Military Escorts Ordered for Aid Workers

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- Relief organizations said a new demand made by Indonesia on Thursday that foreign aid workers have army escorts in tsunami-stricken Aceh province will hamper aid delivery and blur the lines between the military and humanitarian efforts.
...
Relief groups reported having no security problems in Aceh, where rebels have fought a low-level separatist war against government troops for three decades, and some worried that the new restrictions could harm their reputation for independence.

"We discourage such actions because it blurs the distinction between humanitarian and military efforts here," said Eileen Burke of Save the Children.
...
In India's remote Andaman islands, battered by the tsunami, Red Cross officials said relief supplies had disappeared from the docks in Port Blair, the territory's capital, and were later found to have been taken by government workers.

"They hijacked our relief material," said Basudev Dass, joint secretary of the Indian Cross Society. "They want to take all the relief material and distribute it. We are very clear that we will go and distribute it to the real beneficiaries."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-tsunami,0,5342320.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

meanwhile, countless numbers of people are struggling for their very survival. Is there any kind of power that does not corrupt?

Greed always wins.

180