SAARC Summit immensely beneficial - President

Rohan MATHES

The SAARC Summit in Sri Lanka will bring immense benefits for the future well-being and the betterment of the country and its people, observed President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Presiding at a meeting to garner support to the UPFA candidates contesting the North Central Province elections, at the residence of the former North Central Province Chief Minister Berty Premalal Dissanayake in Anuradhapura last Sunday, President Rajapaksa asserted that the Opposition was only displaying its ignorance of these tremendous opportunities and advantages accruing from the Summit, by issuing slanderous statements to mislead the people.

He opined that the UPFA was consistently a party with a clear vision and a mission, to serve the nation with specific policies.

On that basis, it had won the full confidence of the people. Therefore winning elections was no arduous task for them, he said.

“The highest honour which a Government could obtain from its people, is their faith and trust. The peoples’ representatives should always seek not to breach this trust placed on them,” he noted.

“The UPFA has never ever betrayed the people nor sold the country’s assets and resources. Our party has consistently distanced itself from European culture and placed the ordinary man attired in sarong and vest, in his due and rightful place,” the President said.

He pointed out that the country is treading on the correct path to economic prosperity.

Following the Eastern liberation, the North too would be liberated from the grip of LTTE terrorism very soon.

There is no war in the country, he said, it is only an operation to restore the humanitarian and democratic rights of its citizens. However, he said that although the past regimes had postponed the country’s development citing the war, his Government would never do so.

“An unprecedented development process is now on. It is for this reason that many staunch UNP and JVP supporters are joining our camp now,” he added.

Ministers D.M. Jayarathna, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Tissa Karaliyadda, S.M. Chandrasena, T.B. Ekanayake, Milroy Fernando, Jeevan Kumaratunga, S.B. Nawinna, C.B. Ratnayake, Duminda Dissanayake, the Wayamba Province Chief Minister Athula Wijesinghe, Former North Central Chief Minister Chief Minister Berty Premalal Dissanayake and other activists of the SLFP were present at the meeting.