The ‘Sacred’ Pledge that Will Power the Relaunch of Far-Fight Militia Oath Keepers

Alexander Lowie

 January 1, 2026

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Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia, announced in November 2025 that he will relaunch the group after it disbanded following his prison sentence in 2023.

Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other crimes committed during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

In January 2025, President Donald Trump granted clemency to the over 1,500 defendants convicted of crimes connected to the storming of the Capitol.

Trump did not pardon Rhodes – or some others found guilty of the most serious crimes on Jan. 6. He instead commuted Rhodes’ sentence to time served. Commutation only reduces the punishment for a crime, whereas a full pardon erases a conviction.

As a political anthropologist I study the Patriot movement, a collection of anti-government right-wing groups that include the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Moms for Liberty. I specialize in alt-right beliefs, and I have interviewed people active in groups that participated in the Capitol riot.

Rhodes’ plans to relaunch the Oath Keepers, largely composed of current and former military veterans and law enforcement officers, is important because it will serve as an outlet for those who have felt lost since his imprisonment. The group claimed it had over 40,000 dues-paying members at the height of its membership during Barack Obama’s presidency. I believe that many of these people will return to the group, empowered by the lack of any substantial punishment resulting from the pardons for crimes committed on Jan. 6.

In my interviews, I’ve found that military veterans are treated as privileged members of the Patriot movement. They are honored for their service and military training. And that’s why I believe many former Oath Keepers will rejoin the group – they are considered integral members.

Their oaths to serving the Constitution and the people of the United States are treated as sacred, binding members to an ideology that leads to action. This action includes supporting people in conflicts against federal agencies, organizing citizen-led disaster relief efforts, and protesting election results like on Jan. 6. The members’ strength results from their shared oath and the reverence they feel toward keeping it.

Who are the Oath Keepers?

Rhodes joined the Army after high school and served for three years before being honorably discharged after a parachuting accident in 1986. He then attended the University of Nevada and later graduated from Yale Law School in 2004. He founded the Oath Keepers in 2009.

Oath Keepers takes its name from the U.S military Oath of Enlistment, which states:

“I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States …”

Informed by his law background, Rhodes places a particular emphasis on the part of the oath that states they will defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

He developed a legal theory that justifies ignoring what he refers to as “unlawful orders” after witnessing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Following the natural disaster, local law enforcement was assigned the task of confiscating guns, many of which officers say were stolen or found in abandoned homes.

Rhodes was alarmed, believing that the Second Amendment rights of citizens were being violated. Because of this, he argued that people who had military or law enforcement backgrounds had a legal duty to refuse what the group considers unlawful orders, including any that violated constitutionally protected rights, such as the right to bear arms.

In the Oath Keepers’ philosophy, anyone who violates these rights are domestic enemies to the Constitution. And if you follow the orders, you’ve violated your oath.

Explaining the origin of the group on the right-wing website “The Gateway Pundit” in November 2025, Rhodes said: “… we were attacked out of the gate, labeled anti-government, which is absurd because we’re defending the Constitution that established the federal government. We were labeled anti-government extremists, all kinds of nonsense because the elites want blind obedience in the police and military.”

Rebuilding and restructuring

In 2022, the nonprofit whistleblower site Distributed Denial of Secrets leaked more than 38,000 names on the Oath Keepers’ membership list.

The Anti-Defamation League estimated that nearly 400 of the names were active law enforcement officers, and that over 100 were serving in the military. Some of these members were investigated by their workplaces but never disciplined for their involvement with the group.

Some members who were not military or law enforcement did lose their jobs over their affiliation. But they held government-related positions, such as a Wisconsin alderman who resigned after he was identified as a member.

This breach of privacy, paired with the dissolution of the organization after Rhodes’ sentencing, will help shape the group going forward.

In his interview with “The Gateway Pundit,” where he announced the group’s relaunch, Rhodes said: “I want to make it clear, like I said, my goal would be to make it more cancel-proof than before. We’ll have resilient, redundant IT that makes it really difficult to take down. … And I want to make sure I get – put people in charge and leadership everywhere in the country so that, you know, down the road, if I’m taken out again, that it can still live on under good leadership without me being there.”

There was a similar shift in organizational structure with the Proud Boys in 2018. That’s when their founder, Gavin McInnes, stepped away from the organization. His departure came after a group of Proud Boys members were involved in a fight with anti-fascists in New York.

