The Vanuatuan prime minister, on a tour of the areas worst affected by Cyclone Pam, has urged citizens to “plant their own gardens and survive” — and told them that they have become too dependent on the government as a result of French colonial rule.
Vanuatuan Prime Minister Joe Natuman arrived on the island of Tanna days after the category five cyclone laid waste the island, leaving thousands homeless, and water and food supplies dwindling.
Residents told of a terrifying and unprecedented storm that raged for hours, flattening whole villages, wiping out subsistence crops and damaging or destroying more than three-quarters of all homes on the island.
Photo: AFP
Some questioned the lack of visible support from the Vanuatuan government, which has struggled to mount an immediate response and is heavily reliant on Australia, New Zealand and France for the aid effort.
Natuman, who arrived on a New Zealand military plane, told reporters at Tanna airport that while large-scale aid had begun to arrive on the island, people should eat what food the cyclone had left behind before the government stepped in. He said aid would initially focus on shelters and “probably water,” before turning to food supplies.
Asked what message of hope he could offer Tanna, Natuman paid tribute to local people’s resilience, before criticizing French colonialism and what he said was an overdependence on the government.
“They have been existing for thousands of years, they’ve been facing all these natural disasters and then the president of France came, and even when they were here, hardly anything then went to the people, only now, people are too dependent on government,” Natuman said. “Of course, I suppose it’s government business to service the people, but people have to be able to survive on their own, to be self-sufficient. The government will be providing some relief measures — food, shelter — but they will have to, in the long run, plant their own gardens and survive.”
While the government puts the death toll from Cyclone Pam at 11, including five in Tanna, a report by the provincial authority estimated that seven people had died on the island.
There are an estimated 10,000 people that the authorities have not been able to reach in the wider province of Tafea.
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