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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE
U.N. Response to Tsunami Disaster
Aired December 31, 2004 - 21:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECY.-GEN.: This is an unprecedented global catastrophe and it requires an unprecedented global response.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.
The calendar says a year ends December 31. The United Nations, reeling throughout 2004 from Oil For Food scandals to Sudan to Iraq, thought the worst was over when the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan conducted his end of the year press conference on December 21.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNAN: There is no doubt that this has been a particularly difficult year and I am relieved that this endless horribleness is coming to an end.
Let me say that at my last press conference, when I said this has been a horrible year, I didn't expect anything like this to happen before the year ended. It was bad enough up to that point, but this has been a real tragedy and disaster for those in that region.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: A dozen or so U.N. member countries devastated, damaged and effected in some way by the tsunami waves last weekend.
Joining me, two people who watched from afar as their lands were hit by the watery assault. Adiyatwidi Asmody is Indonesia's deputy ambassador at the United Nations. Indonesia was the most severely impacted with at least 80,000 people killed. And a smaller Southeast Asian country, the Maldives, was also overrun in part. That country's U.N. ambassador is here, Mohamed Latheef.
Welcome to both of you.
Let me ask you, ambassador from Indonesia, what was your reaction when you saw what was happening back home?
ADIYATWIDI ASMODY, INDONESIAN DEPUTY AMB. TO U.N.: It was really devastating, because I was at the United Nations in New York at that time and I was very sad because it has a lot of casualties.
We did have also some tsunami before in Flores and Java, but it is not as big as this one. And it is sad because for the first few days, Indonesia was not being pictures on the TV, only Maldives and maybe Sri Lanka and also Thailand, because the problem in Indonesia at that time was the bridges and the roads were vanished and also it's very difficult to reach the west part of Aceh at that time. Even in the normal period, it's very difficult to reach and even in this period now.
ROTH: Now, there have been some critics which say the aid cannot get to Aceh or Banda Aceh, even though there have been attempts to, that the government was slow to unclog the system. What is your response?
ASMODY: No. Actually, in Banda Aceh the airport has been destroyed and everything in it. It is very difficult to land in (UNINTELLIGIBLE) airport at this period, so it was full at the Medan airport the first day, on Sunday. Five helicopters every day are going to Medan and we put together in Medan, and only a few days ago (UNINTELLIGIBLE) airport is opened.
ROTH: Let me ask about the Maldives. Fortunately for your nation, there were a lot of fears in the beginning, but fortunately, if you can call it that, the death toll may be about 100. In the beginning, there were fears that everything had totally disappeared. What is your reaction to what happened back home?
MOHAMED LATHEEF, MALDIVES AMB. TO U.N.: There was not total destruction of the entire country, but there is no part in the Maldives left untouched, unimpacted. So the entire country has been impacted, and 1/3 of the population has been serious affected.
Some islands have been totally devastated. 14 islands have been totally evacuated, nine of which are totally uninhabitable, and half of the schools are gone and damaged, and 20 percent of the health centers are destroyed.
ROTH: What do you need from the world?
LATHEEF: We need immediate help, as all the other countries are calling for, for food, clothing, medicine and logistical assistance in the Maldives is another important issue. In the Maldives, logistics is a nightmare, as you can see. The (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the ocean is so huge, it can cause serious inhibitions in the interim phase and in the reconstruction phase, and that is going to be very, very difficult for the Maldives.
ROTH: For Indonesia, is there a problem that there is going to be too much aid going into such a small area and it's going to be a clogged system? Are you confident that this could be worked out as people struggle to survive?
ASMODY: Yes. No, actually everything now is being distributed through Banda Aceh and Medan. We have a lot of aid already from Australia and neighboring countries and also from India we have a floating hospital being sent to Medan, to the area of (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And electricity is also being installed now in west Aceh for a hospital and for telecommunications.
And then a lot are coming in these few days to Medan and to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and also Indonesia is a follower of the core group that was mentioned by.
ROTH: Yes, this core group, United States, India, Japan, Australia. What do you need? What does your country badly need most?
ASMODY: Today, now everybody is trying to bury all of the casualties and then also for taking the survivor emergency.
ROTH: I mean, bodies are just lying there, right?
ASMODY: Yes.
ROTH: I mean, you don't have enough refrigerated mortuaries --
ASMODY: No.
ROTH: -- there's just no way to.
