Editorial
Arrest of relief seekers in Barguna
Recurrence must be avoided
When twelve individuals were arrested in Barguna the other day, their fault being a demand for relief for an outlying village affected by cyclone Sidr it couldn't but create some revulsion. The fact of the matter is that these men, part of a 500-strong procession asking that they be provided with help were a peaceful lot simply trying to draw attention to their plight.
It does not make anyone happy, indeed it is appalling, that such men in distress and in dire need of help should be taken into custody under the emergency rules. What bigger emergency can there be than the helplessness of citizens struggling to rebuild their lives after nature has left them battered? It is our belief that the measures taken against these suffering people were an over-reaction reflecting the way local authorities may sometimes adopt in handling such humanitarian crises. What these villagers were doing was only sounding an SOS, a message they intended to convey to the District Commissioner that even after a fortnight of Sidr not much of relief has reached them.
Actually, the spirit of the approach taken by the district officials and Navy personal to the demonstrators at the end of the day assuring them of the release of the arrested persons and distributing ten kg of rice should have been adopted at the beginning of the event. They should have been allowed to present their memorandum to the DC for appropriate follow up action without any incident. Those who were arrested should be allowed to go free, if they have not been freed already.
Our sympathies certainly go out to all the men and women who were compelled by circumstances to draw attention of the authorities to sufferings even as other cyclone-affected places in the country came under the spotlight of relief operations. For the local administration, everywhere in the country, the emphasis ought not to be on invoking laws that have little to do with people's hunger but instead should be on finding out how many more villages and how many more people are yet deprived of the bare means of survival in these post-Sidr conditions to be reached with succour expeditiously.
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