VOA,  Sat Mar 11 14:42:56 EST 2006

    A United Nations tsunami recovery envoy calls it "unfortunate" that Sri Lankan leaders did not rise above their political differences to seize the opportunity for peace after the December 2004 tragedy ravaged the country. But, Eric Shwartz praised India's government for its efforts to rebuild following the disaster.

When the Indian Ocean tsunami struck on December 26, 2004, Sri Lanka had been mired in more than 20 years of fighting between the government and the Tamil Tiger guerrilla group, which wants greater rights for the country's ethnic Tamil minority. Peace talks supervised by Norwegian mediators had ground to a virtual halt.

The deadly waters killed more than 30,000 people in Sri Lanka and devastated thousands of towns and villages. But within days of the disaster, attention shifted to the question of whether some good could come of the tragedy.

The international community pledged some $5 billion in assistance to Sri Lanka alone, raising hopes that talks between the government and the rebels over aid distribution could restart the stalled peace process.

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- The Academic

Sri Lanka has been made unfortunate by the so called international community by pressurising it to have joint ventures with blood thirsty terrorists and pave the way for further strengthening terrorism.

They want to impose UN resolutions 1373 etc against their enemies and Sri Lanka to share money with Terrorists. This idiotic attempt by west created chaos in the country by in stabilising country's political harmony thereby putting tsunami victims from pan to fire.

So, International community don't blame Sri Lanka for your double standard. We all have been victimised by your policies.

Tsunami recovery in SL hampered by many issues and not as simple as one might think. The 100 meter restriction means finding alternate land which is scarce. There is a lack of skilled labour especially in the North-East,  non availability of river sand  for building construction has caused further problems. Various NGOs who pledged assistance have not delivered as promised. Systematic corruption by LTTE, various other govt servants and the lack of political will to curb corruption are reasons for lack of progress.

It is just a sample of the "unfortunate" matter of SriLankan leaders.
All over SriLanka in managing the country whether on economy, development or ethnic conflict,  our leaders are doing this "unfortunate" things.
Probably for UN it is a news about our "unfortunate" leaders, but for us it not anymore.

Unfair comment. Based on superficial facts of easy comments.

SL has been dealing with terrorist organization that killed its leaders, innocent civilians by suicide and other bombing. They bombed most venerated world heritage site temple of tooth. P Tomp develop later along with arrogant Tiger terrorist demands not as compromised act to immediately provide assistance to suffered people. Terrorists wanted to achieve their objectives through this disaster. They (even international community did not pressurised LTTE) to first get the assistance by corporation within the existing system and then move ahead. That prevented the assistance that prevented the opportunity to build peace.  One must remember how LTTE stop aid sent to uncleared areas immediately after the disaster.

 We started talking about PTOM after many days. By then, due to LTTE callus attitude, lack of sympathy to suffered people in the North and east of SL as well as lack of vision of International community to force LTTE to open up and allow government to provide needy assistance - the train had gone!

Now dont blame SL.

This problem is more complicated than what we know. Even in Ache, Indonesia, ecen after one whole year, they were complaining about poor progress.

I think there were a lot of barriers.


Even foreign NGOs made this a employment for them.

What is  new here.  The Sinhalese would rather starve and let the Tamils die rather than sharing power with them.  I guess it is unfortunate.  India is eating our lunch now whether it is investment in IT, out sourcing, etc.  We study in Suyabasha and remain useless to the multinationals.  Yes we are proud of our heritage, language and religion, but we have nothing much to show for now.