Tsunami Disaster & the People of Tamil Eelam
Pirapaharan meets with disaster management
planners
17 January 2005 - Courtesy
TamilNet
"We should not wait for aid and relief
from the international agencies but start immediately to
bring hope and confidence to our affected people.We should
not allow our people to become a community that is dependent
on international aid..."
Leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,
Mr. V. Pirapaharan, met with disaster management planners who are currently
participating in relief and reconstruction planning and praised them for their
services to the people of NorthEast. Pirapaharan told the planners that all
resources available have to be utilized to ensure a swift and sustained recovery
from the tsunami disaster that has brought destruction and grief to the
community. The meeting took place in Kilinochchi on Monday, 17 January 2005.
Pirapaharan said:
"Although our people have suffered through
severe hardships, we are shocked by the scale of destruction and
loss of lives tsunami has inflicted on our community within a
short period of time. Our people were displaced several times
and suffered losses to their property
by the actions of the Sri Lanka Army during the past several
years. While this period where the destruction to the Tamil
homeland was inflicted silently without the knowledge of the
international community can be called tsunami-one, December 26th
disaster, tsunami-two, has brought additional destruction.
'The challenge before us is to bring our community back to
normalcy and to ensure that all necessary effort is taken to
comfort them from the shock. We have to take special care of the
children who have been psychologically scarred by the disaster.
We are forced to disband traditional approaches to providing
help and to look for more appropriate approaches to providing a
healthy environment for the children to emerge unscathed from
the disaster’s impacts. Well equipped playgrounds and creating a
happy educational environments in schools are important to the
recovery of our children.
We have decided that people who have obtained loans for economic
activity need not repay them. At the same time I urge the
expatriate community to do everything necessary to help the
people affected by the disaster. We should not wait for aid and
relief from the international agencies but start immediately to
bring hope and confidence to our affected people.
We should not allow our people to become a community that is
dependent on international aid. Instead, we need to implement
projects that can build confidence and self-reliance among our
people. Education should be structured to prepare students for
jobs we need for long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation.
Technology required to build our infrastructure should be
integrated into our future educational plans.
'While we embark on our path to economic progress and prosperity
we should be mindful of the need to preserve our environment.
Appropriate and innovative technologies should be chosen to
further strengthen our natural resources.
I also would like to pay special tribute to the doctors and
officers of our health department for their service that have
created a healthy environment in the welfare camps preventing
spread of infectious diseases''
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