as a Doctrine for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union] (2005). 34/2 Vrede en ..... diplomatic staff, although none devoted specifically to political affairs. The ..... a key element of their policy, has been unbending.
European Foreign Affairs Review 11: 353–378, 2006. © 2006 Kluwer Law International.
The EU Response to the Tsunami and the Need for a Human Security Approach MARLIES GLASIUS*
I Introduction The European Union has in recent years become more ambitious in terms of its global role, in particular in relation to security and crisis management. While the fate of the innovations in its Constitution is now uncertain, the review and extension of actual capabilities goes on, with headline goals, battle groups and an increasing orientation on civilian capabilities. Numerous missions – military, civilian and now also combined – have been and are being carried out under an EU flag.1 At the conceptual level, the European Security Strategy has given the EU a point of departure for a common vision on security policy.2 However, the humanitarian and developmental aspects of EU foreign policy have remained somewhat separate from these developments, and many in the development community have viewed the EU’s new ambitions with some suspicion, considering them as ‘interventionist’ and privileging a security over a development agenda. The European response to the tsunami offers interesting new insights in relation to these developments. This paper focuses on Aceh and Sri Lanka, two of the worst-hit areas, which have had the most attention from the EU, and which also have an unresolved history of conflict. It concentrates on the policies towards the people affected by the tsunami rather than on environmental responses or prevention mechanisms. The first, descriptive part of this paper will discuss four themes: response and coordination; the impact of the tsunami and the relief effort on the conflicts
* Marlies Glasius is Lecturer in Global Politics at the Faculty of Social Policy and a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics and Political Science. This article is based on a study funded by the Swedish Foreign Ministry and the Spanish Ministry of Defence. 1 Giovanni Grevi, Dov Lynch and Antonio Missiroli, ESDP Operations, October 2005, EUISS, at . 2 Council of the European Union, A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security Strategy, Brussels, 12 December 2003.
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in Sri Lanka and Aceh; the sustainability of post-tsunami policies; and the effects of the tsunami in terms of European public opinion.3 On the basis of this discussion, the paper will argue that the EU should be less focused on building capabilities, and much more on developing a coherent common vision guiding all its external policies. Without such a vision, the EU is prone to do just more of the same things that other actors are already doing, rather than fill gaps with innovative policies. Moreover, when ambition for its own sake is the leading motive, policies are prone to become guided more by bureaucratic struggles between the Council and the Commission than by the aspirations of European citizens or the needs of crisis victims. In the second part, the article will discuss what such a common vision might look like by applying the principles and capabilities discussed in A Human Security Doctrine for Europe4 and in Glasius and Kaldor5 to the tsunami case study.
II Response, Coordination and Capabilities 1. Immediate EU Response The European Commission responded to the tsunami on the day it struck, 26 December 2004, by approving a EUR3 million grant to the Red Cross.6 It also activated the Community Civil Protection Mechanism (CCPM), which initially coordinated experts from Sweden, Italy, France and the United Kingdom,7 and eventually coordinated sixteen Member States.8 In the next few days, another EUR20 million was approved, which went mostly to the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization and Unicef,9 and experts were 3 This part of the article is based on two background papers: Marlies Glasius, ‘The European Union and Sri Lanka: Tsunami Response and Long-term Policy’, 14 October 2005; and Kirsten Schulze, ‘Between Conflict and Peace: Tsunami Aid and Reconstruction in Aceh’, 18 November 2005, both available at . 4 Study Group on Europe’s Security Capabilities, A Human Security Doctrine for Europe September 2004, at . 5 Marlies Glasius and Mary Kaldor, ‘Menselijke veiligheid als doctrine voor het gemeenschappelijk buitenlands en veiligheidsbeleid van de Europese Unie’ [Human Security as a Doctrine for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union] (2005) 34/2 Vrede en Veiligheid, pp. 172–193; Mary Kaldor and Marlies Glasius (with assistance from Sarah Cussen), ‘EU Security Architecture in Relation to Security and Development’, Report for the Department for International Development (DfID), December 2004. 6 ‘Tidal waves in Asia – ECHO’s response’, Memo 05/1, Brussels, 4 January 2005. 7 ‘European Commission mobilises the Civil Protection Mechanism for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in South Asia’, Brussels, 27 December 2004, IP/04/1543. 8 European Commission, ‘Questions and Answers on the strengthening of the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism’, 20 April 2005, at . 9 ‘Tidal waves’, note 6 above.
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sent to do humanitarian needs assessments.10 This cash injection was much more helpful than many of the in-kind contributions made at that time: behind the coastline, life went on as normal, and food, bedding and medical supplies were typically locally available. The Council was much slower to get into action. Initially, Secretary General/High Representative Javier Solana just expressed his condolences.11 Beyond the EU, the USA initially tried to set up its own coordination group, but France and the EU Luxembourg Presidency insisted on the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as coordinating agency, and the USA quickly reversed its position.12
2. Immediate Issues in Sri Lanka and Aceh In the affected countries, the initial emergency response was spontaneous and uncoordinated, but Aceh was much harder hit than Sri Lanka. According to an observer in Batticaloa, East Sri Lanka: ‘people were better off the day after than they were with Katrina.’13 Frerks and Klem describe the situation as follows: ‘In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, rescue and life saving activities have been undertaken nearly instantaneously. Necessary medical aid was given within hours, dead bodies were buried and relief aid was mobilised within a day. . . . This success was due to a host of local governmental and non-governmental actors as well as individuals.’14 Moreover, the initial effort went remarkably across ethnic and political boundaries, and caused unlikely partners to work together, including combatants on both sides of the conflict. In Aceh, Indonesia, the first week following the tsunami was characterized by chaos. As Aceh was a closed province in the midst of a separatist insurgency and under civil emergency, information only slowly emerged. This was further exacerbated by the fact that the telephone lines had been destroyed by the tsunami. The military, which had the only remaining means of communication, had itself been hard hit. Once the scale of the disaster started to emerge and humanitarian aid organizations and volunteers rushed toward 10 Louis Michel, ‘Post-tsunami Relief Effort: The Commission’s Humanitarian Response and the Need for Sound Aid Management’, SPEECH/05/177, 15 March 2005. 11 ‘Javier Solana, EU High Representative for the CFSP, Conveys Deep-felt Condolences to Nations Struck by Earthquake’, S0361/04, 28 December 2004. 12 Brian Knowlton, ‘Trans-Atlantic Flap Reaches Tsunami Aid’, International Herald Tribune. 6 January 2005. 13 Interview with T. Jayasingham, Senior Lecturer, Eastern University, Chenkalady, 5 September 2005. 14 Georg Frerks and Bart Klem, ‘Tsunami Response in Sri Lanka: Report on a Field Visit from 6–20 February 2005’, Disaster Studies, Wageningen University, and Conflict Research Unit, Clingendael Institute, 2005.
