The Tsunami
And The Brandt Report
By Mohammed Mesbahi
and Dr. Angela Pain
01 February, 2005
Countercurrents.org
The
response of the world public to the tsunami disaster on the 26th December
2004 was (and continues to be) one of heartfelt empathy and an instinctive
desire to help fellow human beings in trouble. Never before have so
many people, from so many countries given so much to the victims of
a disaster. World governments have been shamed into promising far greater
sums of aid than they originally wanted to offer by the sheer magnitude
of the publics generosity. The US initially pledged $15 million
but in the end promised $350 million while the UK government felt obliged
to raise their pledge to $96 million, still a tiny fraction of the money
these governments have so far spent ($148 billion the US and $11.5
billion - the UK) on the war in Iraq. As George Monbiot says, the UK
has spent almost twice as much on the war in Iraq as it spends annually
on aid to the third world. The US gives just over $16 billion in foreign
aid: less than one ninth of the money it has so far burnt in Iraq.
How many people realise, however, as Devinder Sharma points out, that
many of the deaths caused by the Tsunami could have been prevented?
The area affected has been hit by tsunamis in the past, with far fewer
deaths resulting, because the coastlines of South East Asia were protected
by a natural defence system, composed of coral reefs and mangrove forests.
Many of the previous tsunamis were tamed by the coral reefs before hitting
the coast, where they were absorbed by a dense layer of red mangrove
trees. These flexible trees, with long branches growing right down into
the sand below the surface of the sea, absorb the shock of tsunamis.
Behind the red mangrove trees there is a second layer of black mangrove
trees, which are taller and slow down the waves.
Thousands of miles
of coastline in South East Asia were densely covered in mangrove forests,
protecting the coastline from erosion, absorbing carbon dioxide and
providing a breeding ground for crustaceans and fish, on which the local
population depended for their livelihood. This was a fragile environment,
which ecologists have long recommended should enjoy special protection.
In India a Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) was created to protect a 500
meter buffer zone along the coast.
While the belt of
mangrove forest still existed, the people of the area lived inland,
behind it. In 1960 a tsunami hit the coast of Bangladesh in an area
where the mangroves were intact. No-one died. These mangroves were subsequently
cut down by the shrimp (prawn) farming industry and in 1991 thousands
of people were killed when a tsunami of the same magnitude hit the same
region. On Dec 26th 2004, Pichavaram and Muthupet, in South India, who
still have their mangrove forests, suffered fewer casualties than the
surrounding mangrove-less areas of coast. Mangroves also acted as a
barrier, helping people to survive on Nias Island, Indonesia, close
to the epicentre of the Dec 26 tsunami. Burma and the Maldives suffered
less from the tsunami because the shrimp and tourism industries had
not yet destroyed all their mangroves and coral reefs.
Since the 1960s,
the mangrove forests of South East Asia have been systematically destroyed
to make way for commercial shrimp (prawn) farming and a massive increase
in the tourism industry. The aquaculture and tourism industries succeeded
in diluting any protective regulations that were in place, until they
were able to take over most of the buffer zone. Almost 70% of the regions
mangrove forests have now disappeared.
Since three quarters
of South East Asian commercial fish species spend part of their life
cycle in the mangrove swamps the loss of these swamps has resulted in
declining fish harvests. To compound this situation, the commercial
feeds, pesticides, antibiotics and non-organic fertilizers used in intensive
shrimp farms have generated huge amounts of pollution, destroying the
remaining fish and harming the coral reefs.
As the fish have
declined, desperate fishermen resorted to dropping dynamite into the
reefs to drive them out. Scientists working for the UN Environment Programme
(UNEP) have recently compiled The World Atlas of Coral Reefs, an underwater
survey. They found that one third of the worlds coral reefs are
in South-east Asia and almost all are under threat. 70% of the worlds
coral reefs have already been destroyed. 80% of Indonesias reefs
are in danger. Dynamite fishing has contributed to the destruction of
an ecosystem already under threat from sediment erosion caused by the
loss of mangrove forests, shrimp farm pollution and untreated sewage
from the tourism industry.
According to Susan
Stonich, University professor from California University, international
corporations, based in the first world but operating in the third world,
produce 99% of farmed shrimp. But almost all of it is eaten in the US,
Western Europe and Japan, where consumption has increased by 300% in
the last ten years. Today world shrimp production, in an industry worth
$9 billion, is almost 800,000 metric tons and 72% of farmed shrimp comes
from Asia. Hundreds of nongovernmental organizations have sprung up
at local, national and international levels to oppose this destructive
aquaculture industry. In 1997 the Industrial Shrimp Action Network (ISA
Net) was formed, a global alliance opposed to unsustainable shrimp farming.
