writing on the issues faced by Melanesian women when I'm a white woman.

If it were about my own experiences, I'd change "Custom" to "religion".

'Custom'

misapplied

bastardised

murdered

a Frankenstein

corpse

conveniently

recalled

to intimidate

women.

'Slum tourism'

2007-07-29T15:23:00.000+09:30

An article in The Age, 'For Richer, For Poorer', looks at the pros and cons of 'slum tourism'.

I'd never heard of this term before reading the article, but it's meaning is obvious. The context: a three-hour tour of Rocinha favela, one of many shanty towns that cling to hillsides in Rio de Janeiro. One of the aims of the tour is "to show that most residents are ordinary people, not drug lords - yet evidence of the local gang, ADA, is spray-painted on many walls and our guide, very discreetly, points out armed sentries keeping watch for police at the favela's entry points." Similar tours now run in India and South Africa. In Mumbai, they go to Dharavi, Asia's biggest slum, and in Johannesburg to the township of Soweto, where the Oscar-winning film Totsi was set.

Critics of slum tourism - which, due to the derogatory notions of 'slum', I'm going to re-dub 'informal settlement tourism' (!!) - say that it's exploitative, voyeuristic and an invasion of privacy. I would agree with this...touring underprivileged settlements IS starkly different to touring wealthy settlements, for the simple reason that the underprivileged rarely have the luxury of privacy within their communities, let alone their own homes. They can't build big walls, they don't have private bathrooms, couples don't have private bedrooms...they don't have the resources to choose to "hide" themselves (and yes, I acknowledge that privacy may be valued differently in different cultures).

On the other hand, these tours are also praised for raising awareness of poverty and bringing tourism dollars to communities in need. I can acknowledge the former - so many tourists to places like Vanuatu or Thailand are either completely unaware of, or have very little idea about, the poverty that they are actually benefiting from. I've seen white American uni students berate tuk-tuk drivers and complain that Thailand is "too expensive", completely forgetting that the tuk-tuk driver is probably struggling to make a living while they, the "poor" American university student, are enjoying the luxury of international travel. I would, however, be careful of jumping to the conclusion that the presence of tourists in a particular geographical area necessarily means that the local population is benefitting - this applies as much to the "slums" of Rio de Janeiro as it does to the hill tribes of Thailand.

Big Brother Is Watching?

2007-07-27T13:11:00.000+09:30

Wow...

Update 1/08/07 - see updated comments below!!

Papua legislative council deliberating microchip regulation for people with
HIV/AIDS
Posted at 00:42 on 25 July, 2007 UTC

The Legislative Council of Indonesia’s Papua province is deliberating a regulation that would see microchips implanted in people living with HIV/AIDS so authorities could monitor their actions.

The Jakarta Post reports that according to Article 35 of the regulation on healthcare in the province, to supervise and control people with HIV/AIDS a detection device is needed to monitor the movements and sexual activities of people with HIV/AIDS.

The article has been condemned by activists and government officials in the province as a gross violation of rights.

Dr John Manansang, a member of the working group deliberating the regulation, told reporters in Jayapura that if the regulation was approved by the council in its present form, the article on microchips would be implemented.

Dr Manansang said the microchips would be imposed on people with HIV/AIDS who practice high-risk behaviors.

However, the Papua chapter of the National AIDS Commission has slammed the proposal as a violation of human rights.

It says any form of identification of people with HIV/AIDS violates human rights

Update: 1 August 2007

Apparently this was a bit of sensationalist journalism. According to emails circulating various e-groups, the Deputy Governor of Papua and other Papuans have dismissed this as fanciful. Apparently the original Jakarta Post article was quoted selectively by Radio NZ (and others). The original articles indicated that the proposal had come from a doctor who was on a working group examining draft health legislation. It also included a statement that the head fo the Papua chapter of the National AIDS Commission - who also happens to be the Deputy Governor! - slammed the proposal as a violation of human rights. Questions were also raised as to who had drafted the regulation.

So why would the global media publish the proposal so selectively, leaving out vital information that is clearly essential to understanding the entire story? In the emails I've received, several people have pointed out that it serves to reinforce stereotypes of Melanesians and celebrate bizarre behaviour in exotic locations.

Here's the latest article from the Jakarta Post:
Protesters slam proposal to tag people with HIV/AIDS

Blogging on 'trouble in paradise' and 'the arc of instability'

2007-07-21T12:41:00.000+09:30

The Coming Anarchy has been hosting a series on security issues in Oceania. Bloggers include Opinio Juris, The Strategist (focusing on Melanesia) and Phil at Pacific Empire. It's good to see some more coverage of issues in the South Pacific (albeit negative ones) in cyberspace.

First Interim Report of the April Riot Commission of Inquiry

2007-07-19T16:07:00.000+09:30

The Commission of Inquiry into the 2006 April Civil Unrest in Honiara released its first interim report to the public this morning (see report here...I wish they'd PDF it or something...)

The Commission is chaired by Brian Brunton (a former PNG National Court judge). The other members of the Commission are Noel Levi (PNG), Waeta Ben Tabusasi (Solomon Islands) and Charles Levo (Solomon Islands).

I haven't yet read the entire report, but the points made in the Executive Summary include the following:
there is evidence of a degree of consensus amongst political groups present in Honiara, that in the event of a prime minister being elected by Parliament who was not of their choice, or liking, they would force a regime change; despite this, senior officers controlling Solomon Islands security had (a) inadequately assessed the risks of civil unrest associated with the election of a prime minister;(b) no detailed plan to deal with potential unrest;(c) insufficient numbers of police, insufficient trained riot-control capability and insufficient equipment to deal with the risks of civil unrest associated with the election of a prime minister.

Of considerable interest is this point:

The Commission is of the opinion that the assertions by some witnesses that the outbreak of violence at Parliament House was (a) spontaneous, (b) a reaction to pent-up anger, (c) driven by the need to get rid of corruption, (d) driven by the need to break Chinese influence on political groups, or (e) a reaction to the Participating Police Force firing either flash-grenades or tear gas are, in part, contrived, do not ring true, and conflict with other evidence (such as footage, the throwing of stones, and statements of other witnesses).

Hmmm. I'll read the report before I comment on that one!!

The Voice of Youth: child wedding stopped by school students

2007-07-18T13:54:00.000+09:30

A reminder that we should think beyond cliches - kids are the leaders of tomorrow, but they might also be the leaders of today; and while children are frequently described as amongst the most vulnerable, this is a reminder that we shouldn't overlook their capacities and forms of resilience either.

Child wedding 'stopped by pupils' (from BBC)

Classmates of a 13-year-old Bangladeshi school girl due to enter a forced marriage have united to stop the ceremony going ahead, police say.

Around 50 pupils in the town of Satkhira took to the streets to demand that Habiba Sultana's wedding be called off, they say.

Pupils even submitted a petition to police urging them to take action.

Police summoned Habiba's father and ordered him to stop the girl's marriage, which they said was illegal.

Her father was told to sign a bond in which he promised not marry off his daughter while she is still a child, the Bangladesh Daily Star reported.

It said that the wedding was to have taken place in the south-western town of Satkhira on Friday.

Police say that Habiba, a student of Abdul Karim Girls' High School, did not agree when her poverty-stricken father arranged for her to marry a 23-year-old neighbour.

Police say that she was too frightened to protest.

When she told her friends about the impending wedding, they rallied round and urged her not to go ahead.

Parents of her friends contacted Habiba's father and tried to stop him from going ahead with the wedding.

Initially he ignored their protests, but changed his mind after the police were alerted and small protests were held outside the school.

Correspondents say that the stand of the schoolgirls has created a stir in the town.

Like many other parts of the country - young people in Satkhira are deferential to their parents and seldom question their commands.

Leading Pacific and Fiji-based Human Rights Activist banned from leaving Fiji

2007-07-17T11:40:00.000+09:30

During the last few weeks, the Fiji military interim administration has banned several NGO workers and human rights activists from leaving Fiji in the course of their normal duties as representatives of their organisations and networks.

The latest victim of these travel bans is the Coordinator of the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre (FWCC) Shamima Ali (press release here).

The FWCC was recently appointed the deputy chair of the advisory committee to the Pacific Prevention of Domestic Violence Program, which is an initiative between NZAid and the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police (PICP).

Details of this story can be found in the FWCC's June newsletter.

The FWCC is regarded as one of the most successful AusAID-Pacific NGO partnerships. Shamima Ali is a remarkable woman, being the founding member of the Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights and is the first Pacific Islander appointed by the United Nations as a member of the Expert Group on the Rights of the Girl-Child. Ms Ali was a Pacific representative on the Commonwealth Foundation Civil Society Advisory Council , and was appointed a member of the Commonwealth Observer Group for the Nigerian Elections (April 2003) and appointed Fiji Human Rights Commissioner (February 2004) with a reappointed in February 2006.

The Director of the Fiji Human Rights Commission (an independent statutory authority), Shaista Shameem, has said that she has advised the interim government to lift the travel bans (audio comments here).

On the danger of song lyrics and election shenanigans

2007-07-11T14:14:00.000+09:30

The NSW government has refused to scrap a controversial songbook with a song apologising to Aborigines, despite complaints it's political propaganda. Hamish East, the father of a pupil at Kiama Public School, on the state's south coast, approached the school principal after learning his son Brian was being taught the Sorry Song by West Australian composer Kerry Fletcher. Mr East told News Ltd he was not opposed to reconciliation but the sorry issue was "emotive" and political, and should not be forced down the throat of a child. He is reported as saying that the song is a "political stunt" which "confused" his son.

The only lyrics I can find on the web are the following:

If we can say sorry to the people from this land,
Sing, sing loud,
Break through the silence,
sing across this land.

They Cry, they cry,
Their children were stolen,
They still wonder why.

Break through the silence
Sing sorry across this land
We cry, we cry, their children were stolen.

Mmm. I would have thought the history of that song was fairly undisputed, and was not overly politicised. Kids were taken from their parents, we still feel the ramifications of that today, and we should be sorry for that part of our history.

Kevin Rudd has disagreed with the NSW government. He's indicated that he sees the song as inappropriate for schools, saying: "I think we're starting to look at too much political correctness on those sorts of questions. We've got to watch out for political correctness going mad."

"Political correctness gone mad." That phrase always sets off alarm bells for me!

Mr Rudd says that children should be educated about the facts of Australia's history, including respecting indigenous culture, but left to make up their own minds about what's right and wrong.

With all due respect to Mr Rudd, I reckon that irrespective of whether Aussie kids are taught that indigenous kids were "stolen" or "taken", they're going to find that pretty...uh, emotive. When I was in primary school I was absolutely terrified that my parents would get divorced, because it felt like everyone else's parents would. I suspect that a lot of kids are going to find the idea that children were "taken" from their parents pretty distressing...even confusing.

I'm far from convinced that the Sorry Song is any more "emotive" or biased than the lyrics of our national anthem: . Perhaps we should cease teaching that to kids, in case it denies them the ability to make up their own minds about history.

When gallant Cook from Albion sail'd,
To trace wide oceans o'er,
True British courage bore him on,
Till he landed on our shore.
Then here he raised Old England's flag,
The standard of the brave;
With all her faults we love her still,
"Brittannia rules the wave!"
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"

Or how about the final verse:

Shou'd foreign foe e'er sight our coast,
Or dare a foot to land,
We'll rouse to arms like sires of yore
To guard our native strand;
Brittannia then shall surely know,
Beyond wide ocean's roll,
Her sons in fair Australia's land
Still keep a British soul.
In joyful strains the let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"

I'm not sure that singing about Aussies having a "British soul" and England ruling the waves is allowing kids much scope to "make up their own minds" about our history.

While on the surface this appears to be a relatively insignificant spat over the appropriateness of singing a song in a primary school, at a deeper level it reveals the extent to which Australian history continues to be whitewashed (and I use that term deliberately). The vulnerability and capacity of individuals and communities is rooted in their histories. History shapes our social structures, our sense of self, our emotional resilience.

I don't expect 8 year olds to fully understand this part of Australian history - it's hard for me, a young adult, to get my head around it! I don't believe that 8 year olds of Anglo descent should be plagued by guilt for what their grandparents or great-parents did. However the reality is that many 8 year olds of indigenous descent are painfully aware of this history. They might know that their father has only just met some of his siblings, or they might know that their grandmother never knew her mother because she was taken from her family and forced to work, very hard, for white people in a place very far away from her own community. Or they might know that their father doesn't know where he comes from, and that he saw very bad things in the mission he grew up on. Where do these kids fit into our education system? For how long will we continue to ignore their voices, their everyday experiences? For how long will their experiences be ignored because their stories are "too difficult" for other 8 year olds?

Land, Violent Conflict and Development

2007-07-10T15:03:00.000+09:30

I'm currently reading the OECD Development Centre's report on Land, Violent Conflict and Development. The report reviews what has been learnt so far about the link between land and conflict (Sections II and III), and the scope for land policy to prevent violent conflict (Section IV). It also looks at what is not known, as well as ways to learn more. It concludes with making some preliminary policy-relevant recommendations on how donors may support the use of land policy to secure peace in developing countries.

The report is not new - publication date is 2004 - but it makes some observations that don't appear to have been heeded. For example, the report notes that donors' conflict-prevention programmes aiming to sustain peace in immediate post-conflict settings tend to neglect land issues. Similarly, land policy projects often neglect the conflict dimension. It suggests that donors include "Political Impact Assessment" into project cycles in order to better understand local dynamics, monitor potential land-incited conflict, and consider the impact of projects on local politics and land issues.

An observation that I found worrying, but in some respects reassuring because of my own frustration with the limited interaction between "research" and "practice" (also known as "academics" and "NGOs") was the observation that:

Although the scope of each category of development programme (e.g. rural development, education, or enterprise development) is broadening continuously to accommodate new preoccupations, those responsible for designing and implementing them, within academia or donor agencies, do not systematically exchange their views and experience.

A section that really struck me was that entitled "Decentralisation is not a Panacea" (p. 33):

Although assumed to be more transparent and closer to “ground-level realities” than national politics, local politics often exhibit no such features when looked at in detail — especially in contexts marked by the embedded domination of large landowners. In Africa, British colonial rule — often referred to as “indirect rule” — greatly weighted the balance of forces at the level of villages in favour of chiefs. This situation has not been significantly altered after decolonisation, and incited Mamdani (1996) to describe it as “decentralised despotism”. Thus, even when agrarian structures appear to be organised along “customary” rules, they do not necessarily foster “harmony” between community members. Chauveau (1998) thus argues that:
“As an element of broader social relations, and a result from history and power relations, customary tenure rules and practice do not constitute an endogenous, closed and harmonious system[…]. The process by which rights are acquired and protected is hence deeply political”.
He argues that West African small holder agriculture is subject to a variety of external and internal pressures, to which different customary systems react differently. Yet, a common feature seems to be that local dynamics tend to reinforce the most powerful members of the community (usually middle aged land owning men). When economic opportunities are rising, a process of differentiation is observed, which favours those who are able to invest in land productivit (Woodhouse 2003); when opportunities are becoming scarcer, the pressure on livelihoods puts at odds customary and other claims to land, and results either in the exclusion of the weaker or in violent conflict. As Woodhouse (ibid.) puts it:
“When competition for land intensifies, the inclusive flexibility offered by customary rights can quickly become an uncharted terrain on which the least powerful are vulnerable to exclusion as a result of the manipulation of ambiguity by the more powerful”.
Therefore, assuming “decentralised” ownership of projects to be more legitimate or efficient “by essence” may be misleading. For all their shortcomings, central states have an essential role to play in promoting peace and development in rural areas, including through a process of decentralisation. First, they can balance the influence of local authorities viz. the weaker groups (often the young, women, and strangers). Second, they can ensure induced patterns of change are consistent with overall goals of economic growth and environmental sustainability.

A good reminder that we should always interrogate our assumptions, biases and ideological leanings!! I've often been frustrated by the criticism levelled by some NGOs, practitioners and activists towards other NGOs or donor agencies that focus on reform of governance, law and justice sectors. While the shift towards grassroots development is a good one, we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater - law reform is often a necessary part of development, and it is inevitably going to be more top-down than some other forms of development. Unfortunately too many NGOs neglect issues of law and governance (because these issues are seen as "top down" development), and focus instead on things like microcredit (which is seen as "grassroots" development), when law and governance systems are the very things that shape people's access to resources.

Weaving "modern" and "traditional" systems together: the kastom economy in Vanuatu

2007-07-10T08:44:00.000+09:30

2007 is the Year of the Kastom Economy in Vanuatu, and the BBC article 'Paying in pig tusks in Vanuatu' provides an example of how ni-Vanuatu are exploring ways for the modern, cash-based economy and the customary economy might interact. I'm really only beginning to learn about Vanuatu, and I'm no economist, but I am fascinated by the creativity with which ni-Vanuatu people have sought to bring together the two economic systems so as to not only preserve the kastom economy but increase the capacity of those who have access to the kastom economy but limited access to the cash economy. Apparently school fees can often (always?) be paid with traditional currency, and this article provides an example of library fees being paid for with traditional currency.

East Gippsland floods: the aftermath

2007-07-09T19:59:00.000+09:30

Flood victims threaten to sue (The Australian, 5/7/07, AAP)

Angry residents of waterlogged Gippsland are threatening legal action against local authorities for not warning homeowners and businesses of the impending deluge when water was released from an upstream reservoir during the flood crisis. Mr Bracks said the Southern Rural Water authority acted properly in releasing water from the Glenmaggie Weir.

Flood victims to get funding (The Age, 9/7/07, David Rood

Premier Steve Bracks has announced $1.2 million for Gippsland areas affected by recent floods, and further multi-million dollar funding announcement is expected tomorrow. Wellington acting mayor Jeff Amos told Mr Bracks and his cabinet the floods had a devastating impact and while the immediate clean-up would be long and arduous, the eventual recovery would be "a hell of a lot longer".

"The pressure on our communities has been great," Mr Amos said.

"What a lot of people haven't realised is a lot of our communities have battled a very long drought, followed then by bushfires, mudslides and now this just tops it all off.

"People in those communities ... are certainly stoic, they're resilient but at the moment things are starting to wear a little bit thin."

Insurers refuse flood claims (the Australian, 9/7/07, Catherine Best)

Flood-stricken residents in Victoria's Gippsland are facing a massive financial hit with some insurance companies refusing to pay out tens of thousands of dollars in damage bills.

Householders and business owners have been left begging as they mop up from the worst floods in decades, on top of bushfires and record drought. Insurers generally don't offer flood insurance, and most insurers do not cover homes and businesses for flood damage.

The problems with focusing on vulnerability rather than capacity

2007-07-09T13:01:00.000+09:30

Also known as "the problems of a culturally-biased approach", or "thinking that 'we' know what 'they' need"!

In a post titled "Why do we keep failing Africa?", Dave asks, "so what's going on? Our country and others in the developed world are swimming in cash and resources. Why can't we share it with people who really need it?"

I loved this response (bold is by me...the bit about traffic lights reminded me of the underpass and overpass opposite the market in Honiara, apparently funded by AusAid - I've never seen anyone use the overpass, the underpass is full of rotting vegetables and other rubbish, and despite thousands being spent on these two "amenities", you still see women tearing across the highway with a sack of rice on their heads...)

Dear Dave and fellow-bloggers,

I do not write this from my comfortable, eastern suburbs armchair. I write instead, from a lopsided office chair in rural West Africa. I don’t for a moment suggest this makes me a great expert, but I live here and I have my eyes open. This is what I’ve seen:

I’ve seen the homes that government officials build for themselves in the rural villages from which they came. Multiple stories high, beautifully tiled, landscape and with satellite dishes sprouting from the roofs. In a paddock on the outskirts of a village where every other construction is single story, mud brick, maybe three rooms and home to a large family.

