Peace for the World

Peace for the World
First democratic leader of Justice the Godfather of the Sri Lankan Tamil Struggle: Honourable Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam

Monday, June 5, 2017

Anura Yapa, Go Home! You Failed Miserably

Eranda Ginige
An Open Letter to Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Minister of Disaster Management, Sri Lanka
Lives of innocent children were taken not by the rain, but by the inaction, negligence and failure of you and your ministry who are responsible and accountable for managing disasters in Sri Lanka.
Are the lives of the common people so expendable to the insensitive rulers of this country? Where are those comrades who vowed to take action if the Yahapalana regime fail to deliver their promise? Where are you? Wake up! What are you waiting for? Your silence is deafening! Hold the man accountable, he who so miserably failed to do his job. Ask him to resign. Ask for a competent person to take charge of the Ministry of Disaster Management, immediately!
Anura, were you scraping coconut for one year?
It has been a year since the last year’s flood and some of the displaced are still displaced. For one long year, you didn’t do anything to prepare for this year’s monsoon. You failed to organise your ministry and the relevant departments. You failed to coordinate with other relevant ministries. You failed to analyse historical weather data. You failed to analyse the geological conditions. You failed to identify the risk-zones. You failed to plan for the worst. You failed to inform the people about the imminent disaster. You failed to evacuate the people, your own people, people who voted for you, people of your country of which you are a minister! You failed to mobilise the government officers, the thousands of Gramasevakas, the Divisional Secretaries and the Police to evacuate people to designated safe-zones. Hell, you failed to even designate any safe-zones for people to run to! What kind of a disaster management minister are you?
You failed to equip the hospitals in target areas with medicine, doctors, nurses and support staff in case the worst happen. You failed to stock food, clothing and essentials at designated relief centres. You failed to use the media to inform the people in risk-zones in time on the imminent threat. You failed to use the Police to evacuate at least the children to safe-zones. You failed to build a state-of-the-art monitoring system to track the weather and water-level around the country. You failed to build a system to track the actual ground-level situation. You failed to implement a plan when the worst happen. You failed to build a system to coordinate the relief efforts. You failed. You failed. You failed. Your ministry’s website is a disgrace. (ICTA, before you send balloons up… can you do something useful for a change? Like at least building useful digital tools for critical government ministries.)
Anura, was Mexico more important than your own country?
What kind of a minister gives speeches about disaster management at a conference in Mexico when there is a disaster happening in his own country? You are the highest authority for disaster management in this country. This country and its people should be your utmost priority. You should’ve taken the first flight home the moment you heard about the disaster. Hell, if you predicted this disaster, you shouldn’t have left in the place! What kind of wisdom were you mumbling in Mexico, when you clearly couldn’t plan for a recurring monsoon in your own country for one whole year? Those conference organisers must be real geniuses to invite somebody like you to talk to them.

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