Government Lying

[sriracha john]

TSUNAMI AFTERMATH: No boats, no jobs, no houses in Phang Nga

Bitterness begins to set in as tambon officials label govt promises 'a lie'.

A hundred days into the government's tsunami rehabilitation, fishermen are still waiting for their promised boats, the jobless are still twiddling their thumbs, and tenants of improvised shelters can barely wait to move out, community leaders from Phang Nga said yesterday.

"The government's promises [made during relief meetings] have been like waves hitting the shore - they've vanished without a trace," Chainarong Maharae, a member of the Tambon Administrative Organisation in Baan Muang, Phang Nga, charged. His heated comments came during a symposium at Chulalongkorn University on the respective experiences of Thailand and Japan in community recovery after natural disasters. "It's all been just a big lie!" he thundered.

Chainarong accused the government of reneging on its word, which it gave in February, to provide hard-up villagers with Bt200 a day for every household, or Bt50 a day per person. He explained that he had been appointed to a committee to oversee the distribution of the funds, but that "to date we've received nothing to distribute".

He continued, "Villagers have been calling me a liar. It hurts me - most of one [village] meeting was even broadcast on television."

Chainarong added that in rebuilding their properties several resort owners are encroaching again upon public land, snatching living space away from villagers.

Representatives of other tsunami-ravaged communities were eager to take up his lead.

Maitree Kongkraijak, a delegate from the village of Baan Nam Khem in Phang Nga, one of the hardest-hit communities in the Boxing Day calamity, said the government had not built a single fishing boat for villagers, most of whom are fishermen and lost almost their whole fleet to the giant waves.

Instead, it has been foreign volunteer relief agencies and the King of Sweden who have pitched in to help, Maitree said.

Locals have not fared much better with shelters, either, the villager insisted.

The two kinds of buildings offered to villagers were both without sewage systems and constructed too far away from the sea. "Houses should be built in accordance with the needs of the inhabitants and not those of the builders," Maitree said, adding that homeless villagers who refused to move into the structures would be compensated with Bt30,000 and left to their own devices.

With flagging attention and languishing assistance by the government, it will continue to be up to private citizens to help needy villagers, said Pakpoom Witantirawat, who works for Save Andaman, a network of NGOs assisting in reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.

"A daunting new problem is that things are being discussed as if everything had returned to normal, even though many people still have no roof over their heads," he said. "It's as if they'd been completely forgotten."

[phuketsiam]

so no surprise there then

[sriracha john]

The Thais are finding out now just what kind of government that they

re-elected to office for the next four years...

Unfortunately, that discovery is coming at a heavy toll of human suffering...

I hope they can begin to feel some regret....

[Nignoy]

The Thais are finding out now just what kind of government that they

re-elected to office for the next four years...

Unfortunately, that discovery is coming at a heavy toll of human suffering...

I hope they can begin to feel some regret....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The offer of help with housing that was made in january still stands , I just need a contact address on Phang Na, Nignoy