OBAMA'S GAY NANNY WAS A TRANSGENDER PROSTITUTE IN INDONESIA (TRUTH)

OBAMA'S CHILDHOOD INDONESIAN NANNY WAS A TRANSGENDER PROSTITUTE:

OBAMA'S MOTHER (ANTHROPOLOGIST) INTRODUCED OBAMA TO GAY LIFESTYLES AT AGE EIGHT.

THIS MAY EXPLAIN WHY OBAMA FOUGHT SO HARD FOR LGBT ISSUES AND WANTED ALL BLACK MEN TO BE GAY.


Sources: AP, Daily Mail, Reuters, Young Turks, YouTube


****** Revealed: Barack Obama's gay transgender prostitute nanny who made him laugh by trying on his mother's lipstick


Evie, 66, cared for future Commander in Chief she called Barry in late 60s
Offered job after she impressed Obama's mother with steak and rice
When family left Indonesia, she became a sex worker and now lives in a slum
Barack Obama's former nanny has been revealed as a gay transgender man who made the future president laugh by trying on his mother's lipstick.

'Evie' cared for the boy she called Barry when his mother Ann Dunham moved to the Indonesian capital of Jakarta in the late 1960s.

Openly gay, she would leave the house dressed in full drag - but was very careful that Barack never saw her.

'He was so young and I never let him see me wearing women's clothes,' Evie said. 'But he did see me trying on his mother's lipstick, sometimes. That used to really crack him up.'

Former life: Barack Obama's former nanny Evie, who was born a man but believes she is a woman, on the left of this picture
The nanny, who turned to prostitution after the family left and now lives in a slum, met the future commander-in-chief's mother at a cocktail party in 1969.

Dunham, who had moved to the country two years earlier with her second husband Lolo Soetoro, sampled Evie's beef steak and fried rice and was so impressed that she offered her a job.

It did not take long before she was also eight-year-old Barack's carer, playing with him and bringing him to and from school.

Neighbours recalled they often saw Evie, who believes she is really a woman, leave the house in the evening fully made up and dressed in drag.

But when the family left in the early 1970s, things started going downhill. Evie moved in with a boyfriend. That relationship ended three years later, and she became a sex worker.

She said: 'I tried to get a job as a maid, but no one would hire me. I needed money to buy food, get a place to stay.'

It was a cat-and-mouse game with security guards and - because the country was still under the dictatorship of General Suharto - soldiers.

They often rounded up 'banshees' or 'warias', as they are known locally, loaded them into trucks, and brought them to a field where they were kicked, hit and otherwise abused.

Indonesia's attitude toward transgenders is complex.

Nobody knows how many of them live in the sprawling nation of 240million, but activists estimate seven million.

Because Indonesia is home to more Muslims than any other country in the world, the pervasiveness of men who live as women and vice versa often catches newcomers by surprise.

They hold the occasional pageant, work as singers or at salons and include well-known celebrity talk show host Dorce Gamalama.

But societal disdain still runs deep - when transgenders act in TV comedies, they are invariably the brunt of the joke.

They have taken a much lower profile in recent years, following a series of attacks by Muslim hard-liners.

And the country's highest Islamic body has decreed that they are required to live as they were born because each gender has obligations to fulfil, such as reproduction.

'They must learn to accept their nature,' says Ichwan Syam, a prominent Muslim cleric at the influential Indonesian Ulema Council.

'If they are not willing to cure themselves medically and religiously' they have 'to accept their fate to be ridiculed and harassed'.

Many transgenders turn to prostitution because jobs are hard to find and because they want to live according to what they believe is their true gender.

In doing so, they put themselves at risk of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

The raid that changed everything came in 1985.

Evie and her friends scattered into dark alleys to escape the swinging batons. One particularly beautiful girl, Susi, jumped into a canal strewn with garbage.

When things quieted, those who ran went back to look for her. 'We searched all night,' said Evie, who is still haunted by the memory of her friend's face. 'Finally ... we found her. It was horrible. Her body swollen, face bashed in.'

