Let’s form a government of the people in the north, south and East – Anura Dissanayake

Let’s form a government that represents all the people in the North, South, and East, said Anura Dissanayake, the Leader of the National People’s Power. He said this while addressing the Northern Provincial Conference of Ceylon Teachers Service Association held at Valamburi Sangilian Hall in Jaffna on 4.4 2024.
Addressing the well-attended conference, including Mahinda Jayasinghe, General Secretary of Ceylon Teachers’ Service Union, Anura Dissanayake said, “Our country is economically collapsed. No good food for the citizens, regardless of the north or south. There is no medicine in hospitals. The youth have no jobs. Our women are trapped mainly in microfinance loans. Our country is stuck in an economy that cannot pay off its debts and has become one country without investors. Trust in the world regarding our country has broken down to the point where it is impossible to get a new loan. We want to build this country. We came to meet you to talk about what has happened to this country and how to build it.
Is this crisis in our country a natural disaster? Is it a problem caused by a major flood, hurricane, or tsunami? No, this is a problem created by the groups that have ruled our country for a long time. The political culture and economic policy followed by the rulers of our country have caused this crisis. This political culture and economic policy must change to get out of this crisis.
We know that a presidential election will be held this year. We have seen that the people of the North have not been interested in a presidential election. The idea is that electing a president for our country is the work of the Sinhalese people who appoint a leader in Colombo. The policies followed by the elected presidents of our country have had a disastrous effect on the North as well as the South. Therefore, we think that the active involvement of the people of the north is also necessary in the selection of leaders for the country.
We have come to meet you, not to say we will give you 13 plus or federal and ask you to vote for us. However, we have come to meet you to talk about how to recover this country from the disaster it has fallen into and to talk about whether our country can recover from the policies followed by our leaders for a long time. We all say that our country needs a new road. So we’re here to talk about exploring a new path.
If we want to change our country, we need to change this political culture. What is the political culture of our country? There is a very destructive political culture in this country. It is full of fraud and corruption. The people’s wealth coming to the treasury has been diverted to the accounts of ministers and crooked businessmen. Politicians waste and steal the wealth that comes to the treasury. You know the Minister of Health has been jailed on the charge of involving in bringing substandard drugs. The President of the country has been accused of robbing the Central Bank. The current Prime Minister shouted in Parliament that the President was a bank thief. Current President Ranil Wickramasinghe shouted in Parliament that Mahinda Rajapaksa was a thief. Don’t you want to change this corrupt political culture?
The people of the north and the south of our country are in the grip of these corrupt people. These corrupt people are destroying the future of our children. This corruption must be stopped to build our country. We assure you that the National People’s Power will do that job. Don’t you want to stop the politics of wasting people’s wealth? According to any financial regulation of our country, electricity bills in the houses of ministers cannot be paid with public money. Parliament provides the necessary money to the minister. However, the water bills and electricity bills of the ministers’ houses are paid from the wealth of the public. The monthly electricity bill of some ministers is more than one hundred and thirty thousand and is paid from public wealth. Toilet facilities are provided by the wealth of the public. Vehicles are provided to the minister, his wife and his children from the wealth of the public. Don’t you want to change this wasteful political culture? Money is allocated from the budget for the President’s foreign trips. This allocated money was already spent by the President at the beginning of the year. Recently, another 200 million rupees was reserved for his foreign trips using a supplementary budget . Is it worth paying that much for a single person? Money to bring medicine to our hospitals, to teach children and provide facilities, to build the village road, to launch a drinking water project is wasted to facilitate a handful of corrupt people. We have to stop that political culture.
Not only that, politicians are behind crime and drug business in our country. Criminals and drug dealers rule our country. Can such a country move forward? There is a law in our country. But this law applies only to the ordinary people. Those on top escape the law. The current Inspector General of Police is someone who has been punished by the Supreme Court. There are cases against him in the Supreme Court. How can such a person fulfill the law of the land justly? All corporations have collapsed. Can such a country move forward? If you have a problem and go to the police, do you have faith that justice will be done? There is no such belief. Ours is a collapsed state. We have become the victims of the collapsed state whether we are from the North, the South or the East.
How can they be in power when there has been such a disaster and every crime has been committed to the country? What is the secret of their power? They maintain power through communalism. By suppressing all other issues, the Sinhala leaders are stirring up the country with the slogan of saving the country, religion and nation. That is their existence. North and East are the same. These destructive politicians have made communalism the main factor of their existence.
Our rulers had no vision of building national unity. British imperialists prevented our unity. The white man ruled our country by dividing us. From 1505 to 1948, we were under the rule of foreign powers. From 1815 to 1948, the entire country was under the rule of the British. The black men who thought like white men took over the country after 133 years and divided us even more. We could not create a national unity.