ASMODY: Because the area in Aceh now is mostly undeveloped and then what happened to the local people, they're very (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and everything. And just what we need now is field workers to bury all of the dead people and then also like the follow-up of that is that now we have emergency staff now for these few weeks that we are going to bury all of the people and then evacuate the survivors from west Aceh and then after that we start with rehabilitation.
LATHEEF: Let me also recognize the prompt response from neighboring countries, especially India, Pakistan, these countries. The prompt response was very, very helpful with the logistics because in the immediate need, the logistics countered a lot.
People went hungry and displacement was very serious and the logistical assistance was very, very helpful.
ROTH: What's happening at the -- let me ask the deputy ambassador from Indonesia. What happens in New York, here at the mission? What kind of calls, visitors, as people, desperate to find out about loved ones?
ASMODY: Oh, yes. We have a few families from Aceh who are desperate looking for their families, but now we are also being busy with the older people from the local community who are very concerned with what happened in Aceh and also we have a lot of meetings with the secretary-generals on the coordination of this.
ROTH: So what can you tell the people who come to the mission? You don't know, right? It's too early. It's hard to find people at this point.
ASMODY: Yes. This is very hard, but we are going to inform them as soon as possible, because we have some like working group in Indonesia who contact us daily and hourly what really happens in Aceh.
ROTH: Let me ask, politically, your country's leader, I think, issued an amnesty for people who plotted a coupe. Is that what it took to happen, a tsunami?
LATHEEF: I mean, this is a time for everybody to come together in my country. The resources and infrastructure is very, very weak. There is no way we can pull out of this unless everybody comes together. So it is a very timely action, we believe. And I tell you, except for the operation and mobilization of these few resources, the entire country, anybody standing, is involved or engaged in the relief of pressure today in the emergency and has been.
ROTH: Ambassador, Secretary Powell, when he was at the United Nations Friday, said he hoped that both Aceh rebels there and the government can work together because of this and have been indicating they worked together. Is it possible that this could lead to some resolve of that issue?
ASMODY: Yes. We are -- the government really now is concentrating on how to give emergency relief to the surviving people and then I think now they are realizing, you know, the rebels, how our government works very hard to overcome this.
ROTH: I mean, the homes there were just flattened. And you would like tourists to come back to Maldives, right?
LATHEEF: Yes, while we are calling for assistance from the international community and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) corporations, at the same time we are also requesting those tourists who have made bookings to come to the Maldives not to cancel it, because if they do, then we'll be double punished. Because whatever the results of our operation are, can be visited. I mean, they can make use of visitors.
ROTH: Well, thank you during this desperate time for both of you, coming in. I've got to stop there. Ambassador Latheef, from the Maldives, thank you very much. Ambassador Asmody, the deputy ambassador from Indonesia.
ASMODY: Can I add.
ROTH: Briefly.
ASMODY: Yes. I would like also to inform to the international community that the Indonesia initiative with Singapore will hold a special (UNINTELLIGIBLE) leader meeting with all the core groups and all the donor countries and especially with the United Nations system, to have coordination meeting for emergency relief and also rehabilitation and reconstruction on the 6th of January.
ROTH: OK. Thank you very much, both of you.
Despite the massive aid that will roll in to all of these places, there is a point that everything that can be done is not enough.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNAN: It is conceivable that one may not be able to fulfill every possible need of each of the countries and each of the coastal villages that have been destroyed. But what we cannot forgive ourselves for, we cannot forgive ourselves for not even trying, not even really making an effort to help these people to meet their desperate needs.
I think our common humanity demands it and we should do all our best to really help them. If we fall short, at least we can be satisfied that we did everything possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people are asking exactly why you waited three days on vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming before you decided to fly back to New York and to face this extraordinary crisis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: A question posed to Secretary-General Kofi Annan at a Thursday news conference in New York. Annan was away on vacation until Wednesday evening.
Welcome back to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE.
The United Nations issued a statement soon after the disaster from Kofi Anna. Here's how the secretary-general responded in his first public appearance on Thursday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNAN: There was action. It wasn't inaction. We live in a world where you can operate from wherever you are. You know the world we live in now. You don't have to be physically here to be dealing with the leaders and the governments I have been dealing with. You don't have to be physically here to be discussing with some of the agencies, as we have done. And I have come here -- I came back here because we have reached a level that I wanted to have meetings with all of the people that I have met with before today.
