We are all, hopefully, familiar with this tragic story. A family comes to visit the island on August 31st. Stays at a luxury resort. On September 1st, father Vinay Kundur and son Aditya buy jetski rent tickets on Palm Beach, at Cesar Watersports, and catch a boat to Eagle Beach to meet their ride.
They head out there, son driving, the jetski malfunctions, and Aditya decides to swim ashore for help. He arrives at Manchebo beach, and alerts not sure whom, but according to Shalick Clement, the Coast Guard deployed its Metal Shark to search, and its low flying helicopter. They also alerted the Maritime authorities, the Police and neighboring countries, specifically Colombia. They searched for four days, then abandoned the effort.
I wrote about this tragedy twice before, trying to encourage the authorities to legislate GPS technology, and mostly agree on a protocol, who does what in case, which would include the active search but also close contact with the grief-stricken family.
Then there was silence.
On October 9th, brother Kiran Kundur got in touch with 24ORA, on a call from India, to state that nothing has been done properly, that the family hasn’t heard anything from the authorities, and to quote 24ORA was “a bit dissatisfied.”
Islanders try to speak softly: He meant horribly disappointed, shaken to the core, terribly upset and distraught. Shattered.
I understand that, for the family, the only positive news would be the return of Vinay, but from a point of perception the island let the family down, which can be clearly read in social media comments following the 24ORA interview. Locals wrote heartless comments, defensive, blameful, vilifying the victims.
Kiran Kundur also stated that the media has ignore the tragedy, and 24ORA’s Marko Espinoza set out, on his own, for a series of interviews with the Police, the Coast Guard and Cesar Watersports.
Coast Guard and Police sound-bites were perfunctory, they CTA*, protecting themselves from repercussions, they did this and that, it is unfortunate, incidences like that happen. End of story. So sorry.
Cesar watersports brought the art of CTA to new heights of perfection, insinuating it was a plan, the son smirked, he did not express remorse, the father and son went too far, they were called back, they did not follow instruction, they signed waivers, the boat was busy with other clients, etc., a narrative delivered by an uneducated beach employee. I wouldn’t trust my shadow to him.
It’s not his fault. He wasn’t trained or taught how to handle himself. He came to work straight off the street.
Then on Eagle Beach, some Cesar watersports employee, forgetting the camera was rolling, said all employees working that day were fired. He immediately added he was joking, when he realized the camera was on, and did not want to say anything further. A woman working at that place, I wouldn’t trust my shadow to her either, declared repeatedly she had nothing to say and did not know anything.
Our tourist product, feeding the island, a multi-million dollar business, entrusted to unskilled, crude labor, I don’t want to say anything further, not to insult anyone, but as far as compassion and Human Capital goes, this is the bottom of the barrel.
CTA* = Cover their you-know-whats
