UN Tsunami Envoy Brings Words Of Encouragement To Humanitarian Workers
A senior United Nations envoy for reconstruction in countries hit by December's tsunami has wrapped up a two-day visit
to Sri Lanka with a message of encouragement for the humanitarian workers toiling day and night on the front lines of
the disaster.
"Everywhere I go in the world, they say thank you to people like you for what you are doing," Deputy Special Envoy for
Tsunami Recovery Erskine Bowles declared. "I bring that message."
Mr. Bowles, a top aide of former United States President Bill Clinton who was named deputy envoy after Mr. Clinton was
temporarily sidelined as Special Envoy by surgery, said he wanted the relief and reconstruction community in Sri Lanka
to know that the former president "sees his role as helping you, and he wants to keep the sense pf urgency that you have
shown and to make sure you get the resources you need."
Mr. Clinton's objective and his own, he said, "is to keep the money coming in during the three- to five-year recovery
stage," and to make sure that countries honoured the pledges they have already made.
Some 90 per cent of the $977 million flash appeal launched by the United Nations to cover the first six months of relief
for the disaster, which killed more than 200,000 people and devastated large swathes of coast in a dozen Indian Ocean
countries, is already covered with more than $500 million paid up, and the rest firmly committed. But much, much more is
needed for long-term reconstruction.
Mr. Bowles, who also visited Indonesia and the Maldives, said he would write a full report for Mr. Clinton immediately
on his return to New York, and the two would then meet with the heads of UN agencies and international non-government
organizations (NGOs).
"The UN is at a point of risk right now and we all need to work together," he added, citing some of the political
pressures and attacks currently challenging the world body. Regarding the relief and recovery efforts in Sri Lanka, he
stressed the need for "real transparency and accountability."