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Pirapaharan meets disaster
management planners
[TamilNet, January 17, 2005
16:03 GMT]
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 Monday.
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,'' Pirapaharan said.
''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,'' he said.
''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,'' Pirapaharan said.
Courtesy: Tamilnet.Com |