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Aceh, infrastructural problems became apparent, particularly with respect to transport and communication. Roads were impassable, telecommunication was impossible and the airfields were overstrained. Nonetheless, in Aceh, too, the bodies were quickly buried (mainly by the army), food and shelter was provided within days, and major outbreaks of disease were prevented.15 3. Medium-term EU Response On 6 January, the European Commission pledged a package of EUR450 million tsunami aid, additional to the EUR23 million already released. The first EUR100 million was disbursed to NGOs and UN agencies through the European Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO): the EU does not implement its own relief or aid programmes. Nearly all this aid still concentrated on relief, including food, shelter and safe water, as well as cashfor-work schemes. The details of the long-term packages were not presented until late May, and will be discussed below. In Aceh, two small projects were funded under the so-called Rapid Reaction Mechanism: one to financially support the Crisis Management Initiative headed by Marti Ahtisaari, which led the peace negotiations between the Indonesian government and the armed Acehnese independence group, and one to facilitate Acehnese civil society input in the Indonesian government’s Master Plan.16 The Commission also took the following ‘flanking measures’: a debt moratorium for the countries affected, as agreed by the Paris Club; earlier adoption (by three months) of the new, more liberal GSP regime; and the supply of decommissioned EU fishing vessels to the region.17 Meanwhile, the EU reviewed its own rapid response capacity in the aftermath of the tsunami. In response to a request by the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC),18 in late April the Commission presented a plan to: –
increase the number of field assessment experts from 69 to 150, train them in UN and Red Cross methodologies, and put them at the disposal of Member States; establish reconstruction assessment teams, which might also contribute to multilateral needs assessment or ESDP fact-finding missions. They are
– 15
Schulze, note 3 above. ‘Information Note: Rapid Reaction Mechanism project in Indonesia: “Facilitating the role of civil society in Acehnese post-tsunami recovery”’, RE A4 REG PA (05) D/505992, Brussels, 18 March 2005. 17 ‘Tsunami Indicative Programme, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives (2005–2006)’, European Commission External Relations Directorate General, C(2005)1490, 23 May 2005. 18 ‘Conclusions du Conseil: Seisme er Tsunamis dans le Ocean Indien’, Version Provisoire, 31 January 2005. 16
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to consist of existing Commission staff plus on-call experts, who must receive training and be rapidly deployable; strengthen its civil protection mechanism (CPM), asking Member States to assess capabilities available to the EU and develop national deployable civil protection modules; strengthen the planning and analytical capability of the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC), strengthen its links with CPM and the UN; establish a financing facility under the EC Rapid Reaction Mechanism appoint liaison officers to the Civil-Military Planning Cell and cooperate with the EU military staff; improve communication with the Council Secretariat and Member States, developing a network of humanitarian emergency focal points in the latter, as well as reconstruction focal points; establish a ‘light but effective platform’ to improve coordination in times of third-country crisis; establish a logistic and administrative platform for any external missions; fund improvement of UN OCHA’s coordination capabilities.19
4. Medium-term Issues in Sri Lanka and Aceh In Sri Lanka, two tendencies marked the medium-term response to the tsunami. First, the Sri Lankan government became much more involved in the relief effort, with on the whole rather unfortunate results: the response was overcentralized, taking away initiative from the local authorities, but the central coordination was in fact extremely slow and bureaucratic, and there were some allegations of corruption, as well a perception particularly from tsunami victims in the north and east that government was neglecting them. Second, international NGOs flocked to Sri Lanka, and particularly to the hard-hit eastern districts of Ampara and Batticaloa. As tends to be the case with INGO-led responses, there was little cooperation and much competition, and the overwhelming availability of aid had distorting effects on the local economy and fostered a culture of dependency. While many international NGOs were well informed and professional, there were also examples of mission overreach, opportunism and insensitivity. Moreover, just as the (mainly Tamil and Muslim) inhabitants of the north and east coast felt that the government was neglecting them, the mainly Sinhala population of the south felt neglected in turn by the international 19 Reinforcing EU Disaster and Crisis Response in Third Countries, Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, COM(2005) 153 Final, Brussels, 20 April 2005.
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community. Both the government and the NGO responses were characterized by a lack of information to and consultation with the victims of the tsunami, feeding rumours and mistrust. The unsystematic response has left almost every victim feeling that others had it better. The expression ‘golden tsunami’ is often heard in Sri Lanka, always applying to what other people or other villages have received. Such perceptions feed into long-standing grievances between communities, related to the armed conflicts.20 Distrust of the government was also a factor in Aceh as the result of three decades of conflict and what many Acehnese see as ‘betrayal’ by Jakarta. According to many Acehnese, the Jakarta government was trying to reconstruct Aceh in such a way that it could better control the people and it was Jakarta rather than Aceh that benefited from the aid. What was done by the government and the army was, moreover, rendered invisible by the sheer scale of foreign involvement. Foreign organizations, while generally welcomed by the population, were not immune from distrust either. Many INGOs treated Indonesia like Sudan or Somalia, like a failed state without a functioning government structure. There was also a considerable amount of competition, duplication and overlap, particularly in the health sector, and an over-concentration on the city of Banda Aceh at the expense of outlying areas. Relations between the INGO community, Indonesian NGOs, and the local population were strained, with the latter often feeling marginalized and affected by a distorted economy. Relations between INGOs and the Indonesian military were understandably hostile due to past confrontations over human rights, and relations between INGOs and foreign troops were little better. According to members of various military contingents, NGO personnel had an ‘attitude problem’, seeing humanitarian aid as the prerogative of civilians and anyone in uniform as the enemy, while at the same time relying on military equipment.21
5. Conclusion on the Immediate and Medium-term EU Response The emerging picture from the immediate response to the tsunami is that, despite the initial chaos, there was very quickly enough food, shelter and medical aid for all those affected by the tsunami in Sri Lanka and even in Aceh. Outbreaks of disease were prevented. The European Union made a small but very speedy contribution to this, with immediate disbursements to UN agencies and NGOs already on the ground. In subsequent weeks, there appears to have been an increasing divergence between lessons learnt at the EU and the actual problems experienced on the 20 21
Glasius, note 3 above. Schulze, note 3 above.
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ground. In Sri Lanka, there was a problem of oversupply, but no substantial material gaps were identified. In Aceh, chaos reigned in the first weeks as the air space got clogged up, but this was not a matter of a lack of capacity. The situation soon improved and Aceh too experienced oversupply, particularly of medical resources. It can therefore be concluded that the tsunami has not in fact exposed much need for new European structures and capabilities. The tsunami may well be unique in this respect, and the capabilities that are being built may well have a certain utility for future humanitarian disasters, but they should not be presented as ‘lessons learnt from the tsunami’. There was, however, and remains, a lack of coordination, and a very severe lack of information for and participation by those affected by the tsunami. One of the most positive and relevant medium-term measures by the EU was the funding of the peace negotiations and civil society consultation in Aceh. The broader ‘flanking measures’ adopted by the Commission were not particularly relevant. The debt moratorium was a friendly gesture, but in fact tsunami reconstruction will be funded entirely through foreign aid, so should not affect the government budget. The early introduction of new GSP rules is of limited relevance to the affected coastal populations who are mainly involved in agriculture and fishing. The decommissioned fishing vessels offered by the EU were yet to reach the tsunami-affected areas in late 2005.22 Whether they are appropriate to local fishing needs remains to be seen.
