Call for help with blog about S'pore Tsunami Relief Effort
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I've posted this in sgforums: military nuts and speaker's corner, but thought that this forum might get me some additional (and non-overlapping) coverage.
Please take a look at this new blog: Singapore Tsunami Relief Effort I've started a few days ago to chronicle Singapore's relief efforts in the region.
As is well known to every reader of Straits Times Interactive, news articles are accessible for a total of four--four miserly days (Channel News Asia keep their stuff for 8 days, not much better). Articles in the Straits Times archive is available at a S$2/article fee or a S$900 for a yearly subscription for the service at the SPH (Singapore Press Holding) Newslink.
But apart from ST and CNA, Singapore's relief efforts are hardly ever reported by the international media.
I am appealing to any kind souls out there who saved ST stories relating to Singapore's relief effort (both official and private) from 26 Dec 2004 to 5 Jan 2005. It will greatly help me in putting this blog together. Please help if you can by emailing any relevant ST stories you have in the above stated time frame to me at [email protected]. Thank you!
As long as it is not classified.
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Since starting this past Saturday, I've already covered much of the SAF in Meulaboh, SCDF in Phuket, the medical teams in Sri Lanka, the Singapore Red Cross. (See this post for a quick review.) I am still hoping to post, among other things:
- An overview of the official and private donation and collection drives that brought in the tens of millions of dollars and whole container loads of supplies,
- The efforts of the religious groups and other NGOs,
- The employers who did their bit to help their workers who are from the affected countries,
- Statistics: number of personnel involved in the various locations, amount of money raised, sent or spent, amount of material shipped, etc.
- (non-classified) First-hand accounts from servicemen who were sent on relief missions.
So please help by sending me stories or passing the word around.
Thank you! -
In case you are wondering, these are the news sources I am presently aware of and actively mining for information (as indicated on this post (past saturday) on my blog):
The Singapore Government's "Crises & Emergencies Spotlight - Aceh Quake & Resulting Tsunami" page.
The Singapore Ministry of Defence's "SAF Relief Efforts in Tsunami-hit Countries" page.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force's "Operations Lionheart" page.
Channel News Asia's "Tsunami Disaster: The Aftermath" page (archive of 7 days).
Straits Times (registration required; it's a pity ST is not maintaining a special page where all the Tsunami related news are collected together; and news articles are accessible for only 4 days...).
And if you read Chinese: Lianhe Zaobao.
The Singapore Red Cross.
And a few others less prominent ones. -
International media is quite scant with news about Singapore's efforts.TIME, ECONOMIST and other newsmagazines have not even mentioned one single action done by our SAF in Meluaboh.
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Anyone else sense the subtle chauvinism at work in this week's Asian copy of Time Magazine? The write-ups aside, it has 3 photos of military aid in action - & 2 of them happen to be American (the medic with the child on the front cover, plus an aerial shot of a chopper taking off). The 3rd was one of the TNI soldiers.
Cue "John Wayne is Big Leggy" ~scarcasm~ As if the USA are the only aid helpers in town.
Compare that to today's ST, which has a series of photos portraying relief reliefs by troops from different countries (some even gotong royong-ing together). -
You need not rely on the local media for reports on the tsunami.
International media are more prone to be balanced in their coverage, especially independent companies such as Reuters.
A convergent source of information can be found here: http://news.google.com
Use their search function to find the news.
Personally, I find the local media coverage extremely egoistic - they focused more on the actions the SAF did, and trumpeted heroic deeds by these people (I am not denying their contributions, or anything), but I feel that the victims of the tsunami are the true heros. They have to bear with years of suffering in the aftermath of the disaster: the loss of their family members, their way of life is changed for the foreseeable future, and their livelihood hangs precariously in the economic ruins of their states. -
Personally, I find the local media coverage extremely egoistic - they focused more on the actions the SAF did, and trumpeted heroic deeds by these people (I am not denying their contributions, or anything), but I feel that the victims of the tsunami are the true heros.
Huh? It's a great tragedy but on the contrary, I don't think the local media have sensationalized anything one bit. The reporters on the ground are just providing first-hand account; I'm sure there's one or two who come across as novice eye-openers (blame it on sheltered lives & mundane news beat) but overall IMO they're doing a great job. Now, deploying a Sumiko Tan or a Janice Wong would've likely make an irritating read - but that's just me ~lol~
Sure, the focus is S'porean but then no local media agency (other than CNA, I suppose) have pretensions about a wider pan-Asian viewpoint - incidentally, that's why the latest Time Magazine was so chauvinistic to me in its photo coverage. More than that, those embedded with the HATF people to Aceh are giving a rare narrative of a large-scale SAF military operation in action.
I think the readers are generally smart enough to keep things in perspective, even as some may become fatigued at the length & depth of the news coverage. Plenty of pointers here & there for mental reorientation, for example:-
- the AWSJ article which the ST reprinted a few days back, which gave a brief but fair summary on what the SAF did in Meuloboh (essentially open up air links, then sea links, then road links to the devastated area, while ferrying relief supplies & personnel).
