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01/03/2005:

"Anger Rises as Does Toll in Remote Indian Islands"

PORT BLAIR, India (Reuters) - Tempers flared over the sluggish pace of aid efforts in India's remote and restricted Andamans and Nicobars Sunday as hundreds of bodies lay scattered around the islands a week after the tsunami struck.

Local authorities said a local government officer was manhandled by people angry at not getting relief supplies in Campbell Bay, the main town in the southernmost island of Great Nicobar, where widespread devastation has been reported.

Police had to send reinforcements.

...Also home to hundreds of stone age tribespeople, many of the islands are off limits to foreigners and mainland Indians alike.

Mistrust of outsiders by the military and local bureaucracy has compounded the practical difficulties of the aid effort.

Aid workers from foreign relief groups Medicins Sans Frontieres and Oxfam have languished in Port Blair, unable to reach the badly hit southern islands.

...Ruled directly from New Delhi, the islands housed a notorious jail during British colonial rule. Even today, critics say the welfare of locals is low on New Delhi's priorities.

``Times have changed but not mindsets,'' the Indian Express wrote Sunday.

``The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago is a collective second class citizen. Welcome to India's in-house colony,'' it said.
Full Article: nytimes.com/reuters