Evie decided, then and there, to live the rest of her life as a man. She ditched her tight, flowery dresses, brocade vest and bras.

Now 66, she said: 'I knew in my heart I was a woman, but I didn't want to die like that. So I decided to just accept it. I've been living like this, a man, ever since.'

Several longtime residents of Obama's old Menteng neighbourhood confirmed Turdi had worked there as Barack's nanny for two years, also caring for his baby sister Maya.

Evie, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, now lives in a closet-sized hovel in a tightly packed slum in an eastern corner of Jakarta, collecting and scrubbing dirty laundry to pay for food.

She wears baggy blue jeans and a white T-shirt advertising a tranquil beach resort far away in a place she has never been. She speaks softly, politely, and a deep worry line is etched between her eyes.

As a child, Evie was often beaten by a father who could not stand having such a 'sissy' for a son. She said: 'He wanted me to act like a boy, even though I didn't feel it in my soul.'

Teased and bullied, she dropped out of school after the third grade and decided to learn how to cook.

She made her way into the kitchens of several high-ranking officials by the time she was a teenager.

And then she met Obama's mother. Evie now seeks solace in religion, going regularly to the mosque and praying five times a day. She said she is just waiting to die.

She added that she did not know the boy she helped raise won the 2008 U.S. presidential election until she saw a picture of the family in local newspapers and on TV. She blurted out that she knew him.

Her friends at first laughed and thought she was crazy, but those who live in the family's old neighbourhood confirmed it is true.

'Many neighbours would remember Turdi. She was popular here at that time,' said Rudy Yara, who still lives across the street from Obama's former house.

'She was a nice person and was always patient and caring in keeping young Barry.'

Evie hopes her former charge will use his power to fight for people like her. Obama named Amanda Simpson, the first openly transgender appointee, as a senior technical adviser in the Commerce Department in 2010.

For Evie, who's now just trying to earn enough to survive each day on Jakarta's streets, the election victory itself was enough to give her a reason - for the first time in a long time - to feel proud.

'Now when people call me scum,' she says, 'I can just say: 'But I was the nanny for the President of the United States!'

Obama Expands U.S.- Muslim Ties & Calls Indonesia "Home"

Obama Pledges Expanded Ties With Muslim Nations

President Obama, renewing his call for better relations between the United States and the Muslim world, used a long-awaited homecoming trip to this island nation to make a symbolic visit on Wednesday morning to the largest mosque in southeast Asia — even as he declared that “much more work needs to be done” to fulfill the promise he made 17 months ago in Cairo of a “new beginning.”

Indonesia is the world’s largest majority Muslim nation, and Mr. Obama, on a 10-day, four-country trip through Asia, used his brief stay here to hold it up as an example of diversity, tolerance and democracy.

He closed his remarks at a news conference on Tuesday evening with the Muslim greeting “salaam aleikum” and said he intended to reshape American relations with Muslim nations so they were not “focused solely on security issues,” but rather on expanded cooperation across a broad range of areas, from science to education.

In a speech on Wednesday morning to an enthusiastic audience of 6,500 people at the University of Indonesia, he also harked back to his Cairo message.

“I said then, and I will repeat now, that no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust,” Mr. Obama said. “But I believed then, and I believe today, that we do have a choice. We can choose to be defined by our differences, and give in to a future of suspicion and mistrust. Or we can choose to do the hard work of forging common ground, and commit ourselves to the steady pursuit of progress.”

Earlier, at the Istiqlal Mosque, Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, followed the Islamic custom of removing their shoes; Mrs. Obama wore a head shawl with beads. They walked along a courtyard on a pale blue carpet escorted by the grand imam, who told Mr. Obama that there was a church next door and that during Christmas parishioners use the mosque’s parking lot because the church does not have enough space.

Mr. Obama turned to reporters and said, “That is an example of the kind of cooperation” between religions in Indonesia.