III Conflict 1. EU Policies on the Conflicts In Sri Lanka, the European Union had a formal role in the stagnating peace process prior to the tsunami as one of the four co-chairs, along with the USA, Japan and the World Bank. But this was a very passive role.23 The posttsunami response, as described above, was primarily humanitarian. There were no political initiatives in the immediate aftermath. Lately, the EU has begun to take a more active interest in the conflict in Sri Lanka. First, it has taken a harder and more consistent line on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with a statement in September condemning its continued use of violence and terrorism with specific reference to the murder of Foreign Minister Kadirgamar and to the use of child soldiers. It issued a warning that the EU is ‘actively considering the formal listing of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation’, and that neither the EU nor Member States 22 Interview with Gilles Bertrand, Sri Lanka Desk Officer, External Affairs Directorate (RELEX), European Commission, 25 October 2005. 23 Interviews with diplomats and aid officials in Colombo, 29 August–2 September 2005.
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will receive LTTE delegations until further notice.24 The EU’s representation in Colombo is also being upgraded from a lone chargé d’affaires with contract staff to a full delegation led by an ambassador and supported by six diplomatic staff, although none devoted specifically to political affairs. The EU has also monitored the presidential elections, an unprecedented fourth electoral mission in five years (a measure of the instability of the Sri Lankan political system as well as the EU’s commitment). Finally, there is a standing arrangement with the Rapid Reaction Mechanism fund to finance measures supporting the peace process, such as civil society dialogue, should there be a peace process to support.25 In relation to the conflict in Aceh, the European Union had even less of a role before the tsunami. Afterwards, however, the EU showed an active interest in the peace process, including supporting it financially, again through its Rapid Reaction Mechanism. EU officials were clearly privy to the final negotiations. As will be described below, they are intimately involved in monitoring the implementation of the peace agreement signed in the summer of 2005. 2. The Tsunami and the Conflicts in Sri Lanka and Aceh Before the tsunami hit, the peace process in Sri Lanka, initiated with a ceasefire agreement in 2002, was in trouble. The government and the LTTE were no longer talking directly to each other; the LTTE faced a challenge from the break-away Karuna faction; a new, less peace-oriented government had won national elections; and there was talk of a return to war. Immediately after the tsunami, the problem arose of how to organize the relief effort in the LTTE-held coastal areas, which had been hard-hit. In the post-tsunami upsurge of intercommunal solidarity, the problem was soon constructed as an opportunity for an initiative to set up a joint tsunami response mechanism including both the government and the LTTE, which, it was hoped, would build trust and spark wider peace negotiations. But the government in particular, hampered by the presence in the coalition of the nationalist JVP party, dragged its heals in the negotiations. The sentiment of national unity soon evaporated in the climate of distrust described above, and the joint mechanism ultimately failed after a legal challenge by the JVP. Over the summer of 2005, the violent incidents between the security forces, the LTTE and its break-away Karuna faction on the east coast reached unprecedented levels, with almost daily bombing and shooting incidents, and a peak in child recruitment by the LTTE, as monitored by UNICEF, last July. Subsequently, 24
‘European Union Declaration Condemning Terrorism in Sri Lanka’, 26 September
2005. 25
Interview with Bertrand, note 22 above.
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the LTTE declared the two candidates for the presidential elections as bad as each other, causing most Tamils not to vote. The more hard-line candidate, Mahinda Rajapakse, assumed the presidency, and LTTE leader Prabaharan has made a thinly veiled threat to return to war unless substantial concessions are offered. Despite attempts to revive the peace process, there is a general expectation that the resumption of war is only a matter of time.26 Indonesia placed Aceh under martial law and embarked upon large-scale counter-insurgency operations after the breakdown of the ceasefire agreement with the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) in 2003. In May 2004, martial law was downgraded to civil emergency but Aceh remained largely closed to outside actors and counter-insurgency operations continued. At the same time, secret negotiations were resumed after the election of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as Indonesian president. The tsunami put Aceh on the map and raised international interest in the conflict. For Acehnese civil society, the presence of international agencies has opened up a space in the zero-sum dynamics of the conflict, which enables them to assert their independence from both the GAM and the government. The humanitarian sentiments that surfaced after the tsunami created an opportunity for the Indonesian government and GAM to set aside their differences and start negotiating publicly, facilitated by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. In May 2005, civil emergency was lifted, and in mid-July the two parties agreed on a comprehensive Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), providing for local elections, fiscal autonomy, retention of 70 per cent of the province’s oil revenue, the introduction of customary law, a human rights court, and a truth committee. The GAM is to decommission its weapons, and Indonesia is to withdraw its ‘non-organic’ military and police, i.e. centrally trained special forces, from the territory. There is to be amnesty and reintegration for those who have been involved in GAM activities. The MoU is monitored by an Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), led by the European Union with further contributions from Norway, Switzerland and five ASEAN countries. It is unarmed, consists of 220 personnel, and is tasked with monitoring disarmament, the demobilization and reintegration by GAM, the withdrawal of non-organic Indonesian military and policy, the human rights situation and legislative changes, and the investigation of alleged violations of the MoU. While the level of agreement achieved by the MoU is impressive, it also has certain shortcomings. It is a deal between the two parties, without any inclusion of the ordinary people of Aceh, or third parties such as the proIndonesian militias. The MoU does not contain an explicit retraction of GAM’s aspiration to achieve independence, and much of the implementation will be up to the Indonesian government, which does not have a great record of implementing difficult and politically sensitive schemes. Finally, it will 26
Glasius, note 3 above.