I’ve seen, and am daily frustrated by, traffic lights erected in the middle of my rural town with overseas aid money that was earmarked for road safety. Road safety is a wonderful thing, I regularly make long cross-country trips that involve frequently fearing for my life, I would like to be safer on the roads here. Traffic lights, however, are doing nothing to improve my safety on the road. Not only are they spectacularly ineffective in a town struggling to maintain reliable electric supply; they are off more often than on, but they clog up intersections that function quite effectively when they don’t function. But this money was earmarked for such measure, and so it is traffic lights that we get.

This, I think, is one of the problems with aid, at least in the part of Africa that I know well. It is earmarked, set aside, prescribed by foreign governments and organizations for what they deem to be worthy issues without a real understanding of what is needed here. Road safety is needed, but my safety, and the safety of those whose country I live in, would be much better improved if the only major highway was not so heavily pothole that driving on it is like a slalom course and if even the major roads were wide enough for two vehicles to safely pass each other. When money is earmarked like this it clearly demonstrates that those foreigners responsible for it made no effort to leave the capital city, where traffic management is a major problem, and discover what is needed in the rural areas where a lot of their money will end up. Showed no actual interest in Africa, but decided that the right thing to do was to send money and to decide we needed traffic lights.

Governments remain the bodies most able to collect and distribute aid money, whether they do so or not. The vast majority of well funded aid that I see comes from governments. It is good money that could be used to do good things. It is left, however, in the hands of government officials. There are some leaders and officials who are more than capable of distributing this money effectively, on important issues, and improving the lives of their countrymen. There are others, however, who, faced with temptation, choose to funnel it into multistory houses in their home towns or, as others have mentioned, into Swiss bank accounts, building up arms caches and even conducting ethnic cleansing. They are left, by there brother governments, with spectacular amounts of money and arms-length, phony accountability. How many of you can be certain that, if given large quantities of foreign money, our own leaders would use it wisely and not spend it on campaign ads to get themselves back into to power next time? I don’t believe that is a particularly African problem.

What is necessary, then, as far as I can see it, is for aid to continue, but to be accompanied by genuine interest and involvement into the countries it is given to. For those giving and administering those funds to be people who are dedicated to the improvement of the country it is going to. To be people who are willing to invest there time, as well as their money. To spend the time discovering what is really needed, to spend the time to understand how to create genuine accountability and partnerships with leaders who have genuine integrity, to spend time working out how to help without creating dependency.

Many of you have reference the situation with out own indigenous community, and Mr. Pearson’s idea that “hound-outs kill”, others have suggested that Africans don’t know how to maintain what is begun by aid money, or what was left by colonial administrations. I don’t believe that this is the case. I do believe, however, that poorly managed aid, and welfare, leads to a cycle of dependency, both in Africa and the indigenous community. If money spent on beginning a project in Africa, whether it be good and appropriate or otherwise, if that project is begun and managed without any true involvement and partnership with locals involved, it will be depended upon and when it is left, it will be abandoned. Indeed, neither African, nor the indigenous community want or need handouts, but partnership with people, so they can improve their own lives in a way that is appropriate, necessary and sustainable, not condescending and disinterested.

I believe that the answer is neither to throw our arms up in disgust, nor to continue wantonly throwing money at the situation, but to move from a point of arrogance and guilt and give our genuine interest and involvement along with our money, being willing to invest our time and our lives in order that we are actually investing our money, and not wasting it.
Posted by: voyageur on July 6, 2007 8:05 PM

Opinion piece: Tim Costello on doing right by our region

2007-07-06T09:48:00.000+09:30

Hmmmm...generally a good piece, but I'd query some of the assertions..."improve agricultural techniques?" Maybe "improved logging practices" is more to the point! I'm also far from convinced that concert attendances and the wearing of fashion accessories is indicative of an interest in structural change! Finally...while I agree that aid and development assistance can reduce migration, I'm wary of linking aid and development, security, and migration too closely...it entrenches notions of "us vs them", and the idea that refugees are bad and a security threat...

Finally, I realise that there is a place for pragmatism, but I believe that there is also a place for compassion, a place for moral imperatives. While I think this is generally a great piece, and I generally argue in these terms myself, there is also another part of me that is disappointed that Tim - one of the few highly popular religious leaders this country has - would opt for arguments based on pragmatism, arguments based on "our" economic and physical security, over those based on compassion and moral imperatives. In Christian terms, part of me wishes he had be prophetic.

IT IS indisputable that many of the nations of the Pacific confront enormous challenges to overcome poverty, unrest and violence. The magnitude of
these challenges is underscored by World Vision research that shows 22 developing nations in the Pacific and South-East Asia are failing to meet one or many of the global goals set out to combat poverty through the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals.

One critical element in this failure has been the lack of properly targeted aid funding by rich nations, and a lack of predictability in the aid that has been given.

There is a global shortfall in overseas aid, causing United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to this week warn that the broken promises of developed nations were strangling efforts to eradicate poverty. And nowhere is this failure more critical for Australia than in its own neighbourhood, the Pacific and South-East Asia. In many ways Australia has dropped the ball in its handling of the challenges facing the Pacific region.

While we have helped to re-establish law and order in some of our nearest neighbours, like East Timor, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, if such interventions are to be successful in the long term, this must be the start of our help, not the end.

The next step is to tackle the underlying causes of the unrest — issues such as the lack of economic opportunities, the breakdown in local governance and the increasingly degraded environment. And while it is the right thing for Australia to do, it is also in our own interest. If we fail to assist in resolving these underlying issues, our troops will be back in very quick time.

This is why Australia's overseas aid is an investment in our future, not simply charity.

Well-targeted overseas aid increases people's access to basic health and education, it builds basic infrastructure that increases economic growth and creates jobs. It also builds demand in our nearest neighbours for good governance.

Therefore I welcome Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's call for a rethink on
Australia's response to the economic and social problems of the Pacific. His commitment to boost overseas aid funding to 0.5 per cent of GNI by 2015 will double the amount of aid we give. While not the 0.7 per cent of GDP that our Government promised to the world's poor in 2000, it is the minimum amount required to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

In the Pacific and in South-East Asia it has the potential to make a profound impact. If delivered, the extra aid could allow Australia to do all of the following: reduce child deaths by 140,000 each year, cut maternal deaths by 4200, reduce by at least 29,000 deaths from AIDS and by 31,000 deaths from tuberculosis each year. It could also provide access to safe drinking water to almost 37 million people.

Creating jobs for people in their own countries will reduce refugees. Promoting improved agricultural techniques and alternative fuel sources will reduce environmental degradation and climate change. Increasing the incomes of people in our region will create new markets for Australian businesses.

This is one of the reasons that some of Australia's largest corporations are becoming much more interested in reducing poverty in our region. A recent report by Allen Consulting warned that poverty in the Asia Pacific region would directly threaten the prosperity of corporate Australia.

The report prompted business leaders to urge the Federal Government to partner with corporate Australia in fostering more effective investment in emerging Asia Pacific markets.

In Canberra last month the Business for Poverty Relief Alliance — which includes leading companies such as the ANZ Bank, Grey Global Group, IAG and Visy Industries — said the Government had a key role to play through our overseas aid program, which could be better targeted to create an environment that allows successful and socially sustainable investment.
Globally, the importance of foreign aid has not been lost on other world leaders. The new British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has made the fight against global poverty a key plank of his premiership.

Historically, Australia has traditionally punched above its weight in international affairs. Both sides of the political divide have contributed greatly to international action: to end apartheid in South Africa, to create the International Criminal Court, to aid successful elections in Cambodia and to press for change in Zimbabwe, as well as the critical interventions in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

Australia's leading role in the Cairns Group, which has pressed for free trade to help poorer nations, is also laudable. Unfortunately, over the past decade we have failed to show international leadership on the critical issue of levels of overseas aid.

Australia is badly lagging other developed nations on the level of overseas aid it gives, ranking equal 15th out of 22 of the world's richest countries. And while there were some welcome initiatives in the latest federal budget, there is a greater capacity to help — at relatively little cost and with the potential to reap benefits of our own.

It is in our own interests to ensure stability and growth in the countries that surround us. It is also in our interests to do what we can to foster environmental sustainabilty and an adherence to human rights in the emerging superpowers of Asia.

No doubt Kevin Rudd's call for a rethink on the Pacific and a pledge to boost aid has been partly inspired by the massive support in Australia for the Make Poverty History campaign.

Last year, 15,000 people attended the Make Poverty History concert in Melbourne, while almost 100,000 Australians joined more than 23 million people worldwide to stand up for poverty, and more than 800,000 Australians bought white wristbands to show their support for the cause.

This is an issue Australians understand, an issue people care about. It is my hope that it will now be an issue that increasingly captures the attention of our political leaders.

Tim Costello is chief executive of World Vision Australia.

Praise the Lord, and DON'T pass the ammunition

2007-07-05T12:10:00.000+09:30

Rudd vows lift in Pacific island aid
July 05, 2007

FEDERAL Labor leader Kevin Rudd has promised a big increase in Australian aid to Pacific island nations to end instability in the region.

Mr Rudd last onight said a “radical rethink” of the nation's role in the Pacific would focus on economic improvement to avoid costly military interventions and a flow of refugees to Australia.

He said a Labor government in its first term would undertake auditing and planning with each Pacific neighbour and, if re-elected, it would commit to a “significant” investment program over time.

Labor would seek to reach an overall overseas aid target of 0.5 per cent of GDP by 2015-16 - about twice current levels.

The Opposition Leader will detail what he's calling a Pacific partnership for development and security in a speech to the Lowy Institute in Sydney this morning.

“What I'm proposing is a radical rethink about Australia's engagement with the states which form part of our arc of instability,” Mr Rudd told ABC TV.

“If we don't act to change now, what I fear most is in the future we're going to have more costly military interventions.

“What we'll have is states fail in the region, or more of them fail ... you'll then have the risk of significant refugee outflow from the island states of the region into Australia.”

In the past decade Australia has twice sent troops to East Timor and continues to lead a Solomon Islands peacekeeping mission.

Mr Rudd said the change in policy would prioritise economic development so security problems would be come more manageable.

“Right now we're simply dealing with the military or security symptom of an underlying economic development challenge.”

In addition to one-off military interventions and refugees, Mr Rudd said he was concerned about the threat to public health in Australia.

“When you talk about the collapse of public health in Papua New Guinea, you're looking at HIV-AIDS infection rates of something about two per cent of the population and the exposure of our communities in the Torres Strait and in north Queensland.”

Mr Rudd agreed he was also concerned about other nations supplanting Australia as the principal power in the region.

“If we fail to act effectively then I think we're going to see a long-term drift in Australia's strategic standing right across this region as well.”

The Circuit: the social, cultural and political significance of great TV

2007-07-05T08:57:00.000+09:30

I was chatting with friends the other night about the state of TV. We recalled some of the great Australian tv shows of our childhood and teenage years (Janus, Mercury, Brides of Christ, Wild Side, Seachange, MDA...) and bemoaned the way that reality tv seems to have taken over the world.

Now I'm excited about an Aussie drama for the first time in a long time. I've been watching the advertisements on SBS and thinking that The Circuit looks like it could be a cracker. The Age has a write-up today which has whet my appetite further. It not only looks like some great TV, but its production raises questions about the role and status of indigenous people in broader Australian society and culture, and the extent to which the arts can be utilised for capacity-building and empowerment:

"With a cast, crew and writing and production team comprising about 95 per cent Aboriginal people, the stories of The Circuit are bound to resonate with many of them. The non-Aboriginal actors and producers say that working on this Aboriginal driven drama, a first for Australian television, has opened their eyes.

Co-producer Ross Hutchens, whose wife is Aboriginal, says: "Just seeing this baggage that indigenous people carry for their whole community . . . There's the amount of death that the indigenous cast and crew have dealt with . . . there's been an actor friend in Melbourne who passed away; it's just constant. I'll be dealing with some on-set issue and the director's helping me and at the same time they're texting a kid in Melbourne who's chroming. You've got all these people with different backgrounds, you're part-producer, you're part-social worker. At the end of it, I can go home, whereas for some of my indigenous directors and writers, this is their life."

Most (but not all) of my friends who are indigenous are also highly educated professionals (most attended university or TAFE). They're lawyers, ministers of religion, linguists, musicians, writers, film-makers, and people working in the community-development sector and the charitable sections of big corporates. At least one has said that he thinks that indigenous men who wear suits are perhaps the most marginalised of all indigenous people:

Although magistrate Peter Lockhart (Gary Sweet) and Aboriginal Legal Services lawyer Drew Ellis (Aaron Pedersen) essentially represent those two worlds, the complexity of their characters removes any chance of cliche.

Drew, a "flash city lawyer" from Perth who never knew his Aboriginal father, is more connected to the white way of life than that of the people he hopes to help. His earnest Western demeanour prompts the locals to call him a "coconut" - brown on the outside, white on the inside. And Peter is acutely aware of having to lord white man's law over black lore, forever pushing the limits of the legal system in a despairingly fruitless effort to accommodate both.

Ahhh...the question of the extent to which "white man's law" and "traditional law" can be reconciled. It could hardly be avoided, could it?!

In the wake of Howard's announcement about a tough new approach to problems in indigenous communities, it's also nice to be reminded of reasons to be positive and hopeful about the future:

If there is one theme that runs concurrently through The Circuit and the making of the drama, it is the combination of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal storytellers weaving a story for everyone.

And finally, a reminder that so-called "indigenous issues" or "indigenous dramas" aren't just for indigenous people:

"It's great to see scripts that are quite real, especially for Broome and Aboriginal people. It's nothing like Home and Away, it's something that we can relate to. And not just us, the whole of Australia."

A different perspective

2007-06-29T07:51:00.000+09:30

There has been plenty of talk about "them" in the last week, and finally we are beginning to hear from those who are being talked about so much:

The Age yesterday received the following letter from a 13-year-old girl, written on behalf of her grandfather, a Warlpiri man from the NT.
I COME from one of the largest remote communities in the Northern Territory. Mal Brough and his team consulted the wrong people. He talked to only a handful and some are offenders themselves. How can we come to meeting when I can't tell time?
We wanted to say things but he left so fast. Some of the things he said are not what we agree on. Traditional owners cannot speak for us.
We never heard of all this rape and constant drinking here. That stuff happens mostly in the town areas. There is some but not the same as he says. Maybe same as Sydney or Adelaide.
If we have problem we always sort it out ourself. Spears stop even the worst of them. If bad stuff happens, they wait till night. Police don't patrol at night and our night patrol can't get money. Me and my family feel safer (with) night patrol than police. Police treat us like dogs sometimes.
Most drinking here is done by whitefellas who have drinking permit and we know they touch our kids but they all stick up against us when we talk.
How can we talk when they are our boss for work? They are all drinking mates as well. Nurse drink with mechanic, store manager, police and more. We don't like our kids to enter the white housing areas in our community. They don't even want to live with us. This makes us feel less than them.
But they love us at royalty time when they sell us a cheap bomb car for thousands. Some cars don't last a month. I sell a painting for $50 and in town my painting sell for $1000.
I love my kids same as you. Kids are my future. I do everything I know to help my kids, but Howard calls me a raper and will take half our money as punishment. Is that fair? How would you like that to happen to you?
Our law is strong in communities and we have strong rules for marriage. I want my kids to learn but why should our kids get education? There are no jobs here anyway, all the big jobs are taken by whitefellas.
They won't give us a go because they want the money. We don't have a say in our own programs and the salary money goes to their mates they bring up. We don't even know some of these people who work here. Who picked them? Like we are not good enough. We have ideas too and we want to do things but no one can help us.
If we make mistake, is that OK? That's how we all learn, by mistake. In the city you get many choices, sometimes we don't get a single choice. If we report any problems here, no one listens. They call us troublemakers or radicals. They rubbish us to our own family. They say our own family is against us, they try to make us feel shame.
I can't speak good English but I want a say in things. We can stop most of these tricks and whitefellas from touching our kids and selling us porn and grog, but permit system gone now.
Maybe it's best to just keep quiet and say nothing. We never took up a gun before because fighting is wrong. But I think they want a war with us now. What did we do wrong? How can I lead when I'm scared too? I want you to come to our communities to see how things really are and hear our stories. I think you will cry when you hear them.

Source: A voice from the heartland, The Age

Update on East Gippsland floods

2007-06-29T07:39:00.001+09:30

Hundreds of people have fled their homes and more are preparing to evacuate as rising floodwaters threaten to engulf more towns, including the regional centre of Sale. Vast areas of East Gippsland are under water, main roads and highways are closed, and numerous individuals and communities have been isolated by flooding and the effects of flooding (ie on power lines).

Damage to property is expected to run into millions of dollars, and authorities have warned that the worst flooding may be yet to come. Major flood warnings are current for the Mitchell, Avon, Macalister and Thomson rivers (I think that's 4/5 major rivers, the Tambo River being the 5th major river in East Gippsland??), with moderate warnings for 6 others.

The effects of fires in early 2007 (and perhaps 2003) can be seen in the Mitchell River, which is reportedly heavy with silt and ash from the fire-scarred mountains.

Many individuals and communities in East Gippsland and surrounding regions experience forms of vulnerability which are related to geography and infrastructure and are not experienced in other parts of the State. This is demonstrated by the story of a woman in the Monaro region, adjacent to the East Gippsland region. She made an emergency call from her isolated property at Michelago, a small settlement in the Monaro region. She was suffering an asthma attack, was cold, trapped in her house by a blizzard, and her power had been out for seven hours (something that few Melbournians would tolerate in the depths of winter!!). It took 14 firefighters and 4 ambulance officers 11 hours to reach the woman.

Residents flee rising floodwaters, There's water for miles, Breaking their banks, All stops out for snow rescue, The Age

ACCC dismisses claim against Oxfam

2007-06-27T17:24:00.000+09:30

The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) has dismissed claims by the Institute of Public Affairs (an Australian rightwing think tank) that Oxfam Australia was misleading the public for claiming that Fair Trade Coffee helped lift some of the world's poorest coffee farmers out of poverty.

The background to the complaint can be found here:

Fair Trade Coffee and the Institute of Public Affairs: a bitter brew

Oxfam coffee 'harms' poor farmers, The Australian

The Institute of Public Affairs, describes itself as "Australia's Leading Free Market Think Tank". Unlike Oxfam, they haven't published a press release regarding the ACCC's decision. Aside from the article published in the Australian, linked above, they have also produced a paper entitled "Free Trade or Fair Trade?"

There is an abundance of information on Fairtrade coffee on Oxfam Australia's website here. World Vision is also pushing fairtrade coffee and chocolate (see also here and here).

The wiki for Hooked: students for trade justice also has some great information, as does the Fair Trade Association.

Another Big Flood?

2007-06-27T12:34:00.000+09:30

Almost a decade after The Big Flood, floods hit East Gippsland again.

I've been listening the reports and interviews with SES personnel for the last few days,
I undertook my first ever extensive research project in part of East Gippsland - and my focus happened to be "The Big Flood" of 1998.

In late June 1998, the Shire of East Gippsland (which lies in the far east of the state of Victoria, Australia) was declared to be in a State of Emergency following a one-in-100 year flood event. Media coverage of the “flood mayhem” ( "Flood mayhem: Gippsland braced for worst in 40 years". Herald Sun. Melbourne Wednesday June 24) tended to blame the “natural disaster” on “a record flood on top of a…drought” ("Natural disaster and a loss of hope". The Age. Melbourne Friday 3 July).

During the course of my research, I found that a historical analysis of the conditions creating and shaping vulnerability reveals that the disaster was not the result of an unusual coincidence of abnormal events in nature, but entirely foreseeable. While torrential rain may have provided the trigger for a ‘1-in-100 year flood’, the disaster that resulted was shaped by underlying conditions and processes which had existed for well over a century. These include the physiographic features that characterise much of East Gippsland, such as the harsh climatic conditions, steep terrain and poor soils, and characteristics of local economic and social activity, including limited access to transport, restricted access to markets, a small economic base, and depopulation. What a historical analysis reveals, however, is that at the core of flood disasters in the region, there has always been the coincidence of and interaction between drought, low commodity prices, and poor land management practices. This observation is articulated by A. M. Pearson in his book, Echoes from the Mountains, and has also been noted by local Landcare groups (Gippsland Community Reference Group, 1993, 20).

