U.N. attempts to take credit for USAID's work.

Doesn't suprise me how the United Nations (UN) is trying to take credit for what USAID is doing to get the job done for the tsunamis victims.


Saturday, January 01, 2005
UN Death Watch . . .

Well, we're heading into Day 7 of the Asian quake/tsunami crisis. And the UN relief effort? Nowhere to be seen except at some meetings and on CNN and BBC as talking heads. In this corner of the Far Abroad, it's Yanks (that means the United States of America - kokonut pundits) and Aussies doing the hard, sweaty work of saving lives.

Check out this interview (on the UN's official website) with Sec. Gen Annan and Under Sec. Gen Egeland shows:

Mr. Egeland (that's your favorite Norwegian Jan Egeland - link provided by Kokonut Pundits): Our main problems now are in northern Sumatra and Aceh.<...> In Aceh, today 50 trucks of relief supplies are arriving. <...> Tomorrow, we will have eight full airplanes arriving. I discussed today with Washington whether we can draw on some assets on their side, after consultations with the Indonesian Government, to set up what we call an “air-freight handling centre” in Aceh.

Tomorrow, we will have to set up a camp for relief workers – 90 of them –which is fully self-contained, with kitchen, food, lodging, everything, because they have nowhere to stay and we don't want them to be an additional burden on the people there.

I provided this to some USAID colleagues (link by Kokonut Pundits) working in Indonesia and their heads nearly exploded. The first paragraph is quite simply a lie. The UN is taking credit for things that hard-working, street savvy USAID folks have done. It was USAID working with their amazing network of local contacts who scrounged up trucks, drivers, and fuel; organized the convoy and sent it off to deliver critical supplies. A UN “air-freight handling centre” in Aceh? Bull! It's the Aussies and the Yanks who are running the air ops into Aceh. We have people working and sleeping on the tarmac in Aceh, surrounded by bugs, mud, stench and death, who every day bring in the US and Aussie C-130s and the US choppers (link provided by Kokonut Pundits); unload, load, send them off. We have no fancy aid workers' retreat -- notice the priorities of the UN? People are dying and what's the first thing the UN wants to do? Set up "a camp for relief workers" one that would be "fully self-contained, with kitchen, food, lodging, everything."

The UN is a sham!
http://diplomadic.blogspot.com/


U.S. aircraft carrier reaches Sumatra, Marines head toward Sri Lanka
JAKARTA, Indonesia – One of the biggest U.S. military disaster relief missions in history kicked into high gear Saturday as an aircraft carrier battle group arrived off the shores of tsunami-battered Sumatra and began launching helicopters laden with supplies.

A flotilla carrying Marines and water purifying equipment was heading for Sri Lanka, meanwhile, and a former staging base for B-52 bombers in Thailand roared with the takeoffs and landings of giant cargo planes.

At least nine Seahawk helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln began flying badly needed relief missions, supplying material for temporary shelters into villages along Sumatra's devastated northwest coast.


Here's President Bush' January 1, 2005 radio address.


And a final note about the whereabouts of the United Nations in all this mess (of theirs):

We have US C-130s flying in and out of here dropping off heaps of supplies; US choppers arrive today; USAID is doing a knock-out job of marshalling and coordinating US and local resources to deliver real assistance to real people. The Aussies have planes and troops delivering stuff; even the Indians have goods on the way. The UN? Nowhere to be seen. OK, I'm not being fair. Last night they played host to a big "coordination" meeting of donors to announce that the UNDP has another large "assessment and coordination team" team arriving. Our USAID guys, who've been working 18-20 hrs/day, came back furious from this meeting saying everybody would be dead if the delivery of aid waited for the UN to set up shop and begin "coordinating."

The UN types are upset with the US, Ms. Short, dear, not because we're undermining them but because we're showing them up as totally inept.

And the people who want to rant about the "stinginess" ("too little, too late") on the United States part can simply ram it up where the sun doesn't shine.

While PRESIDENT Bush is getting things done in a very big way rather than go through the "I feel your pain" empathy route a la Bill Clinton by biting his lower lip, Bill Clinton need to learn to stop showboating and taking the spotlight just to feed his delusional political purposes (hoping to have them transferred over to his dear Senator Hillary Clinton) by taking advantage of an international disaster of epic proportion. But that's Bill Clinton. Right?

You guys get my drift, yet? Get in there and help for a change!