President tells media :
Help build amity
*Development major challenge before country
*Communal amity essential for development
It is the duty of the media to help build amity among all communities
and not contribute to fostering hatred among people, said President
Mahinda Rajapaksa addressing the Heads and Editors of the Private and
State Media at Temple Trees yesterday.
Responding to a question as to what he considered the major challenge
in the New Year, President Rajapaksa said it was development, adding
that unity and communal amity were essential to proceed with the tasks
of development.
Stressing that the media had every right to criticize the Government,
which right would always be protected, the President appealed to the
media to play an active role in fostering unity among all communities.
“Please take every action necessary to heal the wounds of the past,” he
said. He made a special appeal to the Tamil media not to encourage
efforts to create hatred among the Tamil people against the Sinhalese.
Do not promote thinking and ideologies that promote hatred. The
suffering caused through 30 years is enough and we must strengthen the
process of healing, he said, posing the question “Where would continued
hatred lead us to?”
The development work that has been launched was the answer to those
who sought to spread the message of communal hatred and may even be
trying to revive the forces of division that had been defeated, he said.
President Rajapaksa emphasized that having defeated the separatist
expectations of Prabhakaran, he was not prepared to give in to the same
demand if made by any others.
The Government had invested considerable funds for development in the
North, to restore the livelihoods of the people and these efforts should
not be negated. All this expense was needed to rebuild what had been
destroyed by the forces of terror. As an example he said how the
Kilinochchi Hospital that had been built with ADB funding had been
destroyed by the LTTE, as it had destroyed the railway, communications
facilities, water towers and other common amenities.
The Government had already spent Rs 2.5 billion on restoration and
development work in Kilinochchi town alone, that had a population of
27,000 families.
This should open the eyes of those who claimed that nothing was being
done for the Tamil people of the North.
President Rajapaksa said that the people in the southern villages
also felt the pain of all the years when terrorism was threatening the
nation. They felt this pain as much as the Tamil people and were keen to
be rid of the hatred of that period, to live in peace and harmony with
the Tamil people. He also decried efforts by some sections of the media
to exaggerate some of the problems of the country that were not unusual
in a post-conflict situation anywhere.
There was turbulence in all post-conflict societies and Sri Lanka had
already achieved much in just one and half years after the defeat of
terrorism. The Government was aware of these problems, such as criminal
activity, which were being addressed. He regretted the efforts by some
to use this situation to show Sri Lanka as a failed state and impose
burdens on the people through this means.
The Government could be attacked as in any democracy, but the people
must not be attacked or made to suffer through such action, carried out
with the expectation of lowering the image of Sri Lanka in the world,
the President said. |