Christmas and summer holidays are the best season in my year. Between family festivities, food and beach cricket, it’s my opportunity to just turn off. On the morning of Boxing Day 2004 I was visiting my sister and her family when early reports started on the news of a tsunami in the Indian Ocean. It was troubling, but not troubling enough at that stage to put me off my break. I left my sister’s home and headed with 80,000 others to the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. I met Merridie’s nephew Tim and a few friends and we settled in for the match. Soon my phone started ringing with updates about an earthquake off the coast of Thailand. After an exhausting year, my first as a CEO in a complex organisation, it was the last news I wanted to hear. I needed a break. Didn’t we have a team to handle this and let me relax? I didn’t immediately leave the game; I kept thinking it would settle down and so I awaited follow-up calls and watched the game. I knew it would demand some kind of response but not necessarily from me today, and surely one had to get the facts straight first. I am not sure I even mentioned it to those I was with. Cricket is pretty sacrosanct on Boxing Day.
But the reports dribbling in doubled the death tolls with each hourly bulletin. The scale and size of this disaster just kept growing. When would it stop? I finally realised the cricket was off for me. I started making phone calls from the MCG to get my team to book a flight to Sri Lanka, as from what we could tell that was the focus of the damage. (I would also go a few weeks later to Banda Aceh in Indonesia, which we would later know was the epicentre in terms of death and destruction. But the Indonesian government had not allowed any news out.)
Elliot and Martin were about to head off on a twenty-day work party trip to Israel with Merridie’s brother Paul and his wife Merrill. At the same time Claire was leaving for New Zealand for a ten-day holiday with a friend. So within twelve hours Merridie was left alone on the summer holiday we did not get to have. Like the rest of Australia she was transfixed by the coverage of this massive disaster that kept growing by the day. The death toll doubled every day for the next few weeks.
I landed in Colombo within forty-eight hours of the disaster, with some of the Australian press accompanying me. The World Vision office there was already chaotic. Fear had gripped the capital and shock was in overdrive. There was urgency everywhere; panic was taking over. Many of our staff had relatives missing and some wept as they tried to work. The office was stiflingly hot and its walkways now crammed with packed relief boxes, as the warehouse nearby was chaotic. It was a melee, with staff shouting, packing, making phone calls and frenetically sorting the supplies in the warehouse, the entrance of which was now reduced to a snarl of traffic with trucks loading pallets and heading out. The scale of destruction continued to grow, and nobody could believe what had happened.
The Sri Lanka National Director was shell-shocked, and visibly relieved I had arrived so promptly. Nothing had prepared him for what was unfolding. He was physically shaking. He and I joined a convoy of World Vision vehicles loaded with relief supplies to commute down the narrow coastal road to the city of Galle, which was the epicentre of destruction. We found that what was normally a three-hour trip took us twelve hours. The one-lane road was destroyed in parts and every second private citizen in Colombo had taken to it with a packed car loaded with water, food and blankets. Commendable that they were taking relief work into their own hands, but the disorganisation only slowed things down. We were passing coastal scenes of flattened palm trees, destroyed houses and villagers silently staring out to sea, hoping the body of a loved one might be washed up. We travelled a lot of that distance in silence, as words couldn’t encompass the trauma we were watching unfold. It felt to me like an apocalyptic scene, and the silence was eerie. No birds cawing, no children running and playing.
On the way we stopped, as there was a hold-up with cars lined up in front of us. Getting out of the truck we walked to where we saw the wreckage of the Queen of the Sea passenger train on its side. It had been packed with 1500 passengers returning to Galle for Poya, the holy full moon celebration, and had been thrown from its tracks with the force of the wave. Later I was to hear that only 200 passengers survived.
