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Cover Story

Scandal looming in promised $425 million for Sir Lanka tsunami victims that never arrived?

by Judi McLeod, Editor,
Wednesday, april 20, 2005

Even as the association of Canadian Maurice Strong with "Koreagate Man" Tungsun Park was coming under world limelight, Sri Lankans were starting to demand answers about where the $425 million promised by Canada to tsunami victims is.

Four months after the tsunami hit, Sri Lankans still don't have their money. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin rushed to the scene for a weeklong photo op. Generous Canadians donated record amounts of money on line.

The Canadian government promised to match dollar for dollar, donations from the public.

But the promised mega millions never arrived.

according to veteran newsman Garth Pritchard, in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of last December's tsunami, the Canadian International Development agency (CIDa) is allegedly holding the $425-million.

Kofi annan's special envoy to Korea Maurice Strong, also a senior advisor to Prime Minister Paul Martin, was the founding president of CIDa.

"Through his creation and direction of CIDa, Strong controlled the implementation of aid programs on the ground--including who was hired to do the work, and through the newly-created IDRC (International Development Research Center), Strong controlled the issuance of tax deductible certificates and the distribution of both private foundation money as well as government money." (Henry Lamb, Maurice Strong, The new guy in your life, 1997).

"The IDRC was a quasi-government agency that had unique authority to receive charitable donations and issue tax deductible certificate--and give money directly to individual governments and private organizations. Strong became its head in 1970."

There's yet another link to Maurice Strong during his protégé Paul Martin's tsunami photo op Sri Lankan tour.

"It was as bald as a message on the world's biggest billboard---Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin swigging from a bottle of purified water in Kalumai, Sri Lanka," wrote Canada Free Press in January, 2005. "The photo of a lifetime, eclipsed by free advertising for ZENON Environmental Inc."

Martin's mentor Strong has been a director on the ZENON board of directors since October, 2003.

Strong is on the public record for predicting that water will have to be rationed by armed guards as soon as 2031.

Strong, the chief architect of the Kyoto Protocol claimed that he did not know that one of the world's largest aquifers was sitting under the 100,000 acre Baca Ranch that he and his wife once owned. Strong made a 1978 acquisition of the Colorado Land & Cattle Company, which owned 200,000 acres if San Luis Valley in Colorado from Saudi arms dealer, adnan Khashoggi.

Worthy noting that the same sources voicing alarm about the imminent scarcity of H2O happen to be the same ones who own it, or at least are in a position to control it?

Editor's Note:
Still to come: Garth Pritchard's explosive account of Prime Minister Paul Martin's photo-op in tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka.

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    Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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