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be difficult to help the combatants make the transition to civilian life with education, job training, and longer-term support.27 3. Conclusions on EU Conflict Policies The failure of the peace process in Sri Lanka, in contrast to Aceh, was due primarily to the different internal dynamics between the two situations, not to the activities of outside actors. Arguably, an immediate political response to the tsunami, rather than just a humanitarian response, pushing immediately and hard for a joint-relief mechanism, might have capitalized upon the early sentiments of cross-communal solidarity in Sri Lanka. The EU did in fact make a commitment to back the joint mechanism in early March 2005, but by this time, the central government and the LTTE had both responded in their own way, and accusations were flying back and forth. It remains an open question, however, whether a more immediate response could ultimately have led to a sustainable peace process. Some within the LTTE may have begun to consider autonomy as an option, but the organization as a whole has not made the shift that GAM has made, nor has it come close to considering disarmament. Likewise, the concessions made by the Indonesian government would be much more controversial in Sri Lanka, where the national polity is less stable and ethnic nationalism is much more of an electoral force. In Aceh, the European Council accepted its lead role in the monitoring mission immediately after the initialling of the agreement. It had an initial deployment on the ground within a month.28 It is too early to assess the functioning of the AMM, but clearly the situation in Aceh, while delicate, is much more hopeful than that in Sri Lanka, and there is therefore much more that the EU can do and is actively doing in the former situation. However, there are also similarities, both between the two conflict situations and in the position of the EU towards them. In both situations, the EU has an almost unique position as the only major actor to be acceptable to both combatant parties: the USA’s anti-terrorist stance makes it unacceptable to GAM and the LTTE alike, Japan is associated in both cases with an earlier breakdown of the peace process, and involvement by the United Nations would be considered by both governments as a threat to sovereignty, associated as it is with intrusive missions such as the ones in East Timor and Cambodia. In both cases, there are two main risks associated with the EU policies themselves. The first, as always in the EU, is that of inconsistency, either between Member States or between different branches of policy-making, specifically the competition between Commission and Council over security 27 28
Schulze, note 3 above. See Lynch and Missiroli, note 1 above, pp. 13–15.
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policy. In Aceh, which is at present a ‘good news story’ for which the EU can claim some credit, and where Council and Commission both play a considerable role, this coordination must be kept under close review. In relation to Sri Lanka, the new line on the LTTE, where all doors are closed simultaneously to the organization, and may also be opened again simultaneously, is a hopeful departure from previous contradictions in Member States’ policies. The second risk is that of over-focusing on mediation between the two armed parties at the expense of the ordinary people on the ground. None of the armed parties in question is a champion of human rights. It may be possible for them to find agreement around financial and territorial power-sharing arrangements, without either party being inclined to look into the other’s human rights record except for rhetorical value. Therefore, it must be a third party such as the EU which champions the rights of the local populations, even if this complicates negotiations in the short run. Both in Aceh and in northeast Sri Lanka, people have suffered immensely from intimidation and harassment by both parties, (sometimes multiple) displacement, and the deterioration of health and living standards that follow from such conditions. The tsunami brought about additional disruption in this respect. In Sri Lanka, the nationwide harassment and discrimination of minorities that lie at the origins of the conflict continue to this day. The LTTE continues to stifle all dissent within the Tamil community, at gunpoint if necessary. A human rights agreement parallel to the ceasefire agreement fell by the wayside as the peace process faltered. Regardless whether the peace process will resume, the EU and its Member States must become more vocal with regard to human rights violations both by the government and by the LTTE. In Aceh, the situation has much improved in recent years, and especially since the signing of the MoU. Human rights provisions are part of the MoU and the mandate of the AMM, but they are perhaps not perceived as core issues. Investigating human rights abuse may be more difficult than witnessing symbolic acts of decommissioning and troop withdrawal, but they will be more essential to the sustainability of the peace agreement. In addition, the EU could play a role, definitely in Aceh and possibly in Sri Lanka, in funding, legitimizing and raising the profile of consultations and negotiations between groups beyond the two armed parties. The Rapid Reaction Mechanism is an excellent tool for such initiatives. Both the danger of inconsistency between different branches of policymaking and the danger of privileging the armed parties can be avoided by a policy rooted in the concept of human security, consistently guided by attempts to improve the physical and economic security of the people suffering from conflict. The second part of this paper will attempt to spell out more concretely what that means.
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IV Reconstruction and Long-term Development 1. The European Commission’s Tsunami Indicative Programme (TIP) The transition from relief to reconstruction was slow on the part of the EU as well as other donors and receiving governments. The European Commission presented its detailed plans for reconstruction on 23 May 2005, five months after the tsunami.29 The allocation is for 2005 and 2006 only. Fortunately, this did not result in the same ‘gap’ between relief and reconstruction that has sometimes been experienced after other disasters, as there were sufficient funds to continue to feed and shelter the stricken population. But it does mean a very long delay before people are being assisted in resuming their normal lives. For Indonesia, the full EUR200 million allocated to the country is channelled through a Multi-Donor Trust Fund. The Indonesian Trust Fund is run by the government and overseen by the World Bank, with a steering committee which include civil society representatives, UN agencies and international NGOs.30 For Sri Lanka, the Indicative Programme proposed a total package of EUR95 million, divided into EUR40 million towards rebuilding the MataraBatticaloa road from the south to the east and EUR55 million towards livelihoods and community support in the north and east, the bulk of which was to be channelled through the joint mechanism described above. Despite the fact that the joint mechanism had not been agreed at the time, and always looked fragile, the EU had no back-up plan, either public or private. This left it scrambling to hastily disburse its 2005 allocation for the northeast to multilateral agencies (it was too late to consider a call for proposals from NGOs) when it became clear that the joint mechanism would not be operational.31 It also quickly needed to devise alternative options for 2006.
2. Primary Challenges to Sustainable Reconstruction in Sri Lanka and Aceh As described above, the tsunami response has been characterized by a slow and overcentralized response from the Indonesian and Sri Lankan government on the one hand, and an uncoordinated and sometimes opportunistic response by NGOs on the other hand. A particularly problematic symptom of the top-down, unresponsive, and at the same time inconsistent involvement of the central government to the 29
Tsunami Indicative Programme, note 17 above. ‘Fund for Aceh and North Sumatra: Multi-Donor Trust Fund for the Indonesia DisasterRelated Recovery Program 2005–2009’, World Bank, Prospectus, 12 April 2005. 31 Interviews with diplomats, note 23 above. 30
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tsunami response was the imposition, both in Aceh and in Sri Lanka, of a ‘coastal protection zone’ where there could be no rebuilding. While it makes sense for a government to take preventive measures after a disaster like the tsunami, the buffer zones were decreed as a blanket imposition almost immediately after the tsunami, without consideration of where people were to be rehoused, a particular problem in the densely populated, ethnically mixed coastal areas of southeast Sri Lanka. Tourist structures are moreover exempt from the building ban in Sri Lanka, which caused particular resentment. Apart from the buffer zone, there are a host of legal obstacles to rebuilding, as only few of the former residents have demonstrable legal title to the land they occupied. Another emerging problem connected to reconstruction is that of advantaging tsunami victims over the equally poor population further inland which was not directly affected by the tsunami. While bilateral and nongovernmental donors are becoming increasingly aware of this problem, not all have a mandate to deal with non-tsunami affected populations. Particularly in Aceh, where support for GAM is concentrated inland, support for coastal populations at the expense of inland ones could have consequences for the peace process itself. From a long-term perspective, there are two additional problems associated with the prominence of NGOs in the response. NGOs are even more dependent than institutional donors on publicity and one-off donations, and many are therefore not in a position to make a long-term commitment to a particular region or project. The spike in tsunami giving was unprecedented, and the drop may therefore be all the harder. Secondly, although some INGOs are large operations, they are generally geared towards small-scale community-based projects. They are making an important contribution to housing and livelihood support in the post-tsunami environment, but simply lack the capacity to build the roads, electricity networks, water-supply, or make large-scale investments in education and health care which need urgent attention in Aceh and especially northeast Sri Lanka due to the tsunami and the conflicts. Finally, there is a very specific gender dimension to the tsunami. For a number of reasons ranging from their lesser ability to swim or climb trees to their greater likelihood of being trapped in their homes or attempts to save their children, far more women died in the tsunami then men. Small-scale estimates suggest that as many as three-quarters of adult casualties may have been female.32 This means that, both in Aceh and in Sri Lanka, there are now many widowers, with or without children. This raises an unprecedented challenge from a reconstruction and development perspective. The international community has some experience of situations where women outnumber men, particularly in conflict areas. But it has not before dealt with communities 32
Oxfam International, ‘The Tsunami’s Impact on Women’, Briefing Note, March 2005.
