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Missing
buckshee If they are correct, then there are more questions than answers. If they are incorrect, then there are still more questions than answers. Did the international community engage in a form of kite-flying when it pledged millions of dollars of aid in the middle of the post tsunami media orgy?? The Sri Lankan government version is that 8 billion dollars was pledged as tsunami aid, only 75 million of which materialised. If this is correct, it appears that we are living in the age of Hollywood style international special effects and acting. Pledging aid and not delivering is not just an exercise in kite flying -- it is also a lot of chutzpah, and a great deal of bull. It's in other words a way of making use of a tragic natural calamity as a good public relations opportunity. Certainly, we are told that there has been precedent for this, as in Bam in Iran, where pledges made after the earthquake never materialised according to aid workers. But, we thought the tsunami was different because it saw in its aftermath perhaps the most comprehensive coverage of any event since the birth of television. This we would have assumed necessarily changed the equation. Governments of rich nations could not ignore the plight of tsunami victims. The subsequent travels undertaken by the biggest names in the game of international relations such as Colin Powell, George Bush and Bill Clinton indicated that foreign powers are energised by the tsunami to the point of being completely, relentlessly engaged. But now we are hearing the incredible. All this they are telling us, was a charade. Clinton was here, but there is no money trail that followed him. We are running on empty. If that's the case, shouldn't the international community be held to account for breach of promise? Granted that there isn't a ghost of a chance of pressing that line of litigation in international courts of law. Bedsides, it would invariably be argued that the needy and bereaved have no business raising a shindig about charity. But then again, is this really the case? We are not at all sure. If international pledges have not materialised as we are being made to believe by the government, why have Mano Titawella and P. B. Jayasundera waited until they were poked in the ribs and asked "what's happening to reconstruction chum?'' to come out with the facts about it? We can ask the Ambassador of the United States of America here and now, dear sir, is it true that your government does not intend delivering an n'th of the massive aid that it pledged to this country with copious sentiments that conveyed an extraordinary empathy for us the stricken? Mr British High Commissioner, is it true sir, that your government has been pledging us a whole stable of Mustangs, when it intends eventually delivering only a dollop of horse pat? Can an international charade really be played to such an extraordinary denouement? Or is the international community pledging to deliver only if the government can get its act together and make things happen in reconstruction and relief. We are yet to hear from the donors, but it’s time to investigate. If Titawella and Co are proved correct on the long run, then maybe we must forever be wary of these Greeks who come bearing gifts for us. But, if they are wrong, then is it the state which is guilty of deception of the grossest order. Lethargic reconstruction is an injury -- but to deceive about its causes is a particularly egregious insult. Oh
boy! But we didn't see coverage that even came close to that volume for the over 1000 Sri Lankan kids who lost their parents in the tsunami. Baby 81 is a particularly resilient and bouncy tyke -- and we wouldn't grudge for a moment his hour in the network spotlight. But aren't the networks, and the media perhaps including our own, self serving more than caring in its sensational coverage of this baby who defines the phrase 'Lost and Found'? |
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