|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 27 January 2002 |
 |
|
 |
Business |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Peace
essential for business growth - GL
by SUREKHA GALAGODA Peace is of paramount importance to create an atmosphere conducive to entrepreneurial activities, and the prospects for peace and achieving a durable solution to the ethnic question are better than ever before, Minister of Enterprise Development, Industrial Policy, Investment Promotion and Constitutional Affairs Professor G.L. Peiris said. Addressing a luncheon meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka, Prof. Peiris said that as prospects for peace are better than ever before, there is a mood of buoyancy and optimism among the people. He urged the public not to have unrealistic expectations that too much will happen too soon "as we are bound to experience snarls and pitfalls on the path to peace". The visible involvement of the civil society, the unilateral announcements on cessation of hostilities by the LTTE and the government, learning lessons from the past and having the able facilitator, Norway are some of the positive differences we can see compared to previous occasions - especially that of 1995, he added. "Involvement of the civil society is absolutely essential to achieve peace through negotiations," said the Minister. He was of the view that lessons should be learnt from the past. Self criticism is necessary to look at what went wrong in the past. For example, the cessation of hostilities entered into during 1995 was dropped due to humanitarian matters, he said. "Since it is important to have credibility, we will not make promises if we cannot fulfil them," assured the Minister. "As a sequence of events is important, we will do the first things first and after the right atmosphere is created, we will go for talks," he said. At present there is no guarantee of success as the reservoir of hatred that has been built over decades should be eradicated slowly and steadily, while a proper understanding among the public regarding the issues involved in the conflict are necessary in such a process, the Minister observed. Minister Peiris was of the view that the spirit of democracy should be vibrant as it needs to have mechanisms to ensure that incidents of the nature of Udathalawinna do not happen again. He assured that a Constitutional Council would be in place before March. Commenting on the problems of labour, the Minister stressed that it cannot be addressed in an ad hoc manner, but only on a continuous basis to ensure that problems of this nature do not crop up again. He said the people should be educated on labour problems. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
