[Mb-civic] interesting letter from an MD in Sri Lanka

[Hecate Gould]

>From: Daniel Susott [mailto:dan at danielsusott.info]
>Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 11:07 AM
>To: SriLankaRelief
>Subject: SRI LANKA UPDATE #3
>
>ALOHA FROM SRI LANKA:
>
>Call it coincidence.   Whatever.  I like to think I played some part
>in saving some of the 15,000 people stranded in the worst-hit area
>of the south-eastern coast.  The bridges were destroyed, the roads
>cut, and reports were that 15,000 souls were marooned, stranded,
>without food or clean water or even shelter.    This, a WEEK AFTER
>the tsunami.
>
>At the offices of the TRO (Tamil Rehabilitation Organization), a
>beehive of activity, there was great concern over this stranded
>community, cut off from the outside world.  All the local boats had
>been destroyed or were afraid to take to the water fearing another
>killer wave.    The Government was doing nothing to help them.  What
>was needed was a helicopter.  Or fleet of them.  With the key staff
>of the TRO, the main conduit of aid from Operation USA, I attended
>the coordinating meeting of the CNO, the Centre for National
>Operations.  Our group were not happy that this coordinating
>function had been taken out of the hands of the United Nations, thus
>leaving the process even more open to inefficiency and inequalities.
>  When we raised the question of the stranded people, a military man
>on the panel in front of the assembly said “there are no stranded
>people.  There are no communities without services.”  As we left the
>meeting in frustration, I got the cards of the 2 people there from
>USAID, and while at dinner heard that the United States Marines were
>about to arrive – with helicopters!  So I called one then the other
>of the Americans, asking when the copters were arriving, and who
>would be responsible for directing them to the most urgent areas of
>need. I got the answer, called him, and left an urgent message that
>helicopters with aid must be dispatched to “Ampara district,  Komari
>– across the bay!”
>
>    The next day I saw on BBC World News that indeed, the Marines
>had landed in Ampara and attended to a large group of stranded
>people...
>
>Then tonight at dinner at the TransAsia Hotel, I saw 2 Afro-American
>guys in military fatigues, and found out they were indeed from the
>USA – from the helicopter unit!  When I told them about “our”
>stranded people, they said “that sounds like the folks we got to
>today”!   I thanked them, Sgts. Scott from Longview, Texas, and  Price from 
>Louisiana.  (I’m a Texan too – Waco, y’know.)
>
>    I feel good about this – even if it IS a coincidence.  I did
>what I could, and maybe it helped.  I have spent part of this week
>wondering if I were accomplishing anything useful.  I have met many
>of the key players in the unfolding drama here and done what I could
>to facilitate communication between the various groups.  I am not
>doing any hands-on “doctoring”, but I have been trying to assess the
>usefulness of bringing in some of the myriad foreign medical
>personnel who have been contacting me, eager to leave everything and
>come help out in any way possible.  I have been coordinating the
>in-shipment of aid, facilitated by Nancy Rivard’s Airline
>Ambassadors, creating an unprecedented convoy of commercial
>airliners ferrying aid from the United States to Bangkok where it is
>to be loaded into the cargo holds of aircraft form Sri Lankan
>Airways – all space donated, free of charge.    United, American,
>and Northwest Airlines are helping on the US end, and Cathay Pacific
>also, which has flights all the way from the USA to Colombo, a
>connection cultivated by Richard Walden of Operation USA and Skip
>Whitney of his board.
>
>    A WEEK AFTER the tsunami.  I finally got to see my old friend
>Dr. A..T. Ariyaratne, founder of Sarvodaya.  We have been speaking
>on the phone daily, but going in different directions.  He is all
>over the country, and Sarvodaya is active in all the affected areas.
>  They have been building their infrastructure for years.  He just
>returned from 3 days in Jaffna and Molatiu in the north, and reports
>that relief programs are going well there, as well as in the east
>and northeast.  He seems very well, vigorous as always, enjoying his
>petite digital camera. He snaps away continually at the 200+ staff
>working around Sarvodaya headquarters, at the Disaster Relief
>Center.   There is a lot of activity there as they dispatch lorries
>full of aid to the affected areas.  Hi son is officially directing
>Sarvodaya now, but Ari is very much involved on a daily basis.