Prosecutors wanted to try the group as a gang. McInnes, therefore, distanced himself to support their defense that they weren’t in a gang or criminal organization. Ultimately, two of the members were sentenced to four years in prison for attempted gang assault charges.

Some Proud Boys members have told me they have since focused on creating local chapters, with in-person recruitment, that communicate on private messaging apps. They aim to protect themselves from legal classification as a gang. It also makes it harder for investigators or activist journalists to monitor them.

This is referred to as a cell style of organization, which is popular with insurgency groups. These groups are organized to rebel against authority and overthrow government structures. The cell organizational style does not have a robust hierarchy but instead produces smaller groups. They all adhere to the same ideology but may not be directly associated.

They may have a leader, but it’s often acknowledged that they are merely a figurehead, not someone giving direct orders. For the Proud Boys, this would be former leader Enrique Tarrio. Proud Boys members I’ve spoken to have referred to him as a “mascot” and not their leader.

Looking ahead

So what does the Rhodes interview indicate about the future of Oath Keepers?

Members will continue supporting Trump while also recruiting more retired military and law enforcement officers. They will create an organizational structure designed to outlive Rhodes. And based on my interactions with the far-right, I believe it’s likely they will create an organizational structure similar to that of the cell style for organizing.

Beyond that, they are going to try to own their IT, which includes hosting their websites and also using trusted online revenue generators.

This will likely provide added security, protecting their membership rolls while making it more difficult for law enforcement agencies to investigate them in the future.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Alexander Lowie is a Postdoctoral associate in Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida.

Survivors Slam Kristi Noem Over FEMA’s Response to Deadly Disasters


FEMA workers say the agency is being gutted under Trump, putting disaster victims at risk.

By Mike Ludwig ,

Truthout

December 16, 2025

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem answers questions from members of congress during the House Committee on Homeland Security on December 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C.Marvin Joseph / The Washington Post via Getty Images

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Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem is under fire from disaster survivors for mismanaging the federal government’s response to recent storms, floods, and deadly wildfires as staffing cuts and controversial policy changes continue to cause chaos at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Disaster survivors from 10 states and Puerto Rico gathered Monday on Capitol Hill for an emotional press conference to demand accountability from Noem for “systemic failures” at Noem’s department, which oversees FEMA. The survivors said communication shortfalls and mismanagement of emergency relief funds that in some cases caused months-long delays left officials and residents on the ground frustrated and confused after disaster struck.

Among the attendees were survivors of the devastating floods in central Texas, which claimed more than 130 lives in July. The survivors demanded a meeting with Noem and a personal visit from her to the flood-ravaged communities. They also are calling for a congressional hearing on the government’s response to the disaster.

“When FEMA cannot fully function, real people pay the price, and what happened in Sandy Creek cannot be allowed to happen again.”

“When FEMA cannot fully function, real people pay the price, and what happened in Sandy Creek cannot be allowed to happen again,” said Brandy Gerstner, who survived flash floods with her family in Leander, Texas.

The activism from the disaster survivors comes as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to bring controversy to FEMA. Earlier this month, the Trump administration installed an election denier and conspiracy theorist with no official government disaster response experience as a top administrator at FEMA. Gregg Phillips, a human resource official for the Texas state government, reportedly only has experience responding to disasters with religious groups and nonprofits. In one social media post, Phillips described himself as a “very vocal opponent of FEMA.”

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Rafael Lemaitre, a former FEMA public affairs director and member of the advisory council to Sabotaging Our Safety, a FEMA watchdog group, said the hiring of Phillips to manage FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery is part of a larger pattern of dismantling FEMA piece by piece.

“The only thing Gregg Phillips seems qualified for is running the Flat Earth Society — yet Trump put him in charge of saving American lives,” Lemaitre told Truthout in an email. “This clearly isn’t about keeping Americans safe when disaster strikes.”

Then, on December 12, officials abruptly canceled a much-anticipated meeting of a FEMA review council after significant changes made by Noem’s office to a report recommending sweeping cuts to FEMA leaked to the media. The three officials, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue with the media, said the report shrunk from over 160 pages to roughly 20.

Created by a policy “review council” created by Trump, the draft report recommends a dramatic overhaul and downsizing of FEMA, including a 50 percent reduction in staff. Noem’s office reportedly made significant cuts to the review council’s draft and rejected some of the recommendations. The report is now undergoing additional internal vetting and has not been released publicly, according to The Washington Post.