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where bereaved single men predominate. Particular policies would need to be devised to deal with this problem, which may have consequences in terms of childcare, psychological trauma, possible violence and alcohol abuse.
3. Conclusions on the EU’s Long-term Policies The European Commission took a gamble by channelling all of its Indonesia funds and most of its Sri Lanka funds through the so-called trust funds. From the point of view of coordination, this appears a sensible decision, although its impact may be limited where most of the other major donors, including the USA, Japan and Australia, did not go through the trust fund. From the point of view of participation by the tsunami victims in deciding their own future, the central role for the central government authorities is problematic. As seen above, the populations of Aceh and Sri Lanka both severely distrust these authorities, and have an expectation that the funds will be diverted. These suspicions are rooted in their earlier experiences of government support, as well as the dismal central government response when the tsunami struck. In the case of Aceh, a well-functioning trust fund may restore some of that trust. While Indonesia has a phenomenal reputation for corruption, no serious allegations have emerged in connection with the trust fund, which is overseen by the World Bank and audited by Price WaterHouse Coopers. In the case of Sri Lanka, the value of supporting the rebuilding of the Matara–Batticaloa road, much of which is not even coastal, is questionable from a humanitarian, let alone a human security, point of view. EU support for the joint mechanism, where many other donors did not take that political risk, was widely appreciated by Sri Lankans, even though it has failed.33 But there should have been a back-up plan, even if only a private one. The EU will now probably spend its money through the few available channels in the northeast: the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, a few United Nations agencies, and a handful of international NGOs. But because the Indicative Programme put all its cards on the joint mechanism, there are no clear criteria or priorities to guide EU spending in its absence. The weakness and overcentralized nature of the state itself could be addressed by strengthening local governance with aid policies. Local authorities, despite being hard hit themselves, actually did a decent job in the first tsunami response, before they got paralysed by the centralizing tendencies of their own governments as well as the inflow of foreign actors. In Sri Lanka, the EU already gives some support to district-level authorities through the UNDP, including both training and material equipment such as vehicles and computers. But it is not enough to meet the needs. In Aceh, 33
Interviews: Colombo, Batticaloa and Kilinochchi, 29 August–9 September 2005.
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funding for local government is also envisaged as part of the support package for the peace process. While money can only do so much in forcing devolution of power to local levels, such investments can boost the capacity as well as the self-confidence of local authorities. The buffer-zone policy created a dilemma for the EU, and was handled inconsistently. In relation to Sri Lanka, the subject has been broached informally on a number of occasions, but the government, considering it as a key element of their policy, has been unbending. However, there are recent indications that the government may now be more open to handling the policy flexibly. In relation to Indonesia, although the problem was recognized, the EU took the view that ‘it is their policy, their decision’, and the issue was not raised.34 The EU was quick to recognize the problem of inequity towards nontsunami victims. It is emphatic that the EU’s contribution should go towards tsunami-affected regions, not just the coastal strip.35 The Indonesian trust fund takes the same approach, and in Sri Lanka too, the EU is now free to spend in the whole of the affected districts. How great a problem inequality between tsunami victims and others will turn out to be cannot yet be assessed, but the EU is at least not contributing to it. The EU does not, however, appear to be compensating for the limitations in the NGO response. The priorities established in the Programme include housing, livelihood and community support, exactly what NGOs are already effectively doing. But a shift to larger scale infrastructure and sectoral support would require long-term commitment. The present programme does not run beyond December 2006, although this may stretch to 2007 due to delays in disbursal. The EU has renewed its commitment to the tsunami-affected regions in principle,36 the negotiations between Member States over the Financial Perspectives has made it possible to plan for the next seven years, but at the time of writing there were no long-term guarantees for Sri Lanka and Aceh as yet. Finally, there is the gender imbalance in the coastal areas caused by the tsunami, of which not all relevant EU officials appear to be aware,37 and which is generally getting little attention in the tsunami response. This is an area in which NGO support, as well as support for research, may be appropriate.
34
Interview with Andreas List, Indonesia Desk Officer, External Affairs Directorate (RELEX), European Commission, 25 October 2005. 35 Tsunami Indicative Programme, note 17 above, pp. 18–20. 36 European Commission, ‘Tsunami one year on: Joint Initiative by EU Presidency and Commission’, 15 December 2005. 37 Tsunami Indicative Programme, note 17 above; Interview with List, note 34 above.
