The special ASEAN tsunami summit held in the
Indonesian capital Jakarta on Thursday began with a moment of
silence in memory of the more than 150,000 people killed in the
December 26 catastrophe.
At the one-day meeting, leaders from 26 tsunami-hit
nations, donor countries and international organizations, including
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao,
gathered to discuss how to deal with the aftermath of the
catastrophe.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
chaired the meeting, with special envoys from Indonesia, Myanmar,
Malaysia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand giving
presentations. Participants adopted a joint declaration dealing
with such issues as emergency relief, reconstruction and disaster
prevention before wrapping up the summit with more pledges of
aid.
Annan urged parties to convert their pledges into
cash quickly. "To protect the maximum number of lives, to restore
dignity and hope, our assistance must be timely and well
coordinated," he said.
Premier Wen called for the world community to
improve its emergency relief and rebuilding operations while
installing an early-warning system in countries at risk from
disasters like the devastating quake and tsunami.
The Chinese government has pledged to provide an
additional US$20 million for multilateral relief and reconstruction
efforts, Wen said. The day after the tragedy, it had promised $2.6
million, and upped the figure to 521.6 million yuan (US$63.0
million) on December 31.
Half of the pledged donations will be paid out by
the end of January.
China will also write off all of Sri Lanka's
government debt and reduce the amounts owed by some of the
hardest-hit countries, he told the one-day conference
yesterday.
"I have come to this meeting with a heavy heart,"
Wen said at the start of his address.
This is the largest foreign relief operation China
has ever mounted, said Wen.
"The post-disaster rebuilding and rehabilitation is
an arduous task, calling for vigorous support and assistance from
the international community," Wen said. "China is ready to actively
contribute to these efforts."
The second shipment of aid from China is being
delivered, he noted, as well as donations from individuals and
institutions.
China has appealed to other countries and
international organizations to work more closely in aid drives and
to follow through on their pledges.
The scale of the disaster reinforced the need to
establish an early-warning mechanism, Wen said. China will host a
Sino-ASEAN workshop concerning this issue on January 25 and 26 in
Beijing
The premier said China is ready to share data and
services available from its Fengyun-2 meteorological satellite with
countries in the region, to help them with weather forecasts,
environment monitoring and disaster assessment.
He also proposed a 10-1 (ASEAN plus China) seminar
on post-disaster disease prevention to be sponsored by the
China-ASEAN Fund for Public Health.
Wen said China will support efforts to revive
tourism industries devastated by the tsunami, and will encourage
its citizens to travel to the countries when conditions return to
normal.
At a press conference after the close of the
summit, Annan said the international community is grateful to the
Chinese government for its help.
"The government response has been matched by
unprecedented generosity from the general public. Consider the
six-year-old boy in Shenyang, China, who donated his life savings
of US$22."
The European Union unveiled an aid package that
brought total contributions from the EU and individual members to
nearly US$2 billion.
It pledged an additional 350 million euros (US$462
million) and a 1 billion euro concessional loan through the
European Investment Bank. "Asian grief is our grief," European
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said at a press conference
in Jakarta.
As of Thursday, governments and international
organizations had pledged approximately US$4 billion in financial
assistance.
Premier Wen returned to China after the summit,
arriving in Shenzhen on Thursday night.
(China Daily January 7, 2005)