A historical analysis also revealed that while the biophysical, economic and social environment has always limited the ability of many of East Gippsland's residents to respond to further shocks, many of the conditions affecting vulnerability were heightened by changes occurring since the 1970s and accelerating during the 1990s. Factors that stood out included impact of economic liberalisation on farmers, the discovery of Ovine Johnes' Disease in the area, drought, and low commodity prices - the latter two of which contributed to overstocking, over-grazing, the growth of rabbit populations, and the difficult of feeding families let alone looking after fences and pastures. By the time rain fell in June 1998, a situation of extreme vulnerability had arisen.

Flood disasters are so often blamed on "chance" and "unusual weather events", yet the floods of 2007 have arisen as they did in 1998, 1990, and many times before that...a severe weather event with an intense low pressure system built across the east-coast of Victoria, moved back in on itself and dumped rain on areas suffering from drought. Snows have fallen in alpine areas, and the great rivers of East Gippsland have flooded. Residents of East Gippsland are familiar with flooding...in many areas, rivers flood every spring, and every 2-3 years, a particularly heavy fall of rain will cause flooding that results in erosion, and fence and pasture damage. The difference between a severe weather event and a "disaster" is the extent to which social, political, economic and pre-existing environmental pressures interact to structure and compound the impacts of the severe weather event.

The statistics this year indicate that this weather could surpass that of 1998. Some parts of East Gippsland are already experiencing more severe floods than they did in 1998. At present the damage appears to be far less severe than it was in 1998, and the floods are certainly not being called "a disaster", but it remains to be seen whether this will be the case, and if so, why. Many of the residents of East Gippsland have already experienced bushfires in 2003 and 2007, and damage caused by fire will, in some instances, have compounded the ongoing economic (and social) vulnerability arising from the ongoing drought, as well as pre-existing sources of vulnerability mentioned above. In addition, the effect of bushfire on the landscape exacerbates flooding in numerous complex ways (not least of which is obviously the denundation of land caused by fire).

Quick fixes: alcohol and porn responsible for abuse of indigenous children

2007-06-22T07:57:00.000+09:30

It seems ironic that my last post was directed at avoiding simplistic histories and the importance of understanding complexity, given that the Australian Federal Government has now determined that alcohol and porn are the causes of child sexual abuse in indigenous communities.

The Australian Federal Government has declared sexual abuse of Aboriginal children a 'national emergency' and is moving to take control of 60 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, ban alcohol and porn in them, increase police numbers, and make health checks for children compulsory.

Australia to ban alcohol for Aborigines - Rod McGuirk, The Associated Press

Australia bans alcohol on Aboriginal land - Bernard Lagan, Times Online

Howard announces major Indigenous overhaul for NT - National Indigenous Times

These measures are a response to the Northern Territory Government's Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, which released their report on June 15.

I'm not sure whether I'm more upset about:

the discrimination quite clearly based on race - these measures will affect indigenous people, and no other group...isn't this called racism? Note that the inquiry found that children are being abused by both indigenous AND non-indigenous adults!

the idea that removing grog and porn from indigenous communities will somehow fix damaged "traditions" (all of which are uncritically represented as positive). Never mind the fact that we're talking about communities that are suffering the aftermath of what could be called conflict and genocide;

the scrapping of the entry-permit system under which indigenous people have controlled access to THEIR land;

the sheer paternalism of these measures - this heavy-handed, top-down response to problems in indigenous communities is completely disempowering. The Howard government doesn't even PRETEND to have any commitment to "self-determination" anymore!

Federal elections are not far off. In the lead-up to the last federal election, Howard guaranteed himself conservative support by alleging that women aboard a "suspected illegal entry vessel" had been throwing their children overboard (Wikipedia entry, The ALP's "truthoverboard", Project Safecom's "The Unthrown Kids"). During the last federal election, the Howard government engendered and took advantage of public fear about asylum seekers and the need to protect our borders against them. This time, the government appears set to engender fear and garner support by appearing to clamp down on indigenous people who are, via the machinery of political speeches, media etc, inextricably linked with drunkenness and paedophilia.

This isn't to say, of course, that indigenous communities would necessarily fare much better under an ALP government. Larissa Behrendt has warned that we should not raise Howard's opposition up as some kind of saviour.

Edit: Howard appears to have acknowledged the inherant racism of the announcements of Thursday 21 June, and today, Friday 22 June, has announced that these welfare restrictions could be extended to all Australians.

Dealing with complexity, avoiding simplistic histories

2007-06-01T08:14:00.000+09:30

Bruce Pascoe, writing in The Age, neatly highlights the bias in Australian history.

I share his outrage, but just as he advocates for a more sophisticated approach to history, so too would I advocate for a more sophisticated approach to "laying blame". Pascoe argues for a more nuanced history, one that recognises that indigenous Australians were not "all the same", and were not merely "hapless" and "wandering aimlessly over the continent and failing to resist European invasion". In other words, he advocates an approach that acknowledges that the indigenous population of Australia was characterised by diversity, and that indigenous Australians were not merely victims but had capacities and forms of resilience in the face of the European invasion. Pascoe highlights the problems of simplistic histories, and yet provides and overly-simplistic solution. He comes close to laying all the blame at the feet of school teachers, despite having begun his argument with a tale about the ignorance of two of Australia's "best journalists".

While writing a first-year geography essay at Monash University in 1998, I came across details of the complex eel harvesting, elaborate systems of water control and stone housing that existed in Victoria’s Western District in pre-colonial times. It’s rare for me to be moved to tears while reading an academic text in a university library, but on that day, I was.

I bombarded friends and family with my new knowledge for weeks, perhaps even months. Pascoe is right to suggest that our children would be fascinated that such technology existed in their country - I was thrilled by this new information. It challenged my assumptions and I felt my worldview shift. However I was also angry, and overwhelmed by a sense of having been lied to. I had gone to school with indigenous children and I thought that I knew something of indigenous history. Both my parents are teachers with a dedication to their work and a commitment to social justice. Despite this, I had somehow managed to reach university with the belief that prior to the arrival of Europeans, indigenous Australians were a nomadic people whose technological skills were essentially confined to carving spears and boomerangs.

I share Pascoe's outrage but do not regard the gaps in my knowledge of history as the product of "poor teaching". I was taught by dedicated professionals doing the best they could with the legacy of their own educations. While I felt that I had been lied to, I wasn’t sure who was responsible. Now I believe that this is a problem that all us, including the media, bear some responsibility for. Pascoe writes that he never felt blacker than when Jon Faine and Jill Singer reacted with incredulity to his description of the technological feats of pre-colonial Australia. When I first read of these feats, I never felt whiter.

Time to meet the Aborigines you weren't taught about

Bruce Pascoe
May 31, 2007

The hapless blackfella, once a handy myth,lives on through poor teaching.

I'M NOT very black. I'm sure that in years to come the Aboriginal community will be under pressure from bureaucracies to exclude people whose heritage is from a great-grandmother who did everything she could to become white, to merge with the master class.

Plenty of blackfellas think that a separation of two generations and failure to be present at formation of the Aboriginal Advancement League, the 1967 referendum or Charlie Perkins' bus trips invalidates us; we weren't around when it mattered most. Fair enough too. We had squibbed it along with a million other cross-cultural Aboriginal refugees.

But I never felt blacker than when I looked out of the ABC studio window this week and saw that perfect autumn sky. I had to look out the window because I couldn't look Jon Faine or Jill Singer in the face.

We were discussing my new book, Convincing Ground, on Radio 774's Conversation Hour and Singer had just chastised me for giving the wrong date for the waterside workers' dispute.

Faine and I had discussed the contact history of the Western District before and he thought I was still gilding the black lily, that my claim of Aboriginal people at war with white settlers was a romanticisation of contact history, that my reference to stone houses, grain harvests and fish aquaculture was somehow a fabrication or at best a distortion of history. Here are two of Australia's best journalists who cannot believe the story I have lifted from the same pages that ABC board member Keith Windschuttle must have read.

Theirs wasn't a case of ill will or mischief-making as displayed by others in the debate — they'd just never read this stuff before.

It's a failure of education. We persist in teaching the young that Aboriginal history is no older than 40,000 years, that the people were nomads and had no "real" houses or agriculture and did not fight to protect their land.

It's a failure of education that English visitors to the Port Phillip District in 1835 reported Aboriginal towns where houses were built with basalt blocks, timber and turf, some capable of accommodating 30 people, and yet we don't advise our 12 year-olds of this fact.

It's a failure of education that we read of the aquaculture systems covering more than 100 square kilometres at Lake Condah and elsewhere and assume that a society capable of the engineering to tunnel into rock and build sophisticated structures must have been advised by an Englishman.

It's a failure of education to read that the search party for Ludwig Leichhardt observed Aboriginal people in central Australia harvesting, irrigating and sowing grain, and allow that information to disappear from our history. Grain was stored in stone silos, wooden dishes and sewn kangaroo skins, some collections weighing over a tonne. Doesn't this prick your interest? Don't you think your children would find it fascinating that this was going on in their country?

It's a failure of education to read that parties of 200 to 300 Aboriginal warriors attack white settlements and not to conceive that a war might be under way.

A cynic would say we hide behind a myth of the hapless Aborigine wandering aimlessly over the continent and failing to resist European invasion so that we might validate our occupation of the continent. But I think that, while the myth may have grown from that source, we persist in believing it because our education has failed us.

Normally intelligent people have been told they need not search the public record because it bears no evidence other than proof of the haplessness and brutishness of indigenous Australians. We advise our best minds to ignore Australian history because nothing happened. We resort to reconciliation as an expression of our compassion and understanding for a benighted race.

Young Australians, I beg you to thank your parents for their earnest response to indigenous disadvantage, but then go back to the early documents — you're in for a surprise.

None of us are going anywhere until we believe our history. Argue about it by all means, speculate on what it represents, but when you read of the warfare, the houses, the agriculture, don't fail to mention this to your own children. It's their country, and they deserve to know.

Bruce Pascoe's latest book, Convincing Ground, is published by Aboriginal Studies Press.

Australia's Aid Budget 2007

2007-05-11T09:11:00.000+09:30

I was going to blog about this but haven't yet had a chance to really look at the budget.

Ben has a couple of good posts on this issue, one which gives this year's budget some historical context, and one on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Troops Out? Pros and cons of withdrawing from Iraq

2007-05-04T11:32:00.000+09:30

Jessie has posed the following question over at 'Probably Not Interesting', and it's a question I share:

Troops out of Iraq?
This post is to glean the opinions of you clever readers out there. Recently you probably will have read about the fact that GW Bush has vetoed a number of bills which would have withdrawn all American troops from Iraq in the very near future.

Now, I have really not much of an idea about the implications of pulling all troops out of Iraq. I certainly know that that particular style of invasion was a horrible (aaaand illegal according to the UN Security Council but let’s not get bogged down in that!) idea in the first place, and that the situtation to date has been handled like the proverbial dog’s breakfast. But now that everyone’s in, i’m just not convinced that flat-out withdrawing is a good idea. It’s like crashing a party, completely wrecking the house, beating some people up, and then just before torching the place, deciding to leave in case you make a mess or get in trouble. Not a sophisticated analogy, I know, but perhaps one that rings true. What do you - clever readers - think about this question?

I’m all for education before opinionation, so please! Educate me!

Jess

Like Jess, I opposed the war in Iraq, but now that troops are there, I'm not sure that withdrawing is a good idea. In words similar to Jessie's, my feeling is that "we made the mess, now we should clean it up". However this is an instinctive reaction more than anything I've know or understand a great deal about. So - what do you think?

Solomon Islands relief effort: the headlines

2007-04-11T09:02:00.000+09:30

Death toll still rising

43 people have now been confirmed dead in the Western and Choiseul provinces and sixty people are still missing. The majority of those dead were from Simbo, while others were from Titiana, Rannogah, Vella La Vella, Gizo, Munda and Sasamunga.

Proper coordination of assistance needed

Coordination (or rather lack of it) of the relief effort appears to be a growing problem in the Solomons. Some donors are channelling assistance through NGOs while others are channelling it via the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO). This opinion piece in the Solomon Star suggests - quite rightly - that the NDMO should also seek outside assistance from those who have experience similar situations around the world.

The National Council of Women has also appealed for better coordination.

Premier Kiloe has raised concerns about the fact that expensive trips have been made to assess the affected areas, yet relief has not been delivered with them.

PNG has made another aircraft available for the relief effort - one that is small enough to reach areas that the larger planes from RNZAF and RAAF cannot! Hopefully this will speed up the delivery of aid to the more isolated areas that have not yet been reached.

Several large ships have also headed off loaded with material assistance.

Identifying vulnerability and capacity

The tireless John Roughan identifies some of the capacities and vulnerabilities in this article, Responding to Disaster!

Rev. Kevin Rietveld identifies some of the positives to emerge from the disaster.

The Most Rev. Sir Ellison Pogo identifies the parallels with the Easter Story.

Sanitation is a growing problem, particularly in camps in the mountains. Thousands of people are now sheltering in the hills, and use of nearby bushes as toilets is becoming a problem. Malaria is also likely to become a problem as many people are sleeping outside, in the bush, without mosquito nets.

I am hearing many reports, both through friends, through friends of friends, and through the media, of people being too frightened to return to the coastal areas because of the aftershocks and the fear that there may be another tsunami. However most people's livelihoods depend on fishing and coastal gardens. I have heard that some people intend to rebuild up in the hills, but given that the hills are often used for gardening, this may cause increased competition for land, and therefore social tension.

Unsurprisingly, more suggestions have emerged that the wantok system is affecting the delivery of aid (here). In my view it is likely that some people are preferring their wantoks when delivering aid, however even if this is not the case, perception is important, and the perception that some people are beeing preferred over others is likely to contribute to rising social tension.

Several agencies have identified the need for trauma counselling. The last time I was in the Solomons - in 2003 - the people I spoke to consistently stated that there was no trauma counselling available after the Tensions. I knew of only one group of women from the Weathercoast who, without any financial support from any institution, were travelling back to their villages from Honiara on a regular basis to conduct what they called "trauma counselling". Even if trauma counselling was provided or supported by international or local NGOs, it was very clear that very few people knew it existed, let alone had accessed it. Hopefully any trauma counselling provided or supported by NGOs in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami will be appropriate, widely-publicised, and very accessible.

Quake lifts island by several metres, affecting fishing, tourism

2007-04-09T12:58:00.000+09:30

(AFP Photo)

'Solomons quake raises island from sea', reports Michael McKenna for The Australian:

A mountainous island has been lifted several metres out of the sea by the tumultuous seismic jolt that triggered the devastating Solomons tsunami. Ranongga Island is now surrounded by a moonscape of dying white and brown coral that has been exposed by the remarkable phenomenon that has extended the shoreline out to sea by up to 100m.

...

Villagers have been shocked by the aftermath of the seismic impact, which has uncovered the once-submerged reefs that their boats easily cleared until Monday's quake. One of the many sunken Japanese military vessels that litter the seabed around the island has also been uncovered - a relic of the area's fierce fighting between Allied and Japanese forces during World War II.

...

Solomons' geologists late yesterday also inspected the island, which has a lush, mountainous spine and appears to have been lifted between two and three metres out of the surrounding pristine waters.

...

"People are very scared on the island. They don't know if this is temporary or permanent and if they should leave," he said.

...

In some parts, the shoreline has extended out to sea by up to 100m, with the waves now lapping the uncovered reef which rings the island.

Ranongga Island is a long, narrow, rugged island in the Western Province. The earthquake and tsunami has caused dramatic physical changes which are likely to have a psychological/emotional impact on the people of Ranongga - imagine waking up to find that the environment you've always known like the back of your hand has changed beyond recognition! Further, these changes are affecting livelihood security, as locals were heavily reliant on the reefs for fishing and shells for tools (here), . Livelihood security may also be negatively affected by a drop in tourism.

Relief to tsunami-affected areas: water, sanitation and the politicisation of aid

2007-04-07T14:34:00.000+09:30

The death toll in the Solomon Islands continues to rise as reports flow back in from more islated areas ('Aid flows grow in Solomon Islands, tsunami tolls set to rise').

I just spoke to a friend, J, who lives in Honiara but is from Choiseul and has a lot of family in the Western Province (esp. Gizo). He said that he's heard from his family in Gizo, who have lost their homes and all their property and are now living 'up in the hills'. Neither J nor his family in Gizo have heard from their wantoks in Choiseul - communication with people in Choiseul is difficult at the best of times (most Solomon Islanders depend on radio rather than telephone), but is virtually impossible at present due to reduced movement between the islands.

J said that while there were originally hold ups with the distribution of aid because some of the airports had been damaged by the earthquake, aid was now getting through. He also reported water shortages for people who lived in Gizo - unlike people in many of the villages, people in Gizo rely on rainwater and their tanks cracked during the earthquake (see also here and here).

People in Gizo do, however, have access to food, because most people's gardens are up in the hills, and weren't affected by the tsunami (see also Solomon Star News, 'People Are Now Starving' and The Age, 'Water shortage hits Solomons').

Aid workers have warned that disease could take a greater number of lives than the tsunami event itself ('Disease could kill more than tsunami').

Michael McKenna for The Australian reports from the Western Province that relief effrot is now surrounded by "political infighting and allegations of poor co-ordination and pilfering" (here):

Village elders accuse government authorities of favouring their own racial groups. Australian police, in the country with the Regional Mission to the Solomon Islands,
say their counterparts are lazy, (nice!!) and regional politicians argue that Honiara is not doing enough.

The Sydney Morning Herald also carries reports of the politicisation of aid ('Rescue efforts all at sea'). As was the case during the Boxing Day Tsunami, it appears that in some areas children (perhaps adults, too?) got excited about the unusual behaviour of the sea and ran down to the waters edge, only to lose their lives as the waves came racing back in.

Both articles indicate that the wantok system is preventing some people from participating in the relief effort and/or receiving aid. Interestingly, none of this is reported in the Solomon Star, which frequently features rather robust articles and opinion pieces.

Quite apart from the obstacles posed by regional and local politics, the geography of the Solomon Islands is inevitably posing logistical problems:

The logistics in the disaster zone are highly problematic. Western Province has a population of 80,000 and more than 600 islands out of the 900-plus islands in the entire Solomon Islands archipelago ('Rescue efforts all at sea').

The SMH also features a note about the Gilbertese, who form a substantial minority in the Solomon Islands. The Gilbertese originate from Kirbati, and being Micronesian (rather than Melansian, like Solomon Islanders), are easily identifiable. They experience a degree of social marginalisation that is expressed partly through their physical marginalisation - the Gilbertese live predominantly in fishing settlements along the coast, and were highly exposed to the tsunami. For example, while the tsunami barely affected Honiara, Gilbertese villages were affected although no lives were lost (the Gilbertese saw the water going out too far, and ran for higher ground). As the article in the SMH indicates, however, the Gilbertese around the epicentre of the quake were not so lucky.

The limited infrastructure in Solomon Islands is perhaps best captured by this piece, which notes that Save the Children has donated 20 chairs, a desktop computer and a printer to the National Disaster Council. I was last in Honiara in 2003 - and regularly saw workers not only from NGOs, but from the UN, using computers in one of the two internet cafes in Honiara.

AlertNet now has a page dedicated to the quake and tsunami (South Pacific quake) as does ReliefWeb (Solomon Islands Earthquake and Tsunami).

Solomon Islands quake and tsunami: day 4

2007-04-05T07:38:00.000+09:30

Solomon Islands

A basic geography lesson!

The two provinces affected by the earthquake and tsunami are the Western Province, and Choiseul. Western Province includes the New Georgia Islands, the Shortland Islands, and Treasury Islands.

