Too Little
Too Late. Truly Sad.
Heartbreak...
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Thousands are being sentenced to death because help given by world leaders to deal with natural disasters is "too little, too late", charity Oxfam says.For fuck's sake.
Its paper "2005: Year of Disasters" suggests that the level of aid depends on the publicity given to a tragedy.
The responses to Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur and southern Africa were inadequate, it said.
Oxfam wants to see the setting up of a multi-million pound UN fund to speed up the aid process.
'Unnecessary deaths'
In a year which has seen the Asian tsunami, the hurricane devastation of New Orleans, mudslides in Guatemala and now the Asian earthquake, the report says that 2005 is part of a worsening trend.
The key donor governments have failed to respond in the way that we would have liked
Oxfam
Not only have there been more natural disasters in the last five years than previously, but they have affected far more people, particularly in poor countries.
The report says that humanitarian assistance does not cover all needs and often arrives too late.
Oxfam's Brendan Cox said that key donor governments had "failed to respond in the way that we would have liked".
"That has resulted, unfortunately, in thousands of lives being lost unnecessarily," he told BBC News.
"These lives could have been saved but because donor governments have... failed the people of these crises, people have unfortunately lost their lives unnecessarily."
...
Lots of crises don't make it onto our TV screens, like the Congo where three million people have died over the last 10 years, or northern Uganda, where children are abducted every day
Oxfam
In the first week after the flooding in Guatemala this month, which received comparatively little media attention, the UN's appeal raised just 1% of what was needed.
"Time and again, they [donor governments] have been either too slow to respond to these emergencies or have responded to some emergencies above others," Mr Cox said.
"Lots of crises don't make it onto our TV screens, like the Congo where three million people have died over the last 10 years, or northern Uganda, where children are abducted every day.
"Those crises - they're not in the media spotlight - simply don't get the attention, don't get the funding that they need."
Heartbreak...
Links on the right.
posted by General Stan at 12:01 AM
1 Comments:
Can't say I agree with this - which I think would be obvious by differences in philosophy between us.
But a challenge to the language used seems to me to be futile and dodgy complacency at best.
The finances of all nations have been seriously challenged through these various disasters- it has been one of the worst in memory for quite some time. Perhaps there is some operative existential resignation toward allowing these events to transpire without compassion- perhaps there's an ability to accept them due to some various perspectives that "thinning the herd" is a natural act- which indeed it doubtlessly is. Few of these events have transpired without vast terrible natural occurances.
But that's not what the various points of the argument are:
1) who cares? Is not compassion the first humane value? Are we not supposedly more variously wealthy than at any time in history, with more capability of managing our communal global suffering?
2)That the ultimate determinate of whether or not we are "generous" is whether or not we see it on CNN is absurd. The terrifying problems in central Africa have warranted massive aid and massive political intervention- but very little can come. This stinks of a form of occidentalism- where the aid offered is directly resultant to the west's convenience.
3)"unneccesary deaths" refers as much to the long-term failures of recent aid promises as it does to the lack of immediate aid given, at least implicitly. The vows by the west for long term tsunami relief have already fallen far behind their promises- not simply because of finances but because of bureaucratic sloth and other issues.
So yes- it's impossible to prevent, or even try to prevent, deaths and dismay from huge natural disasters. And particularly when so many occur within very close proximity. But a bigger concern is the institutional, seemingly universal boundaries to empathy and compassion as demonstrated thru aid. This is a values concern, something that deserves great critque- if our culture is complacent and privy to placate their personal needs for generosity only so much as it serves their convenience, our culture is guilty of greed, and worse, heartlessness.
To me, the problem relies on wealth disparities [which are growing more divisive by the minute], cultural values, and future vision. The deaths themselves may or may not have been "unneccesary," but there has to be adequate attempts, even, to manage these disasters, to as much as possible work forward rather than be reactive to them, to be more open and available to those issues that occur below the radar...
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