US blamed for tsunamis

2005-01-05 21:37

Dubai - Islamists have had no trouble identifying the culprit in the tsunami disaster, using websites to blame the United States for the deaths of nearly 146 000 people in the earthquake and tidal waves that struck Asia.

"America got wind of the catastrophe before it occurred. The state department, the Pentagon and the American naval base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia were alerted before the destructive earthquake," wrote one internet user under the name "al-Madhri".

Claiming to cite an article by a Canadian academic, the writer accused Washington of "not having alerted the authorities of the affected countries, which could have saved tens of thousands of innocent lives."

The number of people killed in the massive earthquake off Indonesia and tidal waves it unleashed across Asia on December 26 edged up towards 146 000 on Wednesday. Thousands more remain unaccounted for.

As to why the United States would have refrained from preventing a disaster on this scale if it could, "al-Madhri" said: "The Americans don't care who or how many die. All that matters to them is to continue to rule the world."

Some Islamists, for whom the internet has become the main outlet to air their views, hailed "the annihilation of the Diego Garcia base."

"The whole world is wondering about the silence of the American government on the fate of this base, situated at the core of the catastrophe and from where B-52 bombers took off to bomb our Muslim brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq," one wrote.

"It seems that the base was wiped off the map. But given their difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans do not want to announce it so as not to sap the morale of their soldiers," claimed another.

The writer saw US remarks on some 5 000 missing Americans as substantiating his view.

US authorities are unsure how many Americans may be missing after the disaster. But the state department said Tuesday that the number of inquiries from concerned relatives and friends had fallen below 4 000 from 5 000 inquiries on Monday.

"It's not possible they were all tourists," added the internet user.

"Certainly we cannot blame the United States for the quake which caused the tsunamis, but we have the right to be amazed by the eagerness of America to install all means of spying and early warning whenever it has the slightest suspicion about the presence of what it calls terrorists," said Kuwaiti Islamist Hamed Abdullah al-Ali in an online article.

"American aid was late coming," he said, claiming that Washington's pledge placed it at the bottom of the donors list compared with its revenues, "drawn from the plundering of people's resources."

- AFP