 Prepared
disaster
Call for a commission of inquiry
By Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, Ph.D.
December 30, 2003
The Iranian
As the death count rises by the thousands every day, as the streaming photos
of the dead and the injured pain us day and night, and as the world community
displays a genuine solidarity with the suffering people of Iran to deal with
the immediate and long-term impacts of this natural disaster of mega proportions,
we need to know why the casualties are relatively so high, why the government's
initial reaction was so slow and disorganized, and, above all, why such utter
impotence in natural disaster preparation in Iran?
These are tough questions that every one inside
Iran and outside Iran is beginning to ask, without receiving any
satisfactory answer. A recent report in Shargh
newspaper is that very few of the buildings built with modern material have
been damaged while the majority built by mud and bricks, without
consideration of
the earthquake building codes, have collapsed.
A trauma born by Iran's third world status perhaps,
considering how a similar magitude quake in California the week
before caused only a couple of deaths,
and that an even stronger quake in Japan a few years ago had only 3 casualties.
Surely, this quake, more than any other event in recent memory, has violently
displayed to the world the economic backwardness and utter poverty of Iran,
the oil-rich Iran that often brags as a regional superpower.
There
was, however,
nothing superpowerish about the ability of Bam's residents to withstand
the quake's impact, or the government's own prowess to deal with
its horrific implications.
The simple but hugely sad fact is a mid-level tremblor has left a mega
tragedy
of nightmarish proportions, and certainly someone(s) in Iran need to answer
tough questions, from the Iranian people, and the world community.
Iran's ruling clerics, if they cannot address the
people's basic needs to protect them against natural disasters,
must step aside and vacate in favor of those
who are more far-sighted, who know the value of crisis-prevention, who are
not cognitively incapable of putting together a crisis team that
based on scientific
forecast put into action a comprehenisve plan of action.
The political ramifications
of this earthquake will not be small nor short-term, rather it will be politically
expensive to those who have taken chance with the lives of innocent Iranian
people, leaving them to the mercy of mother nature, when they
should have been concentrating
on crisis prevention, notwithstanding the threat of future cycles of quakes
in other parts of Iran, Tehran in particular.
Indeed, how many thousands of Iranians must die
before the government wakes up and agrees that a center for "unexpected events" (setad-e havadese
ghayr-e moteraghbe) does not suffice, for the sad fact of life is that earthquake
is an integral part of our geography and Iran is one of the ten most earthquake
prone countries in the world.
So, the question is: what is so "unexpected" (ghayre
moteraghebe) about earthquakes in Iran, and why is there no center for earthquake
management in Iran today which membership should include the highest members
of the government?
I read in a Tehran paper the other day that the
injured released from the hospitals have no where to go, that no
government agency has come forward to taking care
of them. WHY? How does one expect to believe the words of government leaders
when they promise full-scale support for the victims when hundreds if not thousands
of such victims are wandering outside hospitals in winter's cold?
This is not to overlook much that has been done,
particularly by the armed forces of Iran, the various volunteer
organizations, and the coordinated activities
of the various branches of the government. It has been no small measure to
airlift over ten thousand wounded from Bam in less than two days,
or to rescue thousands
from under the rubbles.
The rules of fairness dictates against any oversimplification
of the problems or oversight of the timely and critical contributions. President
Khatami must be lauded for early on admitting publicly of the government's
inability to tackle the problem by itself, and to thank all the
outside supporters including
the U.S. Government, and certainly one can only hope that from good will
of the U.S. can come an olive branch by both sides toward each
other.
Indeed, why not
using this tragic common cause to better diplomatic relations?!
In conclusion, what is needed right now is a commission
of inquiry inclusive of journalists, politicians, etc., to investigate
the level of government's response,
any tardiness, to recommend such measures as the firing of certain government
officials, and to put forth a study on what lessons to draw from this and the
previous earthquakes in order to prevent the recurrence of another major catastrophe.
In fact, the whole legitimacy of the political system now rests on the earnest
answer demanded to those tough questions posed by an entire nation.
Author
Kaveh Afrasiabi has a Ph.D. in political science.
He has authored a number of books, fiction and non-fiction, and
numerous articles
-- including the Harvard Theological Review, Middle East
Journal, UN Chronicle, and The New York Times.
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