Culture Change Media International Editor
New York, NY - January 14, 2005

January 13, 2005, seemingly, was Jan Egeland day at the U.N. in New York and at the larger international community in New York as well. 

Mr. Jan Egeland is the embattled, but rather successful and well-meaning, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Humanitarian Relief Coordination - OCHA, the second largest office at the U.N. He is the emergency Relief Coordinator in the post-Tsunami world activities. His troubles were caused by a statement of his, made to the press in Geneva, that a new outside auditing system of the record expressions of generosity for the victims of the Tsunami will not only guard against misuse of funds given to the United Nations (in this time of U.N. criticism in the follow up to the "oil-for-food issue"), but will also make sure that governments indeed meet their pledges. 

Mr. Egeland’s comments are based on reality of pledges made to help Honduras and Caribbean island-states after the hurricanes of 2004, and the reality that only a very small fraction of these funds materialized after the dimming of the lights of publicity - to be exact - only $19 million came in from what was pledged after hurricane Mitch - really , only a very small fraction of what was promised. The lights moved to the next emergency and next public disaster area, and the old emergency was forgotten by the donors. Mr. Egeland also listed the main donor countries in order of the size of their donations, and in response to a journalist said something about stinginess of the largest economy which was taken to mean the U.S. The above caused an uproar by a sector of U.S. publicists and even some name-calling from the likes of Pat Buchanan. 

Nevertheless, outgoing U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador John C. Danforth, who served at the UN only for half a year, in his remarks to the Security Council January 13, 2005, said that his half year at the UN showed him the importance of the institution despite the oil-for-food issue, and gave the various peacekeeping efforts and the UN’s response to the tsunami disaster, as instances where the United Nations has demonstrated its essential quality. Was he coming to the aid of Mr. Egeland? 

January 13th started for me with an 8:00 a.m. briefing by Mr. Egeland at the Asia Society. This meeting was organized by former US Representative to the UN., Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke who was, as assumed, Senator Kerry’s favorite for becoming US Secretary of State, and who is now Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Asia Society. Mr. Holbrooke started by giving a long and detailed profile of Mr. Egeland who in his formative years was a Fullbright Scholar at U.C. Berkeley, a fellow at the International Peace Research Institute - Oslo, and a fellow at the Truman Institute for Advancement for Peace - Jerusalem. He was the Chairman of the Norwegian Amnesty International and Vice Chair of the International Executive Committee, and headed the Norwegian Red Cross. He co-initiated and co-organized the Norwegian Channel between Israel and the PLO in 1992 which led to the Oslo Accord. At the U.N. he was involved in peace negotiations in Colombia and Guatemala and led the host delegation for the Oslo adoption in 1997 of the Ottawa treaty to ban land mines. In short, Mr. Holbrooke, who said that Egeland is a friend of his since a long time and has 25 years worth of credentials on humanitarian issues that can not be sullied by the likes of Pat Buchanan!

January 13th ended for me at an evening meeting of the U.N. Association of New York (UNA-NY) where Mr. Egeland spoke again on “Humanitarian assistance in Asia - Tsunami Crisis.” (Someone in the audience pointed out that Somalia is in Africa). 

The U.N. Flash Appeal of January 6 brought at the Geneva Conference $738 million from governments, the figure stood by January 13 at $5 billion.

5,000 miles of coastline are affected with 5 million people in need. The rescue and rebuilding operations are complicated further by the fact that the area affected includes three conflict zones - Aceh in Indonesia, the Tamil Tiger activity in Sri Lanka, and Somalia - causing mixed feelings by members of the host governments. 

Further, it is obvious that what has happened must also prompt us to new activities that will help decrease the effects of such future events. 

Mr. Egeland advocates three points:

- to capitalize on increased awareness to get serious about disaster prevention and risk reduction. 

- to create a Tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean. He said that this would cost $30 million - just think how this pales in comparison with the present losses. 

- the upcoming World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan, to be chaired by Mr. Egeland. 

Further, given that earthquakes and Tsunamis are not novel phenomena, nevertheless, there is a new aspect to worry about: the fact that the global ice caps are melting. Considering the shape of the earth is such that the globe, because of the weight of of the solid ice caps, is flattened somewhat at the poles, the melting of the caps will release some of this pressure and cause further movement of the earth plates. This movement causes earthquakes, and earthquakes bring about Tsunamis. This theory may thus predict an increase of this sort of event not only for the Pacific. The above question was presented to Mr. Egeland at the evening meeting and he said that he has not heard this before, but what it means is that we should also use less cars. 

So-called natural disasters may not be ordained by nature after all. The hand of man may have to do something with all of this. The fact that a Norwegian, whose country’s economy is largely based on oil is recognizing the problem - in public - is readily proof to me that Mr. Holbrooke’s laudatory of Mr. Egeland was just right. Mr. Egeland is indeed capable of the altruism needed to do a honest job out of the predicaments he is being faced with; he may indeed be among the best the U.N. is capable of, as said by Mr. Holbrooke, and reinforced by the unexpected Danforth comments that same day. 

Should the post-Tsunami activities include also mitigation of the effects of Climate Change, and reinforce our vigilance in looking for effects of the man-caused release of fossil carbon into the atmosphere? An increase in the frequency and strength of earthquakes may point to this need. The U.S. Academy of Science has already pointed out the possibility of catastrophic environmental changes because of our over-dependence on fossil fuels.

(This article was first posted on CultureChange.org)