CNN first reported on the leaked policy recommendations, which include changing the name of the agency to “FEMA 2.0” at least temporarily.

“It is time to close the chapter on FEMA,” the draft report states. “A new agency should be established that retains the core missions of FEMA, while highlighting the renewed emphasis on locally executed, state or tribally managed, and federally supported emergency management.”

Such an overhaul at FEMA would leave cities and states shouldering the costs of disaster preparation, response, and recovery — costs most states cannot afford — and put disaster victims at risk of serious harm, especially those with fewer financial resources, according to Shana Udvardy, a senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“That means the next time a hurricane or horrific wildfires materialize we may again experience a disturbing FEMA fiasco on par with Hurricane Katrina, as FEMA staff warned about in their recent petition to Congress,” Udvardy said in a statement on December 12.

Udvardy was referring to The FEMA Katrina Declaration, a petition against the Trump administration’s FEMA overhaul organized by current and former FEMA workers. The petition states that key Trump appointees running FEMA have little experience in emergency management, and points to Hurricane Katrina as a warning. FEMA’s infamous failure to assist stranded Black residents of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005 left a racist stain on the administration of President George W. Bush, which helped pave the way for the election of President Barack Obama in 2008.

Fast forward 20 years, and communities in central Texas are still recovering from deadly flash floods unleashed by storms over the summer. Abby McIlraith, an emergency management specialist at FEMA, said she joined colleagues and signed the Katrina Declaration to call out the Trump administration for harming disaster survivors after the floods claimed dozens of lives in Kerrville, Texas. A day after the petition was published, McIlraith and other whistleblowers were placed on leave.

“Secretary Noem took only 36 hours to illegally retaliate against us as whistleblowers, but 72 hours — twice as long — to send search and rescue to Kerrville,” McIlraith told reporters on December 15. “Her insistence on personally approving major FEMA expenses, combined with these retaliatory actions, left disaster survivors waiting for help when hours and days mattered most.”

Gerstner said her family in Leander felt abandoned by FEMA and local authorities after flash floods destroyed the life they built over the past 36 years, including three homes, a business, and their sense of safety. The flood is fading from the local headlines, but Gerstner said the community is still struggling with recovery months later.


“We lost neighbors, were stranded for days without help, and watched as FEMA response was delayed while families were left to survive on their own.”

“We lost neighbors, were stranded for days without help, and watched as FEMA response was delayed while families were left to survive on their own,” Gerstner said. “More than five months later, many are still homeless, and only 36 percent of FEMA claims in our area have been approved.”

Victims of a federally recognized disaster can file claims with FEMA for financial assistance to cover the cost of emergency repairs, transportation, and hotel rooms when homes are destroyed, for example. It’s a notoriously slow and byzantine process disaster victims have complained about for years. Federal emergency funds only become available to states and local communities after the president issues an official disaster declaration, often in response to a request from a state governor and a recommendation from FEMA.

Since taking office, Trump has made it clear that he wants to shift the financial burden of disaster relief from the federal government to the states and has suggested phasing out FEMA altogether, a position Noem echoed in interviews. Dismantling FEMA entirely would require an act of Congress, but the Trump administration did not wait on lawmakers to slash staff and budgets at the agency while shifting DHS resources toward Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Advocates and disaster survivors say emergency relief for communities impacted by fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other disasters has been delayed for months at a time as a result of the Trump administration’s assault on FEMA.

For example, FEMA announced on December 12 it would send $350 million to local governments and electric utilities in Georgia for relief efforts after Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Debby, which both hit in 2024. The payment comes two months after Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) released a report showing that nearly $500 million in Hurricane Helene disaster relief was unpaid, according to the Associated Press.

“Hurricanes and natural disasters are not political; they do not care if you voted red or blue, and Georgia counties and cities went right to work recovering from Helene’s destruction with the understanding the federal government would fulfill its promises and pay their share,” Warnock said in a statement. “It should not have gotten to this point.”

Dr. Michael McLemore, a local organizer with community and racial justice groups in St. Louis, Missouri, survived a violent tornado that devastated residential areas and claimed at least five lives on May 16. McLemore said he lost the roof of his house and witnessed “our community’s systems fail at every level.” Trump did not declare the tornado a federal disaster until June 10, which delayed FEMA’s response.

“Sirens didn’t sound, local officials delayed response, and FEMA, under Secretary Kristi Noem, was nearly a month late in declaring a major disaster — leaving seniors and residents without transportation to fend for themselves,” McLemore said.

