来一篇原版的关于国外报道震后NGO的文章 :Vnus
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A woman stands among the remains of her home in Hanwang after the earthquake. Photo: AFP f.e4 C,
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Mary-Anne Toy, Zundao, Sichuan Province sj W;Nsp
June 10, 2008 (R{|* :K P
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WANG Shi used to be one of China's most admired entrepreneurs. The chairman of Vanke, the country's biggest listed property group, became a villain overnight after an internet campaign slammed his "miserly" donation of just 2 million yuan ($A300,670) to the Sichuan earthquake relief effort, causing the company share price to plummet. 6s<w}
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The outcry over the size of Wang's donation - and his comment that charity should not be burdensome to individuals or a company - forced him to publicly apologise and Vanke's board of directors to increase their donation to 100 million yuan. zZE@:P&lf
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The town of Zundao, which has a population of 23,000, nearly all left homeless by the earthquake, is to be the lucky recipient of Vanke's corporate largesse. The quake killed 481 people here and destroyed 99 % of the buildings, but unlike in other towns such as Beichuan, which have been evacuated and sealed off because of fears of further landslides and quake lakes bursting, most of the residents have chosen to stay, even though for virtually everyone it will mean living in a tent for another three months until temporary housing is built. The dead were buried in a mass grave because there were too many bodies to cremate.
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And in an unusual display of how China's biggest natural disaster in more than three decades may change power structures, Government officials are working side-byside with NGOs (non-government organisations) and individual volunteers. The credibility of grassroots organisations has blossomed during this tragedy, along with a growing awareness that individuals can make a difference, but government and party suspicions that NGOs and the strong civil society they are trying to create will threaten their power run deep. c}u`L6
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Dong Xiaona, 35, has abandoned her comfortable life and her garment business in the north-east city of Tangshan to camp out in Zundao in a leaky tent with no electricity or clean water. Like thousands of other "selfpatriots" from around the country, she made her way to the capital, Chengdu, after being moved by the unprecedented coverage of the unfolding disaster on national television and the rest of the media. 7eU
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Here she has found comradeship of a different sort, with volunteers from around the country, under the direction of an NGO. She inventories a warehouse, filled to its quake-damaged ceiling with hundreds of boxes of donated goods, everything from sanitary napkins to soft toys, and reads a biography of Russian author Leo Tolstoy in her spare moments. P`$Y73L
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The brothers Luo, who have been running an NGO in the neighbouring province of Guizhou for the past six years, have been co-ordinating civilian volunteers like Dong in Zundao. The younger Luo brother, Luo Shiwen, is still bewildered by the cooperation they have received from local officials. CqAv^ n7 }
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"Not like in Guizhou," he says, referring to the forced closure of their NGO, apparently because some of its activities, including advocating better health care for local coal miners, upset local officials. TBU.%3dEyI
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"Our work here (in Zundao) has been recognised by the local authorities. Whenever local officials have a problem they ask us to solve it," he says incredulously. They are waiting on heavy machinery that Vanke has promised so that the clean-up can begin properly. But he is also thinking of the future. 0}4FwcCr\
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While Vanke designers last week submitted plans to build new quake-proof schools and a hospital and other non-commercial buildings, members of his now banned NGO are trying to see if the traditional wood block printing and painting the area is famous for can be turned into a cottage industry to create new jobs. ]"X} FU
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The elder Luo brother, Luo Shihong, said earlier that it was probably too soon to assess what impact this new co-operation would have on Chinese power structures. "But my instinct is that the earthquake is influencing these kinds of structures - I think it will be better but just a question of how much it will change things," he says. k6 2KZ5| D
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He says the Government is far from monolithic on this issue. "Some in government want to close the door on NGOs now the emergency is passing - some say this is an opportunity for civil society to play a role in China." < c!I\y
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One thing that stands out in his mind is the head of the Mianzhu County's civic affairs bureau who told him that she needed assistance to manage a massive rescue and relief operation and she didn't care where it came from. $ T2 n^yz
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"Normally government officials always insist they can do everything. This time a top head of government admits she needs help, not just money or materials, but organisational, managerial help."