We finally got to Galle as the sun was setting. The putrid smell was the first thing that hit me. We were walking towards mass graves just outside the famous cricket ground where Shane Warne got his 500th test wicket. There I saw grim locals, some in white coats, putting tags on fingers and trying some rudimentary identification before lowering corpses into a mass grave about 10 metres wide and long. It was a deep hole but I could see bodies piled on bodies. Bystanders stood in shocked silence. The silence was disturbing but it was broken by the sound of other mass graves being prepared nearby. The smell of death hung like a cloud in the humid air. It was something for which nothing can prepare you. When you stare death in the face you become profoundly grateful for the sheer gift of life. The majority of bodies were women and children unclaimed by loved ones in death because the chaos and confusion was just so great. The rapid burial was to avoid the spread of cholera, which could create a disaster equal to the wave in scale if unchecked. I later discovered why so many of the bodies were women and children. It was because men could run faster or hold onto a tree or climb out of reach of the wave. The stronger survived.
What I saw changed my life. Up until then I had still an optimism and a confidence in my own abilities to change things for the better. That optimism dissolved in the face of such wide-scale death. The sight of bodies being lifted or thrown into large open graves, the stench from those bodies lying in the heat for over forty-eight hours, the sound of wailing, of voices calling names, and the look of bewilderment on so many faces all pressed in on me. The total deaths across the affected seven nations would be nearly 300,000 people. And in India, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and even the Maldives, the living now had the massive job of reconstruction. All words of explanation fall to the ground in the face of such death and devastation.
But one thing I did discover was that faith was the only resource the poor had, whether it was the Buddhist faith in Thailand and Sri Lanka, Hindu in India or the Muslim faith in Banda Aceh. As great as the destruction, equally the reservoir of faith was tapped into in order for them to start again. It truly was the main resource to face getting up to grieve and clean up after burying their dead. I realised that my question – of where God was and how he could be good and all-powerful to allow this – was a luxury. I emerged from a Western self-sufficient context. We have more mastery over disasters, and professional services to respond. We could mitigate some of the pain. Counselling or therapeutic services would swing into action for the bereaved. There were no such services that I saw in Sri Lanka. I saw in these countries that without their God or gods they have no reason to start over again and no reason to try to live.
Seeing Australians back home respond to this scale of death and disaster was overwhelming. We are a coastal people and I think we all imagined what we would do if a wave like that hit us. In my state of Victoria, the death of a loved Melbourne football star, Troy Broadbridge, in the tsunami communicated to young men that if he, so fit and strong, died, then this was immense. The grief and fascination with the wave of death gripped Australians at home, on holidays and watching the disaster unfold on TV, and it was heightened that Aussies staying in Thai resorts had died. We hear grief so much more clearly through the frame of national loyalty, articulated by an Aussie accent.
All aid organisations swung into gear. In fact, every Australian charity, from the Scientologists offering massage and aura readings to domestic groups, went to help in Indonesia. It was well-meaning but totally counterproductive, as the governments and locals were overwhelmed with the lack of coordination. The chaos from this goodwill resulted in the UN instituting rules at future disaster sites that only those with humanitarian track records would be allowed entry. Everyone wanted to do something. Not just give, but do something. This was commendable, but a nightmare logistically, as there were plenty of clothes and domestic items within the country and they didn’t need more crates of second-hand clothes to be shipped up. Every school in Australia, when they came back from holidays at the end of January, wanted to give for school students and rebuild schools. I had the melancholy duty of telling many, ‘Thank you – but so many children have died, many places no longer need schools.’
World Vision kicked into gear very quickly. We conducted the first and only charity event where all commercial TV stations cooperated on a Saturday night. It began with a concert at the Sydney Opera House and then a telephone ring-in fundraiser. Some $20 million for the tsunami was raised. Then Cricket Australia, particularly led by Adam Gilchrist, a World Vision ambassador, organised an international match (Australia versus the rest of the world) to be played at the MCG for the victims. Such cricket matches usually take two years to organise; this one took two weeks. It was broadcast on Kerry Packer’s Channel 9, and after the match I was pleased to receive a cheque on behalf of the tsunami victims for $14.6 million. Indeed, such was the generosity that outpoured over those weeks that World Vision Australia managed to raise $105 million.