See here for maps:
Choiseul
Western Province

Choiseul is very isolated and, I've heard, incredibly beautiful. Western Province is famous for its lagoons, which include the renowed Marovo Lagoon. It is a mecca for divers and the one area of the Solomons where tourism is thriving.

A political stand-off, or undertaking proper assessments?

The National Disaster Management Council endorsed the PM's call for immediate assesment of the affected areas in order to determine the level of assistance needed. The Chair to the Council said the government will await the report before deciding whether to declare a state of emergency over the affected areas. AusAID, NZAid and other international agencies are waiting for official requests for help, which may be made after the assessment (here).
A state of emergency has now been declared for Western Province, Choiseul Province, and North Ysabel.

The PM has directed that all assistance from donors and NGO’s towards the disaster relief operations must be channeled through the National Disaster Council (NDC) for proper coordination (here).

Some see these moves as political stalling on the part of the PM, and in The Age today (5 April), an editorial, Disaster requires unity, not dissent, notes that it is disappointing that RAMSI's efforts to respond to the disaster are being frustrated by politics because the SI Government has not invited RAMSI to fully join the relief effort. The Age asks that the SI PM "look beyond wounded national pride and accept all assistance he is offered." This is a fair request - but I wonder whether this is about politics or good emergency management. I'm sure it's about both, and the extent to which each play a role is hard to assess when I'm here in Canberra. However several people have noted that the PM is from Choiseul, and he is surely aware that the failure to provide relief will have political repercussions for him. Furthermore, if these delays are based on a genuine need to fully assess the area, this will hopefully ensure that the provision of relief is more appropriate and effective. Elsewhere in The Age, Walter Nalangu reports from Munda that Aid logjam piles misery on victims.
John Howard contacted Mannasseh Sogavare directly yesterday, pleding more assistance.

Other notes:

Due to the damage to shops in Gizo, people in Gizo are desperately waiting the delivery of food, shelter and water. Honiara's Chinatown may be doing well out of this disaster, as people in Honiara are buying goods and endeavouring to deliver them to the affected areas themselves. It's unclear whether this is contributing to the bottleneck (local people may be using boats rather than flying)

The telephone service in Gizo is up and running again, but struggling to cope with the greatly increased volume of calls (in the aftermath of the Easter riots last year, I had trouble calling Honiara, as the numbers I called would connect to the wrong number!) Solomon Telekom is requesting that people avoid making unnecessary calls to the area (another way in which well meaning people can actually hamper aid efforts!)
A camp has now been set up in Gizo for those who lost their homes in the tsunami. The tents provided by RAMSI and other organisations are still not enough to accommodate those that have lost their homes. A medical camp has also been set up to treat the wounded - many patients have cuts and wounds.
The lack of shelter is likely to raise the risk of malaria due to lack of shelter, and cuts and wounds can become infected quickly in the tropical climate.

It's still difficult finding out anything about other parts of Western Province, and even harder to find out much about what's happening in Choiseul. The NDMC has visited the Shortland Islands and reports that there is a desperate need for basic necessities like food, shelter and water. Kitchen buildings and their contents have been washed away, as have water tanks, church buildings, and health centres (where they exist!).
The island of Simbo appears to have suffered the most. According to Archbishop Smith, "people have been forced to evacuate Taro Island to Moli. The island of Simbo with its active volcano has suffered a lot. The people there were caught between their constantly active volcano and then the waves and are afraid to move to higher ground. There seems to have been a lot of deaths in the Simbo area."

More aid offered

The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat has made FJD$20,000 available through the Regional Natural Disaster Relief Fund (here). The PIF appears to have thrown its weight behind RAMSI, with the Secretary General of the Forum Secretariat noting that "The regional resources of RAMSI (the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands) have already been deployed to assist Solomon Islands respond to the disaster. That assistance will clearly be critical in the days ahead.”

The Republic of China has donated $1.5 million to the SI Government for those affected by the disaster. Taiwan is providing a medical team to the affected area, and also announced the provision of solar power experts to Honiara for upgrading power infrastructure (here).
Turkey has also announced assistance (here).
Meanwhile, the Solomons is deepening its ties with Cuba, receiving the Ambassador in Honiara yesterday (here).

Remembering resilience, coping, and the opportunities offered by disasters

I had a long chat with a friend from the Solomons (from the south, not from the tsunami-affected areas) yesterday, in which he reminded me of the resilience of Solomon Islanders, and the fact that disasters such as this can offer opportunities for both physical and social rebuilding. I was reminded of this again when I read of the Chinese store-owners in Gizo feeding tsunami victims.

Papua New Guinea

There has been little news about the parts of PNG that suffered the same earthquake and tsunami. PNG's The National (4 April) reports that reports were received of a family of five going missing after a three-metre wave struck their island in Milne Bay province after the earthquake. However provincial authorities have reviewed the report and now say that those who were missing were believed to be on a boat travelling to the outer islands when high waves struck them.

The PNG Post Courier (4 April) reports that displaced villagers along the coast of South Bougainville are still waiting for relief from authorities in Buka, and that there is still no indication as to whether a Red Cross team would be dispatched to the worst hit area in Bougainville. Villagers report that the earthquake "cut out mountain tops" which destroyed villages (I assume this means a landslide?) Locals also reported that seven-metre high waves pounded the shore, washing away the wharf, houses and gardens in coastal villages.

The National also carries an editorial (4 April) making the point that like any other major natural hazard, tsunamis must be guarded against to the limits of the available technology. It argues that the present arrangements have "been proven unsatisfactory over and over again, with slow and inadequate responses, massive corruption, outright theft of donated goods and a host of other problems" and calls on provincial governments to explain their lack of action and provide a plan for the future.

The relevance of land: from the Solomons to the Sudan

2007-04-04T11:12:00.000+09:30

I think land tenure, and questions about access to land, are one of the most neglected aspects of aid and development initiatives and conflict resolution initiatives. Sure, big institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank realise they're important, but how many NGOs deal with these issues? In Australia at least, one of the primary criticisms of AusAID that I hear from activists and those working for NGOs is that the money is directed at "too high a level" - ie it's directed at reform of legal and administrative mechanisms, rather than at what some would call "the grassroots". However land tenure is one of the very areas in which we see exactly why it might be not only flawed, but dangerous, to assume that such distinctions can be drawn.

I was reminded of this last year when I attended a workshop with people from around the world who'd gathered to talk about housing, land and property issues in post-conflict societies. I don't know much about the conflict in the Sudan, but I now realise that land tenure underlies this conflict as it does so many others. Check out this article for more: Sudan: The Question of Land.

Thousands at risk of hunger and disease

2007-04-04T08:48:00.000+09:30

(Photo from The Age)

The Solomon Islands is facing a major humanitarian crisis after the earthquake and tsunami, with tens of thousands of people at risk of hunger and infection due to isolation from relief efforts.

The official death toll has risen to 24. 13 villages are reported to have been destroyed. Some 50-60,000 people have been left homeless - that's more than 10% of the population!

Thousands of people continue to stay up in the hills overlooking Gizo, too scared to return to the coast but also with extremely limited access to food, water and shelter (drinking water has been destroyed by landslides and sea water). It is likely that the numbers of dead, injured and homeless will continue to rise, not only as a result of the initial hazard event, but because the Solomon Islands Government has warned that it could take 2 days to deliver aid to the area.

RAMSI officials have expressed frustration that their capacity to respond has been limited by the lack of an invitation to join relief efforts by the Solomon Islands Government. It is likely that recent tensions between RAMSI and the Solomon Islands Government plays a role in this, however the National Disaster Management Office has said that the Government needs to assess the area before it can determine what role RAMSI can play in relief efforts...sounds fair to me, although I'm not there on the ground!!

It should be noted that Australian newspapers and television news reports have neglected to mention that while the Solomon Islands has suffered an extroardinarily serious disaster, Solomon Islanders are also incredibly resilient. This was emphasised by Danny Kennedy - owner of the dive shop in Gizo - on Triple J yesterday, who noted that Solomon Islanders are incredibly tough and are already mobilising to respond to the need in their own communities. The coping strategies of local people must be recognised for relief efforts to be effective.

Solomon Islands tsunami: on the links between disasters and development

2007-04-03T15:31:00.000+09:30

Aid workers have warned of a humanitarian crisis in Solomon Islands following yesterday's earthquake and tsunami (Reuters). As is the case with many disasters, this one is a product of the interaction of a natural hazard with existing sources of vulnerability, including:

existing poor infrastructure

damage to already limited water supplies

a tropical climate in which infection can set in very quickly

limited local supplies of antibiotics and anti-malarials

damage to housing in an area in which malaria is prevalent

inundation of gardens in a country where most people depend on subsistence agriculture (even in urban areas)

damage to already limited stores of dry food

the loss of boats in poor communities which are heavily reliant on fishing

For a list of Australian agencies working in Solomon Islands, click here.

Solomon Islands earthquake and tsunami: the day after

2007-04-03T07:23:00.000+09:30

MAP: Solomon Islands tsunami damage (from AlertNet)

Solomon Islands

At least seven people died in Gizo (the provincial capital of the Western Province), many trapped in their homes when waves swept through the town. Other bodies could be seen but not reached because of huge waves crashing on to the shore (AlertNet). Australian newspapers have reported that at least 15 people died and hundreds are missing in Western Province (the Age)

The wave is reported to have been up to 10 metres high in some villages.

The Prime Minister has noted that the toll could have been higher if it had happened a few hours earlier, when people would have been sleeping.

Waves reach PNG

Waves of between one and three metres hit parts of the coastal area of PNG. Waves of 2-3 metres hit Rossel Island and Milne Bay. Buka, Rabaul and Kandrian were hit by waves as high as 1 metre (PNG NBC)

International assistance for Solomon Islands

Australia has made an initial offer of up to $2 million in emergency and reconstruction assistance to the Solomon Islands government (AusAid media release).

Solomon Islands earthquake and tsunami: counting the cost

2007-04-02T15:55:00.000+09:30

From various sources (e-groups, online reports, contacts, contacts with contacts etc) I've heard that things in the Solomons are pretty bad...this report from the Age sums up what I've been hearing:

Residents of the Solomons Islands have told of terrifying scenes following the 8.1-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami that washed ashore in its wake, wiping out homes and businesses on the shore.

There are unconfirmed reports of eight deaths, including six children, officials said, and a rise in the toll is expected.

The country's Prime Minister's office reports that at least six people have been killed and several are missing as "10-metre-high waves continue to crash [on] coastal villages".

Reports from police at Gizo - the capital of the western province and a popular destination for divers - said water now completely covered the lower areas of the town, while waves continued to pound the nearby towns of Noro and Munda.

About 50 homes in Gizo - just 45 kilometres from the centre of the quake - had reportedly been flattened and boats had been washed into the town.

There were reports that large waves had penetrated 500 metres inland, wiping out villages.

...

Some residents have been reported missing from Gizo, which has a population of about 20,000, and the hospital has been damaged.

...

Robert Iroga, editor of the Solomon Star newspaper, said it was too early to put a death toll on the disaster but that he had received reports from locals that bodies were "floating in the sea" in one area.

He said reports indicated one island close to the provincial airport had been totally covered by the wave.

...

Iroga, who is based in Honiara, said thousands of people could be affected by the tsunami.

"It's a time of year when a lot of people are staying in the villages, the schools are on a break," he told ABC radio.

...

Ms Kennedy said there was no early warning about the tsunami.

Everyone from the village had taken refuge on top of the hill, she said.

...

"It took all the houses down, the houses that are near the shore."

Ms Kennedy said the hospital is still being evacuated to higher ground.

"All the patients in the hospital, now a truck is giving them a lift up to the top of the hill.''

...

Danny Kennedy, the owner of the dive shop, estimated the height of the wave at 3 metres.

"I'm driving down the street — there are boats in the middle of the road, buildings have completely collapsed and fallen down," Mr Kennedy said.

"We're just trying to mobilise water and food, and shelter for people at the moment because . . . in the town alone there's going to be between 2000 and 3000 homeless. It's not a very good scene at the moment.''

...

"Some villages are completely wiped out," National Disaster Council chairman Fred Fakari told journalists in the capital Honiara this afternoon.

...

The disaster council decided not to declare a state of emergency following a meeting because of the lack of information, Fakari said.

...

Phone lines and electricity were down in the Western Province capital of Gizo, which was just 45km from the centre of the quake, hampering efforts to find out the extent of the damage.

There was still no idea about damage or casualties in more isolated areas in the west, he said. A Solomons government patrol boat was being sent from Honiara to assess the situation.

...

The Pacific nation's western province is its wealthiest, generating revenue from the thousands of tourists — many of them Australian and New Zealanders — who flock to the resorts and beaches.

"The resorts and hotels and other tourism-related facilities might be seriously affected," Mr Iroga said.

...

There were also fears of disease outbreaks following the devastation left by the tsunami, Mr Iroga said.

Many Gizo residents drew their water supply from wells which have been flooded by the massive wave.

"We need urgent assistance from abroad as we can't fund (the response to) this sort of tragedy and a disaster of this magnitude."

From the capital Honiara, Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation said residents on Simbo island had reported waves travelling up to 200 metres inland, damaging homes.

...

These communities are already vulnerable - many of the people who have lost boats will be poor and will have relied on those boats for their livelihoods. In poor communities, it is difficult to repair damage to essential infrastructure such as hospitals and roads. Furthermore, Solomon Islands has a narrow economic base, and this was the one remaining part of the country where tourism was still doing ok - this even could cause significant damage to an already vulnerable tourist industry.

Blogging as it happens: earthquake and tsunami in Solomon Islands...and elsewhere?

2007-04-02T09:34:00.000+09:30

An earthquake measuring somewhere between 7.6 (if you read the Solomon Islands news) and 8.1 (based on the Australian media) on the Richter scale hit New Georgia this morning. The shake caused a tsunami to hit parts of the province, and it appears that damage in Gizo (the capital of the province) has been extensive with at least one death (see here). Reuters reports that many homes have been destroyed and three people have been found dead. This is saddening given that as far as I am aware (and based on my impressions from forums such as the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree), tourism in New Georgia was doing ok (while it's been virtually non-existent in other parts of the country since the Tensions).

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has warnings out for the entire eastern coast, however the threat appears to have dissipated (see here). Judging by some of the internet forums I'm on, the 2005 Tsunami appears to have (predictably) generated a fair degree of paranoia!

Another article from Reuters suggests that areas north of the Solomon Islands should not be significantly affected.

Edit: the death toll is climbing - latest reports from Reuters state that 2 villages are inundated and 4 people are missing in the isolated society islands.

For regular updates, check AlertNet and Reuters.

Understanding global issues in our local context

2007-03-29T12:42:00.000+09:30

I haven't posted for ages...

But Kate has been busy. She has a great article here and here about her realisation that she could tackle poverty and injustice in her own backyard, not just by studying aid and development and then dashing off overseas. A snippet:

When I returned home, I started studying International Development, wanting to find positive ways to use my privileges. So I spent a lot of time learning about how sustainable development could create improvements in the quality of human life. On a personal level, I
began giving money away to overseas development projects. But I was increasingly frustrated at the gap between my beliefs and my actions. My life in Melbourne looked more or less as it had before. I was struck as I studied that the world could be such a different place but for greed and a lack of compassion. The problems of globalisation are similar everywhere, and the struggle for social justice and poverty eradication means getting to poverty’s structural heart. So while suffering needs to be confronted on a global scale, I was still uncomfortable about doing nothing to tackle the injustice and poverty in my own city - fragmented, yearning for meaning, often characterised by self-obsession, loneliness, materialism and estrangement.

State of Emergency Declared in Vanuatu after clashes betwen informal settlers

2007-03-06T08:27:00.000+10:30

Vanuatu's council of ministers have declared a State of Emergency in the capital of Port Vila after violent clashes on the weekend resulted in several deaths, dozens of hospitalisations and the destruction of homes and property.

The State of Emergency was declared on March 4 and will last until March 14. The State of Emergency forbids public meetings in Vila, restricts movement between other islands and Efate, and also some movement between suburbs of the capital.

The primary protagonists of the conflict in Port Vila were two distinct groups of residents of ‘Blacksands’, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Port Vila. Pre-existing social tensions escalated into violence when several hundred residents originating from Tanna and Ambrym clashed in Port Vila after the death of a woman was blamed on witchcraft.

While these riots differ in significant respects from the violence that has plagued Solomon Islands in recent years, in both instances the root causes of conflict include ethnic and cultural differences, livelihood insecurity, and a failure of land law and administration to provide security of tenure.

As is the case in Solomon Islands, informal settlement is a growing issue in Vanuatu, and is associated with rising civil insecurity. Urban areas around Port Vila and Luganville are expanding as people from rural areas move to urban areas in search of employment and better access to infrastructure. Rapid urbanisation and competition for land has been heightened by the fact that land in Vanuatu is extremely attractive to overseas investors. The land available for settlement by migrants under the ‘Western’ legal system is therefore very limited, and large numbers of migrants are either ‘squatting’ on customary land, or settling on customary land in accordance with arrangements with the customary landholders.

Large numbers of ni-Vanuatu in Port Vila are now living in informal settlements with insecure tenure. These settlements frequently suffer from inadequate access to water and sanitation due to the refusal of the customary landowners to provide, or allow the provision of, such infrastructure because of their fear of permanent settlement on their land. Blacksands is one of the better-known of these informal settlements. Most children in Blacksands do not attend school, many of its young people are unemployed, and the settlement has a reputation for social disorganisation and crime. Stiff competition for access to land, paid employment and other resources contributes to social tension, which periodically escalates into violence. As was the case in Honiara, insecurity of tenure is therefore associated with both livelihood insecurity and civil insecurity.

Of droughts and flooding rains

2006-12-07T11:15:00.000+10:30

New climatalogical research from Monash Uni (below) confirms what many "locals" in rural areas already believed - droughts are often followed by floods, and that 'extreme dries' are associated with 'extreme wets'.

This isn't because more rain is falling, however - it's because of the interaction between the rain that does fall and the other environmental conditions...and, I would add, the social and economic conditions.

In 2003, I spent a year or so studying the 1998 floods in the East Gippsland Shire, focusing in particular on the Tambo Valley, a valley just south of Hotham, in the same general area that this research was conducted. I used the concept of 'vulnerability' to examine the economic, social and environmental root causes of flood disasters, and through a historical analysis found that there was a very clear pattern of drought coinciding with low commodity prices, and being followed by severe flooding. Where fires occurred before rain, the effects would be even worse - what little vegetation remained after years of drought would be further stripped away by fire, and as noted, the black soil would have climatological impacts that would worsen floods.

As I noted in a post a few days ago, the history of my study area showed that when drought coincided with a fall in commodity prices, farmers would avoid de-stocking (because of low-prices), which would result in over-stocking and over-grazing. In addition, their financial constraints would limit their ability to do things like keep rabbits down, fertilise etc. So the state of their farm enterprises - both ecologically and financially - would go deteriorate. When rain finally came, it would fall on the steep hills that characterise the area (and are also found in the Alpine Shire) - these hills would be denuded, the soil compacted, and the rain would run straight off.

Climatological research is obviously vital to emergency management, but it fails to address the social and economic dimensions of vulnerability, which are integral to the environmental dimensions of vulnerability. While the Alpine Shire is likely to be environmentally vulnerable to flooding, individuals and communities in the area are also likely to be socially, psychologically and economically vulnerable. Farmers are already strapped-for-cash due to the drought, and this is likely to have associated impacts on relationships within families, couples and communities. When (or, if you look elsewhere in Australia, the appropriate language might be "if") the rain comes, they're not going to be in the best condition to respond to the costs arising from water damage, nor are they going to be socially and psychologically equipped to bounce back with great ease.

This research points to the need for holistic approaches to emergency management - as environmental conditions that shape people's lives change, so too will their economic and social conditions.

Climate Research at Monash University: Drought and fires trigger worse floods

5 December 2006

It has long been argued that Victoria's weather is growing hotter and drier, now research conducted at Monash University has proved it is getting more extreme.

