The Politic of the International Aid

As the world pledge to the relief efforts on the Tsunami areas, the international politic take place in the process especially the United States (US). According to the Editorial of the New York Times, this is the time for the US to show her kind. It seems the relief operation already became like "Anti Terror Politic". This is really something inhumane.

When we recap what happened in the past week, we can see how active and generous of different countries. European Union (EU) as the first institution that pledge to donate 40 million Euro. This was not include Germany, France, Spain, Nertherland etc who pledge on the nation basis. Japan become the second higher pledge with her US$40 million.

US, with US$5 million donate to the Red Cross, total pledge only US$15 million. That's less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities. As the richest country in the world, the US government criticised by the international comunity with her "stingy". The New York Times editorial criticised the government in "Are We Stingy? Yes"

On Dec 30, President Bush has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world’s response. The US again is trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief.

The United Nation should backed up by the authorities of the world great power in order to carry her mandate to work on the relief operation. This development become the worries of many Asian countries becaus of the following incidents:

1. Last three years, the US led "War on Terror" and claimed the Southeast Asia as a second front caused a lot of damages on the relationship between those countries with the US. This is the opportunity for the US to repair the damages. (New York Times)

2. The US leads the Australia, Japan etc in the International Coalition for Relief Efforts actually is the continuos of the unaccomplishment of the "War on Terror". in the region. This is why the US want to undermine UN, China, European Union who not support the US-led War on Iraq.

3. The US and Japan even send off their warship to Southeast Asia for the relief operation. Hopefully it will not too hard to call them to leave the region when the relief operation accomplished. More important, the relief operation is not a military operation. Why US and Japan have to send off their military troops?

Therefore, the Jan 6, Aid Summit Talk in Jakarta will be our focus to know the outcomes of the meeting. We hope it will become a genuine relief operation that US dominance should be out of the field.