So we have taken action and I don't have to be sitting in my office to take action.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: Well, that's somewhat as angry as one sees the U.N. secretary- general get at one of these press conferences.
Joining us are two reporters in the past who have gotten angry with each other since DIPLOMATIC LICENSE started.
James Bone is at the United Nations for the "Times of London" and was at that press conference. And here in the studio we welcome back Afsane Bassir Pour of the French newspaper "Le Monde," based usually in Geneva, the United Nations' European home, where a lot of the aid effort is being coordinated.
Let me turn to Afsane, since we never really have her here. Well, what about this? Should Kofi Annan have returned to New York earlier in the week while the tsunami waves hit?
AFSANE BASSIR POUR, "LE MONDE": Absolutely. He should have returned immediately. And even more than that, he should be in the region as we speak. If he is not going, you know, I think he is making a mistake.
But the redeeming factor, of course, is that Bush was on vacation, and he didn't appear until three days later. So, you know, you can't just blame Kofi.
ROTH: James, what do you think?
JAMES BONE, "TIMES OF LONDON": I think that what happens in these disasters is that they grow and it was really only when the numbers started getting above 100,000 that people sat up -- the world leaders sat up and started to come out of their seclusion.
Tony Blair also was on family holiday in Egypt. He also came out really around Wednesday. He had a new years message in which he made some comments about South Asia.
ROTH: I know, well, it's just, I mean, these world leaders presumably work hard. They etch their vacation plans. And it happened Sunday. They check out Monday, they hope they can get by. I think it happens with news people too. Not every news person rushed back. I mean, people.
BASSIR POUR: No, no. I'm on vacation. I didn't rush back. But I'm not the United Nations secretary-general.
BONE: But you're working on it, Afsane, aren't you?
(CROSSTALK)
BASSIR POUR: They keep saying that this is the biggest disaster the world has known, so the perception is that the secretary-general should be there behind his desk. Actually, he should be there, you know, checking things out for himself.
ROTH: He should have been there, you would say, considering the U.N. role and after the battering it took in 2004, he could have come back, gotten onto the United Nations grounds, stood outside the building in the cold, and demanded and asked and pleaded for help and almost have been like Giuliani, the New York mayor of 9/11 -- James.
BONE: And actually, what happened, Richard, was that the Americans seized the initiative by setting up what they call the core group, which looked to everyone at the United Nations suspiciously like one of these coalitions of the willing.
It was made up of big democratic allies -- India, Japan and Australia and the United States. And there was some trepidation at the United Nations, whether this was going to rival the United Nations as a coordinating body and the leader of the aid effort.
There has been an effort through the end of the week to coordinate between these two, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sweetness and light right at the moment Colin Powell came to visit Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general, Friday in New York, and they pledged to work together. But it was true that the United Nations for a time there seemed to have lost the initiative.
ROTH: Well, you know -- Afsane.
BASSIR POUR: I was going to say that, you know, as Kofi Annan said after 9/11, I was just reminded that some good can come out of this evil, because the Iraqi War divided the world so much. I think this disaster -- because it really touches, look how many nations. Was it 130 nations? It's amazing. This could bring back people together. And on the other hand, it could show that the Americans have put -- they're helping -- from $4 million now they're up to $350 million.
Helping some Muslim countries, I think, will be really good for America's image, and also it will show that they need the United Nations. Look at all the millions of displaced that are going to need United Nations agencies.
So I think it might -- some good might come out of this really biblical tragedy.
ROTH: All right. Well, while the horror escalated this week, there was once again a bit of United Nations-United States tempest. I don't know if we would have a show without it. It all started when the United Nations emergency relief coordinator made a comment at the end of a press conference the day after the tsunami.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAN EGELAND, U.N. EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR: We were more generous when we were less rich, many of the rich countries, and it is beyond me why are we so stingy, really.
COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECY. OF STATE: The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world. We do more to help people who are suffering from lack of food or in poverty or suffering from HIV/AIDS.
EGELAND: I have been misinterpreted when I yesterday said that my belief that rich countries in general can be more generous -- it has nothing to do with any particular country -- for the response to this emergency.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: All right. Egeland saying he was misinterpreted, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief. But once you say something, it just gets lost a lot in the translation.
The next day, a reporter asked President Bush what he thought about the United Nations official saying the U.S. response on the tsunami was stingy, when he was talking about development aid overall. This story kind of faded as the week went on -- Afsane.
