Since Boxing Day the world’s media has been filled with images and reports of the devastation wrought by the tsunami in Southeast Asia.  Governments and relief agencies such as the Red Cross, and its Muslim counterpart, the Red Crescent, and others have organized to bring food, clean water, clothing, medical personnel and supplies, and search parties into the affected areas.  It’s a mammoth undertaking.

Entire communities, towns, villages have been wiped out.  Resort areas like Patong and Phuket Island were amongst the worst hit, due to their proximity to the ocean.  Hundreds of thousands are reported dead and missing.  The scale of the catastrophe is truly mind-boggling; we can’t even begin to imagine the impact such an event has, and will have, on not just this region of the globe but worldwide.

We hear of the Sri Lankan, Tamil, South Asian, Thai, and Indonesian communities rallying to supply aid to their homelands, raising money to help with the relief effort.  This is commendable.

Yet, we hear nothing of how this catastrophe has affected the GLBT communities in those regions.  Who will help our sisters and brothers in an atmosphere of horror and the devastation of families and kin groups?

Resort areas such as Phuket Island and Patong had an established gay community, or at least as established as a community that is routinely persecuted and criminalized can be in these regions.  Throughout much of the Indian Ocean countries, homosexuality – specifically male homosexuality – is condemned, criminalized, and marginalized with penalties ranging from imprisonment to death.  Transsexuals are often even more marginalized, despite Thailand being one of the main centres for sex reconstruction surgery. Yet, there has been some organization occurring, some community forming, especially in the more Westernized resort areas.

There are several GLBT organizations operating in the area.  Companions on a Journey, headquartered in Sri Lanka, has been active for several years.  They lost 36 members, with twelve others unaccounted for, and one hundred twelve of their members lost their homes to the tsunami.

Another Sri Lankan group, Common Ground, also had members killed or displaced by the catastrophe.  Both groups have organized and are helping with the relief efforts.

Reports coming out of Colombo, Negombo, Aceh, North Sumatra and the island of Nias in Indonesia, are sketchy and incomplete, according to the Indonesian GLBT group GAYa NUSANTARA.

Hivos-Netherlands, a Dutch HIV/AIDS organization that has funded HIV programs operated by Companions on a Journey, has apparently given permission for the group to use funds provided for HIV/AIDS and sexuality-related activities for relief purposes.

None of these groups are what one might label wealthy.  They are all non-profits and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), doing the work on a shoestring budget.  Yet the groups have pitched in to assist not only their own members and communities, but also the larger community within which they live and work.

According to Rex Wockner, writing for 365gay.com, members of Common Ground have "...not only given of their time and energy to volunteer for relief efforts, but also have spent their own monies buying essentials like medicine and food, and donating it to the larger organizations sending the trucks to the north, east and south."

Phuket is also a gay resort.  According to Wockner’s report many of the resort’s gay cafes, guesthouses, restaurants, bars, and businesses escaped relatively unscathed, due to being a fair distance from the beach.

Ulf Mikaelsson and Börje Carlsson, two Swedes who own the Connect Guest House and Coffee Bar in Phuket, reported the Phuket GLBT community is raising funds for those Thais and foreigners who suffered injury and loss due to the tidal wave.  Luckily, their guesthouse escaped the devastation that wiped out everything within 500 yards of the beachfront.

Certainly, donations to the major relief agencies will do the most good.  However, it may also be worth remembering that these agencies have little or no awareness of our community and certainly their focus is going to be on families and the larger community.  Regional GLBT groups are raising money and working with relief agencies to address the situation.

If you wish to assist the Southeast Asian GLBT communities during this horrific time here is some information supplied by 365gay.com that may prove useful:

SRI LANKA

Companions on a Journey, 46/50 Robert Drive, Robert Gunawardhane Mawatha,

Colombo-06, Sri Lanka. Telephone: 011-94-11-251-4680. Fax: 011-94-11-555-7660.

E-mail: sherman@sri.lanka.net. Web: http://www.companions-lanka.org.

Equal Ground. Phone: 011-94-11-268-2278. E-mail: graycat@sltnet.lk and donate@equal-ground.org. Web: http://www.equal-ground.org.

INDONESIA

GAYa NUSANTARA, Jalan Mojo Kidul I No. 11-A,

Surabaya 60285, Indonesia. Telephone/fax: 011-62-31-591-4668.

Cell phone: 011-62-811-311-743. E-mail: doetomo@indo.net.id.

THAILAND

Connect. Telephone: 011-66-76-294-195. E-mail: connect@beachpatong.com.

Web: http://www.beachpatong.com/.

GayPatong.com. E-mail: webmaster@gaypatong.com. Web: http://www.gaypatong.com.

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Contributor Stephen Lock |

Topic Politics |