And with more than 50 fires now blazing throughout the state, it also grows more vulnerable to flooding.

Professor Amanda Lynch, from the Monash Climate Program, has been working with a PhD student, Lee Tryhorn, to establish a database on bushfire and flood events in Victoria. The database records where and when fires have occurred and how significant they were. The same applies to flooding.

"There does seem to be an indication that fires are on the rise across Victoria," Professor Lynch says. "Anecdotally, there are more fires and they are worse than they were in the past. Things have definitely grown drier, the weather has grown warmer and it is more conducive to fires."

But the researchers were surprised to find a link between the rising number of bushfires and an increase in heavy rainfalls and the severity of floods.

"It does seem strange, but it's been found in other parts of the world that while rainfall can be going down, they are still experiencing extreme floods. There are more extreme dries but also more extreme wets."

Ms Tryhorn's study focused on serious bushfires in the Victorian Alpine shire in January 2003 that were followed by thunderstorms and flash flooding, which claimed the life of a local woman. The fires burnt for two months, after several years of below average rainfall.

Significantly, she found that the bushfire and drought conditions actually increased the risk of flooding.

"The soil is hydrophobic; it is very dry and won't absorb water," Professor Lynch says. "It is also black, so that heats the surface and the surface heats the atmosphere above it and that makes the thunderstorms more intense."

The finding has implications for handling bushfire emergencies, particularly in the Alpine regions, she says.

"We can say that emergency preparedness should include the potential for flash flooding after fires in alpine regions. That's what we are telling the locals. With an enhanced bushfire season there is always the potential for more of these, but given the drought, there simply may not be enough moisture. The effects of fire last for several months, so if the drought breaks there may be a problem."

For more information please call Renee Barnes, Media and Communications on 9905 2020 or 0413 753 366.

2006 Housing Rights Awards

2006-12-06T10:16:00.000+10:30

COHRE MEDIA RELEASE

Nigeria, the Philippines and Greece Cited for Severe Human Rights Violations by Housing Rights Group

Nigeria, the Philippines and Greece, have been named as recipients of the 2006 Housing Rights Violator Awards by the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), for their systematic violation of housing rights and continued failure to abide by their international legal obligations. At the same time, COHRE has presented seven courageous Chinese Human Rights activists with the 2006 Housing Rights Defender Awards.

Each year, COHRE bestows its Housing Rights Violator Awards on three governments or public institutions guilty of particularly serious housing rights violations in the preceding year. COHRE has issued it Violator Awards since 2002.

COHRE’s Executive Director (a.i), Jean du Plessis, said, “Although many governments continue to violate the right to adequate housing, in 2006 Nigeria, the Philippines and Greece stand out for their appalling disregard for this basic human right. The Nigerian Government has forcibly evicted more than two million people from their homes since 2000. Although the Nigerian Constitution affirms that: 'the State shall direct its policy towards ensuring...that suitable and adequate shelter...are provided for all citizens', the Federal Government has consistently neglected its responsibilities and violated its obligations under international law, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. These widespread and ongoing evictions in Nigeria have resulted in the massive displacement of millions of people, with a spiralling effect on health, education, employment and family cohesion.”

“The Government of the Philippines continues to evict hundreds of thousands of people in the name of ‘beautification’ and ‘development’, with the urban poor being the worst affected. More than 145,000 people (29,000 families) have already been evicted from their homes in Metro Manila and Bulacan province since early 2005 due to the rehabilitation of the Philippines National Railway system, referred to as the 'Northrail-Southrail Linkage Project.’ COHRE’s research reveals that most of the evictees have been moved to relocation sites where living conditions are appalling due to a lack of basic services such as potable water, electricity and sanitation facilities. The unsanitary conditions and an outbreak of dengue fever at the Southville relocation site in Cabuyao have claimed the lives of 12 infants and children this year. Forced evictions and demolitions are also being carried out in preparation for the 12th ASEAN Summit to be hosted by the Philippines next week. The evictions and demolition in Metro Cebu have left more than 3,000 people homeless since September 2006,” he said.

Du Plessis added, “Roma communities in Greece continue to face pervasive and persistent discrimination in access to housing. A majority of Roma in Greece live in extremely poor conditions - lacking access to basic services such as water and electricity - and frequently face segregation and forced eviction by local authorities. The conditions in which these communities live are dehumanising and constitute a grave human rights violation by the Government of Greece. It is completely unacceptable for a long-standing member of the European Union (EU) to allow such a situation to continue within its borders. What we are facing here is the blatant and deliberate exclusion of a particular group, creating a third world reality within a wealthy European State. The shacks of the Roma in Patras, Athens or Asproprygos are no different from those in slums in Nairobi or Manila. These evictions clearly indicate that the Greek government is not taking its international legal obligations seriously and is turning a blind eye to local governments' systematic abuse of the human rights of Roma in Greece.”

The Housing Rights Defender Award is presented annually by COHRE to an individual who has shown outstanding commitment to the realisation of housing rights for all people. For the first time since the inception of this award in 2003, it will be presented to a number of housing rights activists rather than a single person. The joint recipients of the 2006 Housing Rights Defender Award are: Fu Xiancai; Ma Yalian; Liu Zhengyou; Huang Weizhong; Chen Xiaoming; Xu Zhengqing; and Zheng Enchong.

Du Plessis, said, “These seven Chinese activists have displayed exemplary commitment, courage and perseverance in their struggles for the land and housing rights of hundreds of farmers, workers and residents in China. They are inspirational examples to every person, community and organisation working for the cause of human rights around the world. The Chinese Government is notoriously oppressive towards human rights activists. Land and housing rights violations including mass forced evictions are common, while legal remedies are scarce for those seeking to assert their rights. The work of these activists, undertaken at grave personal risk to them, their families and fellow activists, has played a catalytic role in bringing to light the unjust practices of the Chinese Government. COHRE is therefore honoured to present the 2006 Housing Rights Defender Award to: Fu Xiancai; Ma Yalian; Liu Zhengyou; Huang Weizhong; Chen Xiaoming; Xu Zhengqing; and Zheng Enchong for their fearless commitment to housing rights in an environment that is hostile to such ideals.”

COHRE’s Housing Rights Protector Award, presented annually to a government or other public institution demonstrating a truly exceptional commitment to the protection and promotion of housing rights, has not been awarded this year as there is no clear worthy candidate.

Du Plessis said, “Despite the widespread recognition of the human right to adequate housing in international law, violations continue to occur on a massive scale both in the developed and developing worlds. This year, COHRE could not identify a government or public institution that is worthy of recognition for its commitment to the protection and promotion of housing rights. There are good legislative, policy and implementation programmes underway in numerous countries, which do promote the cause of housing rights to some degree, but after careful consideration we came to the conclusion that none of these were sufficiently path-breaking to qualify as a convincing candidate for housing rights protector. The dearth of contenders for the 2006 Housing Rights Protector Award is a clear indicator that more convincing and dramatic examples of housing rights protection are needed to make a sustainable impact in successfully addressing the land and housing rights challenges facing countries today.”

A newly released COHRE report, Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights – Global Survey No. 10, reveals that nearly 2 million people in Africa and over 2.1 million people in Asia and the Pacific have been forcibly evicted from their homes since 2003. Furthermore, nearly 153,000 people in the Americas and over 16,000 people in Europe have been evicted from their homes in the same period.

“The most disturbing aspect of these numbers, is the fact that they are just a sample, based on our research of media reports, and evictions reported to COHRE either by affected persons or by members of our growing global network of partners in the struggle against forced evictions. The total given is merely the tip of the iceberg. The world is, clearly, in the midst of a housing rights and evictions crisis, caused by the fact that governments in both developed and developing countries are not taking their international legal obligations seriously,” said Du Plessis.”

For interviews with Jean du Plessis or additional information please contact COHRE’s Media Officer, Radhika Satkunanathan on +41-22-7341028, +61-400-899474 or media@cohre.org

The only time we'll ever make a women's magazine...

2006-11-28T16:16:00.000+10:30

...yep, there's a pic of Glamazons Wei and Bec in the latest Frankie magazine.

Heh heh...who ever thought academia would get you covered by a fashion mag?!

We were hoping for free clothes, but unfortunately there weren't any. You can see the bit on us (which appears as part of a longer aticle in Frankie) on Benjamin Law's website (click image below).

What's farming got to do with it?

2006-11-23T08:18:00.000+10:30

Farmer Jess is laughing about the fact that her Masters in Humanitarian Action will actually result in a Masters in Ag Science...so what's Ag Science got to do with humanitarian action?

Several years ago I undertook an in-depth analysis of vulnerability in the Tambo Valley, located in East Gippsland Shire, in north-east Victoria. While focusing on the underlying root causes of the 1998 flood disaster, I found that historical analysis showed a pretty clear pattern - when a drop in commodity prices coincided with drought, farmers would over-stock their land because they didn't want to sell their stock at such low prices. This would compound the effects of drought, resulting in over-grazing, which is particularly problematic in this area, which is characterised by very steep terrain and poor quality soils. Financial constraints of farmers limited their ability to maintain their farms, so rabbit numbers would increase. The small populations have - at least since the end of the gold mining era - been vulnerable to any economic change, and the entire community would suffer as farmers did. Sometimes, bushfires would occur before the drought broke, denuding the landscape even further. When the drought did finally break, it would often do so with torrential rain, which would tear down the steep, denuded slopes, taking with it the valuable top soil and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. These patterns aren't unique to the Tambo Valley, or even to Australian contexts - similar patterns can be found in many places throughout the world. Since natural disasters are intimitely related to the ways we use the land and other resources, the link between agricultural science and humanitarian action doesn't seem a particularly tenuous one to me. Indeed, since many civil conflicts stem from the struggle for secure livelihoods, I think it's often going to be helpful to understanding the root causes of civil conflict too.

An interesting article that again raises the links between livelihood security and vulnerability to natural disaster in the Australian context was published in The Age yesterday: Fire hits drought-ravaged farm. The phrase, "it's just one thing after another" was one I heard regularly while conducting my research in the Tambo Valley - again and again, people said "it was just one thing after another", and similarly, I regularly heard the phrase "it was the straw that broke the camel's back" to describe "The Big Flood" of 1998. Here, fire has hit farmers already struggling to cope with the effects of the drought - in academic-speak, they were already vulnerable, they had more limited resilience and their coping mechanisms were already weakened by the drought.

Stay...or Go?

2006-11-22T10:20:00.000+10:30

Fires start early this year...and so far the death toll is already at 1. It's going to be a bad summer, and new research shows that bushfires cause the greatest number of deaths and injuries of any natural disaster in Australia.

For some of the most recent and best thinking on bushfires, check out the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre. There are some fantastic resources on what you should do in preparation for or during a bushfire, including the background briefings for fire managers here.

See also this note on a recent workshop I was involved in, looking at the legal and other aspects of 'Stay or Go' policies and community warnings.

Man Dies Protecting House from Bushfire
By 7 News

A man has died while trying to protect his home from encroaching bushfires, as wind changes overnight increased the risk of blazes burning out of control in New South Wales.

Police say the unnamed man was overcome by smoke and flames on his rural property near Nelligan, on the NSW south coast late on Tuesday.

Dozens of bushfires are burning across the south east of Australia, but improved weather conditions in Victoria and South Australia mean the danger of flames spreading to homes there has decreased.

Around 4,000 firefighters worked through the night in South Australia, where 60 fires are burning.

And in Victoria, a total fire ban has been lifted after crews managed to contain a blaze which has burnt out more than 9,000 hectares in the west of the state.

But in New South Wales, unpredictable winds have hampered firefighters' efforts to tackle blazes which are raging across the state.

Firefighters in the Blue Mountains are urging householders to fire-proof their homes and prepare for the worst, as a fire which has already destroyed 14,500 hectares of park and private land continues to burn out of control.

Attempts to contain the flames by backburning overnight failed, and the state's Rural Fire Service is expecting further trouble on Wednesday, in the face of difficult winds and hot weather.

"It is very difficult," said Gillian Katz, of the NSW Rural Fire Brigade. "The wind has changed direction nearly every 10 minutes, it's making it very hard to predict the fire paths but there are some known fire paths through the Gore Valley that could be where the fire goes."

More than 40 water-bombing aircraft will be working to put out flames across New South Wales on Wednesday, 15 in the Blue Mountains alone.

A number of roads in the region have been closed, and heavy smoke is affecting driving conditions across the area - motorists are advised to take care. The Blue Mountains National Park is shut until further notice.

In Vanuatu, watching events in Tonga

2006-11-22T09:30:00.000+10:30

I've left this far too long, but internet access is intermittent, expensive, and sloooooooow...

Tongan news can be found at Tonga Now. I'll update this post with some commentary once I have permission to publish it. I'm definitely no expert on anything to do with Tonga - I've never even been there for starters. It does, however, strike me that the recent riots bear similarities to those occurring elsewhere. While some commentators understand the riots in Tonga as an expression of pro-democracy sentiments, others see a link between urbanisation, poverty, the youth bulge, and the anger of young men that have limited or no access to education and employment. Some months ago I posted about the links between demography, livelihood security and civil security, drawing a link between Honiara and some Australian indigenous communities...and Port Moresby could be added to the list, as could Suva. But I'm out of my depth here...for better informed voices than mine, see:

This article from Radio New Zealand International; this article in Pacific Eye by the Director of the Tonga National Youth Congress; and this article, also in Pacific Eye, in which five youths involved in the riots were interviewed.

Speaking of youth, disenfranchisement, and anger...Vanuatu was recently found to be the "happiest nation on earth", and there are posters in the airport and copies of newspaper articles pasted to plenty of windows, but one can't help but wonder how long that 'happiness' is going to last. Local people working in NGOs certainly raise their eyebrows in bemusement when one brings up the subject, and here - as is the case in so many other places - one finds the "youth bulge", limited access to employment (at least in the formal economy - there's also the 'custom economy') and limited access to education. Here too there are young people moving to the urban areas in search of education and employment, and many are moving into informal settlements - it's not appropriate to call them 'squatter' settlements, as in many cases people from other islands are invited in to act as caretakers for the land by the customary landowners.

Last night I had dinner in the market with a new friend, at her mother's food stall. We watched the evening's devotions and chatted about our lives, faith and partners over a spectacular meal of Vanuatu steak, cucumber salad and tomato. We shared stories until late into the night, and I was reminded that despite the sometimes massive cultural differences, some things are universal. Her mother hugged me goodbye and told me to come back soon, and I felt the warm rush of being cared for despite being so new - a feeling I haven't really felt since I was in the Solomon Islands, where an Aunty I was only just getting to know sat up all night massaging me and wiping the sweat from my face as I struggled through a feverish night. As in the Solomons, I'm suddenly, beautifully aware of my identity as a woman, sharing specifically female aspirations and views with other women. I know who I am here, despite not wearing makeup, having long hair or particularly pretty clothes - I don't discount the fact that gender norms can be stifling and discriminating, but in my own society, femininity is often marked by whether a woman wears a dress or lipstick. The experiences of other women are undoubtedly different, but as a white, Western woman (and therefore sometimes considered an 'honorary male'), I have found working in highly-gendered societies liberating in the sense that I find myself returning to Australia with a stronger sense of womanhood and identity.

There's an older, white Australian guy staying in the hotel I'm staying at in Vila. I over-heard him talking to the staff they other day - they asked him whether he'd see his "girlfriend" today, and he laughed and said, "no, I'll have a new girlfriend today". I've been avoiding him ever since. Last night, I shared the cool night breeze, fresh peanuts and stories with a couple of the girls working in the hotel, and they filled me in further. Apparently this guy takes to the streets several times a day, starts chatting to some local woman, invites her back to the hotel saying he's lonely and he wants someone to share a sandwich with him, and once inside the room he propositions them. The girls - who are ni-Vanuatu themselves - explained that the ni-Vanuatu women are so friendly, that when this older, white Australian guy starts talking to them and saying how lonely he is, they believe him "because he's so old", and they feel sorry for him, "because he's so old", and so, they follow him back to share a sandwich. Apparently several of the women have run out of the room screaming, and then through reception where they have given a garbled account of these events to the girls at reception. I was furious, but began to see the (only slightly) funnier side of things once I confirmed with the girls that nobody has been "hurt". Yet.

I told the girls I'd heard the earlier conversation between this man and themselves, and they suddenly smiled weakly as they realised why I'd been behaving so differently when he was around, and when he was not. They were quite concerned that I felt safe staying in the hotel - I assured them that I did, and explained that I thought that he was nothing but a disgusting, sad old man. It's hard to know what to do - in fact it's hard to even know whether this man is picking up 'working women', or whether he is indeed picking up women who are just strolling down the street minding their own business.

Squatter conference, U2 concert, and conversations in immigration queues

2006-11-20T15:53:00.000+10:30

Last week I attended quite an inspirational conference sponsored by the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat on squatter settlements in Fiji. It was attended by squatters, and key people from government and non-government agencies working with squatters and on squatter settlement issues - it was extremely interesting to say the least, but I won't say any more as I imagine a report will be coming out some time soon. There's a paper from the last workshop that I'll try and link when I have time. There's also an interesting paper here:

Urban Squatters, Informal Sector and Livelihood Strategies of Poor in Fiji Islands - Manoranjan Mohanty

Flying back home for the U2 concert did my head in a bit - it was quite difficult going from discussing living conditions with squatters to a huge, over-the-top concert, even if it is lead by a band that's done at least a little for raising awareness of how "the other 80% live". Seeing a map of the African continent flashed across the screen while Bono talked about how we in the UK, the US and Australia need to be aware of the plight of Africa was a little difficult - Africa will be drowning under the weight of poorly-thought out aid soon, and there are millions of people in South and Central America, Asia and the South Pacific that are struggling for survival also.

I made the mistake of buying Marie Claire for my flight to Port Vila this morning - it featured a piece on St Tropez and the outrageous amounts people - including Bono - fork out for the luxury of hanging out there. I can't help but feel frustrated and disillusioned by the fact that there are celebrities like Bono who rant and rave about the plight of the poor, yet holiday at places where there's a requirement that you buy a $1000+ bottle of champagne every hour that you're lounging on the beach.

Touch down in Vila, and I find myself conversing with a middle-aged guy who's come over to go diving. He asks me what I'm doing here, and I explain that I'm working for an NGO. He looks surprised, and asks "what, are there poor people here?" I explain that yes, there's very limited health care, and people die of easily preventable diseases, and that malnutrition is a growing problem. I then say that there's many people in Vila living in appalling conditions in squatter settlements. He's visibly saddened by our short, shallow conversation, shaking his head and muttering "we just have no idea, do we? we have no idea..."

No, we do not.

Edit 23/11/06...I loved this final paragraph from an article on U2 in today's The Age: "Befitting the biggest band in the world, U2 spent the first week of their Australian tour at the exclusive five-star Palazzo Versace Resort on the Gold Coast and commuted between Brisbane via private jet, helicopter and limousine for rehearsals."

Hmmmm....U2, doin' their bit for global warming and the poor!

Suva

2006-11-14T15:22:00.000+10:30

Yesterday started with a rather amusing trip to the bus station in Nadi, where I intended to catch a bus to Suva (FD$10) but instead got waylaid by a persuasive taxi driver. Anyway, after waiting around for a while, we got enough people in the taxi to make it affordable, and off we went. As always, travelling like a local (albeit a wealthy one - most Fijians couldn't easily afford the $30 it cost us to get to Suva) was a good way to pick up a few tips on safety, and the conversations provided a wealth of information for my research. :)

So - once I'd got settled, I wandered about, went to a meeting, and then spent the afternoon bugging reception by making phone calls (phone calls have to be made by reception, and I made about 25 in the space of an hour!). Today I had back to back meetings...

I caught a glimpse of myself this morning and laughed, as I realised it only takes a day or two for me to pick up that solid walk, walking from the hips with arms swinging by my side...