BASSIR POUR: I think that Jan Egeland was right on target. He did very well to say what he said. I think the world is stingy and, look, as soon as he said it, the United States announced a colossal amount of money.
I think he was really on target, except that, you know, he did not mean -- he didn't mean this particular crisis.
ROTH: So maybe it's time for a little bit much more -- James -- tough talk from U.N. officials, instead of always trying to be conciliatory -- go ahead -- James.
(CROSSTALK)
BONE: Well, there is a philosophical difference really, between --
BASSIR POUR: You and I.
BONE: -- the Europeans, who think that the government should give overseas development as official money, and the Americans, who have a much more volunteerist approach and would prefer to count private charitable contributions.
But in America, if you give money to a charity, you then give the money to Indonesia, say, that money is tax deductible, so the government is paying for some of that money. But that is not counted into the government aid totals that are calculated as a proportion of GNP.
It is true that the United States, with a much bigger GNP, gives much less than most of the European countries do in development assistance but - -
BASSIR POUR: But in general the rich countries --
BONE: -- not in disaster assistance. We're talking in this situation about disaster assistance.
BASSIR POUR: No, but what Egeland was saying, and he's right, is that in recent years, aid to development has gone down. As countries get richer, they give less and less, even, you know, European countries. They give less and less, and it's his job to say this.
(CROSSTALK)
BONE: There is also a philosophical issue behind that, which is, is it better to provide government to government aid or is it better for the private sector to develop economies? And these economies in Southeast Asia and South Asia have done spectacularly well because of their economies growing and are therefore able to help themselves.
India, which was affected by this tsunami, is actually giving aid to Sri Lanka because it is so rich now.
BASSIR POUR: Yes. Well, no, both, James. Why not both? Private and government. It should just go up.
BONE: But one thing that Mr. Egeland said which was slightly incautious was he suggested that taxpayers wanted to pay more money, more taxes, and that's a very touchy issue in the United States --
BASSIR POUR: Yes.
BONE: -- when a United Nations official tells the Americans that actually taxes should be put up.
ROTH: Well, he said they wanted to contribute more. He didn't mention the word taxes.
BONE: He mentioned taxpayers.
ROTH: The taxpayers, but they want to give more.
BASSIR POUR: You know, Jan Egeland, I like him, because he acts more like an NGO kind of a person. He speaks less like a United Nations official than an activist.
ROTH: We'll see how long that lasts.
BASSIR POUR: No. I think we need more of this, Richard.
ROTH: He also says he's tired of seeing babies die, in Sudan, and he's waiting there forever.
BASSIR POUR: And he's worried that what happens when the tsunami goes off the front pages, what is going to happen to these millions of people who have lost everything.
ROTH: All right, I've got to stop there.
Afsane Bassir Pour, welcome back, from "Le Monde" --
BASSIR POUR: Thank you.
ROTH: -- working out of Geneva. And James Bone, as always, at his post at the United Nations for the "Times of London." Thank you both.
BONE: Thanks, Richard.
ROTH: U.N. Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland says the U.N. emergency system is overstretched already with Darfur and Eastern Congo, not enough resources and personnel, but the United Nations is not going to give up on helping millions caught in the waves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EGELAND: I don't think it would be defeatist to say that no, it is limited, what we can do. In this world, everything is possible, and there are additional assets that we can and should bring on. I lie awake at night thinking of new ways we can bring in new partners and new resources.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROTH: From the leader of Macedonia to Yasser Arafat, the flag at U.N. headquarters has had an up and down year. Now it is at half-staff again for the Tsunami victims.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, as we mentioned, visited Secretary-General Kofi Annan Friday afternoon at the United Nations in New York. It may have been one of the last meetings between these two friends in their current posts. Powell steps down as secretary of state in a Bush second term.
The two men huddled on this latest disaster. They were also asked about that U.S.-U.N. relationship.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POWELL: We support the United Nations. That doesn't mean that from time to time there won't be disagreements between the United Nations leadership, the secretary-general, and the United States. And when that occurs, we try to work our way through these disagreements. It's in the interest of the world and the interest of the international community for all of the nations of the United Nations to have a good relationship with the secretary-general, who represents all of the nations of the United Nations.
This is not the time for squabbles. This is a time for all of us to work together to help people who are in desperate need.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: And that is DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. It's the New Years weekend. I'm Richard Roth. Thanks for watching.
END
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