For Mr. Obama, who suffered a backlash at home this year when he said he favored the right of Muslims to build a proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan — and whose personal history makes him the target of anti-Muslim sentiment — the outreach effort is a delicate one. Jakarta is the place that has given rise to many of the myths about Mr. Obama, including the rumor that he is Muslim (he is Christian); that he attended a madrasa that was connected to radical Islam (he attended two schools here, one Roman Catholic and one secular, although most of the students were Muslim); and that he was not born in the United States (he was born in Hawaii).

In his speech, Mr. Obama tried to correct the misperceptions and he spoke about Indonesia’s ability to bridge religious and racial divides. “As a Christian visiting a mosque on this visit,” he said, “I found it in the words of a leader who was asked about my visit and said: ‘Muslims are also allowed in churches. We are all God’s followers.’ ”

The last time Mr. Obama was in Indonesia, in 1992, he spent a month holed up in a rented beachside hut in Bali, where he swam each morning and spent afternoons writing “Dreams From My Father,” the memoir that later became a best seller. In it, he shared memories of his life here as a boy, “running barefoot along a paddy field, with my feet sinking into the cool, wet mud, part of a chain of other brown boys chasing after a tattered kite.”

He has chased after a few other things since then — notably the presidency — and when he returned here, he got the kind of rock-star welcome he no longer receives in the United States.

When Air Force One touched down on Tuesday in a typical Jakarta afternoon thunderstorm, a huge cheer went up inside the State Palace complex — not from average Indonesians, but from the local press corps, watching on television. “Finally, he arrived!” exulted Glenn Jos, a cameraman.

After descending the steps of his plane, Mr. Obama, in a dark suit, accompanied by his wife walked the red carpet that had been laid out for them and stepped into a black Cadillac limousine. He poked his head out the door to give a short wave.

“Yes!” the reporters shouted.

Indonesians have prepared three times previously for a visit from the president, only to be disappointed. Last year, the White House hinted that Mr. Obama might tuck in an Indonesia stop on a November trip to Asia, but it did not materialize.

Then, in March, Mr. Obama, his wife and daughters canceled a trip at the last minute so that he could shepherd his health care bill through Congress. In June, another Indonesia trip was canceled, this time so the president could deal with the BP oil spill.

And once Mr. Obama finally arrived, a cloud of volcanic ash played havoc with his schedule, forcing him to leave a few hours earlier than planned on Wednesday so that he could make it to Seoul, South Korea, to attend the Group of 20 conference of economic powers.

Mr. Obama spent four years, from ages 6 to 10, in Indonesia, living here with his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and stepfather, Lolo Soetoro. In his memoir he writes richly of the experience. He described the markets: “the hawkers, the leather workers, the old women chewing betelnut and swatting flies off their fruit with whisk brooms.”

He wrote of his introduction to the food: “dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy).” And the menagerie in his backyard: “chickens and ducks running every which way, a big yellow dog with a baleful howl, two birds of paradise, a white cockatoo and finally two baby crocodiles.”

Mr. Obama said Tuesday that he had come to “focus not on the past but the future,” but Indonesians seemed to have both in mind. At a state dinner, Mr. Obama was served Indonesian dishes he said he loved as a boy. And in a gesture that Mr. Obama said left him “deeply moved,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presented him with a gold medal in honor of his mother, who worked here for years as an anthropologist and pioneer in microcredit for the poor.

Jakarta has undergone a transformation since Mr. Obama first moved here in 1967. The tallest building he remembered, a shopping mall, has been eclipsed by skyscrapers. Mr. Obama recalled riding on “little taxis, but you stood in the back and it was very crowded” or on bicycle rickshaws.

“Now,” he lamented, “as president I can’t even see all the traffic, because they block all the streets.”

At the university, Mr. Obama sprinkled his speech with Indonesian phrases, mimicking the sing-song sounds of street vendors. Then, in this country’s native tongue, he said,

“I’m home.”