Squatter settlements are clearly a growing problem in Fiji - it's all anyone will talk about with me (they're less interested in housing, sanitation etc in rural areas), and the numbers demonstrate why. I'm told that many of the resettlement programs are funded by aid - perhaps AusAID or NZAid (this is what I'm told, but I haven't confirmed it). Squatters are evicted (with some notice, it has to be said) and moved elsewhere...problem is, the new settlement often has plenty of physical infrastructure (water, roads etc) but no social infrastructure (schools, healthcare etc). On top of that is the fact that many of the squatters are single parent families, headed by women...in patriarchal and generally patrilineal Fiji, a woman estranged from her husband is particularly vulnerable, and with the exception of the lucky few, most have no option but to move to an urban centre and squat.

It's 5pm, which means I should be heading somewhere to eat and then catching a taxi back...I've only been here for a day and a half, but already I've been told numerous times not to wander the streets after about 5-5.30 pm. I've obviously never been here before, but there's plenty of anecdotal evidence as to how Suva has changed in the last decade. This shouldn't be a surprise -rapid urbanisation, growing poverty, and huge numbers of bored youth...what more could be expected?

First time in Fiji...

2006-11-12T20:05:00.000+10:30

I've just arrived in Nadi...this is going to be a rambling post riddled with grammatical errors (sorry Mum!) I'm desperate to go to bed, but want to get my impressions down...

Initial impressions...we fly in low, and I press my face against the window to catch a glimpse of the landscape that blends in with the night sky and the ocean that surrounds it...the darkness is dotted with orange fires which for an instance I imagine might be volcanoes, then I realise they're fires...but there's so many of them.

Arriving at the airport, I realise just how different Nadi is to the two Melanesian cities I've visited before, Port Vila (Vanuatu) and Honiara (Solomon Islands). Firstly, the boys playing ukelele and singing look...professional? polished? Secondly - sadly, Nadi airport lacks the camp voices that have brought a huge grin to my face elsewhere. Thirdly - everyone in customs etc seems so damn bored. I don't blame them - there's more tourists than I've seen since Bangkok, many of them incredibly young blondes (21? 22? 23 at most) who, from the wedding rings on their fingers, I imagine to be there for their honeymoons.

I get out and go to the tourism desk, then realise that it's not entirely government run, but directs you to travel agents. Two Fijian women get me a hotel room, call the bus...twice...and it's then that I realise that I'm really in Fiji, and not Thailand, because the bus takes more than half an hour to make the 5 minute trip. I chat with the young Indo-Fijian driver on the way - he says most people in Fiji don't own land (hmm, some of that Indo-Fijian perspective there?), and that land issues are bigger on the western side of the island where all the farmers are. I later read that land issues are different on the western side because leadership/governance has been handled differently.

According to him, there's lots of development and therefore plenty of housing in Suva (hmmm...a reminder that stats are important, and that government officials as well as those "at the grassroots" are worth talking to!). He wanted to know whether I'd have time to visit people in their homes - shame-faced, I had to tell him no. I'm sure my explanation - that I have very little time, and that I need to talk to people in NGOs on this trip - went down like a lead balloon (and fair call, too!) According to this young Indo-Fijian (who, I must add, seemed to have at least a little pent-up frustration!), the Fijian landowners come around towards the end of a lease, and put the rent up massively, and then when the lessors can't or won't pay, evict them. He said that "if you leave your clothes out, they will move in and take over your house". I'm not sure what that means exactly, but his sentiment was clear.

This young guy also said that Fijians are now claiming rights over the sea too, and he expressed his frustration that they want to make people pay for access to the beach, to swim etc.

Oh...those fires?? He told me that they're fires in the sugar cane fields. Apparently the harvesting season is drawing to a close, because hurricane season is about to start. :)

EastWeb Gig

2006-11-10T07:50:00.000+10:30

These guys are doing good stuff...

PM's stance on climate change immoral

2006-11-08T09:00:00.000+10:30

By Robyn Eckersley
November 8, 2006

Prime Minister John Howard has long maintained the Kyoto Protocol is flawed because it excludes major carbon emitters in the developing world. In Parliament last week, in defiance of the British Stern report, he declared that it would be foolish for Australia to embark on a carbon trading scheme, because developing countries would enjoy a free ride at our expense.

Yet the Prime Minister's stance directly contravenes Australia's obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992. The fundamental environmental justice principle running through this convention, which Australia has signed and ratified, is that parties should take steps to protect the climate "on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities" (article 3(1)). The convention provides that developed countries must "take the lead in combating climate change". Developed countries have benefited from a long history of exploiting fossil fuels and are responsible for the bulk of past emissions. They also have a greater economic capacity to absorb emission reductions and develop technological alternatives.

These environmental justice principles also served as the cornerstone of the Berlin mandate, which framed the negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol. Developing countries, including growing aggregate emitters such as China, are not expected to undertake mandatory emissions reduction until developed countries have shown the way. For the Prime Minister to maintain that the protocol is flawed because it allows free riders, flies in the face of the principles of the Kyoto Protocol's parent convention. The main reason the Kyoto Protocol is suboptimal, in both environmental and political terms, is because the world's biggest aggregate carbon polluter (the US) and the world's second biggest per capita carbon polluter (Australia) have defected.

The idea that a rich country such as Australia should not reduce its oversized per capita carbon footprint unless poorer countries also take measures to reduce their tiny per capita footprint is to kick the ladder down. It denies poorer countries the opportunity to improve the livelihoods of their peoples and avoids Australia's obligations under the convention. Such a stance is morally and politically unjustifiable.

Robyn Eckersley teaches global politics at the University of Melbourne.

The economics of climate change...disasters and development...you join the dots...

2006-11-03T16:31:00.000+10:30

So...everyone's talking about the Economics of Climate Change, the report compiled by Nicholas Stern, former World Bank Chief Economist on the Economics of Climate Change. You can download the whole report in pdf form here.

It's an accessible, well-argued, well-substantiated report outlining the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is a serious global threat and demands urgent, global reponses to combat that threat. As Wei puts it,

Warning! - Your risk to natural disasters is on the rise. We are seriously screwed... if you can't swim, at least learn to paddle.

If you live in a low lying area, take heed now and move to higher ground - if it's not a tsunami, the surf will be lapping on your rooftops by some time around 2035-50. Register now to become an 'environmental refugee', we will put you in a detention centre under the sea. It will be just like Finding Nemo!

Our esteemed Prime Minister has, however, warned us not to be mesmerised by the repor t. Don't worry Mr Howard, I'm not mesmerised - just wondering whether I should stop thinking about having kids so as to spare them the future. At least one of my friends has decided he's never going to have them, for that very reason. I used to think he was being paranoid and a hypochondriac...

The report makes the links between development and disasters clear:

Climate change will affect the basic elements of life for people around the world – access to water, food production, health, and the environment. Hundreds of millions of people could suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world warms.

Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more.

So in other words...climate change is associated with increased hazards, threats, risks, and that's going to have consequences for levels of social and economic development. Duh.

Not only is it going to cost us in financial terms, but it's actually CHEAPER to do something now!

In contrast, the costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year.

As usual, hazard events are going to hit the most vulnerable hardest, so they're going to cop the brunt of the consequences of us in the wealthy west having long showers, watching hours of widescreen tv, having the air con on even when it's only 25 outside, and driving our nice cars down to the shops for milk...

The most vulnerable - the poorest countries and populations - will suffer earliest and most, even though they have contributed least to the causes of climate change

And finally...

The scale of the challenge posed by climate change and adaptation makes it more urgent than ever that donor countries honour their commitments… Meeting the Millennium Development Goals already requires international assistance to support action by developing countries. Climate change - and the need for adaptation - will pose an additional challenge for countries’ growth and poverty reduction ambitions… Scaling up development assistance will therefore be essential.

So, now that you're feeling thoroughly depressed, there is something really easy to do...TOMORROW!!

WALK AGAINST WARMING

Temperatures rise in Fiji

2006-11-02T21:08:00.000+10:30

Some of the alerts arriving in my inbox...

On another note, despite suggestions to the contrary on the DFAT website, nobody seems to think much is going on in the Solomon Islands. Phew!

WEDNESDAY 5PM 1 NOVEMBER 2006

FIJI'S PRIME MINISTERS OFFICE: PRIME MINISTER LAISENIA QARASE

WEDNESDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2006

ADDRESS TO THE NATION

Good evening my fellow citizens.

I address you this evening about events involving the Republic of Fiji Military Forces that are causing so much anxiety, uncertainty, and fear in our land. This is related specifically to public threats by the Commander of the Army to overthrow the elected Government of Fiji. This is the Government I was given the mandate to lead in the May General Election.

I can affirm that the Police are continuing their investigations into the threats by the Commander. I expect that the Army will respect the authority of the Police and will fully cooperate in these investigations.

Now, over the past few months, I have exercised great patience in my attitude to the various statements by the Commander, condemning the Government for a whole variety of reasons.

Following developments yesterday and renewed threats as reported in the media, I called meetings this morning of the National Security Council and the Multi-Party Cabinet, comprising SDL and Fiji Labour Party Ministers.

I now wish to explain the actions we are taking.

To begin with, let me take you back to a meeting convened earlier this year by His Excellency the Vice President, in his capacity as Acting President. I attended that meeting along with the Commander of the RFMF. Its purpose was to create a positive and open atmosphere for dialogue on issues of concern raised by the Military. I readily agreed to this because I have always favoured this approach to solving problems. It is consistent with the good-faith principles called for by our Constitution for settling differences.

There was also agreement that the Commander would not make public statements without clearing them first with the Prime Minister.

I met with the Commander under these arrangements. The problem that immediately arose was he expected me to virtually follow his orders.

As Head of a democratically- elected Government I could not do that.

It wasn¢t long before the Commander again began to go public, in breach of the agreement he had reached with the Acting President and me.

To justify this, he attempted to argue that the Army had a broad mandate to ensure the well being of Fiji and its people. This, he claimed, had been transferred to the 1997 Constitution from the 1990 document.

The prevailing view among legal experts, however, is that the Commander¢s interpretation is wrong.

Our present Constitution legitimises the existence of the RFMF, but not the broadened responsibilities given to it in the 1990 Constitution. In other words, the constitutional and statutory authority of the RFMF is strictly confined to maintaining and safeguarding national security within a democracy.

The Cabinet, therefore, decided to seek clarification from the Supreme Court on the role of the Military. This was a reasonable position to take, given the circumstances. It also reflected our desire for a conclusive legal finding. The Constitution allows for this procedure.

The Minister of Home Affairs was asked to consult with the RFMF to establish joint terms of reference for the approach to the Supreme Court.

The Army did not respond.

And then, in view of the Commander¢s continuing verbal attacks on the Government, the Cabinet decided it would go ahead with its proposal for a legal opinion from the Supreme Court. It, therefore, asked His Excellency the President to refer the issue to the Court, in accordance with the Constitution.

For the Government and the RFMF, the sensible course was to await the clarification by the Court.

Unfortunately, instead of doing this, the Commander and the Army have launched a campaign of threats to force the Government to resign.

The Police, as I have said, have now started an independent inquiry into the Commander¢s threats to remove the lawfully elected Government of Fiji.

The Commander makes many untruthful allegations against the Government. He regularly expresses unsubstantiated accusations about widespread corruption. My position on this is very clear. The Government has taken a strong stand against corruption. Draft legislation to combat this is being prepared. In the meantime, the law enforcement authorities must be allowed to do their duty when allegations are made. Those making allegations against the Government must provide evidence to the Police.

When they do not do this there is a suspicion that these accusations are just a cover for a deeper agenda to overthrow a democratically- elected Government.

We must ask whether the Commander is being used or influenced by unscrupulous people opposed to certain items of legislation introduced by the Government. Is the Commander being manipulated by those with a certain political agenda?

If this is so, those involved are acting to serve their own purposes.

I declare emphatically that there is absolutely no question of me resigning in response to the current situation, or of my Government stepping down.

We have the constitutional authority and the support of the people to rule now and for the next five years.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Army is an important institution in Fiji . It is an agency of the State which has won international respect and acclaim for its service to international peacekeeping.

Whoever is Commander should be ever vigilant in protecting its integrity and reputation, and ensuring it follows the rule of law.

It should be a matter of serious concern to us all that officers who have stood for the professional values of loyalty and legality, are being pushed aside and relieved of their appointments.

Now let me repeat, that the Government I lead was legitimately elected in May this year. I was constitutionally appointed to form a Government by the President, acting in his own judgement.

His Excellency determined that I had the confidence of the House of Representatives. That confidence remains. It enabled me to appoint Fiji ¢s first Multi-Party Cabinet, comprising elected representatives of Fiji ¢s main communities. The Multi-Party Cabinet, as the executive arm of Government, is proceeding with an agenda that reflects the wishes of all the people of Fiji .

Members of the Cabinet together contributed to a new Strategic Development Plan that was recently endorsed at a National Economic Summit. The Plan provides a clear course and targets for Fiji ¢s growth in the next five years.

On Friday we will be announcing our 2007 Budget setting out our spending priorities and goals for the country in the next 12 months.

These policy and development initiatives are what we were elected to do.

As part of the Government¢s response to current events, I have today, with the authority of Cabinet, requested the Minister for Fijian Affairs Lands and Provincial Development, to consult with the Chairperson of the Great Council of Chiefs on convening a special meeting of the GCC next week.

It is crucially important for us to seek the advice of the GCC because the legislative measures the Commander says he is opposed to are being undertaken with the specific authorisation of the Council.

Furthermore, the GCC is a repository of chiefly wisdom and authority. I am sure you all agree there is a role for it in assisting to resolve the current crisis.

In 1987 and 2000 it demonstrated its ability to deal with the fundamental issues of peace and stability.

I give you now the same undertaking I have given to His Excellency the President. I have informed His Excellency that I am ready to engage in further discussions with the Commander on the issues that are of on-going concern to the Military. I will take part in such dialogue with an open mind, with a view to finding resolutions that serve the best interests of Fiji .

Having said, that I must also stress that the Army is under the control and authority of the elected Government.

The rule of law must prevail. No one is above the law, or has the right to interfere with the legal processes.

Fiji has previously experienced the tragedy and turmoil of illegal armed intervention in the business of the State. The last time this happened was in 2000.

One factor of compelling importance for the people of Fiji to be aware of, is that the international environment today is totally different from what it was in 1987 and 2000. The international community is now more proactive in protecting democratic governments when the rule of law and constitutionality are threatened or overturned. Our international friends are already coming out very strongly in support of the maintenance of democracy and constitutional rule in Fiji .

I have today received messages from the Governments of Australia, NZ and the United States . They too have expressed strong support for our elected Government. They have called on the Military to respect democracy and the rule of law. They are urging the Military to confine themselves to their proper role in a democracy.

If the Army fails to do this there will be dire consequences for Fiji . For a start, our tourism industry, our biggest direct employer and earner of foreign exchange, would be severely damaged. Thousands of jobs would be lost and ordinary people would suffer.

Following the crisis of 2000, the members of the Pacific Island Forum adopted the Biketawa Declaration. This Declaration provides the mandate for intervention by member governments at the invitation of the lawful authority in a Forum country affected by crisis.

Let me issue a warning, as well, that if the democratically elected Government of Fiji is overthrown, there is every likelihood this would severely prejudice the continued participation by Fiji in international peacekeeping operations.

I very much hope, then, that those in the Military, will keep in mind the catastrophic consequences of the threats that are being made against the elected Government of the people of Fiji .

I remain confident that sound judgement and wisdom will prevail about the overriding importance of the rule of law. I call on the churches and people to pray for our country.

Let us show the world that we have the ability and the will to solve our internal difficulties, as we have done before.

God bless you all, and God bless Fiji .

For response by Military Chief, go here.

The Australian military should not intervene in Fiji 's escalating political crisis, a Fijian academic has warned.

Australia is sending warships to the South Pacific nation to evacuate any Australians if needed amid fears of another coup as Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase refuses demands that he resign in a stand-off with the military.

However, a former member of Fiji 's Constitution Review Commission and Australian National University academic, Professor Brij Lai, says Australia should not use the ships for any military task.

"I think this would be hugely counter-productive because any scent of outside intervention will simply get the army's back up," he told the Nine Network.

"This is not the time for military intervention."

"This is a time for dialogue, for diplomacy for regional countries in the South Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand , to lend all the support they can to get the army and the government together," Professor Lai said.

But he said Mr Qarase should not be pushed into resigning.

"I don't think he should, I mean he is a democratically elected leader."

"The second point is it's the first time in the history of Fiji you have a multi-party Cabinet where members of the former opposition party are in government."

"This experiment must be allowed to succeed because if it doesn't, we don't have any future."

Tired...and watching events in the Pacific

2006-11-02T20:34:00.000+10:30

For the last two days I've been doing the IDSS course in PPA in a Disaster Context...'twas fantastic, and now I'm exhausted. Tomorrow it's back to work, and then visiting Suva, Nadi, Vila, Honiara, POM, Lae and Madang all before Christmas...eek!!!!

Let's hope I don't find myself in the midst of a crisis while travelling.

There's presently fears of a coup in Fiji, and the PM's saying he won't resign.

Vanuatu's certainly not hitting the headlines in Australia at the moment, but there is the ongoing saga involving Moti, which is 'interesting' to say the least. PM Sogavare continues to threaten to order Australian troops to leave the Solomons. PNG hasn't really been in the news recently, but there was a volcanic eruption which disappeared from the media as quickly as it erupted, and via various email groups I'm on, Bougainville might not be hitting the headlines in Australia, but that doesn't mean everything's fine.

Here's a gratuitous shot of the volcanic eruption...I need more pictures on this blog, and it's better than the shots of dead people that arrived in my inbox courtesy of some friends overseas (thanks guys, I know you wanted to remind me what a bleak place the world can be, but I much prefer the cheesy "Why God Loves Women" emails!)

Huge clouds of ash billow from Mt Tavurvur after it erupted.
Photo: AAP

Edit 23/11/06: a new piece up on Radix, "VOLCANIC AND OTHER VICISSITUDES: THE DEEP-SEA PORT OF RABAUL" by James Lewis, October 2006. See here.

Pain in the Arts 2006!

2006-10-31T18:06:00.000+10:30

Pain in the Arts Exhibition

November 01, 2006

Credo Community Arts Group: Pain in the Arts, has runs weekly in Credo Café for the past three years with the support of the city of Melbourne through there arts grants program, this year saw the start of the Credo Creative Writing Group.

These groups are based on the understanding that creative expression plays a crucial role within society, and that it has considerable therapeutic benefits. As such, they strive to offer marginalised people the access to space, resources and instruction that enables the development of healthy creative expression.

To celebrate the achievements of the groups this year we are holding a showcase exhibition and limited run publication Credo: Creative Anthology both of which will be launched...

inner-city-outer-circle:

words and pictures from the margins in melbourne

Opening Night
November 8th
6:00 - 7:45pm
The Gallery @City Library 253 Flinders Lane

the exhibition will run until the 28th of November

We will be remembered for this...

2006-10-31T11:50:00.000+10:30

A vulnerable population in our midst, but out of sight and out of mind...

Remember - Julian Burnside's Speech for Refugee Week
LAUNCH OF REFUGEE WEEK, 22 October 2006

Remember what you were doing last night at 7.00 pm? When you try to reconstruct it, it’s quite a long time ago. Perhaps you had dinner with friends, a few drinks and a show, a cosy night in a warm bed; a long sleep-in and the Sunday papers, a relaxed breakfast and an easy day before battling with the traffic to get here. It’s 22 hours ago.

Twenty-two hours can seem quite a long time: try standing motionless for 22 hours without food or water.

When the SIEV X sank on the 19th October, 2001 it took 22 hours for 353 people to drown. Most of them were women and children. There were just 45 survivors.

Twenty-two hours is a very long time floating, crying, praying … drowning.

The Australian Government is responsible for those deaths. Of course they didn’t kill the 353 refugees, but they knew that they were setting out; they knew they were boarding a dangerous, overcrowded boat; they knew which way the boat would be heading. Operation Relex had the area under surveillance but, amazingly, did not see anything: it did not see the boat as it sank, it did not see 353 drowning over the course of 22 hours.

