Reports in this morning’s papers say that 10,000 have been killed in Indonesia by a cyclone and that it has left 1,000,000 people homeless. In an unprecedented move, the Indonesian government have said that they will accept international aid in this, their time of need.
So… Having resisted (read: ignored) international pressure over their corrupt military dictatorship, appalling human rights abuses and their political prisoners, now they want help…
Folks, it’s like this: When you give money to corrupt regimes in “aid”, a large chunk of it magically sticks to the hands of the rulers of said corrupt regimes. That part of it which actually goes where it was meant to go keeps the population just well fed enough that they won’t overthrow their government themselves. Zimbabwe, anybody? How do you think Robert Mugabe is a US dollar multi-billionaire in a country with 6000% inflation? And why do you think that a population with 85% unemployment hasn’t overthrown him yet?
Easy: “The people are always only three meals from revolution” – that’s true in any society in the world. So, what I want to know is this: Why are we providing the three meals which prevent the people of oppressed third-world regimes from deposing rulers who are morally abhorrent and who we don’t want in power anyway?
My take on the Indonesian cyclone is easy: Allow the UN to station troops in Indonesia, arrange for democratic elections, free ALL of their political prisoners, and THEN we’ll help to feed the people. Quid pro quo.
Only it never works like that does it? “Why should the people suffer because of their rulers?” – because those same rulers bleed Western aid dry at the same time as making us pariahs and scapegoats for all of their countries’ ills, and the bottom line is that the people are the only people who can change it. We need to remove their motivation for tolerating the status-quo.