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Sources: Daily Mail, MSNBC, NY Times, Google Maps

Michelle Obama’s Possible 2010 Asia Trip First Lady Attire

What Will Michelle Obama Wear In India?

From India Real Time.

When the U.S. presidential couple arrives in India, most people are likely to be closely watching President Barack Obama, hoping for a taste of his soaring rhetoric. But at least some will be keeping their eyes on first lady Michelle Obama — and her frocks.

In the past few years, Mrs. Obama’s style has attracted a considerable following. So much so that a recent study measured how the first lady’s fashion choices drive clothing sales and even stock prices.

But there is more in Mrs. Obama’s style than her penchant for pretty clothes: the first lady appears to have mastered the aesthetics of wardrobe diplomacy. We spoke to blogger Mary Tomer who’s been keeping a very close tally on what – and who – Michelle Obama has been wearing since she set foot in the White House. Edited excerpts.

WSJ: What will you be looking out for?
Ms. Tomer: I’ll be wondering whether she will be referencing Indian culture — from the gowns straight to the accessories—like she did when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and First Lady Gursharan Kaur visited the U.S. in November 2009.

WSJ: What did she wear in that occasion?
Ms. Tomer: Michelle Obama wore a tangerine brocade dress and coat by an American designer, Isaac Mizrahi, while India’s First Lady wore a green sari. You just couldn’t help wonder whether it was done on purpose to match the colors of the Indian flag.

At the state dinner that followed, Michelle Obama wore a very glamorous gown, heavily embellished with sequin, by Indian-American designer Naeem Khan. The gown was actually constructed in his family workshop in India. The first lady also wore a mile-long stack of bangles.



WSJ: What message will she try to convey in India?
Ms. Tomer: A particular notion of American style and sophistication while honoring the culture and fashion of the country she’s visiting. It’s not just aesthetics — it’s also a sense of diplomacy.
The visit comes at a time of widespread distrust of institutions and economic frustration at home — so she’s generally avoiding anything too opulent. But given the tradition of embellishments in Indian fashion this may be an occasion for her to have her glam moment without seeming insensitive.

WSJ: Whom is she likely to wear?
Ms. Tomer: It’s likely to be a celebration of Indian-American designers.
Naeem Khan said the first lady had several other gowns by him and was excited to see when she was going to wear them. This may be the chance to do it, although it kind of depends on her schedule.

She recently wore a necklace by jewellery designer Ranjana Khan, Naeem’s wife. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wore more of her pieces on this occasion. Michelle Obama is known for her statement necklaces.

She’s also likely to wear Rachel Roy, an Indian-American designer who is a regular in her style repertoire.

WSJ: What about on other trips abroad?
Ms. Tomer: She’s always used her style as a powerful means of communication, especially when she travels overseas.

When Michelle Obama met the Pope in Rome, for instance, she wore head-to-toe Moschino to pay homage to Italy’s rich fashion history. She wore all black and a veil over her head, in sign of respect. It showed that she was willing to change an element of her style for the occasion — it makes you think the sari is in the realm of possibility.



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Sources: CNN, Daily Mail, Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama's 2010 Asia Trip To Create Jobs In U.S. Or India?

Obama Focuses On Economy, Both At Home And Overseas

President Obama heads to Asia Friday as part of an effort to improve U.S. trade relations, but experts say the president's perceived anti-trade rhetoric has complicated the process of reaching agreements that could benefit the U.S. economy.

Following election losses which signaled the administration should have focused more closely on the economy, the president's nine-day trip features an economy-related event in each of the four countries he's to visit.

In his post election news conference Wednesday, Mr. Obama acknowledged the American public was primarily focused on one issue in the voting booth. "I think that there is no doubt that people's number one concern is the economy," the president said. "And what they were expressing great frustration about is the fact that we haven't made enough progress on the economy."

It's a frustration the president plans to address with his Asian tour.