Aquaculture corporations responded by forming the Global Aquaculture
Alliance (GAA) to counter the claims of the ISA Network. Commercial
shrimp farming has displaced local communities, exacerbated conflicts,
decreased the quality and quantity of drinking water and decimated the
natural fish species on which the local population rely. The population
of these areas ended up living right on the coast, without the benefit
of their protective mangrove forests. Their coral reefs were by now
eroded by pollution, dynamite fishing, tourists (who tread on the reefs)
and the rising temperature of the sea.
The reason why the
aquaculture and tourism corporations have been allowed to destroy the
coastal environment of South East Asia is because the current neoliberal
trade system favours corporations over and above all concerns for the
environment and the people living in it. Trade liberalisation, through
the World Trade Organisation, has enabled corporations to challenge
the legislation of the countries they wanted to operate in, legislation
that was designed to protect the local environment.
Ecological and human
disasters such as the 2004 tsunami will continue to occur as long as
the current Global Economic system is allowed to exist in its present
form.
Way back in the
1980s Willy Brandt warned that the current global economic system, with
its emphasis on profit at all costs, would lead to environmental degradation
and worsening poverty in the third world. He said Important harm
to the environment and depletion of scarce resources is occurring in
every region of the world, damaging soil, sea and air. The biosphere
is our common heritage and must be preserved by cooperation otherwise
life itself could be threatened (North South, 72 -73.) How prophetic
these words sound today.
He set up the Independent
Commission on International Development Issues to make an in-depth study
of the global economy. His team of advisers included many experts in
the field of international policy and economics. Their detailed report
came to the conclusion that the developed nations dominated international
trade and that this was unbalanced and biased in favour of large corporations
based in the West. The Brandt Commission was the first major independent
global panel to examine connections between the environment, international
trade, international economics and the third world. The United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development took Brandts proposals
regarding the environment seriously enough to hold international conferences
in Rio in 1992 and in Kyoto in 1997. However America refused to sign
the Kyoto Protocol and corporate power prevented any of the Brandt Report
recommendations being put into practice.
The Brandt Reports
called for a complete restructuring of the global economy, in order
to protect the environment and meet the needs of the world population.
Willy Brandt said We see a world in which poverty and hunger still
prevail in many huge regions; in which resources are squandered without
consideration of their renewal; in which more armaments are made and
sold than ever before; and where a destructive capacity has been accumulated
to blow up our planet several times over. He proposed a Summit
of World Leaders, with the backing of a global citizens movement,
to discuss how to meet the needs of the majority of the worlds
people. This would, he recognised, mean reforming the international
economy. He proposed a series of measures, including:
· an emergency
aid program to assist countries on the verge of disaster
· third world
debt forgiveness
· fair trade
· the stabilisation
of world currencies
· a reduction
in the arms trade
· global
responsibility for the environment
· A major
overhaul of the global economic system.
Brandt also recognised
that poverty contributes to high birth rates and that overpopulation
puts pressure on the environment. This has indeed happened all over
the world, including South East Asia.
Two decades later,
world leaders had not responded to any of Brandts proposals in
any meaningful way. They continued to allow an ever increasing export
of arms to some of the most repressive regimes, and public apathy towards
the plight of the worlds hungry billions continued.
In the 1980s Brandt
was calling for preventive action and his proposals were falling on
deaf ears. Only now is preventive action beginning to be taken seriously.
The World Bank estimates that losses caused by disasters in the 1990s
could have been cut by $280 billion if $40 billion had been spent on
preventive measures. Whether protection of the environment came into
the equation is not clear but surely the preservation of the coastal
environment of South East Asia was more important than providing a luxury
item of food to the US, Europe and Japan. Brandt also called for coordinated
relief programmes for areas where disasters had already occurred.
Only one organisation
has the people and the close relationships with governments to make
coordinated disaster aid work, the UNs Office of Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Yet immediately after the tsunami world
leaders were in disagreement over coordination of the relief operation.
George Bush refused to cooperate with the UN because of his long-running
differences with the UN leadership. World opinion eventually forced
him to recognise the need for cooperation with the OCHA for the smooth
running of the disaster relief.
