German Papers Tsunami Victims Need Our Help
All major German dailies are clear about the main story of the day on Tuesday: The violent, 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia on Sunday, the ensuing tsunami that caused unprecedented destruction in over 10 countries bordering the Indian Ocean, and the aftermath of the disaster. With more and more damage reports coming in, most papers focus on the climbing number of victims -- and on the fact that hundreds of European tourists who flock to the region every winter are dead or missing.
The event also makes its way onto German editorial pages, and it is surprisingly the tabloid Bild that comes up with the best commentary of the day. In his daily column called "A Letter from Wagner," gap-toothed commentator Franz Josef Wagner writes of those whose vacation in Southeast Asia ended in horror and, in many cases, death. He describes the peace and pleasure of beach vacations in the region and then closes poignantly by saying "If there is anything that can comfort, it is the happiness that was there before the wave came."
Most other commentaries on Tuesday focus on the fact that there is no tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean as exists in the Pacific Ocean. The conservative paper Die Welt posits that one of the reasons such a system did not exist in the region is that the national governments did not agree that one was necessary given that there hadn't been such a quake in the area for decades. Now, however, it is obvious that one is necessary. "As soon as the rubble is cleared and the reconstruction of the destroyed villages is begun, (an early-warning system) must be quickly constructed," it argues.
The financial daily Financial Times Deutschland focuses its commentary not only on the widespread devastation, but also makes the point that -- on the financial markets at least -- the event hardly had any implications. This, writes the paper, is because it was mostly poor regions that were struck. "Many of the victims, like those who lived on the coast of India, for example, have hardly any appreciable possessions. Much less any insurance. For that reason, the coming aid from the international community is even more important."
The Handelsblatt goes one step further and argues that, while such natural disasters cannot be prevented, their effects can surely be reduced. One reason for the amount of the destruction is surely that it was mostly poor areas that were hit. This, however, is not an excuse to sit around and do nothing about prevention in the future, writes the paper. "The spinning of the prayer wheels is not a preventative strategy -- whether for earthquakes, hunger or diseases like AIDS. In Asia, we are now seeing the macabre proof."
The second major theme on Tuesday is the victory of opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko over Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine's repeated runoff election. The election results from the first runoff held on Nov. 21 were invalidated by the Ukrainian Supreme Court due to massive electoral fraud. On Sunday, Yushchenko beat Yanukovych with a 52-44 lead. German papers on Tuesday unanimously welcome Yushchenko's victory and predict a new dawn for Ukraine.
Which is, of course, exactly how Yushchenko himself sees things. In an editorial contributed to the Financial Times Deutschland, Yushchenko provides his analysis of the Sunday election. In the piece, entitled "Ukrainians have won the right to choose their destiny," Yushchenko writes, "the atmosphere of fear and intimidation instilled by the government and tolerated by the public for a decade was lifted. There is no doubt that Ukrainians want change. They want an end to government corruption." Yushchenko acknowledges that there is much to be done and that there are high expectations of him, but vows to govern by the rule of law and says, "society has spoken against political revenge by insisting that elected officials pursue national reconciliation and unity, which I intend to do." Finally, Yushchenko provides a firm indication of which direction he will be looking during his term in office. "The democratic transformation that began in Europe 15 years ago has extended eastward to Ukraine. We are poised to make our contribution to a unified and stable Europe."
The center-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung is almost as excited as Yushchenko on Tuesday. Under the headline "Triumph of Democracy," the paper writes, "Justice did finally win in the end." The paper sees in the victory of Yushchenko's "Revolution in Orange" a myth upon which Ukraine's newfound democracy can be based. The paper, which has been consistently critical of neo-conservatives in the United States, borrows a page out of their book when it hopefully writes, "If the Ukrainian democratic experiment is successful, it will radiate far into Russia."
Not all German newspapers are quite so euphoric, however. The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung argues that Yushchenko must now try to fulfill the promises he made during the campaign and meet the huge expectations of the voters that he helped to create. The opposition, it writes, shouldn't celebrate too early: "Their uprising against the incrusted Kuchma system has a long way to go before it is successful." In order to do that, Yushchenko cannot allow himself any "lazy, unnecessary compromises with the representatives of the old guard. Rather it is time for a radical and personal new beginning."