After the so-called independence in 1948, the Citizenship Act was introduced in 1949. The political rights of the people of the plantations were abolished. Against that, in 1949 Mr. Chelvanayagam built ‘Tamil Arasu Kachchi’. In 1956 the language problem and in 1958 the Tamil Sinhala riots arose. In 1981, the library in Jaffna was burned down. In 1983, July there were riots. In 2009 the war ends. Was this issue resolved after the end of the war? By 2015, sterile pads and sterile clothes come to the fore. The 2019 Easter attack was carried out. All our country’s history is a history of conflict.
The main political currents of our country are politics against others. The Sinhalese people in the south are organized against the north. The Tamil people in the north are organized against the Sinhalese people. The Muslims are organized against the Sinhalese people. Our grandfathers, mothers and fathers did that politics. What is the result? Our generation fought wars. Do we want to let this happen again? This earth was wet with the blood of our generation. The parents’ tears flowed like rivers. The wives lost their husbands. Children lost their parents, parents lost their children. The country itself became a tragedy.
We must defeat this racist political culture for the sake of our future generations. We say to the genuine political leaders of the north, if you are really thinking about the Tamil people’s issue, we should join together. We invite the leaders of the north to make the politics of solving the political problem in the north. Let us form a government together. Let’s think anew. We may not be sensitive to the problems we face on a daily basis. But we feel your pain. We have to build a new country.
There are two main languages ​​in our country. Both languages ​​have equal rights. They have the right to deal with the state in their own language. A Tamil citizen has the right to go to the police and make a complaint in his own language. If you send a letter to the government in your own language, you should receive a reply in your own language. We think that the proportion of Tamil youths should be increased in the institutions, the armed forces, the police and the important sectors of the state.
So is religion. Religion is your belief. You are born in a Hindu Tamil environment. Your religion, your culture becomes a Hindu-Tamil culture. I was born in a Sinhala and Buddhist environment. My culture is Sinhala Buddhist culture. Therefore, can my faith be considered high and your faith low? A state should be created in our country where everyone’s right to believe and protect their religion is confirmed. When we find historical artifacts, we start fighting. What is our responsibility? It is our responsibility to consider those antiquities as national heritage, protect and preserve them for future generations. Is the emergence of historical sites something we should fight for? We have cultural differences from each other. Your main festival is Thaipongal, the main festival of Muslims is Ramadan, and the main festival of Sinhalese is Vesak. The main festival of the Catholics is Christmas.
Those are our cultural identities. How should we build a society? Should it be a society that excludes one culture and says that another culture is superior? Don’t we need a new generation that respects and accepts other cultures? We need to build that generation. All these old, racist, tribalistic ideas and habits belong to the old society. Our country needs a new society that rejects communalism and injustice and respects each other’s identities. Therefore, the time has come for all of us to shed our old clothes and put on new ones. Are we going to stay in the same old devil’s old clothes? Are we going into the future wearing the cloak of hatred, anger, blood, conflict, bullets and gunpowder? Take it off and move on with the new garb of national unity. We invite you to make a collective effort for that.
Are we dealers? I am not a trader, not a dealer. My movement, including myself, suggests that we make a collective effort to recover this country. We want a country where our children do not fight wars in the future. Our future generations need a good economy to build this country and live. We need a new politics. We suggest that we come together for that new politics.
I am not asking you to vote for us. I suggest that we get together and take a collective effort. Is the economy heading in a good direction? Is the rule of law good? Is the education of our children good? Can we hope for better lives for our farmers and fishermen? Can we have hope for the future of our children? This is a state without any of that.
All these issues are created by the political authority of our country. If the cause of the crisis is politics, the solution lies in politics. Communalism in our country is political. It is politics whose existence and power is based on communalism. How can this be changed?
It canbe done only by taking the politics of national unity against communalist politics. We are proud that the majority of the South has taken up the flag against communalism. If there are communaist groups in the north we invite you to fight for national unity against communalism. This is the responsibility of our generation.
Also, a big transformation of the economy is needed to build this country. We had a certain vision of industrialization in history. It was all destroyed. There was a chemical factory in Paranthan. There was a paper factory in Valachchen and a cement factory in Kankasanthurai. Where is that industrialization today? There were weaving centers in small villages in the north. All institutions were sold or left to defunct and close down. They destroyed the backbone of the national economy. Jaffna hot chillies, drumsticks and red onions came to our village market. Everything is destroyed today. This political authority had no plan to take our national products forward. Northern Province had good milk production. Today, it has become a state where nothing can be produced.
After independence, India’s national leaders had a vision of the country’s direction. The Indian Vision is achieving the future they are building today. How was an India that goes to the moon, an India that distributes vehicles, medicine, food, and technology to the region created?
In India, Abdul Kalam can become the president, Manmohansinghe can become the prime minister, and Draupadi Murmu, a woman belonging to a tribal community, can become the President of India. It has been possible to bring a country with different races, religious beliefs and cultures under one flag. Our history is full of conflicts. Let us start a new political transformation. We are asking the Tamil national leaders in the north to come together. Let us form a government that represents the people of the North, the people of the East, and the people of the South. We invite everyone for that. We believe that our small steps can lead our country to great achievements.

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