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V The ‘Tsunami Effect’ in Europe38 The Indian Ocean tsunami released a wave of unique global sympathy and financial support for the affected regions and people; it was the first time in history that private donations initially exceeded public monetary support. This exceptional public response to the disaster, which was especially visible in Europe, can be put down to various factors: the disaster happened at a time of the year when people are traditionally most charitable, it filled the Christmas news void, the affected regions were well known to millions of travellers, and, last but not least, a large number of tourists were affected. The media treatment of the tsunami was different from that of many past disasters. First of all, the sheer quantity of the media treatment of the disaster is striking. An analysis of more than 200 English-speaking newspapers shows that within the first six weeks, the tsunami got more media attention than the ten ‘forgotten emergencies’ during the whole year of 2004 put together. But the attention was also much more lasting than is customary for disasters. Usually, the initial estimate of victims ‘regularly proves far too high and the interest in the story tails off with the death toll’.39 In contrast, the actual scale of the destruction in the tsunami only became obvious gradually. The extreme coverage, which treated the tsunami on a par with the terrorist attacks on America of 11 September 2001 and the war in Iraq, decreased only in the first half of February. Subsequently, the topic was revisited to some extent after three months, six months, and a year later, reflecting increasingly on achievements and failures and the accountability of the reconstruction efforts. Hence, the media had time to develop a variety of angles that critically engaged with the situation. While this massive and in-depth coverage was a feature throughout the European media, it is striking that the focus of attention was mainly national or global. Either the national governments or the United Nations institutions were the focus of attention. The European Union played a very marginal role in the European media coverage. It would appear that the citizens of the European Union do not particularly expect an EU response. Moreover, different topics and regions dominated the national media discourse. Taking Germany and Britain as an example, the development of a warning system attracted much more attention in the German media than in British media discourse, which understood the tsunami rather as a natural disaster. On the other hand, the link between the tsunami and poverty and debt reduction has been far more dominant right from the aftermath of the tsunami in British discourse, ‘reading’ the tsunami as connected to development. In 38
I am indebted to Sabine Selchow for research assistance on this aspect of the article. Mark Jones, ‘Tsunami Coverage Dwarfs “Forgotten” Crises-research’, Reuters Foundation, 10 March 2005. 39
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Germany the tsunami was almost synonymous with Aceh, whereas in Britain there was a much greater interest in the former colonies of India and Sri Lanka. Finally, there was an element of competition in the national responses: both the governments and the media highlighted national generosity or stinginess in contrast to others. A few conclusions can be drawn from these national differences, the competition, and the conspicuous absence of the European Union from the coverage. First of all, the high-volume, high-quality coverage could be expected to have a beneficial effect on policies, as effectively it means that the public is monitoring the effort. But the European Union’s actions – or lack thereof – did not partake of this ‘tsunami effect’. Additionally, because European citizens look to their own governments and to the United Nations, Member States have little incentive to act through the European Union. Moreover, different national publics read the tsunami differently, hence have different expectations from their own governments. Different national analyses of the preoccupations are likely to complicate any coordination role by the European Union. While it is difficult to substantiate that the tsunami effect has strengthened feelings of global solidarity among the European public, there is some evidence that, from a media viewpoint at least, some of the interest in the tsunami carried over into the poverty campaign and the G8 summit. According to British journalist Andrew Gilligan, it ‘lowered the bar to get development stories on TV’.40 But the tsunami effect did nothing at all for a pan-European consciousness, hence it should be no surprise that the Member States simultaneously were making promises regarding global poverty and having arguments about the EU budget. It has also become clear in the course of this research that the European Union does not exactly make it easy for European citizens to discover what it did in relation to the tsunami. The EU’s website () is a labyrinth that requires intimate knowledge of the organization to navigate. Moreover, searches on its search engines throw up different results at different times. The Commission created a new website on the tsunami to ensure transparency of the aid effort: a mechanism to permit the public to monitor disbursement of the Commission and Member States’ pledges. Unfortunately, this website41 is so complex and user-unfriendly that the researchers involved in this project, one of whom has a background as web-designer, could not understand how to use it.
40 Andrew Gilligan, ‘The Media after Tsunami: What Hope is There for the 'Forgotten' Emergencies?’, Reuters Foundation Panel Debate, 10 May 2005. 41 HOLIS 14 Points, under .
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VI Revisiting the Human Security Principles This section will substantiate how the EU might have acted on a more ‘visionary basis’ in response to the tsunami by revisiting the human security principles and capabilities as articulated by the Study Group on Europe’s Security Capabilities and refined in Glasius and Kaldor:42 the primacy of human rights, legitimate political authority, multilateralism, the bottomup approach and regional focus. The principles, while developed primarily with a conflict context in mind, turn out to be extremely relevant to the post-tsunami situation. The capabilities are rather less relevant, and in fact it will be suggested that recent European security policy in general and in response to the tsunami in particular has been rather too much concerned with capabilities, and too little with guiding principles underlying them. Some modest capabilities will be proposed that follow directly from these principles.
1. Primacy of Human Rights There are many human rights dimensions to the aftermath of the tsunami, some of which are directly connected to the disaster, whereas others have been long-term problems in the affected regions. First, there was sexual violence and harassment, not only in the immediate aftermath, but also connected to a continued lack of privacy or protection in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps.43 Secondly, there was the problem of the buffer zone, raising problems from the perspective of the right to livelihood of those who make their living off the sea or the shore. Thirdly, much of the relief effort, because it was uncoordinated, was arbitrary and was perceived by many locals as discriminating either between different tsunami victims, or between those affected by the tsunami and those affected by war and poverty. But the most universal human rights problem related to the tsunami turned out to be the lack of information given to the tsunami victims. They were generally not informed about the government’s schemes or its long-term intentions for different communities, nor was there a systematic information point for the possibilities open to them under the projects of NGOs and international agencies. This lack of access to information impeded and continues to impede their ability to resume their normal lives. There have been some initiatives in this direction, such as mobile legal clinics in Sri Lanka and a Humanitarian Information Centre (for donors, not for the public) in Banda Aceh, but they were very far from having the capacity to fill the 42 43
Study Group, note 4 above; Kaldor and Glasius, Glasius and Kaldor, note 5 above. Oxfam, note 32 above.
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information gap for the affected populations. As will be detailed below, the EU should consider developing crisis information centres so as to strengthen the human rights position of disaster victims. Both Sri Lanka and Aceh also suffer from long-term human rights problems, which occurred long before the tsunami and persisted afterwards. In Sri Lanka, the LTTE continues to recruit and deploy child soldiers; the LTTE and the government bear responsibility for a rising number of political killings, kidnappings and intimidation; police brutality, harassment of minorities and language discrimination by government authorities remain a problem throughout the country; and there are also other non-state actors involved in human rights violations. In Aceh on the other hand, the human rights situation has much improved, but there are still incidents of intimidation and abuse. Recent European Union policy has become more actively concerned with Sri Lanka and Aceh, and more specifically with human rights violations there, and the EU is locally considered as a legitimate actor in this respect in both situations. But as discussed above, it could make a greater contribution by becoming more explicit, visible and consistent in this respect.
2. Legitimate Political Authority The principle that has the most obvious relevance to the post-tsunami situation in Sri Lanka and Aceh is that which the Study Group report refers to as ‘clear political authority’, and we have elsewhere called ‘legitimate political authority’.44 This principle relates both to the aid-giving institution, in this case the European Union, and the aid-receiving governance structures. On the European side, there would have to be a clear political authority behind the policies, coherent and accountable to European citizens. The response to the tsunami exposed the problems with the split of foreign policy between the Council and the Commission. Outside events get coded ‘security’ or ‘development’, and accordingly one or the other institution responds. The tsunami was labelled as a humanitarian/development issue, and hence the Commission took centre stage, and the Council never made a strong input into the tsunami policy. Hence, an early political input into the decision-making, which could have been useful particularly in the Sri Lankan situation, was missing. The Commission made a range of proposals in response to the tsunami, some of which are designed to improve coordination with both Member States and the Council. However, it is somewhat doubtful whether the establishment of more ‘platforms’ and ‘focal points’ will indeed lead to smoother coordination. At least one way of reading the Commission’s ambitious plans is as an 44
Study Group, note 4 above, p. 10; Kaldor and Glasius, note 5 above.