>
>So what else.  All the medicines shipped in by Rotary were
>appropriated by the Government and the military with none disbursed
>to the private organizations.  The newspapers announced today that
>the military is taking over running of ALL the camps for displaced
>persons.  This does not sit well with the TRO.
>
>    Mr. Kumar Nadesan, publisher of the leading Tamil-language
>newspaper, with whom we took the “mother of all road trips” to
>Batticaloa, is  creating 2 model camps to house 1,000 people in
>each, one for Muslims and one for Hindus, who have different needs.   He 
>wants to “give back’ something to the readers who have
>supported HIM all these years by reading his paper.   He is a a
>sincere and earnest man, whom I first met 20 years ago on my first
>visit to Sri Lanka, when I convened a meeting of the government and
>the media around the threat of AIDS.  I was working then as the
>Senior Physician Consultant to the AIDS Initiative at New York City
>Health and Hospitals Corp, and  Mr. Nadesan’s wife Sue came to the
>meeting – she had been an intern in training in New York and took
>care of the first documented AIDS patient... Before AIDS was even
>known!  We have kept in touch over the years, and now I am honored
>to get to work with Kumar in this relief effort.
>
>The TRO are greatly supported by those of the “diaspora” returning
>to help:  I have met doctors and engineers and lawyers and others
>coming from Australia, the U.K., and the USA, all here to help.  There is a 
>great opportunity for healing between the factions here
>in Sri Lanka which have been in conflict for decades, and we are all
>praying that UNITY is the result of this disaster, and not further
>division.
>
>    I am saddened that I cannot have my hanai sister, Lauryn
>Galindo, working with me in all this.  Instead, she is to be
>warehoused in a federal prison somewhere soon, having just been
>sentenced to 18 months in prison.  You can read about it at
>www.friendsofLaurynGalindo.org, if you want to know more.  It is a
>great injustice that this is happening to her, one of the most
>sincere and selfless humanitarians I have ever met.
>
>By the way,  Chanthoeun To is putting my pictures and words together
>on my website, if you would like to see some images.  That’s
><www.DanielSusott,info>.  He’s doing a great job, as usual!  There’s
>also a “blog” started at <www.theKSBWchannel.com> the website for TV
>News in Salinas, California, where I work when I am in the USA.
>
>I guess that’s enough for one letter...  Thanks for your encouraging
>words.    Best wishes and love all around, and May All Beings be
>Happy!
>
>Aloha, Daniel Susott, MD
>4 January 2005
>Colombo
>
>PS:  I was happy to get to spend time today with the Venerable Karma
>Leshe Tsomo, a nun of the Tibetan tradition who teaches at several
>universities in California.  She was in the mountains of Bangladesh
>when the tsunami struck and learned only days later about the
>catastrophe – and that there was an international alert out for her,
>since it was feared she was already in Sri Lanka and maybe lost!  Her work 
>with Sakyadita( .org) has empowered Buddhist women in Asia
>and around the world and helped to elevate their status
>considerably, especially those that have taken vows and ordained as
>nuns and “Bhikuni”.    She was responsible for bringng the Buddhist
>Peace Fellowship monthly meetings into our treehouse in Manoa Valley
>for so many years.  She is here in Colombo teaching at a Buddhist
>studies conference.  A true inspiration!
>
>One of the rewards of being here in Sri Lanka is getting to spend
>time with people I consider living treasures, Sir. Arthur C. Clarke
>and Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne.
>
>Today at sunset on the Galle Face here in Colombo, I asked Arthur,
>87, what he thinks happens when we die.  “Nothing,” he said. “Out.
>Like a candle.”  A reflective pause, then: “I can’t see any storage
>mechanism.” No storage mechanism for Life.  Hmmmm. I guess not.
>
>I asked him if he had any regrets.  “No,’ he said, “except the times
>I may have been rude or mean to someone.  Which weren’t many, and I
>never made any enemies to speak of.”  It reminded me of Aldous
>Huxley’s deathbed response  to a similar question soliciting advice:
>” I wish we would all be a little kinder to one another.”  Or in the
>words of Fred Small, “the only measure of your words and your deeds,
>will be the love you leave behind when you’re gone.”
>