Like other disaster survivors, McLemore supports the 2025 FEMA Act, a bipartisan bill that would make FEMA an independent, cabinet-level agency and make major reforms to streamline the process for providing disaster relief. Introduced in the House by leaders of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee from both parties, the bill has 40 bipartisan co-sponsors but remains in committee as the House Republican majority struggles to pass even basic legislation.

“Disasters don’t discriminate, but disaster recovery does,” McLemore said.

Sri Lanka: The great flood

By Balasingham Skanthakumar

Published 11 December, 2025

First published at Polity.

Cyclone Ditwah ripped through Sri Lanka between 27 and 29 November. The toll is devastating. Seven days later, the official count is 486 deaths and 341 missing. To which should be added five navy and one air-force officer killed in rescue operations; and an electricity board technician electrocuted while repairing a power line. As search teams reach previously inaccessible areas this week, the fatality count has grown exponentially, and some fear it will climb into four digits. We may never know the true number.

Hundreds of thousands are sheltering in state, community, and private facilities, as well as with family and friends. More than 41,000 homes have been fully or partially destroyed. As many as 108 roads are currently impassable; 247 km of road are damaged; 40 bridges are destroyed, isolating homes and hamlets, and hampering rescue and relief efforts. Electricity, water supply, internet, telephone, and transport services have been disrupted in all 25 districts. Over 1.5 million people across communities, faiths, genders, generations, and regions, otherwise distant from each other, are commonly even if not similarly in distress. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, acceding to parliamentary opposition demands, declared an island-wide state of emergency on 29 November.

This is Sri Lanka’s worst natural catastrophe since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004, when some 35,000 lives were lost in the space of minutes. This time, comments Vinya Ariyaratne of Sarvodaya: “The whole country is a disaster zone, except for a few places … [whereas] the tsunami [struck] only coastal areas” (cited in Nierenberg et al. 2025).

It has been a mensis horribilis in Southeast Asia too, where the peoples of the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia have been battered by several tropical storms. Over 900 people are known to have died across the region, and this is an under-estimate. In the south of Thailand, 3 million people are affected; as are 1.5 million in western Indonesia (especially Sumatra). The stories are the same. Survivors marooned with nothing to eat or drink and waiting to be rescued. Families searching for the missing. Hospitals unable to care for the sick for want of electricity, clean water, cooked food, and medical supplies. Roads and bridges washed away. Telecommunication services down. Homes, assets, and livelihoods washed away. Everywhere, the poor bear the brunt; punished time and again, for being poor.

Sleepwalking into disaster

Did we sleepwalk into this disaster? From 21 November onwards heavy rain, strong winds, and lightning strikes were experienced in several districts of Sri Lanka. By the following day, the Meteorology Department forecast over 100 mm of rainfall within 24 hours in the Sabaragamuwa, Southern and Western provinces; while the Irrigation Department warned of flooding in the upper reaches of the Gin Ganga and Nilwala river basins and potential flooding in low-lying areas of the Deduru and Attanagalu river basins. Days earlier some students in Galle and Matara districts sitting for the advanced-level (AL) examination had to be transported by boat, and with military assistance, to reach their centres.

Landslide warnings were issued by the National Building Research Organisation (NBRO) initially for Badulla, Colombo, Kalutara, Kandy, Kegalle, Kurunegala, Nuwara Eliya and Ratnapura districts; and subsequently extended to Galle, Matara, and Hambantota. The Disaster Management Centre (DMC) cautioned that slopes along the central highlands had become destabilised, increasing the risk of earth slips, rockfalls, and roads being blocked by debris.

On the same day (21 November), triggered by the heavy rain, a house and adjacent shop in Kadugannawa along the major Colombo-Kandy Road were buried, trapping 10 people, six of whom were killed. By 24 November, the Meteorological Department forecast a low-pressure system developing the following day. It warned of strong winds and lightning with showers or thunderstorms exceeding 100 mm in the north and east. Fishers and naval personnel were informed not to go to sea until further notice.

So far, so familiar. This litany of occurrences, associated with the north-east monsoon season, have become commonplace, numbing shock and shame. In fact, the first trial for the National People’s Power (NPP) government soon after its election was the floods of late November 2024.