"The primary purpose is to take a bunch of U.S. companies and open up markets so that we can sell in Asia, in some of the fastest growing markets in the world. And we can create jobs here in the United States of America," President Obama said after meeting with his cabinet Thursday.

"My hope is that we've got some specific announcements that show the connection between what we're doing overseas and what happens here at home when it comes to job growth and economic growth," he added.

One specific achievement the White House hopes to announce: a deal with India, the first stop on the trip, to purchase ten Boeing C-17s. The deal, which would include training and ground equipment, could be worth as much as $5.8 billion dollars and create jobs.

The other tangible agreement the administration is hoping for: a free trade agreement with Korea. According to a statement released by the White House, Mr. Obama spoke with South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak Tuesday and expressed his hopes in using their upcoming meeting in Seoul to solidify a deal.

"If we can reach a satisfactory agreement on the key issues for American workers, we will have a deal," the statement read.

But experts say that the Asia swing is not just meant to reassure the voting public that Mr. Obama is focused on the economy, the trip is also meant to send a message to worried Asian partners. "The big mess the president has to cope with...is the economic message," says Ernie Bower of the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

While in India, Mr. Obama is scheduled to address the U.S. India Business and Entrepreneurship Summit. He will also meet with a group of U.S. CEO's in India to "discuss the opportunities and challenges of doing business in India." Among the CEOs: David Cote of Honeywell, Jeffrey Immelt of GE, Terry McGraw of the Mcgraw Hill Companies, Jim McNerney of Boeing and Indra Nooyi of Pepsico.

In Indonesia, the president will deliver a "major speech" in which he will stress the Muslim majority country's growing role in the international economy. In Seoul, he will be joining other leaders at the G-20 Summit to discuss international economic issues such as the global financial crisis and currency revaluation. Finally, Mr. Obama will head to Japan for the 18th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting.

"Every leader is going to grab him by lapels and ask him, ‘How is the U.S. economy and is it recovering, and when are you getting back to a leadership role on trade?'" Bower says.

Experts say the perceived weakness of the U.S. economy and fears of rising U.S. protectionism create major economic uncertainties for Asian economies that are reliant on U.S. consumers to drive exports.

Some argue the president's "misguided rhetoric" on the campaign trail didn't help matters.

"The president would be wise to drop once and for all the divisive line about shipping jobs overseas -- it doesn't do much politically or diplomatically," said Dan Griswold of the CATO Institute in Washington.

"India in some ways is a challenging stop for the president because during the campaign, he made a big fuss of tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas," said Griswold.

Just last month, President Obama focused on this topic in his weekly address.

"For years, our tax code has actually given billions of dollars in tax breaks that encourage companies to create jobs and profits in other countries," Mr. Obama said who then turned his criticism to the GOP. "Over the last four years alone, Republicans in the House voted 11 times to continue rewarding corporations that create jobs and profits overseas -- a policy that costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year. That doesn't make a lot sense. It doesn't make sense for American workers, American businesses, or America's economy."

Of course, the president did acknowledge in this October 16 address that, "A lot of companies that do business internationally make an important contribution to our economy here at home. That's a good thing." Nonetheless, experts say the president will have to address his own "divisive" rhetoric once in Asia.

"So the president has been on the one hand, in the heat of the campaign, demonizing that economic integration, and on the other hand, he's going to go over there and what's he going to say?" asks Griswold.

"I think what he's going to see on the ground over there will be in direct contradiction to the way he was mis-portraying things on the campaign trail," says Griswold who argues the economic success in Asia, specifically in India, is in part because the country has followed the U.S. model of doing business, and those achievements should be praised.

"Our big ace in the hole with India is the growing commercial relationship and the president should be celebrating it, not demonizing," as he did during the midterm election cycle, Griswold argues.





