When Disaster Strikes Twice
Adelina Kamal believes ASEAN should adopt a more dynamic and context-sensitive approach to responding to natural disasters, particularly in conflict settings, as expressed on a recent podcast conversation. She advocates for establishing clear principles and codes of conduct that differentiate between standard disaster scenarios and those complicated by ongoing conflicts, such as the Myanmar crisis. Kamal emphasizes the importance of not over-relying on the existing disaster management agreements and mechanisms like the AHA Centre, which assume that the affected governments are willing and able to help their people. Instead, she calls for ASEAN to prioritize local and trusted humanitarian actors who have the confidence of the affected populations. This approach would involve bypassing untrustworthy or illegitimate authorities and ensuring that aid is directed efficiently and effectively. Kamal argues that ASEAN should redefine its strategies to be more people-centered, aligning its actions with the true spirit of the ASEAN Charter, which places people at the heart of its mission.
So when natural disaster happens in a regional conflict setting or when the government is basically slowing down as you said, the complexity of the emergency erupts.
For example, a natural disaster named ‘Cyclone Mocha’ actually occurred last year in conflict-torn zone in Myanmar. This is related to my argument made in the article for the Jakarta Post. Firstly, you cannot expect a rambutan tree to produce a durian fruit, meaning that we cannot base a disaster management agreement to provide humanitarian assistance at a conflict setting like the Myanmar crisis and the Rohingya crisis, because the context is totally different. Secondly, the premise is different because the disaster management agreement that established the AHA Centre was created with the assumption that the elected government of the country affected by a disaster is able and willing to help their own people. Meanwhile, in the situation of the Rohingya crisis or the 2021 coup, the so-called government of Myanmar is openly unwilling to help their own people! So, I think the context has to be differentiated. Thirdly, I think ASEAN should not over-rely on the disaster management agreement and the disaster management mechanism (i.e., the AHA Centre) created by that disaster management agreement by the AHA Centre. There have been an over-reliance on the AHA Centre.
There should be some kind of principle or code of conduct that will guide decision-making for ASEAN leaders, in the context of a natural disaster happening in a conflict setting. ASEAN should come up with effective measures, specifically responding to what is happening in Myanmar after the coup. How should we consider the current authority? How should we treat that authority? How should ASEAN actually deal with it? So, that kind of specific conduct is not yet in existence.
This lack of proper code of conduct in dealing with the Myanmar crisis is making things difficult for anyone working in the humanitarian community (i.e., socio-cultural pillar) in ASEAN. In spite of this special assignment coming from the ASEAN leaders out of a political crisis, I was not going to just readily utilize the disaster management agreement.
Some people in the organization has asked me, ‘why can't you just move in? And just drop the boxes?’. I told them, ‘No cannot!’. And this is where I asked them back, ‘What is your end goal? What is the objective of our mission here?’. If the objective of our mission is just to drop boxes at the airport, it is very easy because we have done it for over 30 times from the AHA Centre. We have experiences of facilitating ASEAN countries in response to a catastrophic natural disaster.
At least the good news is ASEAN have the capability to provide humanitarian assistance and the pride to bring solidarity among the ASEAN countries in times of a natural disaster crisis. Still, we cannot use that pride in that context of what is happening in Myanmar, because we have yet to pass a bridge. That first bridge is in defining how we understand that coup in 2021.
ASEAN cannot just send an army of soldiers onto the conflict zones in Myanmar. Are we just simply dropping boxes onto the ground? Dropping boxes is easy. But, if we really want to alleviate the suffering of the people and make our assistance effective, not just performative, then we have to first question whether it is the right focal point? Are we allowing our assistance to be manipulated by the junta chief who bomb and kills his own people? The Disaster Management and Emergency Response says that, the government who requested humanitarian assistance is also in charge of the direction and control of the assistance procedure. The so-called government can decide who should be receiving the assistance and how the assistance will be received. That would be acceptable, only in a context where the government is able and willing to help their own people. That would also mean we are respecting the national sovereignty and the right of a country. We cannot just come into a country where there is a natural disaster with a tourist visa, and then say, ‘Oh, I'm coming with my search and rescue dogs and 10 of strong search and rescue men, to help you.’ But if the so-called ‘government’ in Myanmar, which is actually an illegal and illegitimate ‘government,’ is killing their own people, why should we actually wait on them for their consent? So, the issue of consent is very critical here. This is why the disaster management agreement cannot be used. The disaster management mechanism cannot be used for that purpose. There is an over-reliance and frankly, an abuse of humanitarian assistance system.
Therefore, I was really angry. I was so angry that AHA Centre was used by our political leaders.
But it is extremely important that ASEAN pass the bridge of, first and foremost, defining the coup as unconstitutional by the ASEAN charter. Our focal point should be that we cannot use the disaster management agreement that makes the assumption that Myanmar’s so-called government is able and willing to help their own people. Combining that analysis with what I hear from the people of Myanmar, collectively telling us that they cannot trust the military junta because they are being killed by the miliary soldiers.
People of Myanmar want to get assistance from those who they trust and whom they believe are most effective in assisting them in this humanitarian crisis. From these combined analysis brought me to the other analysis, which states that if you really want to help out effectively, then we should try to find those who can do humanitarian work better and those who can be trusted by the people of Myanmar. This will then lead to the matter of consent, given by those affected by the crisis, as whole state to those who wants to help, the humanitarian organizations. It is the right of the affected population to get humanitarian assistance. They should not even have to ask for it. In the case of Gaza, for instance, they do not have to ask for assistance simply because it is a human right for those affected by the crisis to get international assistance.
Now, the question is should we actually get approval or consent from the military junta who is a killer? It just doesn't make sense at all!
So, the dilemma that I had when I was inside the ASEAN, is whether to follow the ASEAN leaders’ direction smoothly or to find other ways of providing humanitarian assistance outside of the ASEAN. Therefore, even after I had that life changing moment, I wrote that Jakarta Post article and then after that, I wrote some other articles, and then I got approach by people on the ground. I am humbled to be invited by them to see their own operations on the ground. I traveled with them. Many of them are courageous women. They basically showed me that it can be done. From there, I became more confident that it is possible to provide human assistance without needing consent from the so-called government or the military junta state. I call it ‘human resistance,’ which is still humanitarian assistance and those who practice humanitarian resistance are humanitarians. The difference is that they are completely disengaged with the junta, they go through other way to provide an alternative assistance mechanism. At the same time, they liberate themselves, they make themself resilient, and they are breaking barriers.
This is what ASEAN needs to see, especially in view of our history and our promise, because the ASEAN charter begins with the statement, ‘We the People of ASEAN’. So, ASEAN needs to transform itself from being an elite regional grouping dominated by nation states to a truly people-centered community whereby the people holds the ultimate sovereign power of their respective countries. But right now, the power of ASEAN is dominated by states and perhaps, many of them are not aware that their power was given by the people.
That is what ‘government’ means.