Private, Foreign Donations for Tsunami Relief Far Eclipse Bush Pledge
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WASHINGTON, Dec 31 (OneWorld) - While U.S. President George W. Bush boasted Wednesday that Washington provided 40 percent of all international emergency aid last year, his US$35 million pledge for relief efforts in South Asia has been overwhelmed by contributions from foreign governments, and an outpouring of individual contributions from citizens in the U.S. and around the world.
With the combined death toll in 12 countries hit by Sunday's catastrophic tsunamis climbing past 125,000 by late Thursday, the World Bank announced it was making $250 million available to the relief effort. Great Britain, goaded by unprecedented private donations to British charities that eclipsed Blair's commitment, raised its contribution to $96 million Thursday--surpassing Spain's record $68 million pledge of the day before. Sweden, hundreds of whose tourists are reportedly still missing, has pledged $75 million, while France added $37 million to its initial $20 million contribution, bringing its total to $57 million by Thursday. Altogether, according to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, more than $500 million have been pledged by about 30 governments and international agencies. Hundreds of millions of dollars more are apparently on their way from citizens, businesses, and other groups in dozens of countries, including the United States, via private relief groups active in the region. The American Red Cross announced Thursday that it had received $18 million in private giving by mid-day Wednesday, while Oxfam International said it had raised a record $16 million by noon Thursday, including more than $3 million in the U.S. from unsolicited online donations and nearly $6 million from its British contributors. Britain's Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), representing that country's 12 top charities--including Oxfam-UK, Action Aid, Christian Aid, and Save the Children--said it collected some $39 million within one day of launching a public appeal. CARE USA said it had received more than $3.5 million by Thursday. "We think that because this happened on Sunday, and a lot of people were very involved in their …holiday celebrations," said Francine Cheeks, "on Monday, when it became the biggest story in the news, people began to reflect on how very lucky they are, what they have, and it was easier for them to give money." Ms Cheeks is communications director for another U.S. relief group, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), that also reported receiving record contributions. "Our member NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are reporting a tremendous outpouring of concern from Americans for those affected by this crisis," said Mary McClymont, president of the Washington-based InterAction, a coalition of 160 U.S. development and humanitarian groups late Thursday. "The volume of donations in just the first few days appear to be the most generous we've seen in recent memory." Nor has the private giving been strictly an Anglo-American affair. In Italy, some $17 million was raised in just two days through a media campaign, while in the Netherlands--a country of less than 15 million people--a similar effort netted $13 million. The latest figures came as Bush announced that he was sending his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell, on a tour of the region Sunday. Powell is scheduled to meet Annan at UN headquarters in New York City Friday, apparently to help align UN operations with those of the U.S., Australia, Japan, and India. All four countries are members of the core group to coordinate aid delivery in the devastated region, as President Bush announced Wednesday. Bush and his top aides have been on the defensive over their reaction to the disaster since the head of UN humanitarian operations, Jan Egeland, told reporters Monday that the foreign aid commitments of the world's wealthy nations was "stingy." Powell, who had earlier warned that billions of dollars will be required in relief operations, complained lately as news coverage of ever larger sums being donated to the relief and recovery effort unfolded. "What we have to do is make a needs assessment and not just grasp at numbers or think we're in some kind of auction house where every day somebody has to top someone else," he said. Bush himself denounced Egeland's remarks at a press conference Wednesday as "very misguided and ill-informed." He insisted that the $2.4 billion dollars spent by the U.S. in emergency aid last year constituted 40 percent of all such aid contributed by donor governments globally. Historically, Washington has borne between 25 and 33 percent of the costs of international humanitarian aid, roughly equivalent to its share of the global economy. Bush stressed that the $35 million was "'only a beginning." It did not include the costs of deploying half a dozen warships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, and Marines from Hong Kong to Indonesia. Washington earlier this week also set up a hub at Thailand's Udorn air base to ferry relief supplies into the affected areas. Nonetheless, the speed and degree to which Bush's commitment was eclipsed by the contributions of other nations and donations by common citizens appeared to underline critics'charges that he was transforming the United States into a modern day Scrooge. Pointing out that $35 million is roughly what the Republican Party plans to spend on the president's inaugural festivities next month, the New York Times described the contribution as a "miserly drop in the bucket" and declared itself in full agreement with Egeland's earlier critique. "We spend $35 million before breakfast every day in Iraq," noted Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy in what is actually only a very small exaggeration. U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are currently running at about six billion dollars a month, or about $35 million every six hours. Leahy urged Bush to draw more fund from the $18 billion Congress approved last year for Iraqi reconstruction--so he would not have to "raid other already under-funded foreign aid accounts"--for emergency aid and development assistance. Only a fraction of that fund has been spent so far. Several analysts also noted that the paltriness of Washington's official contribution compared to those of other countries threatened Bush's other geo-strategic priorities, including his efforts to subdue al Qaeda and other Islamist extremist movements and gain support for his Iraq policy. "The slowness and stinginess of the Bush administration's response does not play well in Asia, a region where it has demanded active support for its self-declared global war on terrorism," said John Glassman, an Asia specialist who directs Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF). "Humanitarian imperatives aside, the administration's stance displays an amazing absence of enlightened self-interest." In recognition of those imperatives and their self-interest, meanwhile, Washington's foreign allies--all with populations and economies significantly smaller than the U.S.'--continued to outdo Bush in pledging their aid solidarity with the victims. Tiny Holland, which earmarks nearly one percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) for foreign aid--compared to about .012 percent of GDP given by the U.S.--committed $36 million to relief operations. Japan pledged $40 million, in addition to its military deployments to the region. Northern neighbor Canada initially pledged $33 million, but that was boosted to $43 million after two provincial governments voted contributions of their own. Ottawa also announced a moratorium on debt repayments from affected countries. Australia, with a population and economy roughly one-fifteenth the size of the U.S., pledged $27 million in relief, not including its own military deployments to help Indonesia. Saudi Arabia and Qatar pledged $10 million each, while the European Union (EU) committed $44 million of its own money apart from the bilateral contributions of its member states which ranged from $11 million from Portugal to Britain's $98 million commitment. Egeland praised the donations Thursday, noting that countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Muslim world were also making unprecedented contributions. At the State Department meanwhile, spokesman Richard Boucher rejected criticism that Washington's performance to date had been disappointing. "Any implication that the United States is not being generous; is not forthcoming; is not active; is not, in fact, leading the way; is just plain wrong and doesn't reflect what's going on in this crisis …," he declared. |
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