Earthquakes in an Open Society
On November 25, 2000, Azerbaijan's capital of Baku was rocked by two consecutive earthquakes measuring 5.9 and 6.3 on the Richter scale. David Stubbs, executive director of the Open Society Foundation for Azerbaijan, recently gave Open Society News his eyewitness account and explained why disaster preparedness planning is important for helping people in the region and strengthening open society.
Q What prompted you to become so active around the issue of disaster preparedness?
A When the earthquake struck, I sat huddled in my hallway with my wife and son and had this awful sense of panic and the realization that the situation was completely out of my control. The earthquake also crystallized my outrage at the level of corruption, incompetence, and centralization of this government. Police cars were racing all over the city to absolutely no effect. People were jumping out of windows in panic and being hurt in car accidents. If the Kursk and Ostankino disasters showed that Russia can not maintain complex systems like submarines and communications towers, the earthquake underlined the Azerbaijan government's inability to manage a crisis and help its citizens.
Q What connection does any of this have to building open societies?
A Disaster preparedness could help deal with two key obstacles to developing open society in Azerbaijan: centralized government and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Within an hour of the earthquake, radio reports tried to reassure people by proclaiming "the president is in control," yet an earthquake is not something managed by one person from one office. It's something that requires decentralization, training people, trusting them, and knowing, or at least having some faith, that when the moment comes they'll respond appropriately. That absolutely didn't happen in Azerbaijan. Through disaster preparedness programs, we can work with governments and start to decentralize how decisions are made and how public projects are organized. I'm not pretending that war in Nagorno-Karabakh is going to be resolved by discussions about earthquake response. But maybe Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey can share information from Armenia's state of the art seismic center and learn from outstanding NGOs in Turkey like AKUT and Acik Radio, which responded quickly and effectively to that country's earthquake in 1999. By focusing on disaster preparedness, professionals from these countries could develop relationships that have not existed for over ten years.
Q Should NGOs take a leading role in disaster preparedness since governments have done so poorly?
A Ideally, any effort like this should be coordinated with governments. These governments see nongovernment as antigovernment, and there aren't many cases where governments and NGOs have cooperated or where the government sees NGOs as viable partners. Disaster preparedness might be a way to change that mindset.
If an NGO can develop a reputation as an efficient, committed partner, then they can work with and get funding from foreign and local governments, donor organizations, local businesses and volunteers, and foreign companies. In Azerbaijan, oil companies are a realistic source of support for top local NGOs. They all have charitable budgets and are under pressure to be seen as giving money back to the community, not just taking the country's natural resources.
Q What have you achieved so far and what are you working on now?
A We're planning an East East workshop on disaster preparedness sometime in April or May. The Ministry of Education has asked us to help with a new nationwide secondary school course for basic survival skills and personal safety. We're also going to announce a competition soon for curriculum development, training for school psychologists, and other elementary and high school-based programs for earthquake awareness. Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia all face threats from earthquakes and floods, and they all share the Russian language. We'd like to take materials from the U.S. and other countries and have them translated and adapted to the local context.
Q What would you like to see happen in the next 5-10 years?
A I'd like to see something like the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) in all of these countries as well as a regional organization that might help countries develop programs together and share information. This isn't rocket science. There is basic information about how people can prepare for an earthquake, about what you can do in your house so that you're not killed by falling furniture and glass, and about getting somewhere safe quickly. Yet little is being done to use this knowledge. It would be marvelous if these countries had emergency response organizations, ready to handle disasters at home as well as to help their neighbors.
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