The reason those people embarked on their dangerous voyage was to join their husbands and fathers who were already living in Australia, already recognized as refugees, already on protection visas. But the protection visas they had were only temporary protection visas, which carried the condition that they were not eligible for family reunion. Despite their claimed support for family values, the Coalition Government denied these families the opportunity to be reunited and so the families did what families do: they tried to get back together by any means available. Three hundred and fifty-three people drowned as a result.

The Government recognized the responsibility it bore, so it lied. First it lied about the place where the boat went down, and then it lied about whether it knew the boat was coming at all.

Remember the 353 who died that day: they are our conscience.

Remember Shayan Badrie. Shayan Badrie was the little six year old Iranian boy who had been reduced to a state of helpless paralysis by his experiences in detention. Each time he got to the point where he could not eat or drink anymore, he would be removed from Villawood and sent to a psychiatric hospital. As soon as he was well enough, he was sent back to detention against the advice of psychiatrists. Shayan Badrie’s fate was first seen on television because a brave refugee advocate smuggled out secret video footage of Shayan, lying like a limp rag-doll in his father’s arms. He was a pathetic sight. Confronted with these images on public television, Mr Ruddock five times referred to Shayan as “it”. He said that “it” was like this not because of detention but because “it” had a stepmother. All that from the man who still has the effrontery to wear the Amnesty International badge.

Remember the Iranian family who were moved from Woomera to Maribyrnong in early 2002. They were moved because their experiences in Woomera had reduced them all to the point of psychiatric collapse. Worst in the family was the 11 year old girl who, as the psychiatrists had said, desperately needed immediate psychiatric care. Despite the advice of the psychiatrists, the Department did nothing to help that child and on a Sunday evening in May 2002, while she was alone in her room, she took a bed-sheet and hanged herself.

Remember the report of HREOC which condemned every aspect of Australia’s system of holding children in indefinite mandatory detention.

The two people who bear principal responsibility for these things are John Howard and Philip Ruddock. They personally oversaw, encouraged and took political benefit from the cruelest refugee regime this country has ever seen; a system crueler than that known in any other Western country.

Remember John Howard and Philip Ruddock.
Remember their role.
Remember the lies they have told and remember the truths they have concealed.
Remember them: they are our representatives.
Remember how hard it is to be a refugee, especially a refugee in a land which has treated you with open hostility until eventually, reluctantly it gives you temporary protection.
Remember the difficulties and confusion of dealing with a petty bureaucracy.
Remember the hardship of trying to live on a bridging visa E, denied the right to work or to study or to receive Centrelink benefits; denied even the right to do voluntary work for the simple dignity that work can bring.
Remember that getting out of detention is not the end, it is the beginning.
Remember the refugees in our community and remember what we have done to them.
Remember them: because they are our future.

As we launch into Refugee Week 2006, remember.

Remember.

Pacific Islands Forum meeting: day 2

2006-10-24T09:09:00.000+09:30

More Pacific news as the Pacific Islands Forum meets this week:

PNG leader unleashes outburst at Australia

The Age
Brendan Nicholson, Nadi, Fiji
October 24, 2006

AUSTRALIA'S relations with South Pacific nations have reached a new low after Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare accused the Federal Government of treating neighbouring countries with arrogance and contempt.

Sir Michael's anger boiled over at a regional leaders summit in Fiji, being attended by Prime Minister John Howard, as three other Melanesian nations also joined PNG in lashing out at Australia. The anger centred on last week's raid on the office of the Solomon Islands Prime Minister by local police and Australian officers, a raid the PNG leader suggested had been ordered by Canberra. More...

Howard to stare down Pacific critics

The Australian
Steve Lewis, Nadi, Fiji

October 24, 2006

JOHN Howard will today stare down efforts to scale back theAustralian-led mission to maintain law and order in Solomon Islands, despite being accused of being arrogant and treating Pacific leaders with contempt.

On the eve of what promises to be a stormy Pacific Island Forum, Australia was yesterday accused of undermining Solomon Islands' sovereignty.

Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu signed a tough communique condemning last Friday's raid on the office of Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. More...

PNG, so near yet so far from friendly

The Australian
Charlie Lynn
October 24, 2006

What we need is a minister for Melanesia to deal with the arc of instability to our north.

"YOU can't let them kill my guide just because they think he's a sorcerer!" I bellowed to the police at the end of my 37th expedition across the Kokoda Track last year.

A couple of recruits I had engaged had decided that one of my older guides, from a neighbouring village, was a sorcerer. So they felt obligated to kill him. The impending execution was not apparent to my Western mind. We had trekked together, sung traditional songs of an evening together, and they had worked assiduously to ensure every one of my band of trekkers completed their journey safely.

As we sat down to dinner in Port Moresby, we reflected on their selfless devotion to us and agreed they were proud sons of the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels. But they had unfinished business in their own tribe, and by the time we finished our meal the alleged sorcerer was dead.

After 15 years of roaming Papua New Guinea - climbing mountains, exploring burial caves, attending Highland "sing-sings", leading numerous expeditions across Kokoda and meeting politicians at the national, provincial and local government levels - I thought I was beginning to understand this land of 1000 cultures. But PNG is the land of the unexpected: as soon as you think you are beginning to understand it, something or other takes you completely by surprise. More...

Climate refugees here by 2016

The Australian
Steve Lewis, Nadi
October 24, 2006

AUSTRALIA has been warned it may face a flood of environmental refugees within a decade as the Pacific's smallest island states face submersion under rising seas.

The alarmist message was issued by Kiribati's leader, Anote Tong, as fellow leaders of endangered nations gathered in Fiji to discuss their worsening plight. More...

Pacific Plan gains welcome

Postcourier
24 October 2006

Leaders of the Pacific Islands Smaller Island States yesterday welcomed the considerable progress made in implementing the Pacific Plan. SIS leaders said there were many significant initiatives gaining momentum under the Plan and support from regional organisations and development partners had been a strong and positive feature to date. The SIS leaders held their 15th summit yesterday at the Westin Hotel, Danaurau, Fiji, and was attended by leaders from the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, the Republic of Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and the Republic of Palau. More...

Pacific Islands Forum meeting: day 1

2006-10-23T14:37:00.000+09:30

The Pacific Islands Forum meets in Fiji this week. Some hits below...

Solomons anger erupts on peace force

The Age

Brendan Nicholson, Nadi
October 23, 2006

TENSIONS over the Australian-led peacekeeping operation in the Solomon Islands have erupted before today's meeting of Pacific leaders, with claims by a senior Solomons minister that local public opinion is turning against the operation. More...

Pacific split over Canberra campaign

The Australian
Steve Lewis
Chief political correspondent
In Nadi, Fiji

October 23, 2006

DIVISIONS have emerged among Pacific nations over how to deal with Australia's hardline push to stamp out corruption in island states.

Fiji and the grouping of small island states attending this year’s Pacific Island Forum have declined to join in condemnation of Australia’s involvement in last Friday’s raid of the office of Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare over the Julian Moti affair. More...

Prime Minister to press Pacific islands for improvement

The Australian
October 23, 2006

PRIME Minister John Howard says he will press Pacific island countries to improve standards of governance and economic management in return for continued Australian aid. More...

Howard, Clark united on Pacific

The Australian
Steve Lewis and Patricia Karvelas
October 23, 2006

AUSTRALIA and New Zealand will forge a united front in telling Pacific leaders they must be prepared to stamp out corrupt practices if they want to continue receiving generous aid funding. More...

Commonwealth chief to visit SI

Solomon Star News
23 October 2006

COMMONWEALTH Secretary-General Don McKinnon will travel to Fiji Islands to attend the 37th Pacific Islands Forum Summit which starts today.

He will later travel to Solomon Islands to meet with the government and civil society groups.

“Good governance and a healthy democratic culture, as recognised in the Pacific Plan, have become crucial issues and prerequisites for stability and sustainable economic growth in the region,” Mr McKinnon said on the eve of his departure. More...

Raid inflame SI-Aust row

Solomon Star News
23 October 2006

A POLICE raid on the Office of the Prime Minister last Friday has further inflamed the ongoing diplomatic row between Honiara and Canberra.
Six officers – three locals and three Australians serving with RAMSI – reportedly stormed the office and removed a fax machine, in the absence of Mr Sogavare who is currently in Fiji for the Forum meeting. More...

Diplomatic row impacts on national economy - Huniehu

People First
23 October 2006

The Opposition spokesman for Finance and Treasury and MPR for East Are'are, Edward Huniehu says the continued diplomatic row and standoff between Australia and Solomon Islands will have wider financial implications for the national economy if they are not resolved quickly. More...

Fiji to benefit from meet, says Tavola

Fiji Times
Timothy Naivaluwaqa
23 October 2006

Fiji stands to benefit immensely from the Pacific Leaders Forum which starts in Nadi today, says Foreign Affairs Minister, Kaliopate Tavola.

Mr Tavola said the people of Fiji would benefit from all issues discussed by the 16 heads of government attending the week-long meeting. More...

300 officers for forum talks

Fiji Sun

Police will be deploying more than 300 officers to Denarau, the host hotel for the 37th Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting that starts today. Assistant Commissioner of Police Operations Samuela Matakibau said police had deployed more than 300 officers to provide security. "Police presence in Denarau will be spearheaded by the elite Police Tactical Response Unit and officers from the Special Operations Unit. The exercise has been dubbed Operation Bose Ni Pacifika," he said. More...

Pacific leaders converge

Fiji Sun
By CHRISTOPHER HILL
Assistant Secretary of State
Department of State
Washington

I'm very pleased to arrive this week in Fiji, which is hosting the Pacific Islands Forum and Post Forum Dialogue meetings that bring together the heads of government of the wider Pacific Islands region.

The United States, though not a member of the Forum, is honoured to have been invited to a special session with PIF leaders on October 25. When I attended the Forum last year in Papua New Guinea, the clear message I received is that our partners in the region are looking for more active involvement from the United States. More...

Urwin says RAMSI must continue

Pacific Magazine, 23 October 2006
Samantha Magick

Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Greg Urwin says it is essential the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) continues, as controversy continues over the future of the regional initiative. More...

Guns in the South Pacific

2006-10-23T14:34:00.000+09:30

More on the links between youth unemployment, boredom and civil security, courtesy of the Age:

Gun demand could trigger threat: ALP
Brendan Nicholson
October 23, 2006

LARGE numbers of military weapons stolen or bought from police and soldiers pose a dangerous threat to stability in the Pacific region, Labor has warned.

The Opposition's Pacific spokesman, Bob Sercombe, said Australia should use the Pacific Islands Forum, which begins in Fiji today, to push for uniform gun-control laws across the 16 member countries.

He said violence in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Bougainville, Fiji and Vanuatu highlighted the increasing availability of arms and their role in regional instability.

The weapons were significantly worsening the impact of political conflict, tribal warfare, crime and domestic violence and pushing young and under-resourced states to the limit, Mr Sercombe said.

He released a discussion paper, "In the Line of Fire: Addressing Illicit Small Arms in the Pacific", which warns that the increasing demand for guns could trigger major arms trafficking in the region.

Many guns were in the hands of young unemployed men who used them to earn an income at the expense of their communities, Mr Sercombe said.

"Unemployment and boredom are factors behind the attraction of guns which are increasingly rented out or used in robberies as a means of livelihood," he said.

Australian researcher Philip Alpers said that of 7664 M16 and SLR assault rifles delivered to the Papua New Guinea defence forces since 1971, only 26 per cent remained in stock and similar numbers were missing from police armouries.

The discussion paper says there is evidence of urban raskol gangs emerging in Papua New Guinea's troubled Southern Highlands province.

"Concerns that the province suffers similar grievances and tensions that led to the 10-year conflict in Bougainville are disturbing," the discussion paper says.

The increasing number of guns in the Highlands posed a grave threat to democratic institutions and could bring serious violence during the coming elections.

The paper says many countries in the region do not record firearm details and only a few have computerised records of small arms owned by civilians.

Penalties vary considerably across the member countries.

Mr Sercombe said the threat could be reduced by cutting the flow of ammunition.

There was little use in the Pacific for the AK-47 automatic rifle because it was hard to find ammunition for it, he said.

Australia could help improve security at military and police armouries, he said.

We Will Be Remembered For This - Australia's immigration policy compounding vulnerability

2006-10-05T21:52:00.000+09:30

We will not only be remembered for this - we will constantly be reminded of this in the future. I don't yet know what the ramifications may be, but it doesn't take a genius to know that arriving in Australia by the means that many refugees and asylum seekers have, only to be locked up in something that can only be called a prison, with limited access to even rudimentary health care and education is...well, any resilience you have is largely due to your own strength of character, and no thanks to the Australian government.

Anyway - check out the trailer for a flick by some people I know. You can see it at the film's MySpace or at Jessie Taylor's blog (this one's got music). Let's hope the film takes off.

Musing on HLP Rights

2006-09-10T10:52:00.000+09:30

I've returned from Thailand, where I was attending a workshop to discuss housing, land and property (or HLP) rights.

HLP issues aren't just a result of conflict, they're often also an underlying cause. In earlier posts I've said that land was a key cause of the conflict in the Solomons Islands. Migration between the islands was pretty minor until the introduction of the cash economy. During WWII, the American forces brought people from Malaita - the most populous island in the Solomons - to Guadacanal as labourers. After that, development continued to be focused in Honiara, on Guadacanal, and there were actually development policies that deliberately discouraged development on Malaita so as to use it as a source of indentured labour.

This obviously led to increased transactions in land. Land in the Solomons is governed by custom (only about 4% is outside the customary system). Attempts to register land have been made, but have been largely unsuccessful. Some land was legitimately leased and there were written leases, some land was legitimately transferred according to custom (non-Guadacanalese can't 'own' it, but they can have certain rights to occupy etc), other transactions were entirely illegitimate according to custom because they occurred with a male individual (land on Guadacanal is transferred matrilineally and is communally held). There was also squatting on top of this.

Malaitans came to hold dominant positions in the economy (accounting for 75% of the police force!), and this, together with increased competition for land and employment, was resented by Guadacanalese. It was particularly resented by Guadacanalese youth, who had no land, no work, no education...you get the picture. They began stockpiling weapons in 1997/98, and the Premier of Guadacanal gave a highly divisive speech demanding the return of "stolen land" and compensation for the use of land for development, and compensation for alleged murders. As is the case in many so-called "traditional" societies, land in the Solomons has not just economic, but social and spiritual importance. Compensation also plays an important role in Melanesian culture. So, the Premier's speech was powerful indeed.

These patterns exist throughout the developing world. The constitutions and legislation of many countries recognise customary tenure - and this is a good thing, since a failure to do so creates a wealth of problems, not least of which is legal pluralism - however customary systems didn't evolve in a cash economy, and there's a desperate need to think about how the two can interact in a manner that facilitates tenure security rather than disputation.

Lots more to say, but for now, I thought I'd stick a few resources here:

Do people who flee their homes to escape war or natural disaster have a right to return to them?

A lack of international expertise in humanitarian relief makes the tasks involved in aid operations even more complicated.

Land Policy in Post-Conflict Circumstances: Some Lessons from East Timor

News from New Orleans

2006-07-29T16:30:00.000+09:30

Wei Choong, currently at large in New Orleans, records her reflections over at Chasing Disasters. The story so far...

Reflections from New Orleans... almost a year later...

So… what happened to Recovery – FEMA – the Government???

Things that make u smile in New Orleans

Things that give u hope in New Orleans

More things to uplift your spirits in New Orleans

Debris management and Landfill issues: How a community fights for NIMBY

Labour Unions in New Orleans... the fight for the people

When i find time to chill out and kick it out in New Orleans...

Rwanda: Poverty Dynamics and Violent Conflict...and recognition of the genocide at last!

2006-07-11T22:31:00.000+09:30

I'll stop with the links to other people's opinions soon, but hey - these are interesting!

Poverty Dynamics, Violent Conflict and Convergence in Rwanda

Civil war and genocide in 1990s Rwanda saw not only millions of lives lost, but a population left behind to establish a livelihood when facing serious obstacles. This study examines the impact of the conflict on household income and poverty dynamics, particularly the transitory nature of poverty.

ICTR Finally Recognises 1994 Rwanda Genocide

The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has legally recognized that genocide occurred in Rwanda in 1994, a long overdue ruling, according to the UN-backed tribunal's Acting Prosecutor, General Martin Ngoga. Ngoga says that having to prove in each case that genocide took place wasted time and resources. The Appeals Chamber's landmark decision will relieve the prosecution of this burden and hopefully speed up the pace of proceedings.

Research with children living in situations of armed conflict

2006-07-11T22:28:00.000+09:30

I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but this report looks interesting - and looks like an interesting report for anyone interested in social research more generally.

Research with Children Living in Situations of Armed Conflict: Concepts, Ethics & Methods
Jason Hart and Bex Tyrer

Research about children's lives conducted in the volatile setting of armed conflict places particular demands upon researchers. The suggestion that researchers should, whenever possible and appropriate, involve children as meaningful participants in that research may seem unreasonable or inappropriate. However, this paper argues that participatory research for children in conflict situations is especially valuable because of the emergency context.

Scary and Depressing - Green house gas turning oceans acidic

2006-07-11T22:23:00.000+09:30

Greenhouse gas turning oceans acidic
Carbon dioxide hampers ability of bottom of
food chain to thrive, federal report finds

- David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

Thursday, July 6, 2006

The major greenhouse gas that drives global warming also is rapidly raising the acidity of the world's oceans, threatening widespread destruction of the tiny shell-building organisms that form the base of the entire marine food web and create corral reefs, a team of government-sponsored scientists said Wednesday.

The culprit is carbon dioxide. As billions of tons of the carbon in the
gas pour from industrial emissions into the ocean, it is causing "the
most dramatic changes in marine chemistry in the past 650,000 years,"
said Richard Feely, a federal oceanographer in Seattle and one of the
team's leaders.

The landmark report by the research group, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey, was released Wednesday, and the findings are indisputable, said one lead scientist.

"Unlike any possible controversy over global warming, as you increase carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, you're driving carbon into the oceans and increasing the ocean's acidity -- and this is not debatable," said Joan Kleypas, an ecologist and geologist in Boulder, Colo.

The 88-page report resulted from a workshop held last year in Florida, where more than 50 marine scientists from nine nations gathered to pool their research results and reached consensus on the problem.

The scientists noted that carbon changes the ocean's chemical nature from normally alkaline to abnormally acidic. That change, in turn, lowers the concentration of carbonate ions, which are the building blocks of the calcium carbonate that many of the most important marine organisms use to grow their shells and create the structures that form coral reefs that provide vital habitat for fish and other marine species, the scientists explained.

The pace of change from alkaline to acidic water, the report said, has increased rapidly over the past 200 years as industrial carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dumped more carbon into the world's oceans. For hundreds of thousands of years before that, the acidity of the world's oceans remained steady based on the study of ice cores, the scientists said.

Between 1800 and 1994, the oceans worldwide absorbed more than 118 billion metric tons of carbon, according to Feely of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. By now, he said, that total has increased to 142 billion tons, with more than 2 billion tons entering the oceans every year.

"The rate of change in the ocean's chemistry now is truly extraordinary," said Kleypas of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the senior author of the report.

Organisms that build their shells of calcium carbonate are known as marine calcifiers, and they include the microscopic plankton creatures called coccolithophores and the foraminifera -- or forams, as they're known -- that exist in the seas by the millions at the base of the marine food chain.

"They are a major food source supporting fish like salmon, mackerel and cod, and the shells of the calcifiers are highly susceptible to dissolving in the increasingly corrosive acid waters," said Victoria Fabry, a biological oceanographer at Cal State San Marcos. "We don't yet know how those organisms will adapt to the chemical change, but their populations are sure to decline by the end of the century, or even in the next 50 years."

