TSUNAMI DISASTER: The bulk of Irish government aid in the south-east Asia earthquake disaster will probably be focused on Sri Lanka, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, told The Irish Times yesterday evening. The Minister flew into Colombo last night, on the last leg of his trip across the disaster area, which included visits to Phuket, Thailand and Aceh, Indonesia.
"From what I've seen so far, I think Sri Lanka will become the main focus of our attention but obviously, that would be something we would have to do in conjunction with the NGOs. We would also have to be conscious of the fact that there is a significant number of NGOs already in areas of Indonesia".
Earlier in the day, the minister was in Indonesia, where aircraft stacked over Banda Aceh airport and confusion on the ground left him with no more than a few hours to absorb the scenes of devastation in the city. "There is difficulty getting into Indonesia because we were going to Aceh, the worst affected area, which is situated in what has been a war zone for the last 15 years. I had to make a judgment call about going in. We travelled to Banda Aceh, 45 minutes away by Government jet, but even then, we had to fly over the airport twice to wait for a space".
After a hectic day, logistically, the Minister was still clearly disturbed by what he had seen during his truncated visit there.
"We had flown over Phuket, where the areas affected were isolated and localised But Banda Aceh was like film clips of Hiroshima. From the air, you could see a dividing line down the middle of the city. One side of it was fine; on the sea side, it was just annihilation.
"But even that didn't prepare you for what was on the ground. We passed by bodies being taken from the rubble, saw one of the lorries taking bodies to a mass grave, passed a mass grave where hundreds of bodies were buried. There was also the kind of thing that doesn't come across on television, such as an awful smell everywhere".
While in Indonesia, he met the Indonesian government minister in charge of reconstruction and pledged the Irish Government's support, through the work of Goal and Concern, which have teams in the region.
In relation to calls for the Irish Army to be sent into the disaster zone, Mr Ahern said while he awaited the technical team's report, he believed it "would be difficult for the Army to go into Indonesia, because it has been a war zone and also because there are already so many military there providing logistics. Maybe it might be appropriate in Sri Lanka, but I can't give a definitive answer on that yet".
Although speaking in advance of a report from the Department's technical assessment team to be delivered this evening, he reiterated that he believed that Sri Lanka would be the government's focus for aid.
"In Indonesia, there are difficulties regarding the political situation and issues of security for the NGOs. From what I saw in Thailand, they are completely on top of the disaster, both in terms of foreign tourists who are missing and in the systems they have set up in relation to that. Also when we visited the governor of Krabi in his compound, there were hundreds of citizens lining up for compensation, which they were being given.
"Both NGOs and officials agreed that Thailand, from a development aid point of view, didn't need huge attention".
But on the day that the body of Conor Keightley was formally identified, he said there was a "desire to leave a footprint, as a testimony to Irish people who had suffered or lost their lives in the area a project that would perhaps help the poor in the affected area".
He recalled his meeting on Monday with Mr Keightley's uncle and sisters and described it as "very poignant and very sad, for them to be here in a hotel in a faraway country, to which they had arrived with high hopes. They had held out hope until the previous day when they had travelled out to Phi Phi island and saw the devastation and accepted then that he had probably drowned".
On arrival here last night, the Minister met the Sri Lankan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Lakshman Kadirgamar (a Christian and a Tamil, an unusual combination in Sri Lanka), who thanked the Irish nation for responding "handsomely and warmly" to the disaster.
Today the travelling party will visit Galle and Hambantota, before meetings in the evening with the Prime Minister, Mr Rajapakse, and the UN co-ordinator, Mr Miguel Berneo.