People should be empowered to stand on their own - Weerawansa

Hiran H. Senewiratne

The Government should give priority to the people in the country to reap all benefits from the war victory. If not the entire social fabric will disintegrate, National Freedom Front President Wimal Weerawansa, MP said.

“The main challenge for this country now is to strengthen the social, cultural and economic aspects of the people, Weerawansa said at a book launch of Aledida Guevara’s Chavez, Venezuela and New Latin America. This book was translated into Sinhala by Dr Achala Upendra Jayathilaka.

He said local people should be empowered to stand on their own feet while being given other facilities such as land, water and other necessities to set up a strong national economy within the country.

But Chavez was a trend setter, he also gave priority to the local people by shedding American imperialism, he said.

Weerawansa said there is a visible breakdown of the social fabric due to the absence of the rule of law and the undue behaviour of law enforcing authorities in the country.

These matters were not being highlighted and not taken up seriously before due to the war situation in the country.

With the ending of the war and the LTTE these social issues surfaced and the media also reported them in a sensational way. Therefore, maintaining law and order and giving equal chances for the local people to develop a national economy is the need of the hour, he said.

He also said that certain elements in the country are now in the process of transferring thousands of hectares of lands in the North and East for multinationals, without giving them to local people which will have a negative impact on the national economy as those multinationals will destroy the wealth of the country which was liberated by the security forces, he said.

Weerawansa said Latin American countries have identified the importance of having national economies without sacrificing them for American imperialism and most of these countries have realized it.