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element in the on-going bureaucratic struggle between the Commission and the Secretariat of the Council. It could be seen as an attempt, on the back of a successful tsunami response, to claw back some of the initiative on crisis capabilities from the Council. In fact, coordination is a matter of authority, not capabilities. Coherent European policy is only possible if there is an agreed recognition of where the authority lies, between Member States and Brussels and between different Brussels institutions. In the absence of a single Foreign Minister as envisaged in the now endangered Constitution, there is little prospect of such an agreed recognition of authority. This will continue to be a major handicap for a coherent external EU policy. The Commission did place great emphasis on transparency, but this tends to be understood in a rather technical sense. Based on our media research, there appears to be a vicious circle where the European public does not expect or monitor EU policy on issues such as the tsunami, and policy-makers do not enter into public debates about it beyond a very small circle of Brussels watchers. On the target side, too, a human security policy should always be aimed towards restoring or strengthening legitimate political authority. Ideally, one might like to see coordination in the hands of an effective, responsive and transparent state. However, recent disasters (not least Katrina) have shown that state authorities capable of dealing successfully with the aftermath of disaster are more the exception than the rule. Moreover, past experiences with famine in Ethiopia or HIV/Aids infections in China have shown that authoritarian states trying to cover up the scale of their incompetence can make more victims than all NGO blunders put together. Herbert Wulff45 suggests that to enhance human security, a ‘multi-level public monopoly of force’ should be created: the competition between different non-state, para-state and state-security providers damages human security, but the solution cannot be to go back to a situation where security provision is vested solely in the central state. Instead, situations must be created in which there is a single provider at different geographical levels, from local to international, which support each other rather than compete. In that way, the different levels can act as safety nets when one level fails. By analogy, it could be argued that the provision of goods and services related to relief and development also requires the strengthening of ‘multi-level public monopolies’ of authority to prevent competition and arbitrary provision, without turning solely to a dysfunctional central authority for the solution. That would mean a policy of strengthening capacity, authority and legitimacy at different levels. A consistent policy of strengthening particularly the role of local authorities as well as local civil society in the relief and reconstruction 45
Herbert Wulff, ‘The Challenges to Re-establishing a Public Monopoly of Violence’ in Marlies Glasius and Mary Kaldor (eds), A Human Security Doctrine for Europe: Project, Principles, Practicalities (Routledge, London, 2005).
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effort, in tandem with support for the central authorities through the trust funds, could have made, and still could make, a real impact on the long-term future of the victims of the tsunami. This would include strengthening their capacity to act as well as their responsiveness and accountability towards their own constituencies. At the same time, a stronger single authority needs to be built at the international level.
3. Multilateralism The third human-security principle with relevance to the tsunami is that of multilateralism, defined as comprising a commitment to international law, a commitment to working with and through international organizations, and a commitment to coordination.46 In response to an early US challenge, the European Union clearly confirmed that the United Nations must be the lead agency in major humanitarian disasters. It also allocated some funding to the strengthening of OCHA. But at the same time the EU appears to have been more concerned with attempting (unsuccessfully) to assert itself as the coordinator between Member States than with answering in turn to OCHA, which barely had the capacity to be the coordinator it was billed to be, either in Sri Lanka or in Aceh. Again, coordination is not just a matter of capacity, but even more so of authority. It is questionable, for instance, why the EU, as well as many of its Member States, needed to have its own needs-assessment teams, instead amalgamating them all into OCHA teams. After the earthquake in Pakistan, it is now being suggested that OCHA should be structurally strengthened with staff and funding to function on more a permanent footing. This is to be welcomed, but will only be helpful if, first, states, including Member States of the EU, are prepared to take guidance from OCHA in terms of what aid to provide and, second, OCHA, which will necessarily lack a prior presence in most disaster areas, will take more guidance from those UN agencies which have long-standing local expertise. In more political terms, the involvement in Aceh and in particular the Monitoring Mission there suggest that the EU can make a helpful multilateral contribution not only in terms of capacity, but also in situations where direct involvement of the UN would be politically sensitive. But it should be careful not to overstep this role, and not to stray from global multilateral decisionmaking. In these ways, the EU could potentially contribute to the international as well as the local aspect of multi-level public monopolies.
46
Study Group, note 4 above, p. 11.
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4. The Bottom-up Approach The fourth principle from the human security doctrine is the ‘bottom-up approach’: ‘the decision about the kind of policies to be adopted . . . must take account of the most basic needs identified by the people who are affected by violence and insecurity’.47 We have noted in an earlier report48 that the development community is much more used to thinking in these terms than the security establishment. However, disaster relief appears to be a bit of an exception in this respect. There is a perception that there is ‘no time’ for consultation. As described above, the European Commission did very quickly have teams of experts on the ground in the tsunami-affected countries. But subsequent reports show little evidence that these were used as upward channels to communicate the needs and concerns of the local populations. There was a lack of connection between the European Union’s mediumterm preoccupations, which related mainly to its pre-existing ambitions to strengthen civilian crisis capabilities, and the reality on the ground, where long-standing human rights problems, lack of information, distrust of the central authorities, and competition between international NGOs were among the main problems. This is in a way the mirror image of the lack of information available to the tsunami victims: international decision-making on the tsunami was insufficiently based on information given by tsunami victims. As will be discussed below, the establishment of ombudspersons or information facilities could stimulate such a two-way flow of information in all kinds of humanitarian situations.
5. Regional Focus The final principle is regional focus. The point of this principle is to focus policies not just at state level, but also at sub- and supra-state level. As detailed above, attention to sub-state dynamics in reconstruction will be of crucial importance to the future of the conflict situations. At supra-state level, in Sri Lanka, the proximity and interests of regional power India are to be taken into account. Its preferences regarding resolution of the conflict, tending towards accommodation of minority rights rather than self-government for the northeast, may or may not run parallel to those of the EU, but either way they cannot be neglected. In Aceh, while the peace process is fragile, the possible spoiling activities of transnational Islamic fanatic groups, connected to other parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, must be closely monitored. 47 48
Ibid., p. 12. Kaldor and Glasius, note 5 above.
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VII Revisiting the Capabilities Whilst this paper makes a case that coherent application of principles is more important at this juncture in EU external policies than the building of new capabilities, we can identify a few capabilities that would have been extremely useful in the response to the tsunami, and could have more general application. These capabilities should not be considered as necessarily appertaining to a particular phase of the response, but could have evolving functions. 1. Human Security Response Force The tsunami did not in itself call for the deployment of a human security response force as proposed by the Study Group on Europe’s Security Capabilities. There were enough, and quite possibly too many, foreign personnel on the ground in the tsunami-affected areas. The Aceh Monitoring Mission on the other hand resembles in many ways the sort of force the Study Group envisaged. Whilst an unarmed mission, it contains a combination of military, police and civilian personnel, who uniquely report exclusively to a single civilian commander in the field. It is to be hoped that in the pursuit of its mandate it will pay particular attention to the primacy of human rights, restoration of legitimate political authority, and the bottom-up approach. There is no doubt that a similar mission in eastern Sri Lanka, reinforcing the tiny Scandinavian ceasefire-monitoring mission, could improve the human security situation there. But whether such a mission will ever be possible will depend on peace negotiations rather than on the capacities of the European Union. 2. Information Centres/Ombudsperson Offices The Study Group on Europe’s Security Capabilities proposed that attached to each EU mission there should be a ‘human security ombudsperson’, who could ‘operate as a “legal information point”, informing the local population of their rights and duties and of the legal provisions in place during the operation’, as well as investigating complaints. Faber and Kaldor have suggested that such offices could also have a function in humanitarian crises where there is no EU deployment.49 The severe information deficit of the tsunami victims has confirmed the potential utility of such a service. The information centres should have no implementation responsibilities, but be tasked solely with providing information to local populations, and 49
Study Group, note 4 above, p. 22; Faber, Jan and Kaldor‚ ‘Human Security in the Caucasus’ in Glasius and Kaldor (eds), note 45 above.