Around the same time last year, a deep depression in the Bay of Bengal intensified into a tropical system named Cyclone Fengal, mainly affecting the eastern, northern, and northeastern coastal regions. Over 200 mm of rain accompanied by winds of 60 km/h flooded homes, towns and villages, and fields (IFRC 2025). Seventeen people died and nearly 470,000 people were affected.

Water submerged 338,000 acres of rice paddy, fully destroying 10,035 acres; and tens of thousands of acres of vegetable and maize crops. Ninety-nine houses were destroyed and 2,082 partially damaged. Fishers lost their daily-waged livelihood for the period they could not put out to sea, while some boats and gear were damaged adding to their financial burden. Vegetable and rice retail rates surged, representing both supply shortages and price-gouging. Compounded by shortages of coconut and salt, there was public anxiety over food availability and prices in the new year.

Opposition politicians roundly criticised the NPP for acting slowly in anticipating and preparing for the storm, and in delivering assistance to the affected; censuring them with inexperience in management, and hubris in their astonishing general election mandate.

Here we are again

One year later, here we are again, except more horrific. What is happening? As ocean water becomes warmer – through climate change fuelled by greenhouse gas emissions, inseparable from the Capitalocene (Moore 2017) – storms become more intense. The volume of rainfall increases as does the speed of wind, worsening the impact and damage of floods. The science is that as ocean temperatures rise above 26C, warm and moisture-heavy air from the ocean surface evaporates to form clouds and create a low-pressure zone, providing enough energy for winds to spin reaching 63km/h (Poynting 2025; Shamim 2025).

The evidence from a hotter planet is that storms now unleash higher wind speeds and greater rainfall, while moving slower across land – all of which escalates their destructive effects. As climate scientist Roxy Koll explains,

… storms this season have been carrying extraordinary amounts of moisture. A warmer ocean and atmosphere are loading these systems with water, so even moderate cyclones now unleash rainfall that overwhelms rivers, destabilises slopes and triggers cascading disasters. Landslides and flash floods then strike the most vulnerable, the communities living along these fragile environments (cited in Niranjan 2025).

On Wednesday, 26 November, rain resumed across the island accompanied by strong howling winds. But we had no inkling of what was to come. Heralding the imminent landfall of Cyclone Ditwah on Friday the 28th, the grey foreboding sky opened with greater ferocity the day before. It poured mercilessly on Thursday 27th and Friday 28th, making for 72 hours of relentlessly pelting rain. A foot of water or 300 mm fell on average on both days, with 540 mm recorded in the hill country district of Matale. Wind speeds of 65 km/h and up to 80 km/h brought down trees or their branches, and directed water onto roads, railway tracks, and dwellings.

The already saturated soil in hilly and mountainous areas of the central massif could not stick together. Rivers of mud formed and swelled, beginning their terrifying descent to the lower slopes below, where homes, businesses, villages, and small towns hug mountainsides. The roads cut into the hills crumbled. Bridges snapped. The avalanches uprooted electricity and telephone poles, inundating built structures and their inhabitants. In low level areas near rivers, canals and other water bodies, streets and neighbourhoods were submerged by flood water, turning into muddy lakes only accessible by boat and helicopter. Their residents were stranded for many hours and sometimes days. Some were trapped on a higher storey or rooftop, without light, drinking water, and cooking facilities, as their mobile telephone batteries began dying, cutting them off from the outside world, even as flood levels kept rising around them.

The areas where people have been most affected by number of dead and displaced are the up-country tea plantation districts especially Badulla, Kandy and Nuwara Eliya; the fishing and farming districts of Puttalam, Mannar and Trincomalee; and the densely populated industrial and services economy districts of Colombo and Gampaha.

What we know from disasters past, for those who wish to see, is that they hold up a mirror to the class and social fractures otherwise papered over or made unseen by the rich and powerful. Those who are hit first and hardest; those who are the last to receive help; those who get forgotten when the relief shelters close and the donation drives dry, are from the basement of society. In our ongoing disaster too, they are the marginal farmers or rural labourers; the plantation residents or workers; the landless who live in informal settlements along river and reservoir banks, canals and storm drains and alongside railway tracks; the urban daily-waged and home-based workers; the internal migrants such as free trade zone workers; the persons with disabilities; the elderly; and the queer and trans people.

