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Regional powers provide a pittance in aid to tsunami victims in Solomon Islands
The response of the Australian and New Zealand governments to the humanitarian crisis in Solomon Islands underlines their callous indifference toward the people of the Pacific island states. A massive earthquake triggered a tsunami on April 2, devastating much of the Western and Choiseul provinces and causing a series of landslides on Ranonga Island. Thousands of people have been displaced, leaving them vulnerable to disease and food shortages.
Canberra is intent on understating the depth of the suffering. Interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on April 14, Australian High Commissioner Peter Hooton said: “I have the impression that the relief effort is in pretty good shape, and that certainly coordination has improved over the course of this operation.”
This is to pass off the Howard government’s miserly approach as a genuine response to the tsunami disaster. Canberra is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars defending its strategic and economic interests in the Solomons, but remains indifferent to the welfare of ordinary people. So far, the Howard government has contributed just $3 million toward the relief effort.
By contrast, $850 million has been allocated for 2005-09 to finance the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), which in 2003 took control over the key institutions of the state—the prisons, the police and the finance ministry.
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/solo-a26.shtml
This is to pass off the Howard government’s miserly approach as a genuine response to the tsunami disaster. Canberra is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars defending its strategic and economic interests in the Solomons, but remains indifferent to the welfare of ordinary people. So far, the Howard government has contributed just $3 million toward the relief effort.
By contrast, $850 million has been allocated for 2005-09 to finance the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), which in 2003 took control over the key institutions of the state—the prisons, the police and the finance ministry.
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/solo-a26.shtml
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