After years of laboratory experiments and research cruises analyzing chemical changes in ocean waters from the tropics to the Arctic, the scientists are unanimous both in their report's conclusions that the marine calcifiers are in danger and in their knowledge that many details of the threat are still uncertain.

The effects of large-scale changes in ocean chemistry on marine ecology are poorly understood, but the changes themselves are clear, and marine life is bound to change dramatically within coming decades, the scientists agreed.

"This is a call to arms," said Christopher Sabine, an engineer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle. "It's a major issue, and we need to make it a major international focus of research."

Reviews of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI)

2006-07-11T07:11:00.000+09:30

The RAMSI intervention in the Solomon Islands crisis
Clive Moore

This paper gives an up-date on the situation in the Solomon Islands [as in May 2005] and attempts to assess both RAMSI and the future needs of Solomon Islands. The paper argues that there is a disjunction between what RAMSI sees as its tasks and abilities, the capability of the present government, and the needs and expectations of the citizens of the nation.

Social Impact of Peace Restoration Initiatives in Solomon Islands
Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat

Social impact assessment of RAMSI.

Muslim Relief Groups Struggle to Help

2006-07-11T06:28:00.001+09:30

I've often wondered how Australia's 'anti-terrorist' laws will impact upon Muslim relief agencies. Here's an interesting article on the wider, and (I presume) unintended impacts of the American laws...

Muslim Relief Groups Struggle to Help

By Daniel Hummel, IOL Correspondent

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Muslims, especially relief groups, usually draw fierce international criticism for not rushing to help when natural disasters, including in their own backyard, strike.

But the seemingly duck-slow response is not always an indication of lack of interest to give a hand of assistance, many believe.

Life for Relief and Development, an international Muslim charity, has just arrived in Indonesia over three weeks after the disaster.

"If we want to transfer money we have to go through several different parties to have it legitimate," Fateh Turkmen, one of the relief group's representatives who just arrived in Indonesia, told IslamOnline.net.

The organization came with $30,000 USD in emergency supplies such as food and provisions.

The 6.3-magnitude temblor killed 5,800 people, injured up to 40,000 people and destroyed or damaged almost 600,000 houses in the heavily-populated Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces on Java island.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Saturday, 24 June, that money was running out for essential food, water and education projects to reach the people worst hit by the disaster.

Without funding extensions for food aid, the most vulnerable – mostly women and children – could go hungry as early as the end of July.

Not even half of the one million people made homeless by the earthquake will have received emergency shelter by that time.

Muslims Only

Life is working with two very well-recognized and high-rated charities out of the United States, Brothers Brother and Americares.

Even with this partnership and passing US government audits and investigations on a continual basis, the Indonesian government still puts stops on aid because of fear of support for terrorism.

Fateh asserted that his organization had similar problems while trying to help Kashmiris hit b y a recent quake.

"When we were doing work in Kashmir after the earthquake it took us nearly six months to deliver aid because of the Pakistani government," he recalled.

"Non-Muslim organizations do not have this problem," insists the Muslim activist.

Life for Relief and Development (formally International relief Organization) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1993.

It is dedicated to alleviate human suffering around the world regardless of race, color or cultural background.

The group strives to offer humanitarian, health, educational, social and economic services to victims of natural disasters, wars and hunger.

War on Terror

Washington's so-called war on terror is seen by many as preventing Muslim charities from doing work in some countries.

If there is access granted, it’s limited and any legal technicality is cumbersome and tedious.

This has placed unbelievable stress upon local and international Muslim aid groups to respond and respond as fast as possible.

In 2005, US Muslims formed the National Council of American Muslims Non-Profits in an effort to develop a comprehensive oversight mechanism ensuring transparency and protection for the Muslim institutions in the country.

The council, a response to the shutdown and restrictions on the Islamic charities and non-profit groups in the US, was spearheaded by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

Since the 9-11 attacks, the US has been putting pressures on Muslim countries to clamp down on Islamic charities under the pretext that they were channeling funds to terrorists and extremists, a charge vehemently dismissed by many charities.

In August, 2003, thousands of Palestinian orphans and destitute families took to the streets of Palestinian cities to protest freezing the bank accounts of 18 charities suspected of having links with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

Saudi Arabia has also begun to close all charities and relief organizations outside the kingdom and place their funds and properties under the control of a newly established governmental body.

Worth It

Despite the headache, Fateh knows this work is worth it.

He visited some sites upon arriving and noticed that wherever he went people were very accepting of the fate dealt to them by Allah with patience.

He said that he never saw this in his career and gave the example of Ethiopia on a recent visit to help relieve the drought crisis there.

"The people were crying and cursing and were out of control, but here in Yogyakarta, the people accepted their situation and were willing to work with it."

Thousands of Muslims flocked into mosques across Indonesia on Friday, June 2, for the first Friday prayers after the powerful quake that rattled the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Before the imams delivered his sermons, a special prayer leaflet was distributed entitled "Disaster and How to Face It."

Indonesia, the world most populous country, is in a zone known as the Pacific "ring of fire", which is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity.

In December 2004, a huge earthquake off Indonesia's coast killed hundreds of thousands of people across the Indian Ocean by triggering a tsunami.

Disasters are predictable, but are not being planned for

2006-07-11T06:20:00.000+09:30

Shaken before we are stirred?

Disasters are predictable but countries don't plan for them • News Comment

Friday • July 7, 2006

Ajay Chhibber and Ronald Parker

THE devastating earthquake in Indonesia killed about 6,000 people and displaced as many as 650,000. This followed the tsunami from which Indonesia and other countries in the Indian Ocean are still recovering.

The earthquake and the tsunami were natural phenomena, but their ghastly impact on lives could have been avoided if disaster risk had been an integral part of long-term developing planning.

Yet, the development community seems to refuse to learn a number of simple yet vital lessons that can save millions of lives and hard-won development gains in poor countries.

Disasters are becoming predictable. There are about 50 developing countries with a recurrent pattern of natural disasters, including earthquakes, floods and hurricanes. A disaster in any of these countries could easily wipe out their economies and affect an entire generation.

However, donors and international agencies do not recognise these risks as a threat to their development assistance, and often have to provide new resources to rebuild previously completed projects.

The World Bank, for example, negotiates development plans with its borrowing countries every four years. Of those who have borrowed money from the Bank for disasters, almost half do not even mention disasters in their plans.

Many have seen earthquakes, floods, or tropical storms strike repeatedly, yet do not recognise that they will happen again. This must change.

The number of disasters is increasing. The associated risks will only rise as population pressures increase.

Climate change will, in all likelihood, bring with it additional changes and new risks.

As sea temperatures rise, the risks of cyclones will increase. As sea levels rise, more coastal areas will be affected, and as weather patterns change, droughts and floods will increase in number and affect new areas.

We know that these are not one-off events. We must help countries prepare for and deal with these risks within the context of their development plans.

Prevention is more cost-effective than response.

Poor construction quality is a major reason why so many lives are lost in developing countries when disasters strike. It is caused by weak building codes, lax enforcement of construction standards and corrupt procurement practices. Better land-use planning is of critical importance to ensure that people are not building in risky areas.

Building materials and design are closely related and small changes can either save thousands of lives or put them at even greater risk.

It costs very little, an estimated 10 per cent increase, to make structures safer.

In Turkey, for example, many lives could have been saved during the 1999 Marmara earthquake if the country's building code had been followed.

Maintenance of key infrastructure is also vital for protection from future catastrophes — as is shown by the costly neglect of levees designed to protect New Orleans.

Collective action and financial commitment from the international community must finally go beyond the quickly fading wave of compassion that sweeps over the world when a natural disaster strikes.

Of course, the world community must help Indonesia as it tries to help those affected, just as help was provided in other disasters — in Pakistan, Turkey and the Caribbean.

But the world community can also do better. Studies have shown that $1 spent on prevention can save up to $40 of damage. Still, countries are reluctant to invest more in risk management when it might divert funds from other development needs.

Many countries have seen risk mitigation as a cost rather than a benefit.

But if we are ready to spend more funds on establishing the mechanisms for well-run financial systems in order to avoid financial crises, then we should do the same with disasters.

A combination of financing incentives and regulation is needed to ensure that risk mitigation is not neglected.

The disheartening events in Indonesia remind us once more of the fact that nature creates hazards, but man-made actions create disasters.

Unless we rigorously change the way disaster risk is brought into development thinking, we will remain in a vicious and costly cycle of quick fixes, provoke donor fatigue and continue to jeopardise the lives of poor people in disaster hotspots.

The writers are from the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group.

Make Indigenous Poverty History

2006-07-09T12:30:00.000+09:30

'I know you think you should make a trip to Calcutta, but I strongly advise you to save your airfare and spend it on the poor in your own country. Its easy to love people far away. Its not always easy to love those who live right next to us.' Mother Theresa

The Make Indigenous Poverty History campaign aims to ensure that the global campaign supporting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) does not overlook the poverty suffered by Indigenous Peoples around the world including Australia.

The MDGs do not specifically target Indigenous Peoples but Indigenous Peoples are often the ones most affected by extreme poverty and usually rank at the bottom of most social and economic indicators.

Australian key social and economic indicators show that Australian Indigenous Peoples are living in poverty: our children are twice as likely to die in infancy, and we suffer from more preventable diseases, higher unemployment, lower house ownership, lower engagement with education and we are six times as likely to be murdered.

Poverty is a very real and debilitating experience for many of our people.

The MDGs must be aligned with poverty reduction strategies that address the particular needs of Indigenous peoples. Without the meaningful participation of Indigenous Peoples our marginalisation and exclusion will continue.

Here in Australia we must compare the living standards and levels of health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples with those of the rest of Australia – not to the poorest of the world’s poor.

Youth and sustainable livelihoods

2006-06-28T23:26:00.000+09:30

I've been thinking about how in Australia's remote indigenous communities, the Solomons and Bougainville (and probably many other places throughout the world), the focus has been on the older generation, on 'leaders'. Yet these places are plagued by violence, where the primary protagonists are young men - young men who have been dispossessed of their cultural, social and economic inheritence. Young men who for various reasons have been dispossessed of the land which traditionally governed every aspect of the social, political, spiritual and political order. They've not only been shut out of their inheritance, but they're told that to be worthwhile, they need an education in the formal education system, and a job in the formal economy. Given that they can't have either of those things, why are we surprised when they get caught up in the excitement and temporary sense of empowerment that physical violence provides?

I know of one community development agency in Australia that's running a "leadership program" that doesn't target those kids that are usually defined as "leaders" - it's not the academic and social over-achievers that are invited to participate. Instead they're inviting the kids who are, in some respects, the very opposite of that.

I think our well-intended attempts at community development, whether it's here or overseas, often miss the mark because we unwittingly reproduce existing power structures. In Australia, when I go through the list of people speaking at "leadership forums" or lists of the people identified as "young leaders", they are still overwhelmingly dominated by people from white, private school, upper middle-class, tertiary educated backgrounds. Similarly, many agencies engaged in community development work abroad work with those who already have economic, political, and social clout. Yet in doing this, we reinforce the status quo, we reinforce the existing distribution of social, economic and political privilege, furthering the marginalisation of those who are most vulnerable.

Should we in fact be offering 'leadership' programs to those that are regarded as 'leaders' in the traditional sense, or should we be seeking to build the 'leadership' skills of those who are most marginalised?

What does self-determination mean?

2006-06-24T16:48:00.000+09:30

I caught this interesting interview by Kerry O'Brien of Noel Pearson the other night - Pearson explained the complexities of self-determination and expressed his frustration with well-intended but foolish calls for a return to paternalism in a way that I thought was not only accessible, but immensely gracious:

Action needed to stop ongoing Aboriginal crisis: Pearson

Reporter: Kerry O'Brien

KERRY O'BRIEN: Cape York Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, mentioned by the Health Minister, won't be part of Monday's summit, but he's already seen his share of them, as he has of Aboriginal communities that represent success stories and others that don't. I spoke with Noel Pearson in Brisbane earlier today. Noel Pearson, are you supportive of Monday's summit? What would you want to see come from it?

NOEL PEARSON, DIRECTOR, CAPE YORK INSTITUTE FOR POLICY AND LEADERSHIP: I think the danger, Kerry, is this will be Groundhog Day once again, where we come together every four or five years to discuss the ongoing Aboriginal crisis and we actually don't do anything in the wake of it. I certainly think that there is a crisis in many of our communities, that government must take action on the problems and assist communities with the opportunities but I've got to say, just in the last 10 years, I've participated in at least two of these crisis sessions and I don't see that we've made a lot of progress in the wake of them.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Did Health Minister Tony Abbott, his comments, take you by surprise when he talked of returning to a paternalistic approach to intervene in dysfunctional Aboriginal communities?

NOEL PEARSON: I think the notion of paternalism is correct if you're talking about a parent or father having jealous regard for the safety and protection and future of their own child. That is paternalism, that is correct - when parents and community members such as myself have real anxiety and take steps for the protection of our future generations. But when it comes to government and when it comes to people of another race presuming to carry out a paternal role in relation to the welfare of people of another race, then I think, you know, we're returning to an old institution that became extremely problematic for Aboriginal people.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But if you take the word paternal out of the equation, what's wrong with the government taking the same approach to a seriously dysfunctional Aboriginal community where people's lives are a misery, as government might to a dysfunctional city council, like Melbourne city council, which was done at one point, that is, putting in an outside administrator to try to restore some kind of basic stable infrastructure?

NOEL PEARSON: Firstly we have to recognise there is a range of communities. Many communities are on the mend. Many communities have good leadership, good administration and good directions set and they're on the path to recovery and uplift for their people. There are some communities that are in a miserable condition where the safety and protection of women, children, old people, sober people is urgent and yes, I for one am a supporter of the need for government to step in and ensure basic safety and protection through law and order measures but you can't just have unilateral government action through law and order. You actually have got to work in partnership with the sober people, with the good people, to build ownership of those social order measures.

KERRY O'BRIEN: How do you rationalise to yourself, how do you come to understand, a community that has become so dysfunctional, where a few who are the leaders of the community can dominate, to their own ends, including things like sexual abuse of children, including, it seems, deliberately leading young kids into petrol sniffing so they can prey on them. How do you feel as an Aboriginal leader and activist over decades when you see that kind of image being projected?

NOEL PEARSON: It's absolutely terrible. It's a consequence of us letting obvious social problems continue without any courage for intervention. Grog has been getting out of hand in our community for decades. Marijuana has been getting out of hand for the last 15 years in Cape York. These problems have not stabilised. They keep snowballing and because of our refusal to intervene and take measures such as restrict alcohol, such as having a zero tolerance approach to drug dealing and drug abuse within our community, our inability over the last 20 or so years to really understand that, gee, these problems aren't just a kind of chronic problem that stabilises, these problems mushroom and, you know, a kid that's been subject to an abuse two generations ago turns into an adult who is a terrible abuser of future generations and we're now living with the legacy of our failure to confront these problems when they first arose.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You allowed yourself to be harnessed to the Federal Government. You acted, as a time, as an adviser to the Prime Minister. Was that a genuine partnership? Do you see often what you would regard as genuine partnerships between Aboriginal communities and governments and how widespread is that? Whereas you say the Aboriginal community is the major partner.

NOEL PEARSON: I say that there ought to be partnership. We've always said there's got to be partnership between Aboriginal people, government and the private sector and government is most powerful in the resolution of social problems if they understand their limits. Government is most powerful when they understand that the best role they can play is as a junior partner supporting and enabling and assisting but the minute they think that they can step over the top of Indigenous people and say, "We prescribe a certain pathway for you and you just stay passive and we will lead because you're useless," I think, you know, there's got to be...

KERRY O'BRIEN: Are you saying that is what predominates today?

NOEL PEARSON: That is our entire interaction with governments at both levels, State and federal, that Aboriginal salvation is somehow seen as something government must ultimately take charge of. Well, I think most Australians would understand that ultimately the security and safety of Aboriginal children in the future has got to be ultimately the responsibility of parents. Now, we're a long way from that in many families. We've got parents who have really abandoned their children because they're stuck in alcohol abuse, drug abuse, violent situations and so on but we have to restore that situation. At the ends of the day our aim has to be to restore the circumstance where Aboriginal parents, Aboriginal people take responsibility and my fear about the current directions is that there's this continued assumption that somehow government has got to completely take charge and the Aboriginal people are some kind of passenger in the process.

KERRY O'BRIEN: People talk about Aboriginal self-determination failing but different people can mean different things by self-determination and I think there's been confusion about what it really means. Mick Dodson says it hasn't failed because it hasn't been tried. What's your position?

NOEL PEARSON: If you mean by self-determination that it is about taking responsibility, I'm in complete agreement. If self-determination is about taking responsibility, then that's what I'm about, because at the end of the day, you know, our salvation lies with us. We need to be supported by good-willed Australians, we need to be supported by government but our salvation and the salvation of our children lies essentially with us. Unless we have an Indigenous leadership that steps up to the plate and grabs the responsibility back off government. Because my experience over the last decade in thinking about these problems and working with these problems is that the bureaucracies - the bureaucracies which have sucked the life out of us, sucked the responsibility out of us will not yield back that responsibility freely. We have got to take back responsibility and insist with the government that the future of our communities lies with us at the end of the day.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You would be widely regarded as one of the most articulate and successful Aboriginal leaders this country has produced. How much power do you feel you and the other leaders of your community have? Real power?

NOEL PEARSON: I think the problem of Indigenous leaders is that we - in terms of time, we spend 95% of our time thinking about these problems. 95% of our knowledge is dedicated to the resolution of these problems but we have 5% of the power and conversely, politicians - this problem is only 5% of their attention, 3% of their knowledge and yet they possess 95% of the power and that's the paradox within which we labour. That's the paradox within which we labour but the problem is we live in a place where, as I say, we possess a fraction of the power to be able to do something about it.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Noel Pearson, thanks for talking with us.

NOEL PEARSON: Thank you, Kerry.

Can we ensure our civil security by physical force?

2006-05-28T18:10:00.000+09:30

A letter to the editor in Melbourne's The Age:

Lessons from Timor
East Timor is a classic example of the consequence of the precipitous withdrawal of stabilising forces.

Despite the fact that the United Nations had forces in the country for three years, the wheels fell off the ship of state within 12 months of the departure of that international presence.

The descent into anarchy that has been witnessed in recent days in and around Dili is a small-scale model of what would almost certainly occur in Iraq should the US and its allies leave that country before the democratic process has been introduced and fully tested. Both East Timor and Iraq are 10-20 year investments on the part of the international community.
MICHAEL J. GAMBLE, Belmont

This is a view that has been repeatedly asserted by The Australian's Foreign editor, Greg Sheridan. For several weeks now, he has been arguing that the crisis in Solomon Islands (ie here and here), East Timor (ie here), Iraq (ie here) can be solved essentially by sending in the troops (see here). Others have suggested that the army might be able to address some of the problems in Australia's remote indigenous communities (see here).

I have no doubt that army and police personnel can, by sheer strength of numbers and the threat of superior physical force, achieve some gains in restoring law and order in all of these situations. This then provides the context in which other gains - social, economic and political - can be made. However security forces are not development agencies, and they cannot address the root causes of civil conflict. They can put a lid on violence for a short period of time, but only if their numbers and their weaponry are significant enough. Real security requires livelihood security, as all but the situation in Iraq quite easily demonstrate - in remote indigenous communities such as Wadeye, and in the Solomon Islands, young men play a key role in perpetrating violence and are also those who are particularly marginalised, with few opportunities to participate in social or economic structures and little to believe in. In East Timor, violence broke out again after 500 soldiers began to riot after being dismissed from the national service. While the roots of conflict in Iraq are obviously different, it is unlikely that physical security will return as long as local people feel disenfranchised from the social, political, economic and cultural processes occurring on their own soil.

Armies and police forces are equipped to use brute force to achieve immediate results, they are not equipped to address the root causes of civil conflict. We can, as Sheridan seems to consistently suggest, keep pumping more money into these forces, yet physical security at home and abroad will remain an illusion for as long as these root causes remain unaddressed.