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“Jaw Jaw, not War, War”

“Our nation is now entangled in a morass. If anyone tries to take the nation back to war, that would put the clock back and we will have to face dire consequences” said Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe, Leader of the Opposition in a televised address to the nation yesterday 6 Jan 2005.

Excerpts:

It is the donor nations that pledged aid to us in the Tokyo conference, that have now come forward to help this nation rebuild its devastated infrastructure. Given the tragic situation that is before us, if anyone tries to work with a ‘war’ mindset, that would be tantamount to treachery and anti-social. We must first of all recommence talking to the LTTE. If we demonstrate our commitment to peace, the international community will be with us. On the other hand, if we show signs of giving up the peace process, all these nations would also give us up and go elsewhere.

By demonstrating our commitment to peace and moving in that direction, we can retain this overwhelming support at a time of distress. Our country has suffered the vagaries of a war during the last twenty years. As a consequence, we had to face a serious economic crisis. It is the cease-fire agreement that we entered into with the LTTE, that brought a semblance of normalcy in our country.

When we were slowly moving in the direction of rebuilding our war-torn economy, Mother Nature has brought in this immense destruction. We are invariably in a situation that calls for unity. All of us should join hands, sinking petty differences and work jointly with determination to rebuild our nation.

All of us brought destruction to this nation during the last fifty years, slinging mud on each other. The differences that we perceived we have, prevented us from salvaging the nation from economic mess. We are therefore destined to change direction and chart our course in an entirely new direction. One could possibly say that Mother Nature too decided to bring havoc on our nation, because she was furious over the way we created differences among each other.

Let us learn a lesson from this fury of Mother Nature, and direct our attention to foster unity and work with commitment to rebuild this devastated nation. We have been engaged in vituperative and parochial politics all this while. Let us get out of this morass now. If we miss this opportunity, we cannot ever hope for salvation. Sinking political differences and setting a target of 15 years for nation building, let us move in the right direction with the right political dimension.

This alone can help us to get over the economic mess and alleviate poverty. If on the other hand, we try to make use of this situation to achieve narrow political gains, I am afraid, the nation is destined to face dire consequences. Our brothers and sisters, who have lost their lives in this catastrophe, have tasked us to rebuild this nation. We have before us the moral responsibility to carry out that duty. The tragedy that struck this nation was not selective and discriminatory to Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim. All of us were affected. History has recorded several other nations coming up again after such disasters. The international community has taken cognisance of this factor and has volunteered to help us out of the situation. It is in our hands to utilise this good-will atmosphere towards nation building.”

07 January 2005

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