Volume III. No. 26
 01-14-05
 Turn The Ships Around
 author: Vance Cureton
 © Copyright 2005
 

 "Let the squabbling begin..." 

 The sudden December 26th Asian Tsunami caused untold damage and loss 
 of life across all of the South Asia region, and now barely three weeks into 
 the relief effort the political wrangling has begun over whether international
 humanitarian organizations should be allowed access to the various territories 
 and isolated islands that were struck by the malicious tidal wave.

 Indonesia alone lost 100,000 people - and still counting - and the government 
 is apparently more concerned about covering  up the bad political atmosphere 
 in Aceh Province than in securing needed supplies for the homeless and the 
 hungry who are starving there.

 Banda Aceh is a separatist region on the north western end of the island of
 Sumatra. The Jakarta goverment has taken strong, repressive measures in the 
 past to defeat any hope that the independence movement would become more 
 viable and a bigger threat than it poses at the current time. Thus, the tension 
 and wariness of the Indonesian government in allowing foreign relief organizations 
 and military troops free access to the separatist region. As these groups would 
 by default stand as witnesses to the political and social conditions in the 
 disputed province.

 This is a situtation goverment officials in Jakarta cleary find intolerable. In 
 fact, on Wednesday, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla announced that 
 relief groups and foreign troops should leave Indonesia by March 26th. He 
 has since softened that statement, somewhat.

 Clearly, this is not the time for the Indonesian government to put Islamic pride 
 and independence in front of everything else. The sudden loss of 100,000 
 precious lives will be a heavy weight on the Indonesian people for decades. 
 Not to mention the orphans and permanently displaced people who cannot 
 return to unsafe land. Also there will come the inevitable disputes over the 
 property of Tsunami victims. { many without any surviving family members } 

 This will all take a long, long, time to sort out.

 But, if the pride of Indonesian authorities is such that they will cynically 
 use the presense of the American military in the region to stir up feelings of 
 Indonesian nationalism and engender support for the current Jakarta regime,
 then we should take our enormously expensive to maintain aircraft carriers, 
 fighter planes, helicopters and other support craft and remove ourselves 
 to some other part of the devastated region.

 If we find we are not welcome elsewhere in South Asia, we can always 
 turn the ships around and bring our boys home. But, before we do that. 
 There are plenty of hungry faces elsewhere in the world. The Darfur region 
 of the Sudan, is just one example. Haiti is another.

 It is a long sad list.
 

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