Unheard Voices

My feeling is that Rezwan bhai has hit the nail on the head. He has hinted at a link between democracy and disaster response/management in the case of Cyclone Nargis. Democracies thrive in open societies with free flow of information. A person’s right to know and people’s right to speak are fundamental to democracies. While some have tried to portray this flow of information and the different media through which they flow as “wastes of time”/ “distractions” that keep people from going about their daily lives, that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire situation. (more…)

I saw this article on the CHT on the BBC website today:

“According to the UN’s development programme, about 125,000 people have been affected by food shortages and the rats.
Some have started to receive aid, but unless more arrives soon these people will be cut off from the outside world, without any food to eat for months.”

AFP beat them to the punch though last month:
“Thousands of people in remote southeast Bangladesh are facing famine after a plague of rats destroyed their crops, forcing families to rely on dwindling food stocks, officials said.

Flowering of bamboo forests for the first time in 50 years in areas along the border with India has led to a so-called “rat-flood” — rodents who have multiplied in number by feeding on bamboo blossoms, rice stalks and vegetables.”

A plague of rats, of all things! It was as if we didn’t have enough to contend with, after going through last summer’s flooding and Sidr, on top of the political-economic storms that have continued unabated for what seems like forever. Bangladesh is always recovering from one disaster or another. If we spend all our time getting back up after getting knocked, when are we expected to get on with the business of development?

This brings us to the first point of this post: we need to reorient our strategic planning from being adaptive (reactive) to be more forward-looking (proactive). From what I gather, the warning systems and shelters that we have on the coast saved countless lives this past cyclone. But those measures all came into being after several brutally hard lessons. If past governments had made those strategic investments in early warning systems and damage control infrastructure earlier, would the human cost of Sidr have been as high as they are now? Could equivalent warning and mitigation strategies been developed for last summer’s flood, or for the floods that are sure to come this summer?

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Zia Choudhury

These are my views, which are primarily influenced by speaking to hundreds of disaster survivors and humanitarian workers. I am happy to be challenged, and happy to answer any questions.

1. Dignity- a key principle. The right to life with dignity is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The dignity part of this indivisible equation is often neglected by aid providers. Media images and our own prejudices don’t help. Disaster survivors are not helpless victims, who rely on the benevolence and charity of others to survive. Throughout all our humanitarian work, we must remember that disaster survivors are always the first to help themselves and each other. External assistance is only ever a small percentage of a coping strategy. In Bangladesh, survivors will already be fixing houses, clearing debris, burying dead, looking for food and supporting one another. Most will survive without receiving any aid at all. Survivors of a disaster are entitled to humanitarian assistance. That assistance should be provided on the basis of need, and not arbitrarily, on the basis of profit or on the basis of race, religion or affiliation. Sadly, much aid is provided in a manner and attitude that undermines a person’s dignity. Consistently, recipients of aid report that they have been treated in an undignified manner. Practically, we need to ensure that our assistance does not contribute to further suffering or indignity. Make sure that your money is channelled through agencies which believe in upholding the principle of life with dignity and can demonstrate it.

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As the Bangladeshi government appeals for more international aid to help the victims of Cyclone Sidr, The BBC’s Alastair Lawson looks at how the country prepared for and is dealing with the aftermath of the devastating storm.

What were the preparations for the Bangladesh cyclone?

The government’s actions before the cyclone have not been criticised. In fact, they have received near universal praise.

People are homeless and many have not eaten for days

It is their actions after the storm struck that have been called into question, in particular their failure to deliver aid quickly.

At least three days before the storm struck, around 10m people were warned through newspaper adverts, megaphone announcements from mosques and on the internet - though given the number of people in this area who are illiterate, this last strategy may not have been so effective.

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Watching news lately has become an emotional trial – I want to know the progress of salvage and rescue efforts in the aftermath of cyclone Sidr at the same time watching the unspeakable sufferings of the victims has become unbearable. A father standing alone washing dead bodies of his two Sons (about the age of my own Son) before burying, a mother crying her heart out after losing everybody in her family and her home and wondering why she was spared and confused about how to carry on, a boy weeping uncontrollably after losing his siblings and parents baffled not to find the only refuge he has seen in form of his loving parents. The story goes on and more clips get aired as the harsh reality gets uncovered and captured through the lens of flocking news crew and cameramen.

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Four Seasons Restaurant burnt, Sat Masjid Road, Dhanmondi
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Went for a random walk around Dhaka during the 3 hour curfew break.
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Suddenly the water turns black and all the dead fishes, alligators and sharks start floating at the rivers adjacent to the Bay of Bengal in the Sundarbans (The last remaining unadulterated forest in Bangladesh). A commercial liner is reported to be in trouble nearby. Blogger AsifY posts a blog on this issue. Not a single reader takes part in the discussion, while hundreds of comments flood the posts on politics, the leaders and their sons. And nobody in Dhaka chattering class makes a single sound about it.

All the sewer wastes of 7 million Dhakaites are collected, processed in 16 large lagoons near Dhaka. Many years ago, some evil traders start raising fish in those sewer collecting depots. These fish are sold in Dhaka markets for years. Government decides to stop it. They poison the fishes and try to collect the dead fishes for burning. Suddenly thousands of local people storm the area, battle with the police, loot the fishes, and run back with the poisoned dead fishes grown in sewer lagoon.

Probably the cry of hunger was a little too intense.

While all these happen, the beastly cry at Dhaka zoo gets louder for a couple of days. As a result of some government bureaucratic entanglement, administrative inefficiency and extreme indifference to the core duty of the job, the animals of Dhaka zoo starve for 3 days. Apparently the budget to buy meat etc for the animal needed some signature at the secretariat. The agriculture advisor, upon hearing the story from media men, call in the zoo officials, some emergency fund is managed and several cows are collected from nearby Savar Dairy farm to feed the zoo animals. These animals would have fed themselves if they were allowed to live in their natural habitat. Now as their natural habitat has been destroyed and they are held captive, it is the responsibility of the captors to feed these animals.

And all these happen when this glowing Dhaka breaks into the list of top ten countries in high tech mobile phone sells.

Somewhereinblog’s Arlid is trying to unite the bloggers in Chittagong to help the relief activities. Arlid is reporting live from their with some tragic stories.

Photo: AFP/Jber Alam

me and rahil reached chittagong at 2pm today. weather is calm and fine, most of the water has subsided in the city areas.

after being told about the three-four worst affected areas, we started towards khushumbag, khulshi. as we got closer, we found ourselves moving on roads of sand, sand sand sand everywhere. trucks were being filled by sand to clean up the roads. we were quickly guided towards the accident spot, and had to walk through mud and water the last 100 meters.

a big chunk of the hill had fallen down, around 10am in the morning 11th june. seven people died here. a small crowd was busy talking to a few visitors, but no organised help had started yet.

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