State and public response

Once the severity of the storm and its consequences became clear on 27 November, state officials and the security forces swung into search and rescue actions, joined later by naval, air-force personnel from India and Pakistan. The scale of the damage and the massive number of people to be cared for, is clearly overwhelming. Public sector workers, so readily denigrated by the middle-class commentariat and right-wing think tanks as a drain on taxpayers, were as always, the first responders in an emergency. They worked for days and nights at a stretch in appalling conditions, often at risk to their own lives. The workers of the Road Development Authority and local government authorities such as the Colombo Municipal Council braved the elements to clear fallen trees and other debris from roads and homes; the workers of the Ceylon Electricity Board climbed posts and repaired connections in dangerous wind conditions to restore power supplies and telecommunication transmission towers where possible. Ambulance staff and health workers turned up for duty, including at mobile health camps for the sick and injured.

State administrative officials at divisional and district level scrambled to identify shelters for the displaced and for food and other materials. However, the opposition alleged that officials were hesitant to utilise public funds without written authorisation from higher-ups, being fearful of falling foul of the NPP’s anti-corruption crusade, slowing their responsiveness. Clearly there were issues, as the president had to revive the office of the Commissioner-General for Essential Services, aiming to expedite approvals and lawfully requisition state facilities and resources.

As on earlier occasions, what is inspiring and encouraging is how quickly and energetically ordinary people began mobilising themselves and others to provide mutual aid to those in distress, creating WhatsApp groups and sharing information on Facebook pages. It was usually neighbours and nearby residents who rushed to rescue landslide victims, using their bare hands to remove earth and move building debris. Fishers from Trincomalee transported their boats to Anuradhapura to reach water-logged areas. Small animals, family pets, and roaming dogs and cats were fed and rescued too. In the absence of a single information portal on the location and contact information of those stranded or missing or sick and injured, one person created https://floodsupport.org/ within hours of the Cyclone’s landfall; while two others visualised available data at https://stats.floodsupport.org/ for rapid assessment and response. Small-scale appeals and requests for help were collated and verified by two photo-journalist activists at https://tinyurl.com/LKfloods25. People of all social classes gifted dry rations, water bottles, clothing, period products, medicines, fuel for cooking and transport, blood for the injured, and cash. The prisoners in Colombo’s maximum security Welikada jail donated the supplies for their lunch one day to the flood affected. Community kitchens were re-activated to prepare cooked food for delivery to safety centres and others in need. Aid convoys from Galle and Matara, with hundreds of volunteers, are now in affected areas of the hill country, both to distribute relief goods and to remove debris. There has been duplication and wastage of resources too, with some areas and communities receiving too much and others too little. As water recedes in low-country areas, crews have formed to help communities in clearing their homes and public spaces of mud and flotsam, emptying damaged contents, drying whatever can be saved, and beginning the clean-up.

Recriminations

As to be expected, the recriminations have begun. The disaster management system has either not been effective or been overwhelmed or probably both. The considerable focus on institution-building, new legislation, protocols, and processes, after the 2004 tsunami has not yielded expected outcomes for those in suffering since (Diwyanjalee 2025).

Allowing for the unexpected severity of the storm, was its arrival underplayed by state authorities and the private sector so as not to scare away foreign tourists? In an official statement dated 27 November, the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority pronounced, “Sri Lanka remains safe and open for travel and tourism” and that “comprehensive safety measures are in place” (SLTDA 2025). Since taking office, the NPP government has adapted to the harmful perception that tourist receipts are low-hanging fruit for foreign exchange, and that increasing their number is a pathway to “recovery” from the 2021-2023 crisis.

Did warnings reach those most at risk in good time? Were they understood? Many advisories were in Sinhala only. Thirty-eight years after “Tamil also” was recognised as an official language, state institutions such as the Disaster Management Centre, the Irrigation Department, and the Meteorological Department are unable to consistently issue information in the mother-tongue of Tamils and Moors. In desperation, one government parliamentarian appealed on social media for Tamil-speakers to help state institutions with translations as well as in staffing helplines – to which many responded as volunteers.

Unless there is disaster preparedness, it cannot be assumed that people will be responsive to announcements nor equipped to evacuate their homes and possessions at short notice. The 1,385 ‘safety centres’ in operation are make-shift spaces in schools, community centres, and religious institutions, with no opportunity for repurposing for the sheer number to be sheltered, toilets and water, cooking facilities, nor adapted for those with special needs; and no forethought as to safeguards for women’s personal security and child protection.

