http://www.google.com/notebook/feeds/06178296351773431359/notebooks/BDQUjIgoQn4P3_pwi/NDQWIIwoQxrm9-_Ei2007-12-28T06:27:47.526Z2007-12-28T06:33:20.274ZWhile this next article centers around Australia's portion of donations to ts...While this next article centers around<strong> </strong><strong style="font-weight:normal">Australia's portion of donations to tsunami victims back in '04, the U.S. gave $350 million to the same cause. Also please remember that the U.S. was one of the main targets by members in the U.N. for not giving enough.<br><br>Ref: CNN article <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/31/us.aid/index.html">"U.S. ups tsunami aid from $35 million to $350 million"</a><br>============<br><br></strong><div>
<h1>Tsunami aid 'spent on politics'</h1>
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<a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22974796-2702,00.html">http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22974796-2702,00.html</a><br>
<a href="http://mercury.tiser.com.au/adclick/SITE=TAUS/AREA=NEWS.NATIONAL/AAMSZ=110X40/pageid=1">
<img src="http://mercury.tiser.com.au/nserver/SITE=TAUS/AREA=NEWS.NATIONAL/AAMSZ=110X40/pageid=1"></a>
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<div><p>Ean Higgins
| <em>December 27, 2007</em>
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<p><strong>THREE
years after Australians donated $400 million to rebuild Asian lives
devastated by the 2004 tsunami, aid groups are under attack for
spending much of the money on social and political engineering.</strong></p>
<p>A
survey by The Australian of the contributions by non-government
organisations to the relief effort found the donations had been spent
on politically correct projects promoting left-wing Western values over
traditional Asian culture. </p>
<p>The activities - listed as tsunami relief - include a "travelling
Oxfam gender justice show" in Indonesia to change rural male attitudes
towards women. </p>
<p>Another Oxfam project, reminiscent of the ACTU's Your Rights at Work
campaign, instructs Thai workers in Australian-style industrial
activism and encourages them to set up trade unions. </p>
<p>A World Vision tsunami relief project in the Indonesian province of
Aceh includes a lobbying campaign to advance land reform to promote
gender equity, as well as educating women in "democratic processes" and
encouraging them to enter politics. </p>
<p>Also in Aceh, the Catholic aid group Caritas funds an Islamic
learning centre to promote "the importance of the Koran". This is seen
as recognition of the importance of Islam in a province that has been
the scene of a long-running and bloody independence struggle against
the secular central Government. </p>
<p>The earthquake on December26, 2004, created the most powerful
tsunami in 40 years, killing about 230,000 people in 12 Indian Ocean
nations, just under half of them in Aceh. </p>
<p>Critics say the aid agencies have exceeded the mandate provided to
them by mum-and-dad donors from middle Australia who thought they were
giving money to rebuild houses and lives shattered by the tsunami,
rather than forcing the ideological views of the Australian Left on
traditional Asians. </p>
<p>One critic, Don D'Cruz, wrote at the outset of the relief operation
that Indonesian claims of "foreign interference" through Australian
NGOs were too often brushed aside.</p>
Mr D'Cruz, then a research fellow with the right-wing think tank the
Institute of Public Affairs, wrote "it would be a mistake to ignore the
substance of these claims, especially when it comes to the activities
of Western aid groups operating in Indonesia. The trend among aid
organisations has been to become more involved in politics, although
this activism has been largely masked."
<p>Going beyond humanitarian and development aid, he wrote, risked alienating Asian governments, which could deny access. </p>
<p>Looking through their websites, the aid groups ventured farbeyond standard aid and development. </p>
<p>The Oxfam website describes how $18,690 of its tsunami relief fund
is being spent on a theatre production to "help change attitudes toward
women in Acehnese society". </p>
<p>"In one scene, Apa Kaoy, who cannot cook, grumbles when his wife,
exhausted from working in the rice field, has not prepared supper,"
Oxfam says of the play. </p>
<p>"In another, he disapproves of his daughter's ambition to study at
university. Instead, holding a newspaper upside down because he cannot
read, Apa Kaoy tells his daughter it is important that she learn to
cook, clean, marry and have children. </p>
<p>"Eventually, though, his attitude towards women softens as other more enlightened men point out the error of his ways." </p>
<p>Oxfam Australia chief executive Andrew Hewett yesterday said his
organisation initially concentrated on immediate humanitarian relief,
including providing food, shelter and medicine to those affected by the
tsunami. </p>
<p>It had since then turned to reconstruction, and rebuilding the ability of those affected to earn a living. </p>
<p>But Mr Hewett said Oxfam "did not shy away" from its concentration
on those less well off and less empowered, including women, indigenous
groups and the low caste, saying it was a practical issue of delivering
aid for maximum effect. </p>
<p>"Women, like it or not, fare least well when it comes to resources
and political power, including within a village community, and those
who are disadvantaged often suffer most when disaster hits," he said.</p>
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