Fuzzy Math Dogs Obama’s Asia Trip

As if Tuesday’s "Shellacking" wasn’t enough, President Barack Obama is getting pilloried by the right on the cost of his 10-day trip to Asia, with outlandish hyperventilation going directly from suspect Indian media reports to conservative U.S. media outlets and commentators without a pause for fact-checking.

First, the Press Trust of India reported that Mr. Obama’s entourage would be spending $200 million a day for two days in India, a claim that was quickly repeated last night by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.) on CNN. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said, “The numbers reported in this article have no basis in reality,” and are “wildly inflated,” but “due to security concerns,” he would not offer an alternative price tag.

Snopes.com, a website devoted to myth busting, noted that even if the Indian press has correctly reported the size of the president’s entourage – 3,000 – the cost would work out to $66,000 per person per day, “a figure that stretches credulity to the breaking point.” Factcheck.org noted that the entire war in Afghanistan costs $190 million a day.

But the report is demonstrably incorrect. It says the White House had blocked off the entire Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai – it hasn’t – and that the press traveling with Mr. Obama will be staying there. We won’t. Besides, the press pays its own way at considerable cost to the media outlets, not the U.S. taxpayer.

Now a new rumor has emerged courtesy of India’s NDTV. Mr. Obama, the outlet says, “will be protected by a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, which will patrol the sea lanes off the Mumbai coast.” The White House called that ridiculous. But on the conservative Drudge Report website, it’s on the home page – in huge type.





U.S. To Spend $200 MN A Day On Obama's Mumbai Visit

The U.S. would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama's visit to the city.

"The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit," a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.

About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.

"Except for personnel providing immediate security to the President, the US officials may not be allowed to carry weapons. The state police is competent to take care of the security measures and they would be piloting the Presidential convoy," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Navy and Air Force has been asked by the state government to intensify patrolling along the Mumbai coastline and its airspace during Obama's stay. The city's airspace will be closed half-an-hour before the President's arrival for all aircraft barring those carrying the US delegation.

The personnel from SRPF, Force One, besides the NSG contingent stationed here would be roped in for the President's security, the official said.

The area from Hotel Taj, where Obama and his wife Michelle would stay, to Shikra helipad in Colaba would be cordoned off completely during the movement of the President.


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Sources: Asia Society, CNN, Drudge Report, Fact Check, Fox News, NDTV, Snopes.com, Wall Street Journal, Yahoo News, Youtube, Google Maps

U.S. Warns Bali Of Possible Terrorist Attack...Jemaah Islamiyah

U.S. Embassy Warns Of Possible New Year's Attack On Bali


The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, warned Thursday of an indication of an attack to Bali on New Year's Eve.

The Embassy said the warning initially came from the Bali governor, Mangku Pastika, and that it passed on his alert verbatim. The governor, however, said there was no information about a new terrorist threat.

"We never release(d) any warning related to terror on New Year's Eve," the governor's office said in a statement after the Embassy released the warning.

"We however encourage both domestic and foreign tourists to be cautious," the governor's office said. "The terrorists hit Bali twice. Who knows what they will do next."

Pastika's office said there was only a general alert on the island because of the holiday.

Terrorist groups, including Jemaah Islamiyah, have carried out repeated attacks in Bali and elsewhere in Indonesia since 2002.

The Embassy did not elaborate on the governor's message, but the United States has a standing warning to U.S. citizens in Indonesia that extremists may target both official and private interests, including hotels, clubs, and shopping centers.

"In their work and daily living activities, and while traveling, U.S. citizens should be vigilant and prudent at all times," the U.S. State Department warning states. "We urge U.S. citizens to monitor local news reports, vary their routes and times, and maintain a low profile. U.S. citizens must consider the security and safety preparedness of hotels, residences, restaurants, and entertainment or recreation venues that they frequent."

Unknown attackers shot at foreigners in Banda Aceh, in northern Sumatra, last month, wounding a European development worker, the Embassy said. The attackers also targeted a house occupied by American teachers, but no U.S. citizens were hurt, it said.