Twenty years ago, Sri Lanka’s parliament enacted a framework statute for a national policy and plan for the protection of human life and property of the people and the environment, from the threat and danger of national disasters. Yet, what progress have we made in enhancing “public awareness and training to help people to protect themselves from disasters”; in “pre-disaster planning, preparedness and mitigation”; and as we shall soon find out, in “sustaining and further improving post-disaster relief, recovery and rehabilitation capabilities” (Sri Lanka Disaster Management Act 2005, s. 4)?

Shreen Saroor, who is familiar with the experiences of women and affected communities during disasters and in their aftermath, asks some pointed questions:

Why were evacuation orders not enforced in clearly identified high-risk areas? Why did communication networks and emergency logistics collapse in vulnerable districts? Why were officials paralysed by fear of procedural repercussions during a life-threatening emergency? Why did relief, coordination, and rescue begin late despite repeated warnings? Most urgently, how many deaths could have been prevented? (Saroor 2025)

Amitav Ghosh has drawn attention to another small island in the Indian Ocean, to make the point that to be well prepared for extreme weather events, does not require great wealth nor technological prowess. Mauritius has managed to preserve human life in tropical storms through

a sophisticated system of precautions, combining a network of cyclone shelters with education (including regular drills), a good early warning mechanism and the mandatory closing of businesses and schools when a storm threatens (Ghosh 2025: 37).

Contrasting the two deaths in Mauritius following Cyclone Gamede in 2007, to over 1300 in the US during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, both of Category Three status when they made landfall, he concludes, “early warnings alone are not enough; preparation also demands public education and political will” (Ghosh 2025: 37). Two things scarce in Sri Lanka.

Wake-up call

Cyclone Ditwah must be the wake-up call for course correction by this government and its supporters who brook no criticism of it. It is past time to break from the economic and social policy crafted by and for neoliberal capitalism. Instead of aiming to please the International Monetary Fund and global ratings agencies on “fiscal consolidation” and “debt sustainability”, the NPP must urgently pivot towards the most affected communities in this climate disaster.

This includes a rapid expansion in the breadth and depth of social protection programmes including cash transfers, as well as reviving older ones such as the public distribution system for essential foods. As the Feminist Collective for Economic Justice (2025) observes,

Universal social protection must be considered as part and parcel of disaster preparedness and post-disaster economic and social resilience. This resilience is built through these systems as a sustainable and reliable connection between the state and citizens. Social protection ensures access to critical infrastructure such as healthcare facilities, meal and nutrition programmes, to climate resilient housing and to adaptation financing to support livelihoods.

A massive public infrastructure programme is needed to rebuild not only roads, bridges, irrigation systems, drinking water sources, hospitals, schools, and homes, but also the means of survival and sustenance of millions including the restoration of agriculture. Nature-based solutions for flood mitigation such as planting of mangroves, trees and other vegetation, restoration of wetlands and marshes, recharging of aquifers, and de-siltation of rivers and canals. For this, the billions of US dollars currently committed towards debt-servicing must be redirected for public needs and good.

It is the Maldivian ex-president and climate justice campaigner Mohamed Nasheed, and sadly not President Dissanayake nor his cabinet of ministers, who stated the obvious on 29 November. “[I]t is now impossible for Sri Lanka to stay aligned with the IMF programme” (Nasheed 2025). Nasheed faulted the International Monetary Fund’s debt sustainability analysis template for ignoring the likelihood and impact of climate shocks, and reiterated the call for “automatic debt standstills” in these circumstances.

On the same day, Sajith Premadasa the Leader of the Opposition urged the IMF “to ease the conditions imposed on Sri Lanka…”, in support of relief, recovery, and livelihood restoration (Newswire 2025). It was left ambiguous as to which austerities, and by how much to loosen their noose. In parliament four days later (04 December), Premadasa took the clearer stance of calling on the government to “suspend or reshape” the IMF programme and remove conditions oppressive of the people now reeling from Cyclone Ditwah (Daily FT 2025).

Civil society activists critical of climate and debt injustice, have also urged renegotiation of the IMF agreement; an immediate standstill on debt repayments; and an inclusive loss and damage assessment led by affected communities, in a collective statement.

The great flood of 2025, as explained earlier, is not the first-time rivers and reservoirs overflowed without respite, nor torrents of muddy earth raced down from above flattening homes and fields, and deluging humans, animals, and plants. Tragically, it will not be the last such calamity. The question for the government and citizens alike is, what are we going to do differently and how, before the next ṭūfān?

Balasingham Skanthakumar is with the Social Scientists’ Association of Sri Lanka and an editor of Polity.

References

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