After the cricket game I expressed my deep thanks with an address to the crowd. We had witnessed the greatest natural disaster in our lifetime. But a wave of death and destruction that had swept through Southeast Asia had been met with a wave in Australia – a tidal wave of generosity.
That generosity extended to the Australian government; John Howard pledged a $1 billion contribution to Indonesia. This rewrote our relationship with our nearest neighbour. Soon we were supporting more schools in Indonesia than all the secondary schools in Australia. In September 2005 I was to visit Banda Aceh with my brother, Peter, (on the PM’s plane) to see how Australian aid money and charitable dollars were being spent. It was a good trip to do together, along with the media, who loved it. I think we both felt very comfortable in the worlds we represented and the way that the aid was being spent.
Next, we in the aid sector faced a different challenge. The public wanted the monies they had donated spent immediately. Accountability is vital for us, but we knew it would be bad development and impossible for us to try to spend all of the money right away. So many villages were not ready to rebuild so close to the sea. How do you trust it when a wave took your loved ones? Communal land titles were destroyed, and we needed time for elders to agree on boundaries. Even the coastline had been reshaped. I announced we would spend a third of the $105 million we had raised in the first three months, but gave a timeline for the rest. Which we carried out. This allowed sanity in planning, and once we used up the funds we were very proud of the effectiveness of every dollar spent. However, the public are impatient and take note if the dollars are not quickly spent.
The public have been trained to ask as their first question when approached by an aid organisation: what are overheads and marketing costs? At the time of the tsunami, we could have answered, ‘Very very low – nearly zero.’ The media coverage, even on expensive commercial channels, was gratis. The community was interested and stayed with the story for over four weeks, which was unprecedented. Businesses were coming to us and giving. But in more normal situations, yes, you have to spend.
While World Vision Australia kept to low overheads (around 20 cents per dollar) throughout my time as CEO, I do worry about this fixation on overheads. They are a measure of efficiency, not effectiveness. I would often say, ‘If my wife were ill, I would not start ringing around medical clinics to ask what their overheads were. More likely I would describe the symptoms and say, “How effective are you at treating this?” Nor would I choose the medical clinic with the lowest overheads. It might be efficient, but is it effective?’ Investing in proper design and planning takes dollars, but renders a better outcome. But that is what we seem to have trained the public to ask. I remember a donor once saying, ‘I’ll give you a big cheque, but every dollar has to get there and nothing spent on overheads.’
I humoured him and said, ‘Okay, write your cheque.’
He looked a little puzzled and asked, ‘How will you get every dollar there?’
I replied, ‘I’ll post your cheque to a bank account overseas.’
He looked shocked. ‘How will I know if it’s been used the right way?’
‘If you want to know that, you’ll have to pay for it. That is what overheads in checking, reporting back and accounting do.’
I can’t remember now if we actually got the donation.
This generosity flowing in was not to last. The next natural disaster, six months after the Boxing Day Tsunami, was an earthquake in northwest Pakistan, in the area where we presumed Osama bin Laden was recruiting. It was solidly fundamentalist Muslim territory. I went out there again, but the response this time was totally different. Yet again, this was innocent suffering and 80,000 people had died. It was not quite the scale of the tsunami, but still a massive natural disaster. I was quite shocked to discover it was very hard to raise a dollar for this earthquake. Innocent suffering, yes, but maybe not a faith nor an area that we regarded as innocent enough. And no Westerners, let alone Australians, had died. The Muslim imams and traditional leaders were deeply moved that World Vision came, as so few others responded. The only other really serious player helping was the Pakistani army. I certainly was moved when some Muslim elders said, ‘But you are a Christian humanitarian organisation and came even when so few others came. Why are you here? Don’t you know we are Muslim?’
I thought for a moment and said, ‘We’re here because Jesus didn’t say, “Just love Christians.” The faith I have is for a new humanity that includes all who suffer.’
It was on that trip that I learned a lesson about development from my co-worker Conny Lenneberg, and I learnt about the dangers of culture. I had met with the men and received fabulous gifts of thanks. Conny was quartered separately and could only meet with the women. When we met back after the separate meetings I was bubbling with the thanks and hospitality they had showered me with. She reminded me that, though it was great we had responded to the situation, there was one bit that was not great. We had dug wells for the devastated communities but had asked the men where to put them. Given it was a patriarchal society and they were the gatekeepers, it was proper protocol that we had followed. But Conny had listened to the women and learned that those men had never carried a drop of water in their entire lives, so many of the wells had been put in the wrong places. Here was a serious lesson about the intersection of good development and respect for culture.
Whatever the culture, I believe in the right to challenge patriarchy. Some will say that is arrogant, but while I am committed to cultural sensitivity, I do not believe it should come at the expense of denying universal human rights, particularly for women.
In 2008 Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar. Again, it was a natural disaster, and in our region. It was huge, as 160,000 people perished, but our work was seriously impeded by the military junta’s control. Just getting there was a battle. I tried and tried to get a visa from their embassy in Canberra with no luck. The answer was, ‘Our government has all that it needs to respond.’ I was finally able to get hold of the ambassador’s mobile number. It came through someone who, through family, had a contact with the military back in Myanmar. I rang him directly and explained that I needed to get there, that our international organisation had 800 staff there, many of who had lost loved ones and friends. It seemed all to no avail; he reiterated the line that all was under control and the military had the response in hand.
A few days later I received an unexpected and curious call. It was the ambassador. He had had time to consider and realised he knew who I was. He said, ‘I’ve seen you on TV. You are well known in Australia.’ I realised my D-Grade celebrity profile had opened the door ever so slightly. He told me he had changed his mind and would give me a visa. I got it quickly delivered and in no time was on a plane for Yangon (Rangoon). I was one of the only foreigners from anywhere in the world to get in during those first few weeks.
I discovered that, indeed, journalists who had been there and who had tried to put out stories of the suffering were tracked down and thrown out. The military wanted to suppress the story and control the narrative. They feared the opening up that had been forced on Indonesia in Banda Aceh; once you allow the international community in, then you lose control and dirty deeds may get exposed. Some of the journalists who interviewed me there wore false moustaches and sunglasses and hats, knowing that they would be thrown out if identified.
The mass destruction of nature was matched by mass malevolence on the behalf of the military. I literally watched with disbelief as the Burmese military handed out food while the cameras were rolling, only to take that food back from desperate and starving people when the cameras stopped. This was the human face of evil; those in power were determined to show the world that they cared while acting with deathly indifference. CNN, BBC and Canadian TV reporters all were thrown out, yet somehow I wasn’t.
I kept telling the truth to the world media, namely that barely a trickle of aid was reaching people because of the restrictions placed by the government. The Burmese people deserved a pipeline flowing unhindered by politics to meet the suffering.
The military was stopping us at checkpoints and instructing us to hand over our stores of relief, saying, ‘We will deliver it.’ We refused, as World Vision always controls the distribution of its own aid. Thanks to my personal pleas to a general who gave me an audience from high on his ornate chair replete with carved elephants, we finally got a letter that allowed the checkpoint gates to swing open. That letter, though I had to beg for it, was like gold with the military. They controlled everything and had run a magnificent nation (where once Qantas flights stopped over in prosperous Rangoon on the way to London) into the ground. They had unleashed cruelty and suppression on ethnic minorities who simply wanted to live their lives on their land. Wars oppressing and suppressing the rights and aspirations for autonomy of the 40 per cent of Burmese who are ethnic minorities, like the Karen and Chin, have been cruel and unremitting.
It is a terrible consequence of military dictatorship that the need to project an image of infallibility leads to scapegoats being blamed for any failures. Of course, it is always the most destitute and powerless that make the perfect scapegoats.