It turns out some of the tsunami aid was less generous than expected:
As governments race to top one another by offering the biggest package, much of the “aid” will arrive in the form of loans that will need to be paid back, contracts for donor countries’ companies or, many fear, will not come at all.
Perhaps the recipients of that strings-attached aid ought to name the countries and companies which will be making a profit out of this disaster. There certainly ought to be a list of those who reneged on their promise to help.
Meanwhile, the Richie Rich nations have announced a freeze of debts owed to them by tsunami-hit countries but as one report pointed out:
… the debt moratorium is ill-conceived, designed to reflect well on the world’s richest countries while achieving little for the world’s poorest.
Some people need to be reminded of the generosity of those who lost everything:
- “… countless villagers left homeless and hungry who were nonetheless offering Western relief workers, journalists, and soldiers a place to sleep, a bottle of water, or a plate of fresh noodles.“
- “They have lost everything but they brought us food, they transported injured foreigners.“
- “… families opening their homes to bewildered survivors, strangers offering the shirts off their backs to foreigners in swimwear left with nothing but their lives.“
- “Those who did survive demonstrated a remarkable generosity of spirit in coming forward to help tourists in distress, sharing what little clothes, food and water they had and taking visitors to safer ground.“
