U.N. Gets Leading Role in Tsunami Aid Effort

The United Nations’ role in the massive Asian tsunami relief effort was broadened Thursday at an international conference where world leaders also announced a new round of aid pledges.

Many of the nations represented at the meeting, including most of the 11 harmed by the December disaster, argued that the United Nations should take the top role in relief assistance.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conceded the coordination role to the U.N. but also warned that the international agency must act quickly to prove effective.

Describing a one-on-one meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Powell said, “We talked about the need for the U.N. agencies, if they’re going to play that coordinating role, to get on the ground and start playing it.”

Powell said that a “core group” of nations that had been organized by the United States to provide relief -- the U.S., India, Australia and Japan -- would cease to function. But he also noted that the U.N.’s role would be “not the only lead role.”

Although the world body has been eager to take charge, U.S. officials have had reservations in part because of concern about the U.N.’s ability to move quickly. Powell said the U.S. military in the region would continue organizing the deployment of equipment and distribution of aid from the United States.

Other militaries helping out would continue to do the same, he said, adding that “a lot” of country-to-country aid that doesn’t involve the world body would continue.

U.N. officials in Indonesia on Thursday outlined plans to build four camps that would house 8,500 displaced people in hard-hit Banda Aceh, capital of Aceh province on the island of Sumatra. The first is due to open within a week, according to Michael Elmquist, head of U.N. humanitarian affairs in Indonesia, who said at least 20,000 people in the city were homeless.

The camps would operate under international standards for relocation facilities, with purified drinking water, sanitation facilities and other provisions that would reduce risks of disease -- a critical concern as corpses continue to float in rivers and massive amounts of debris and garbage remain on the streets.

Many bodies still have not been recovered and some are thought to be buried in heaps of washed-up wood and collapsed structures, where large monitor lizards can be seen slithering in and out. Fearful of disease, many residents have left for Medan and other Indonesian cities.

Roads to some of the previously inaccessible parts of the Sumatra coast are being cleared, allowing delivery of aid, U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland said in New York. A road is passable from Medan to Meulaboh, where only 1,000 of the town’s 50,000 people survived.

Egeland said it remained extremely difficult to determine how many people were dead or missing, and how many had fled to the hills, or gone to about 200 improvised camps.

“All our resources are now trying to focus on all the people in this area, and there may be hundreds of thousands,” he said in a news briefing at the U.N.

In Jakarta, international aid pledges increased to about $4 billion at the hastily organized conference attended by senior officials from more than 25 countries and international groups. New pledges, officials said, included $466 million in aid from the European Union, as well as a $1-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

The United States did not increase its $350-million pledge at the one-day event but disclosed that it intended to ease a ban on providing spare aircraft parts to the Indonesian military, a move seen as signaling its concern about the effectiveness of the relief effort.

The United States halted the supply of parts in 1999, after the Indonesia military used cargo planes to attack rebels in East Timor. The Indonesian military is also faced off against rebels in Aceh province.

The U.S. hopes that by supplying the parts to Jakarta’s military, five more C-130 H cargo planes can begin ferrying relief to tsunami survivors.

Powell acknowledged that it would be difficult to enforce a recent promise by the Indonesian government to use the planes strictly for humanitarian purposes. But he said he believed the Indonesians would comply because of a desire to improve their relationship with the U.S.

“It seems to me that human need trumps the reservations we have,” Powell said.

The Indonesians have about 24 C-130 H planes, he said, but only seven are operable.

Unconfirmed reports continued to surface Thursday of clashes between the Indonesian military and Aceh separatists. Some observers have held out hope that the disaster would provide an opportunity to end the fighting. Parts of northern Aceh were opened to visitors last summer, but portions of the region are still under martial law.

Alwi Shihab, Indonesia’s social welfare minister, said that the reports of continued fighting were rumors. But neither he nor Major Gen. Bambang Darmono, who is in charge of the Indonesian military’s relief efforts, denied that there had been fighting in recent days.

Powell reported that, after U.S. complaints, Indonesian authorities had begun trying to increase the flow of planes to Banda Aceh’s airport. U.S. officials were alarmed Wednesday to find that Indonesians had no air traffic controllers at the airport and were directing traffic from 300 miles away.

The Indonesians “took the discussion we had yesterday seriously,” Powell said, and “worked late last night.”

Some U.N. and U.S. aid workers in Indonesia have also begun to quibble about coordination, with the Americans complaining that the U.N. is taking the credit for U.S. and Australian action, and the U.N. staffers saying that the U.S. military is not sharing information effectively.

In New York, Egeland downplayed dissension and defended the U.N.’s role, saying that it had mounted an “around-the-clock” effort that not only targeted emergency relief across the region but set the stage for longer-term recovery.

Because nations often delay making good on their pledges, Annan on Thursday urged world leaders to chip in immediately for a $977-million fund for the most immediate relief needs.

The conference also brought a formal decision by nations in the Indian Ocean region to work together on a joint tsunami warning system.

“No longer must we leave ourselves so vulnerable and so exposed,” Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said. “It is well-proven that 10 minutes advance warning can save hundreds of lives.”

U.N. officials also said Annan would be visiting northern Sumatra today. He was expected to fly to Meulaboh and might stop in Banda Aceh, they said.

The Jakarta conference is to be followed by a donor’s summit Tuesday in Geneva that will try to get more promises of aid.

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Richter reported from Jakarta and Lee from Banda Aceh. Times staff writer Maggie Farley at the U.N. also contributed to this report.