The most major recent attack was in July, when suspected Jemaah Islamiyah elements bombed two western hotels in Jakarta. The blasts at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels killed nine people -- including at least two presumed suicide bombers -- and wounded more than 50, including U.S. citizens.

Also in July, armed assailants in Papua killed several people, including security personnel and one Australian national, the Embassy said.

Jemaah Islamiyah, said to have links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, is blamed for the 2002 Bali bomb attacks in which 202 people, mainly foreign tourists, were killed.

More than 300 people -- many of them young Australians on vacation -- were wounded by the massive blasts in the town of Kuta. Dozens of victims were burned beyond recognition or blown to pieces.

The bombing was blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah.

The group was also said to be behind an attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta in 2004 in which nine people died, and an attack on the same Marriott hotel that killed eight the same year.



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Sources: AP, CNN, Google Maps

Asian Tsunami Anniversary: 230,000 Killed (Videos Actual Footage)

Tears, Prayers Mark Asian Tsunami Anniversary


Buddhist monks chanted on white-sand beaches in Thailand and thousands prayed at mosques in Indonesia to mark the fifth anniversary of the Asian Tsunami that left 230,000 people dead.

The devastating Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami struck a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean rim. Its towering waves wiped out entire coastal communities, devastated families and crashed over tourist-filled beaches the morning after Christmas. Survivors waded through a horror show of corpse-filled waters.

In Thailand, hundreds of residents and foreigners returned to the beaches on the island of Phuket to recall one of the worst natural disasters of modern times.

A moment of silence was observed on Phuket's Patong Beach, a popular strip of hotels and restaurants, to mark the moment the tsunami struck.

Buddhist monks in bright orange robes chanted prayers. Onlookers wept and embraced.

Giorgio Capriccioli, an Italian who lives on Phuket, carried a bouquet of white flowers into the ocean.

He waded knee-deep in water that five years ago was clogged with corpses and cast the flowers adrift to honor the memory of two friends. His wife owns several beach-front shops but decided not to go to work the morning the tsunami struck.

"My wife would be dead if it weren't for the fact that she were pregnant and didn't go to work that day," he said at a ceremony that also attracted suntanned tourists in skimpy swimsuits, as well as Thai villagers.

The ceremonies on Phuket were to culminate in the evening with candle-lighting ceremonies and the release of hundreds of light-filled lanterns into the sky.

Aceh hardest hit

Thousands of survivors in Indonesia's Aceh province, which was hardest-hit, held prayer services at mosques and beside the mass graves where tens of thousands were buried. Indonesia's loss of about 167,000 accounted for more than half the total death toll.

The tsunami was sparked by a 9.2-magnitude underwater earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra — the mightiest earthquake in 40 years.

In Aceh, on the island of Sumatra, the quake toppled homes and buildings and sent panicked communities rushing into the streets. About 20 minutes later, a wall of water up to six stories high surged in from the sea. Traveling at jetliner speed, the wave carried with it toppled trees, crumpled cars and refrigerators. It sent people scrambling up the sides of buildings and in search of higher ground.

More than $13 billion in aid money poured in from around the world, nearly half for Aceh, where bridges, homes and full city blocks of cement buildings had collapsed. In some communities of the devout Muslim province only the mosque was left standing.

A huge reconstruction effort has rebuilt Aceh, providing more than 140,000 new homes, 2,227 miles of roads, 1,500 schools and 1,047 hospitals.

"After five years ... the people of Aceh have risen and have a new life," Indonesia's Vice President Boediono told a crowd gathered near Ulee Lheue port in Aceh. Like many Indonesians he uses only a single name

"Their struggle to rise from tsunami tragedy has inspired the people in this country, and around the region," said Boediono.

Traffic across Sri Lanka came to a standstill Saturday as people around the country observed two minutes of silence for the 35,000 people who died there. Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake presided over a ceremony in northwestern Kurunegala that was broadcast on live television.



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Sources: MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps