Sri Lankan war refugees interned in camps built by donors. ⇒
20 July 2009, mid-morning
It's a bit disappointing this isn't a bigger issue than it should be.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
are the aid organizations that are contributing to this well-known ones, or more shady? The article doesn’t name any except UNICEF and the Red Cross, but do you know if it’s more a problem of legit aid dollars being duped into building these camps…or aid organizations that really weren’t all that neutral to begin with?
by Weiguo on July 20 2009, 2:15 pm #
I’m not sure to be honest. I suspect a fair amount of money comes from China, who were giving them aid during the war. I’m sure there is some Western money ending up there as well, but i’m not sure how much. They wanted money from the IMF, which would be predominantly money from the West.
by ramanan on July 21 2009, 7:51 am #
A good and related op-ed from the NYT.
by ramanan on July 21 2009, 11:21 am #
thanks for the reply and the links. Yeah, I wondered if the term “aid” was being stretched a little. Building camps with (say) Red Cross dollars is one thing, but China or whoever, supporting the Sri Lankan government in specifically building the camps is another. But the main article still does make it sound like at least some portion of the money came from UNICEF and the Red Cross, or that less than 100% of that money is actually going towards helping people.
by Weiguo on July 21 2009, 1:40 pm #
The IMF is donating money. I’m not that surprised about that though.
by ramanan on July 21 2009, 4:32 pm #
is donating money to the Sri Lankan government pretty much the same as donating it towards the construction/upkeep of those camps?
by Weiguo on July 21 2009, 4:53 pm #
I’d say so, yes. I mean, even if the IMF explicitly says this money needs to be spent on projects X, Y and Z, the government now has funds that it would have spent on X, Y, and Z, to spend on running these camps.
by ramanan on July 21 2009, 4:58 pm #
Setting the record straight: Challenges of internment for IDPs. “It is hard to extract any coherent arguments from the barrage of innuendo, misquotations (e.g. I never said anything about a ‘Sinhala-Buddhist dictatorship’!), disinformation and abuse in Lucien Rajakarunanayake’s rejoinder, but let me try.” OH SNAP!
by ramanan on July 28 2009, 9:21 am #