POSITION OF THE EUROPEAN HUMANIST REGION ABOUT TSUNAMI IN SOUTH ASIAThe devastation caused by the earthquake in India and in the countries close to it in south-east Asia is a staggering situation for the whole world because of its humane consequences, awakening a feeling of solidarity across all latitudes. However, this solidarity faces great difficulty to be converted into action that brings about a profound resolution to this catastrophe.As usual, announcements will be made by governments and other organisations and millions of dollars will be collected. But a small part of it will eventually arrive to the victims, as occurred in Iran after the earthquake, where according to the media only 1% of the promised funds arrived.The humanist regional denounces the “humanitarianism” of governments that, behind public announcements, show how hypocritical our social system of values is, where economic interests come before the value of life.Announcements for aid of millions of dollars are not much. As a comparison: the funds pledged by the USA to rebuild Iraq exceed 18 billion US dollars, plus 35 billion dollars asked from European countries. The total amount is approximately 55 billion dollars (more than 40 billion Euros). The European Union has already promised 3 million Euros to help in this tragedy and the European Commission has just approved a global aid of 30 million Euros, while they approved aid of 200 million for the reconstruction of Iraq.We can’t avoid disasters of this nature but we can improve the living conditions of people, so that the damage and the number of victims are less: giving them the guarantee of good living conditions, including houses built to resist earthquakes and above all the implementation of an alarm system which would have avoided a lot of losses in this case, according to seismologists.These events increase humanities anger because of a social organisation that doesn’t deserve to be called humane, instead attending to the wrong set of values; and push us to fight with more force and determination.However, there are signs that show the possibility of converting a disastrous situation into an opportunity to progress and unite, as in the case of Sri Lanka where rebel armed forces and government forces are working together to help the people touched by this tragedy.We are aware that suffering and violence touch all human beings, even if they are far away from each other. Therefore, all the progress in aid and prevention must be indicators of political changes and profound modifications in the process of cooperation and approach between countries and regions.That’s why, the Humanist European Regional asks:- to European governments and to the European Union; all the necessary aid in this situation of emergency and to not abandon the people once the shocking pictures have passed. Particularly, the EU should guarantee that financial aid really gets to affected populations, collaborating directly with NGOs on the spot.- to the governments of the area to give priority to quality of life of their populations before spending their resources paying their international debts and developing nuclear weapons (as in the case of India and Pakistan).- to all those who are far from the place of the tragedy to create a network of solidarity to send aid and keep thinking of all these human beings living probably one of the worst experiences of their life.www.humanisteurope.org