However the OCHA
is far from perfect, partly because it has not been given the support
it needs by all the member countries of the UN. Willy Brandt recognised
that the UN needed to be restructured to make it democratic and effective
and all the UN agencies needed to be reformed to make them more efficient.
He called for emergency programs for food, housing and healthcare to
be coordinated. He recommended cutting the red tape to ensure that resources
reached impoverished people directly, unfiltered through inefficient
bureaucracy. He called for national projects, overseen by representatives
from developed and developing nations.
He recommended that
instead of fighting wars, armies and navies from the developed world
could be deployed to bring in the food, resources and technology needed
to help poor nations reverse hunger and poverty. This has indeed been
happening since the tsunami. Armies and navies have indeed been bringing
food, resources and technology to the disaster areas. Ironically, as
George Monbiot points out in the Guardian Jan 4, the US marines who
have been sent to Sri Lanka to help the rescue operation were, just
a few weeks ago, murdering the civilians, smashing the homes and evicting
the entire population of the Iraqi city of Falluja.
Since the tsunami
world opinion has shifted. People have been so moved by the plight of
the people in the devastated areas that they have begun to talk about
poverty and injustice in other parts of the world, such as Africa. Some
of the poorest people in the world are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa,
where We have the resources to save millions of lives and raise
the basic infrastructure (Jeffrey Sachs, Kofi Annans Special
Adviser). Over the past few decades official development assistance
to third world countries has been declining and few donor countries
now give the internationally-agreed 0.7% of their gross domestic product.
Jeffrey Sachs would like to see donor countries increase their aid budget.
But in the end it will be popular opinion which pushes governments into
rethinking their aid policies. Since the tsunami, people have been increasingly
questioning the meanness of their countries aid budgets and demanding
that more aid is given to third world countries.
Jeffrey Sachs has
recently presented the Global Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development
Goals. The report, developed by 300 economists and researchers,
reiterates many of the aims of the Brandt Reports:
· Eradicate
extreme poverty and hunger
· Achieve
universal primary education
· Promote
gender equality and empower women
· Reduce
child mortality
· Improve
maternal health
· Combat
HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
· Ensure
environmental sustainability
· Develop
a global partnership for development
20,000 poor people
die every day from preventable diseases in Africa, partly because their
governments are paying $30 million dollars a day in interest to the
World Bank, the IMF and the rich world creditor nations. Currently for
every one dollar that is given to Africa in aid one and a half dollars
goes out to pay the interest on debts.
Third world debt
today is $2.6 trillion. Between 1982 and 2003 the poor world has paid
$5.4 trillion in interest. This means that the poor world has already
paid back the amount it now owes more than twice. Willy Brandt called
for total third world debt forgiveness. However the World Bank, the
IMF and rich creditor countries were not prepared to forgo the huge
amounts of interest they were receiving every year from poor, heavily-indebted
countries. But over the past twenty years a groundswell of public protest
has gradually been growing, demanding an end to third world debt. After
the tsunami the voice of the protesters grew, with public protests,
for example in Belfast, where young people marched, demanding the immediate
cancellation of the debts of the countries affected. As a result governments
have been pressured into giving third world debt some serious thought.
Gordon Brown, who initially proposed freezing debt repayments for a
year, is now leading the campaign for 100 percent multilateral debt
relief for poor countries. The G8 finally announced on the 9 Jan that
all Tsunami afflicted countries would have their debt repayments halted.
In the past funding
for debt relief has come from the aid budget. It is essential that this
does not happen now.
Brandt recommended
restructuring the World Trade Organisation to allow proportional representation
and decision-making by poor countries of the third world. He wanted
to establish a new code of conduct for international corporations, to
curb their power and prevent them from carrying out environmentally
unsound practices and to improve conditions of the workers. He proposed
trade liberalisation and the removal of trade barriers. Unfortunately
GATT has done just that, but only in the third world, while maintaining
protectionist trade barriers in the first world, where the rich counties
spend $300 billion every year in subsidies, subsidies that prevent the
poor countries having access to their markets. Brandt wanted to remove
these subsidies, which give the rich world an unfair advantage.
Since Brandts
reports the World Trade Organisation and the Free Trade Agreements have
carried out a policy of perpetual trade liberalisation at any price.
The result has been disastrous for the third world, which comprises
85% of the world population. Their share of international trade is only
25% because prices for everything that they export, from raw materials
to cash crops, have fallen and continue to fall. Legislation designed
to promote health and protect the environment in third world countries
has been challenged and overruled in the name of trade liberalisation.
