INDONESIA has hardly gone off the international community's natural disaster monitors since the horrific Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. So, when a powerful earthquake hit Indonesia's Yogyakarta and Central Java region on May 27, the alarm bells that went off sounded familiar. The global community, far from being struck by the helpless sense of shock and grief experienced in the wake of the tsunami, responded almost reflexively. The story this time is thus different and of some political significance though it remains to be seen if the external interest in the latest tragedy matches that of the previous occasion in scale.
In any case, by the end of May Indonesia was divided over the question of classifying the new tragedy: Was it just a local disaster that could be managed at the provincial level or a national calamity worthy of uniform concern to the 200-million-plus population of the world's largest archipelago-state?
Another puzzle that the increasingly alert Indonesian opinion-makers sought to address was whether the country's new leaders, under its nascent democracy, were trying to score political points in a competitive game of evincing empathy for the traumatised survivors.
The humanitarian dimension of this earthquake, which struck Indonesia even as it was bracing for a possible volcanic eruption at Mount Merapi, was just as poignant as in the aftermath of other temblors of similar intensity. If the scale of devastation in the Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces did not appear to be as shockingly gruesome as 2004, the reason could be traced to the obvious differences between these two calamities.
As in natural disasters elsewhere, the Yogyakarta quake resulted in instances of intense suffering, especially in the worst-hit Bantul sector. So, while it deserved the special attention of the authorities, the scale of their preparedness and the nature of their immediate responses came into sharp focus.
In a sense, the country was passing through a phase of grim anticipation over the simmering volcanic activity when the historic-cultural sites of Yogyakarta and adjacent areas were rocked. This accounted for a certain degree of dj vu, which in turn prompted critics to see signs of complacency in dealing with a tragedy that left an estimated 6,200 dead by the end of May. It is estimated that over 105,000 homes have been destroyed.
It is in this situation that both President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice-President Jusuf Kalla came to be seen as vying for political stakes in rendering assistance. Kalla is widely expected to challenge Yudhoyono in the presidential election due in three years.
Although the Indonesian authorities were terribly slow off the starting block to respond to the tsunami emergency in the Aceh province in 2004, they managed to get their act together, subsequently with enormous help from external powers and non-governmental organisations. In the process, Kalla came into political prominence as Chairman of the National Disaster Management and Refugee Coordination Board.
Now, if the May 27 earthquake is to be declared a national calamity, the Vice-President will most obviously become the lead player in organising relief and rehabilitation. Thus ran the argument of those Indonesian observers who, by June 1, had convinced themselves that the issue of classifying the disaster-quotient of this earthquake was somehow related to politics in a rapidly democratising society.
With an eye on such impressionistic criticism, Kalla maintained that the intensity of the latest disaster and its humanitarian impact were not comparable to those of the tsunami. This, in his opinion, should explain the lower response alert now. With this, he sought to deflect attention from the speculation that the President was sidelining him.
Yudhoyono, on the other hand, came in for some adverse attention for playing the "Father of the Nation" in a supposedly eager and blatant manner. Criticism related to his style, while some substantive aspects of the aid effort were singled out for negative comment without any direct reference to him.
By early June, Indonesia's budget allocation for post-quake relief and reconstruction work was set at nearly $108 million. In spite of this budgetary allocation, commentators were quick to claim that the authorities would be hard pressed to deliver on their promise of substantial amounts towards long-term shelter for each of the homeless victims.
Another complaint was about the lack of coordination among local authorities and relief agencies during the critical initial phase of response. It was only after a few days of confusion that a military commander, Maj. Gen. Sunarso, was formally nominated as the nodal authority for coordinating relief efforts, especially those by international donors.
India was among the first external players to rush aid, by air and sea. On the day of the earthquake itself, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, then in Tokyo on an official visit, promised his Indonesian counterpart, Juwono Sudarsono, that India stood ready to help and cooperate with Indonesia in every possible way. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee reaffirmed India's commitment to help substantively.
India put together an emergency aid package worth $2 million, and an Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft flew to Solo in the affected arc to deliver supplies. An Indian Navy destroyer, INS Rajput, which was on a goodwill voyage in the neighbourhood of Indonesia at the time of the disaster, was diverted to Jakarta port, where medical personnel provided emergency kits for the needy. In early June, at least one more Indian ship and IAF aircraft were due to deliver additional relief material. India's positive action was noteworthy in a context marked by the frustration of several other countries that they faced difficulties in channelling humanitarian help in the perceived absence of recognisable Indonesian nodal agencies. Yet, some countries, including Singapore, Indonesia's key colleague in the Association of South East Asian Nations, moved in quickly to help.
Significantly, in this overall context, at least one United Nations aid official was reported to have struck a positive note in Geneva about Indonesia's relief readiness. The official said that the Indonesian government and Army had ensured a good deal of cooperation between the humanitarian community and the field-level coordinators during the initial phase of the relief effort itself.
Such diverse perspectives only served to emphasise the enormity of the problem and also the positive aspects of the efforts by the Indonesian authorities, whose learning curve during the tsunami crisis was in itself a lesson for the future. As for the inevitable comparison between the global response to Indonesia's tsunami tragedy and the international community's present mood and methods, the story is essentially one of Washington's heightened level of political confidence in Jakarta since December 2004.
At the time of the tsunami, the U.S. moved in quickly to form a naval "core group" which included not only allies like Australia (Indonesia's southern neighbour) and Japan but also India, Indonesia's maritime neighbour. On that occasion, large-scale international help, under overall U.N. auspices followed, as a result of the lead taken by that "core group". No such "core group" has been considered necessary this time. Of the four, Australia's military establishment suddenly found itself busy in trying to bring stability to Timor Leste (East Timor), formerly a province of Indonesia. The Australian military intervention began at about the same time as the May 27 earthquake.
Japan has adopted a cautious but friendly attitude, while India acted quickly to sustain the momentum of a growing relationship. India had provided an aid package of $1million for tsunami relief in Indonesia, in addition to sending a hospital ship and a naval vessel with relief supplies. India's relief package in the wake of the Nyas earthquake, which followed the tsunami, was of the order of $2 million.
The U.S., which sought to make its presence felt on the ground this time too, has already reaped a huge political benefit of the strategic kind as a direct result of "leading" the tsunami-related relief effort. After gaining a strategic foothold in Aceh and easy access to the Indonesian coastal waters near the sensitive Malacca Straits, the U.S. moved in on the political front to woo Indonesia in a big way. The U.S.' sanctions on the Indonesian military establishment were gradually lifted, and Washington is now beginning to help Jakarta modernise its armed forces.
In seeking external help for tsunami relief, Jakarta went through an agonising period of coming to terms with the need to allow a big military player like the U.S. free access to Aceh, which was an unstable Indonesian province with an "insurgency" problem at the time. The U.S. for its part, used the pretext of tsunami relief to gain access to Aceh. The sheer devastation of Aceh and a series of political moves and counter-moves by the province's guerilla leaders and by Jakarta, recently led to a "settlement" of the status of the province.
In contrast, Indonesia did not face strategic dilemmas after the May 27 quake. More importantly, the comfort level in Indonesia's political relations with the U.S. has improved dramatically since the tsunami. So, the latest earthquake has given Washington yet another humanitarian opportunity, without any headache for Jakarta, to woo Indonesia in a neighbourhood where China is a rising power.
COMMents
COMMents
SHARE