Perssonin on aika häipyä...
The day after the tsunami crushed south Asian beaches on Dec. 26, Sweden, a Western country with a standard of living among the highest in the world, was slow to react. With thousands of its citizens injured, missing and dead, planes that could have been flying to Thailand to evacuate them were idle.
In Finland and Norway, plans were already under way to evacuate their citizens, and the first planes were in the air Monday. Despite pleas from Swedish doctors in Thailand on Dec. 28 to immediately transport injured Swedes to European hospitals, the first two air ambulances didn't leave Sweden until Dec. 30.
The number of missing is nearly six times the number of Swedes killed when the ferry Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea in 1994, the largest single loss of Swedish life in modern history. The reach is so pervasive in the country of 9 million that Prime Minister Goeran Persson said it would be hard to find someone in Sweden untouched by the tragedy that has claimed more than 139,000 lives throughout Asia and Africa.
"I am ashamed of being Swedish when I have a prime minister who says that they can't get more people answering telephones because it is Boxing Day and people have the day off," wrote Claes Thilander in an e-mail to the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.
"Your government's incompetence shines like a bonfire in the night," another e-mail read.
Persson was criticized for a lack of leadership with many pundits, political analysts and others warning him that his inaction would haunt him and the Social Democrats in the 2006 elections.
But others reserved their rage for Foreign Minister Freivalds, appointed by Persson in 2003 to replace the slain Anna Lindh. Tabloid Expressen said it received hundreds of e-mails demanding her resignation.
The day after the tsunami crushed south Asian beaches on Dec. 26, Sweden, a Western country with a standard of living among the highest in the world, was slow to react. With thousands of its citizens injured, missing and dead, planes that could have been flying to Thailand to evacuate them were idle.
In Finland and Norway, plans were already under way to evacuate their citizens, and the first planes were in the air Monday. Despite pleas from Swedish doctors in Thailand on Dec. 28 to immediately transport injured Swedes to European hospitals, the first two air ambulances didn't leave Sweden until Dec. 30.
The number of missing is nearly six times the number of Swedes killed when the ferry Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea in 1994, the largest single loss of Swedish life in modern history. The reach is so pervasive in the country of 9 million that Prime Minister Goeran Persson said it would be hard to find someone in Sweden untouched by the tragedy that has claimed more than 139,000 lives throughout Asia and Africa.
"I am ashamed of being Swedish when I have a prime minister who says that they can't get more people answering telephones because it is Boxing Day and people have the day off," wrote Claes Thilander in an e-mail to the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.
"Your government's incompetence shines like a bonfire in the night," another e-mail read.
Persson was criticized for a lack of leadership with many pundits, political analysts and others warning him that his inaction would haunt him and the Social Democrats in the 2006 elections.
But others reserved their rage for Foreign Minister Freivalds, appointed by Persson in 2003 to replace the slain Anna Lindh. Tabloid Expressen said it received hundreds of e-mails demanding her resignation.
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