Where are all Tsunami funds?

Sri Lanka's Tsunami Millionaires
By Victor Karunairajan

Stories, fables and perfidious tales

Emanating from my island home,

Evenly spread on sordid sleaze

The deceptive charade still persists.

Thousands perished when the sea roared

With swallowing waves into watery graves

Many more thousands lost their all

And thousands turned utterly numbed.

The world reacted with concern and kind

Opened the hearts and its chests of gold

Funds flooded from faraway lands,

And from neighbouring nations too.

Cash and tents and packed provisions

Generators and aluminum ware

Medical needs and emergency rations

And water counted in zillion flasks

Volunteer experts, doctors and nurses,

Engineers, technicians and planners

Determined to give their very best

To my affected Sri Lankan folks.

Once the waters had done their worst

And receded to distant shores,

The wolves and hyenas saw their chance

For a dough quick on this Klondike trail.

The buck, however was not some

Greenback wads and others of the kind

Say it Euro, Franc, Lira and Sterling

Even Asia’s Yen, the Japanese pride.

Though Indian Rupee just a bit weaker

But only in relation to the Western buck

Yet who cares, take whatever you can

Was how the plunderer pillaged at will.

Wolverine packs in shades and hues

Politicians, priests and sham aid teams

Their scanty morals and fictitious ethics

Shed to depths of dodgy deception.

In merciless roams all over the isle

Hyenas scavenged with ravenous greed

Never spared even the barest of bones

Even baby food and hospital stores.

Ask the recipients of funds and aid

For reports on how they managed

Hardly any response will come;For how could they, in account state

The burst dam that sprayed so muchOn to their laps in a flooded flash?

Stewards, they very well were

Faithfully trusted and charged to serve

But soon this mission meandered away

When they became trapped in greed.

Tag on the tsunami track and trail

Over months since the disaster struck

How this tragedy has impacted

On the personnel on frontline gear.

Search just not in Sri Lanka aloneBut go to cities mostly west

Houses, condos, and luxury spots,Inshore, offshore and name others

Flying high in jets worldwidePoliticians, priests and sham aid teams

Seeking sanctuaries for kith and kin.

But this is only an iceberg’s tip

Submerged to cover the entire land

And Goddess Corruptia wields the whip

From east to west and south to north

The tsunami was an added blight

For a nation perishing in ethnic fight.

Even there, the Klondike huntsGather gold in shameful fundsFrom dealers in lethal wares

Of arms-making corporate powersAnd smugglers sailing nearby seas.

Sri Lanka, my very dear homeland

Has gone to hell and may never return

For those who rule this verdant land

Are corrupt politicians, crafty priests,And sham-aid teams, inland and afar.