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TIMES POSTCARD
Batting for the tsunami
By Rajpal Abeynayake
Mr. Tilanga Sumathipala in his blue shirt looks natty. He looks many other things besides. He says that America took over a year to get over 9 /11, therefore Sri Lanka can take 20 years to get over the tsunami. Patience he says, patience.

Mr. Sumathipala should try stating this inside a hot tent in Kalmunai for instance. He is assisted by Mr. Ranavirajah, Commissioner General of Essential Services. Says he (Ranavirajah) that nobody died for want of food or medicine during the tsunami relief effort.

We were almost expecting Mr Sumathipala to add that nobody died for want of a cricket bat either. Everybody was dying to see Marvan Atapattu he might have added - - especially in places such as Amapara. However, it might take longer for him to produce Mutthiah Muralitharan, because he has to be extracted from the embrace of Shane Warne.

Mr. Ranavirajah is in a yellow shirt, and he hardly looks up when he talks. He has been immersed in work, he says, and he looks too immersed in his papers to look the people in the eye. He is not a politician he says. He can say that again.

Anyway, Mr. Ranavirajah says he can claim with responsibility that the government will build some 64,000 houses. There have been around five built in Hambantota where the foundation stone was laid for the first house. At that rate the 64,000 houses will probably get done about the time Ranavirajah starts looking up from his sheaf of papers. That might be an eternity, but Ranavirajah says ''we do not give the people false expectations.''

But elsewhere they are debating the politics of the tsunami. Says Sripathi Sooriyarachchi that the Tigers were definitely going for war before the tsunami -- but they changed their minds. We suppose Prabhakaran called him and said "we called it off chum.'' What else would Prabhakran have told Sripathi? "Next time we wage war I will call and get your permission, chum.''

Mr. Sooriyarachchi's rationale is that the Tigers cannot be trusted for setting up a joint mechanism for tsunami releif. But the next day, his leader Chandrika Kumaratunga addresses the party women, and says "Federalism is the only solution.'' Now we know it. Sripathi Sooriarachchi talks to Prabhakaran, but he does not talk to his leader. Maybe Prabhakaran trusts Prabhakran and Chandrika Kumaratunga doesn't; either way Sooriyarachchi knows Prabharkaran's mind very well but does not know Chandrika's mind at all, which should give a fair indication of where he stands….

Meanwhile there is one article in the newspapers which says that some people in tsunami camps are surviving only because they are given handouts by Buddhist monks who have been begging for alms. What will Tilak Ranavirajah say to that? "Nobody has died of starvation -- but they have all got closer to the dhamma and the sangha?''

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