BANGKOK - Among the estimated
300 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that
descended on the shores of Aceh in Indonesia in
the wake of the devastating December 26 tsunami
was a group that sported the name Scientology.
Members of the largely Australian
contingent from this NGO were readily identifiable
by their bright yellow T-shirts and badges that
read "trauma care", proclaiming their intended
mission in tsunami-swamped northern Indonesia.
The International Scientology Disaster
Response Team has also been active after September
11 and more recently with hurricanes
Katrina and Rita in the US Gulf
states. Parishioners from the Church of
Scientology act as volunteer ministers in disaster
areas, according to the church's volunteer
website. Actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta are
among high-profile individuals who have joined the
church.
Another "unknown NGO" intervened
rather more intrusively by vaccinating surviving
children against measles without bothering to
maintain records on who among them were vaccinated
or where.
These NGOs are but two of
several that caused concern to the leading global
humanitarian agency that worked in Aceh in the
immediate aftermath of the tsunami, the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The Aceh
experience with the activities of some NGOs has
led the IFRC to describe humanitarian activity as
"the world's largest unregulated industry".
It is an unfortunate reality, said Bekele
Geleta, head of the IFRC's Southeast Asia office.
"[These NGOs] stay in the business because there
is no proper regulation and because there are no
minimum standards."
Geleta made the
comments Wednesday at the release in Bangkok of
the IFRC's annual World Disaster Report, a
250-page document on the international response to
the tsunami and other natural disasters during
2004.
That the tsunami disaster has a
prominent place in this 13th annual publication is
by virtue of its unprecedented scale, flattening
the coastlines in 11 countries across the Indian
Ocean, killing some 224,495 people and displacing
millions.
Indonesia's Aceh province was
the worst hit, with 163,795 deaths, followed by
Sri Lanka with 35,399, India with 16,389 and
Thailand with 8,345, the report stated.
Agencies did not follow standardized
procedures, and their reports were not made
available, according to the publication. "In Aceh,
there was so much competition between agencies
over beneficiaries that they even concealed
information from each other," the report said.
Some agencies came on "shopping
expeditions" to guard their "niche", the report
added. "By mid-January, the humanitarian space had
become just too small for all these actors."
One long-standing actor in the
humanitarian field, Oxfam, had responded with
exasperation at the presence of new and previously
unknown NGOs that had mushroomed overnight in the
worst-affected areas.
It called on
governments in the tsunami-hit areas to "work with
the UN to introduce immediately a system of
accreditation for international agencies to ensure
the work they are doing matches their experience",
according to the report.
Behind Oxfam's
thinking were the standards it abides by during
disasters, as do other established humanitarian
agencies such as the IFRC, Save the Children Fund
and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without
Borders).
"There are minimum standards all
agencies that are seriously committed to providing
humanitarian assistance have to be aware of and
should aspire to follow," Ashvin Dayal, regional
director for Oxfam's East Asia office, told IPS.
Currently, three documents provide the
template to guide humanitarian agencies during
relief operations in a disaster. They are the
IFRC's "Code of Conduct", the "Humanitarian
charter and minimum standards of the Sphere
Project" and the "Seven principles of
accountability" of the Humanitarian Partnership
Accountability International (HAP-I).
The
oldest of these three, the IFRC's code for
humanitarian action, was developed 11 years ago by
eight of the world's leading disaster-response
agencies. It marked "a huge leap forward in
setting standards for disaster response", states
the Geneva-based agency.
These codes,
which are voluntary, include 10 principles of
commitment. Among them are: humanitarian
imperatives come first; aid is given regardless of
race, creed or nationality; aid will not be used
to further particular political or religious
standpoint; and "we hold ourselves accountable to
both those we seek to assist and those from whom
we accept resources".
For its part, the
Geneva-based HAP-I, launched in 2003, brings
together humanitarian agencies that pledge
self-regulation and work by "listening to the
intended beneficiaries of humanitarian action so
that the quality and the effectiveness of their
humanitarian work is improved".
But, such
language alone would not translate to a reform of
humanitarian activity unless governments see their
merits and use them as standards during disasters,
said Rajan Gengaje, regional disaster response
advisor for the UN's Asia and the Pacific at the
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA).
"For better standards
during relief efforts, national governments must
take the lead to create the right type of
mechanism for the NGOs to work," he explained.
India was one country that maintained
tight control over NGO activity and actively
discouraged unsolicited aid in the aftermath of
the tsunami.
To give rise to such a new
climate, leading members of OCHA and other
humanitarian agencies have begun arguing that
donor governments "must stop funding NGOs who
refuse to work within the agreed coordination
structure", according to the report.
A UN
aid worker who witnessed the Scientologists in
action commented acidly: "Do you realize that
these people are providing psychological support
to traumatized children? No one can stop them!"
