Jaffna (Courtesy www.thiswayplease.com/extra.html)
National Public Radio
I listened to your coverage on Tsunami in Asia (On All Things Considered Dec 27, 2004), and about the country that was most affected by it – Sri Lanka. However, there is one big piece of the tragedy was missed by NPR. Large part of the affected are from Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority in the East coast. There is an ongoing conflict/ceasefire between the main Tamil group LTTE and the Sri Lankan government which has made coverage on the plight of the Tamil people very minimal in the international media with regards to whether help is reaching those Tamil minority people.
Most coverage on Sri Lanka has been on West and South, where most western tourists go to and also where Sri lanka’s capital is located.
NPR did mention about the issues with the Aceh situation when covering Indonesia’s losses from Tsunami but no mention was made about Tamils in Sri Lanka.
K. Thirukumaran
(Pronounced as Thei-rue-kumaran)
Dayton, New Jersey
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US Senators
Dear Senator,
Re: Tsunami
We need to make sure that our US government does not throw money at the countries affected by tsunami. 90% of the funds will go into the hands of money hungry, financially desperate politicians, determined to invest their ill-gotten gains abroad.
What we need to do is send services, doctors, carpenters, builders, administrators familiar with distribution of services, with sufficient funds to enable them to rehabilitate the plight of the victims. What we do not need is an aimless flow of freely usable funds for corrupt politicians to disburse at their discretion.
Sincerely,
Wakeley Paul
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Go see http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/ByCountry/Sri+Lanka?OpenDocument&StartKey=Sri+Lanka&Expandview
for more places to respond!