The Brandt Reports
noted that the abolition of the gold standard had had a disastrous effect
on the currencies of third world countries. When the US set up the flexible
exchange rate system in 1971 third world currencies began to fluctuate
and in most cases to fall in value. This was/is because investors could
now buy and sell currencies on the world stock market, thus causing
their value to increase or decrease at a moments notice. Rich countries
such as the US and the EU were better protected against these currency
fluctuations simply because they had larger amounts of money. This has
led to rich people in third world countries investing their money in
the US in order to protect it from the monetary instability of their
own countries. This money has bolstered the US dollar, which otherwise
would not be able to withstand the enormous fiscal and trade deficits
incurred during the Bush administration.
Brandt wanted to
stabilise world currencies and another Nobel Prize-winner, the economist
James Tobin, proposed a solution. In 1971 he suggested that a tax of
less than 0.5% on all foreign currency exchange transactions would deter
currency speculation. Support is growing for the Tobin tax, which would
reduce the volatility of exchange rates and raise much needed revenue
to pay for sustainable human development.
Brandt was concerned
about the huge waste of resources involved in military spending. Arms
sales to poor countries contribute to conflict, increase their burden
of debt and further impoverish them. According to Clare Shorts
recent White Paper, 24 of the 40 poorest countries in the world, mostly
in Africa, have recently suffered and continue to suffer armed conflict.
The Brandt Reports recommended the conversion of arms production into
civilian production, reducing arms exports, making the whole arms export
business transparent and taxing the arms trade.
Since the Brandt
Reports sales of armaments have increased massively, with the US and
the UK two of the largest producers and exporters. In 1999 Britain was
exporting about £4 billion worth of armaments per annum. The UK
has a government agency especially dedicated to the promotion of arms
exports: the Defence Services Export Organisation (DESO). The British
Government, which actively encourages the sale of arms to poor countries,
has recently granted arms export licences to a number of countries with
repressive regimes.
British tax payers
subsidise the armament industry to the tune of approximately £200
million per annum. The reason why governments subsidise corporations
who export weapons is because the public allow them to. Tax payers
money benefits arms exporters, who do inestimable harm to the third
world countries who buy the arms. These countries are spending money
they can ill afford on armaments, instead of investing in services.
The Campaign against the Arms Trade recommends putting a stop to subsidies
to arms manufacturers and exporters. Now, more than ever before, the
madness of making and exporting arms should be exposed. According to
estimates from the World Bank, world poverty could be relieved by spending
approximately one tenth of the worlds annual military budget.
Not everything in
the Brandt Reports is relevant today but significant portions of it
are more relevant than ever: those parts that refer to the necessity
to cancel third world debt, reduce arms trading and to put in place
and enforce international legislation to protect the environment. The
world was not ready for these proposals in the 1980s but it is ready
now. A huge groundswell of public opinion is calling for debt cancellation,
a reduction in arms trading and a halt to the destruction of the environment.
The Brandt Reports have been updated by James Quilligan. see: www.brandt21forum.info
Nobel Prize winner,
Willy Brandt had high hopes when he and his team of experts compiled
their detailed reports. They had spent years researching world poverty
and the best way to alleviate it. Brandts far reaching vision
predicted many of the human and ecological disasters that have (and
continue to) occurred since the 1980s, as a result of neoliberal economic
policies. His reports laid out an alternative system of global governance,
based on the principle of sharing: sharing the worlds resources
and sharing responsibility for the environment. He proposed that every
member of the human race had a right to food, water, shelter, clothing,
education and healthcare. Only when every human beings basic needs
have been fulfilled will the worlds population stabilise. Social
sustainability is the prerequisite for environmental sustainability.
Perhaps world leaders
could be persuaded to re-examine both the original reports and their
updated version and to come together to discuss how to implement some
of the recommendations. World opinion is calling for a more equitable
and just world in which everyone has the right to food, water, shelter,
clothing, education and healthcare; where the power of corporations
is curbed in favour of human rights and the environment; where governments
are shamed into putting a stop to arms exports and where the money currently
squandered in wars is spent on raising the standard of living of the
worlds poor.
Without sharing the worlds resources there can be no justice and
without justice there can be no peace.
Mohammed Mesbahi
Chair and Founder
Share the World's Resources (STWR)
P.O. Box 34275
London NW5 1XT
Website : www.stwr.net
E mail : [email protected] /
[email protected]