WHILE WESTERN NEWSPAPER PRAISES
THEMSELVES FOR TSUNAMI RELIEF LITTLE DO THEY REVEAL BROKEN PROMISES
By Rangajeewa Rajakaruna
The USA Today, America’s largest selling newspaper , scratched
its own back , by telling that the international aid for the tsunami
victims reversed the devastating effects of the Boxing Day catastrophe
three years ago but concealed the biggest tsunami news story that billions
of dollars also pledged publicly in catchy newspaper headlines were
actually never given to the nations where 230,000 perished in 12 nations
including Sri Lanka. The editorial was illustrated with a close-up photo
of a Sri Lankan woman wiping away tears at a mourning event on the tragedy’s
third anniversary.
Writing the lead editorial, USA Today, America’s national newspaper
, under the headline, “3years after tsunami, success story emerges,”
said , “Three years ago,..the TV images coming from Asia could
hardly have been more horrific . On the day after tsunami set off by
an earthquake near Indonesia rippled across the Pacific and Indian Oceans
, inundating low lying land and killing a staggering 230,000 people
in 12 nations.”
The editorial further said, “Photos of the aftermath remain a
searing reminder of what horror capricious Mother Nature can wreck -
as did a year later when Hurricane Catrina hit the US Gulf Coast.
But as people marked the anniversary Wednesday , the picture is greatly
charged . Different photos -of new schools, hospitals, four-lane highways,
-send a more hopeful message about what can be done when the international
community pulls together .The horror drove people in the region and
across the world with a compassion that didn’t stop , as so often
happens , when the news spotlight moved on.”
Concentrating the praise showered on the United States the newspaper
further said, “The United States sent military equipment and supplies
, for example ( in the process, it helped reverse some of the anti-Americanism
across the region spurred by the Iraq war.) Governments ,international
corporations, eventually pledged more that 13 billion.” The full
editorial was a sunshine story of the benevolence of the Western nations
in the aftermath of the tsunami.
But little did the editorial reveal Sri Lanka, one of the worst countries
that received the blow of tsunami, received only 1.7 billion US dollars
out of the 3.1 billion US dollars pledged by the foreign donors.
For instance , the World Bank gave only US 142 million while it pledged
150 million. But UNICEF, the UN Children’s fund, fulfilled its
total commitment of US dollars of 42 million in full.
Meanwhile , USAID paid a meager US $ 68 million out of its pledge of
115 million.
NORAD which pledged 1.2 million US dollars to Sri Lanka only gave only
US $ 607,992 according to the latest statistics released by Sri Lanka.
Due to the remaining pledges not being fulfilled 19,791 houses are
yet to be built,
According to tsunami relief sources in Sri Lanka only 85 percent of
the full requirement of 117,483 have been completed in while the remaining
houses could be completed by next June.
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