Pacific Islands Forum meeting: day 2

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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)

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

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

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

'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

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?

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?

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.