The Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Kashmiri earthquake

Uncontrollable natural forces produced the earthquake on October 8. But, as with the Asian tsunami and the US hurricane, the terrible and mounting toll of human misery is the product of an outmoded economic system that subordinates social need to the anarchy of the capitalist market. The huge tremour has exposed the pitiful state of emergency services in India and Pakistan, the lack of properly-constructed housing, roads and other infrastructure, and the inadequacy of medical services, communications and essential services.

Once again the working people of South Asia have been given an object lesson not only in the criminal negligence of the local regimes in Islamabad and New Delhi, but in the cant and hypocrisy of “world leaders” in Washington, London, Tokyo and other capitals. For all the cynical expressions of concern, the international aid and assistance—totalling some $300 million—is completely inadequate to meet immediate pressing needs, let alone to help the survivors reconstruct their lives.

Estimates put the number of homeless at more than 3 million. Many have not been reached by emergency workers as roads in the mountainous region have not been cleared and there is a serious shortage of helicopter transport. A statement by the UN World Food Program on Tuesday estimated that half a million people have still received no relief supplies. Doctors and surgeons are working around the clock as the injured continue to arrive from outlying areas. The victims are overwhelmingly the poor, whose makeshift dwellings crumbled immediately and who lost everything.

Yesterday UN Secretary General Kofi Annan timidly criticised the lack of international aid and warned that a second disaster is looming. As the Himalayan winter sets in, hundreds of thousands of people are without proper shelter, clothing and supplies in what are already subzero temperatures. Annan predicted that thousands would die of cold and preventable disease unless more assistance was forthcoming.

The source of the poverty that plagues the Indian subcontinent is no mystery. It is the outcome of the daily operation of economic relations between oppressed and oppressor countries. The huge profits of transnational corporations are directly dependent on access to inexhaustible supplies of cheap labour in countries like India and Pakistan. The existence of hundreds of millions of people living in absolute poverty across South Asia is the essential precondition for the extravagant lifestyles of the super rich in New York, Tokyo and London.

The responses of US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the earthquake reflect the contempt and indifference of the ruling circles they represent toward the impoverished masses of Asia, African and Latin America. Washington’s promise of $50 million and the use of a handful of military helicopters pales into insignificance compared to the huge US resources devoted to the subjugation of Iraq and its vast oil reserves.

World stockmarkets did not even register the quake because it did not affect any major investment or vital resource. As far as the global corporate elites are concerned, the earthquake victims are entirely expendable. Their only function within the world capitalist system is as part of the massive reserve army of labour that can be called on to depress the wages and conditions of workers in other parts of the world.

Insofar as Bush, Blair and other leaders have offered aid and expressions of concern, it has been to prop up their local allies and advance their own economic and strategic agendas. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was already under siege over his support for Bush’s “war on terrorism” and the US invasion of Afghanistan. He now confronts a wave of angry criticism over the failure of his government to provide adequate aid to the quake victims, further undermining his shaky grip on power.

Washington is also hoping to exploit the tragedy to further the so-called peace process between India and Pakistan. Kashmir has been at the centre of the rivalry between the two countries for more than half a century, resulting in three wars and as recently as 2002 the threat of another. The Bush administration’s push for “peace” on the subcontinent is part of broader US ambitions for global economic and strategic dominance. India is a key element in these plans as a major source of cheap labour and potential ally against China.

The reaction of world leaders to the Asian tsunami that killed more than 300,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India was the same. Bush and Blair refused to even alter their vacation plans until the overwhelming outpouring of sympathy and concern by ordinary working people around the world threatened to expose their indifference. As the enormity of the tragedy became apparent, the White House then used it for its own purposes, including to press for the “peace processes” in Sri Lanka and the Indonesian province of Aceh. In line with longstanding US ambitions to reestablish a military presence in South Asia, US troops took part in aid operations in Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/sri-o21.shtml