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Ms Wei, a local official, says spirits in Zundao are surprising good: "95% of the people kept calm and have been facing the reality and beginning to help themselves," Wei says. Only 5%, mainly young people, have fled the town to seek new lives and work elsewhere. \L]T|]}(
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At a dusty clearing higher up in the town, several tents pitched over the dirt provide a gathering point for local children, with a small tent library supervised by volunteers. School has been postponed until at least August 1. Chen Xue, 14, says she had no time to be afraid when the quake struck and despite the traumas they have faced, the constant flow of gifts from well-wishers has kept the children's spirits high. kN8?.V%Utw
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They welcome each carload of volunteers with a joyous "Huan ying", welcome, and sing a song they have made up: "Aunts and uncles we love you like mice like rice and we expect every day you give us some gifts!", which sounds cynical but in practice is not. Presents of pencils and books and Olympics stickers are shared out among the younger children. N*{>8iFo4
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At the village of Wudu nearby, immediately to the east of the epicentre of Wenchuan, the scene is not so reassuring. The collapsed primary school is taped off and guarded by three young policemen. Dozens of multi-coloured, furled mourning parasols and funeral wreaths lie to one side of the entrance, where a big noticeboard still carries a handful of pictures of some of the 130 children who died here - almost a third of the village's death toll. d@Q C[$qXj
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Across the entrance a banner put up by grieving parents on June 1 reads: "Celebrating Children's Day for those children who died from injustice." L=v"5)m2R
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Opposite the school massive piles of rubble leave little to indicate what they once were. Shirtless men use sledgehammers to break down concrete slabs to retrieve the thick steel reinforcing rods for scrap. The slabs that have too-thin reinforcing rods, maybe two millimetres wide, are rejected. @\)a&p]a
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Experts who have surveyed many of the buildings, which appear to include a disproportionate number of schools, say that the failure to use proper strength reinforcing in concrete is a key reason for many of the collapses. 6>e YG <y{
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Former premier Zhu Rongji coined the term "tofu building" to refer to substandard public infrastructure and buildings when he vowed to stamp out the corruption that had allowed this to fester. 6$'0^Ftm'
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After the initial burst of relative freedom, stricter media and internet controls and scrutiny of potentially destabilising NGOs have been reinstated, with issues such as building standards and inadequate or nonexistent emergency planning being banned or quickly removed from the internet. 6v(;dolBIw
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Back in Chengdu we meet another NGO activist, "Jack Zhang" (not his real name) who from May 14, two days after the quake, was co-ordinating the Sichuan NGO disaster relief office in Chengdu, a coalition of 40 groups that grew to more than 100 when NGOs, most of whom had little disaster experience, banded together to increase their efficiency. JANP_b:t
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On May 24, Chengdu police arrested Zhang for a day on suspicion of illegally receiving funds (NGOs technically cannot receive donations from the public) but then released him after finding no impropriety. <x->.R_
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The day after, however, the same police rang up to say they had to "deport" him back to his home city of Panzihua, in southern Sichuan. Panzihua officials had requested Chengdu to send him back, Zhang says, because they, like many parts of government, are deeply suspicious of NGOs. In his case, he says, he has been too successful in campaigning for greater freedom for NGOs to operate. He finally resolved the impasse - authorities refused to allow him to leave town - by publicly resigning on May 30. ^( . utO
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A Chinese NGO veteran who has been in Sichuan said the Government was quickly reining back civilian groups now that the emergency phase was moving into the more complicated and difficult recovery phase - and more probing questions were being asked. o4d[LV4DS
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It appears that most of the scrutiny being applied by the hundreds of auditors sent from Beijing to fulfil Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao's promise that the 42 billion yuan in domestic and foreign donations will be properly spent has been focused on investigating NGOs, especially those who have any contact with foreigners, including staff background checks. But no one appears to be auditing the Governmentcontrolled charities, the NGO veteran said. no
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"Settle the bill after autumn" is a Chinese saying that means that the powerful will always hold the weaker to account later. This expression crops up again and again in conversations about whether the disaster has given China's fledgling civil society a deeper toehold in China. Many fear that once the earthquake has faded from the headlines, journalists and others who have reported or spoken out on issues that cast a less than favourable light on the Government will pay the price.
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"With the demand decreasing they've started tightening controls again because they feel insecure letting so many NGOs in," the Chinese NGO veteran says. Even so, grassroots groups and civilians have had a taste of what can be achieved and "such a trend will not be easy to quell".