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receiving and investigating complaints relating to relief and reconstruction projects. Such offices should be small and decentralized, and include both staff with intimate knowledge of local circumstances and international staff that can assert themselves vis-à-vis the government officials and international aid agencies. It has also been suggested in response to the tsunami that local human rights groups could have a particular function in post-disaster situations, namely to carry out ‘social-economic mapping’ with a view to establishing which social groups are most vulnerable and at risk of being marginalized in the relief and reconstruction effort.50 Such initiatives could be attached to the information centres. Gender advisors could also function within the centres. They would be tasked specifically with monitoring women’s safety and privacy, reproductive health issues, non-discrimination and with making sure that livelihood projects take into account the different needs of men and women, particularly when single. Depending on the nature of the disaster, child protection officers might also be appropriate. The information centres would be a particularly suitable capability for the European Union precisely because, unlike many other institutional donors, it does not directly implement aid programmes, so there is no conflict of interest.
3. Joint Training and Exercises between the Military and NGOs While the post-tsunami situation did not call for deployment of a human security response force, there was a lack of cordial cooperation between the military and particularly NGO-affiliated civilians, especially in Aceh. There is a window of opportunity in this respect, as there has been a recognition in the normally anti-military NGO community that military capabilities were crucial in the response to the tsunami, particularly in inaccessible areas. But nonetheless, there was a great deal of mutual incomprehension and suspicion on the ground.51 The deployment of both military and NGO personnel sideby-side will probably continue to characterize humanitarian crises situations, where they have both found an institutional niche. Joint training and exercises organized by the EU could help smooth such cooperation. It should include the development of a joint understanding of the concept of human security, and training in context-dependent as well as more universal aspects of humanitarian crises, but most importantly it would involve training in understanding and cooperating with each other. While the military can simply be told to engage in such training, in the case of NGOs it could be made a condition for ECHO or EU funding. 50 V. Suresh, ‘Human Rights and Tsunami Relief in South India’, Seminar at the Asia Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, 14 June 2005. 51 See Schulze, note 3 above.
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4. Expanded Use of the Rapid Reaction Mechanism The EU’s Rapid Reaction Mechanism, established in 2001 (which other than its name might suggest, is nothing more than a fast-funding facility) has had several useful applications in Aceh. Its purpose is to ‘respond urgently to the needs of countries threatened with or undergoing severe political instability or suffering from the effects of a technological or natural disaster’ by supporting ‘measures aimed at safeguarding or re-establishing the conditions under which the partner countries . . . can pursue their long term development goals’.52 It is only a small fund, and its usefulness lies not only in the rapid disbursement of funds (which ECHO is also capable of), but in the fact that it can finance quick, small political initiatives, in areas such as consultation and information, civil society support, conflict resolution, local governance or small-scale research, separate from the relief effort itself. These were precisely the areas in which the tsunami response was most lacking. It is therefore proposed that the RRM should be used more freely to fill gaps left by traditional ‘relief’ and ‘development’ policies.
5. A More Accessible and Visible EU, Starting with its Website The European Commission has made various suggestions for raising the visibility of the EU in the tsunami-affected areas.53 But while it is doubtful whether these regions need yet another participant in the ‘flag-war’, this paper has identified a clear problem with visibility in Europe itself. The rejection of the European Constitution by France and the Netherlands suggests that the lack of visibility in relation to the tsunami is part of a more general problem the EU has with being accessible and visible to its citizens. While this problem goes much deeper than the scope of this paper can address, an overhaul of the EU website would be a good start. European citizens are increasingly accustomed to finding information on the Internet. The existing EU website is daunting to professional researchers, and can hardly be expected to adequately inform, let alone inspire, ordinary citizens.
VIII Conclusion This paper described how, due to the speedy and overwhelming response from many different actors including the European Commission, the victims 52 Rapid Reaction Mechanism website at . 53 Tsunami Indicative Programme, note 17 above.
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of the tsunami were soon supplied with sufficient basic relief. But while the European Union went on to review its civilian capabilities, on the ground distrust of central authorities, oversupply and competition, and general lack of information emerged as major problems. The EU’s policies only very partially addressed these problems. The Study Group on Europe’s Security Capabilities has recommended that the EU should adopt human security, defined as ‘individual freedom from basic insecurities’, as the guiding concept for its external policies. It identified three general reasons for adopting this approach. The first reason is moral and based simply on our common humanity. The second reason is legal, and based on the human rights commitments of the EU and its Member States. The third, and perhaps most compelling, reason is that of ‘enlightened selfinterest’: ‘The whole point of a human security approach is that Europeans cannot be secure while others in the world live in severe insecurity.’54 The tsunami case study has demonstrated further, more practical advantages to the adoption of a human security approach. First of all, a policy taking the human security needs of its beneficiaries as a point of departure (the ‘bottom-up’ approach) would be more innovative and better at identifying gaps (such as the information gap in the tsunami case) than the institutionally defined ‘me-too’ approach the EU currently applies. Hence, the EU could be more effective even without necessarily expanding capabilities or increasing expenditure. Secondly, EU policies actions that are actually grounded in a commonly understood vision, instead of based on ad hoc decision-making, might be less likely to become hostage to the institutional ambitions of different parts of the Brussels apparatus. Finally, a human security vision binding together different aspects of the EU’s external policies, particularly its security and development policies, could be an opportunity to re-fashion the European project. In the abstract, the idea of an EU external policy based on humanitarian principles continues to be surprisingly popular with EU citizens. At the same time, however, very few people actually know what the EU does externally, or look to the EU in a crisis like the tsunami. A coherent policy, overcoming bureaucratic strife and made visible to the European public, could in fact offer a way out of the current constitutional impasse. It would not only do more for the welfare of disaster and conflict victims than just sending in more aid and more experts, it could actually make ‘Europe’ more visible and sellable to the EU’s own citizens.
54 Study Group, note 4 above, pp. 9–10. See also Marlies Glasius and Mary Kaldor, ‘Individuals First: A Human Security Strategy for the European Union’ (2005) 1 Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft, pp. 62–82.
