Asia Journal of Global Studies 1/2:2-11. © Asia Association for Global Studies 2007 PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST : TOWARD A NEW POLITICS OF NATURAL DISASTER IN ASIA Grace Lestariana WONOADI Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta, Indonesia Abstract. The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami ended as quickly as it appeared, but its devastating aftermath will not be easily forgotten. Millions of human lives were affected, with entire com- munities swept away. As the tsunami revealed, natural disasters represent a significant chal- lenge for human security. No one can feel secure when nature is so unpredictable and natural threats are left unmanaged. What the tsunami also showed was that some governments are ill- equipped to assist disaster victims. Unfortunately, some countries do not fulfill their promises to provide relief funds to victims and endanger both people’s living conditions and the state’s overall performance. Discussing the 2004 Tsunami and other natural disasters’ impact in Asia, this paper will propose some suggestions to devise a better politics of natural disaster that puts people and state interests in proper balance and perspective. 1. INTRODUCTION One of the main purposes of development is to promote security. This implies that it the re- sponsibility of governments to keep the land and the population secure. Natural disasters, however, give rise to insecurity. The greater the disaster, the more likely the impact may spill over a given area’s boundaries and even across generations. Further problems arise when state and market interests compete with common people’s interests. 2. SECURITY AT A GLANCE In the post-Cold War era, discussing and reconstructing the notion of security has become commonplace. In this regard, Caballero-Anthony (2004) notes three schools of thought. The first school seeks to widen the scope of security beyond military security, to include among others, political, economic, and ecological security concerns. The second school aims to main- tain the status quo, bringing security back within the realist/neo-realist school. The last school hopes to broaden the security paradigm beyond state and military threats, also seeking in the process to achieve the goal of human emancipation. To some extent, the third school of thought would seem apropos. The concept of security has been stretched horizontally, embracing issues beyond military security; and vertically, embracing concerns over regional and global structures as well as local and individual identi- ties. Proponents of human security have argued that the concept of security must change in two basic ways: from an exclusive stress on territorial security, to a much greater stress on peo- ple’s security; and from security through armaments, to security through sustainable devel- opment. In foreign policy terms, human security requires “a shift in perspective or orientation … taking people as its point of reference, rather than focusing exclusively on … territory or governments” (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, April 1999: 1). Human security puts the individual at the center of debate, analysis and policy. The person is para- mount, and the state is a collective instrument to protect human life and enhance human wel- fare (Thakur, 2006). Capie and Evans (2002) state that most conceptions of human security do not deny a role for states or for traditional concepts of national security, but rather see human security as complementing them. One definition argues that “human security efforts will not replace na-