- another's a Cedric Foo comment, about "everything's being done in crisis mode, at breakneck speed [by us]".
- tracing back, it would appear that the SAF 1st sent the mobilization order down the ranks on 28th Dec: the 1st C130 plane flew out that day, the choppers/medical teams/SCDF personnel would fly out the next 2 days (to 3 countries), & the LST fully loaded a day later.
- SAF activity in Sumatra is concentrated only in Banda Aceh & Meulaboh, with a 3rd city, Medan, another pickup point for RSAF flights flying to those 2 cities.
- a World Food Programme press release stated how 10 days after the tsunami (i.e. Jan 4, the day LHL flew out to get a 1st-hand look), aid was reached to only a quarter of the survivors, & how transport was still being limited to choppers & hovercrafts given the ground inaccessibility plus the occasional aftershock/monsoon that were causing flash floods & rough weather.
I didn't find it too difficult to digest these bits of reality checks at all. -
I use google news and yahoo news all the time, not to mention a variety of blogs (instapundit, chrenkoff, diplomad, belmontclub, tsunamihelp) with more extensive tsunami relief coverage. And whenever something relevant shows up, I link it.
But the point of my blog is to cover tsunami relief from the Singapore angle. There's more than enough out there about the doings of the Americans, Australians, etc.
It's not a matter of being egoistic: look, this thing happened right in our neighborhood. There is an imperative that we draw lessons from it for ourselves.
You can read more about what I hoped to do with the blog here:
http://ripostes.blogspot.com/2005/01/because-there-is-no-reason-that-i.html[/i] -
You are kidding right? I'm not saying that the local media is exemplary in being fair and balanced, but this sounds native...Originally posted by pkchukiss:You need not rely on the local media for reports on the tsunami.
International media are more prone to be balanced in their coverage, especially independent companies such as Reuters.
I'm glad they focused on the SAF--because, apart from CNA, no other press houses care too much about what they did (with scant exceptions, all of which I link as soon as I find them). See this post:Originally posted by pkchukiss:Personally, I find the local media coverage extremely egoistic - they focused more on the actions the SAF did, and trumpeted heroic deeds by these people (I am not denying their contributions, or anything), but I feel that the victims of the tsunami are the true heros. They have to bear with years of suffering in the aftermath of the disaster: the loss of their family members, their way of life is changed for the foreseeable future, and their livelihood hangs precariously in the economic ruins of their states.
http://singaporerelief.blogspot.com/2005/01/non-local-press-coverage-updated.html
And this is despite the fact that the SAF was just about the first to be on the scene helping the TNI. While the American media was still squabbling about whether the Bush Admin. was too stingy, the first LST was already on its way to Meulaboh. While the US Marines were still negiotiating with the Indonesians about whether they should carry their weapons on shore, the SAF has already built the landing sites, and by the time they did come ashore, the second LST has already been there for 4 days!.
I would be hesitant to call the people in SAF "heroes"--mostly because I suspect that they would be hesitant about that themselves. I tend to think that as far as they are concern, they are merely doing their job. But I salute them for doing their part, for doing what we as a country should do. They--and all the NGO volunteers, land rover drivers, SCDF officers, and everyone else who contributed--are examples for the rest of us. -
The sequence of early events can be spelt out more fully:Originally posted by Moxie:- tracing back, it would appear that the SAF 1st sent the mobilization order down the ranks on 28th Dec: the 1st C130 plane flew out that day, the choppers/medical teams/SCDF personnel would fly out the next 2 days (to 3 countries), & the LST fully loaded a day later.
Dec 26: news of the earthquake and the tsunami broke, the SAF and SCDF were put on alert to deploy the usual sort of disaster relief teams (SAF medical teams and SCDF DARTs--typically 25 strong each; and the C-130s to bring them there).
Late Dec 26, early DEc 27: the enormity of the disaster became known, the SAF put more of its forces on standby. The RSAF had its C-130s, Fokker 50s, and helicopters flying within 48 hours of being activated to ferry relief supplies.
Dec 28: SAF decided to send a LST, personnel worked 24 hrs/day to get the ship prepared from cold start.
Dec 29: 2 DART teams and 8 helicopters dispatched to Indonesia and Thailand.
Dec 31: after 72 hours, RSS Endurance sets off, expecting to be in the disaster area in another 36 to 48 hours to start work.
Jan 2: RSS Endurance arrives off shore Meulaboh: that's under 120 hours or five days--three to prepare and two at sea--from the decision to deploy to commencement of actual relief work.
See my post:
http://singaporerelief.blogspot.com/2005/01/saf-relief-deployment-to-indonesia-and.html
Sometimes, I do wish other departments would be as efficient as the SAF. -
Theory, check yer mail.
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Got it! Thanks so much... (don't forget that I'm in Canada--if it's am in Singapore, it's pm here)
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