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| Sunday, 16 October 2005 |
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More from plantations come over to Mahinda by S.S. Warani
Ceylon Worker's Alliance's General Secretary and a former Parliamentarian S. Sathasivam had said that his trade union-cum political party would render unconditional support to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse at the forthcoming presidential poll. He said there was no need to sign any memorandum of understanding since he and his party had full faith in the Prime Minister. Former parliamentarians P.P. Devaraj, Ganapathi Kanagaraj, T.V. Sennan and several other senior members of CWA met Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse on Oct.11. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse accepted the 14 demands submitted by them. He had agreed to include them in his manifesto. The 14 demands include: To stop immediately the arbitrary arrest of Tamils: Pay attention to higher education, vocational training and teaching appointments for the development of Indian Origin Tamils: A separate university should be established for the upcountry:State-run nurseries should be opened in every estate: As the cost of living is soaring, the joint agreement with the Employers' Federation should be revised to provide wage increase to plantation workers. The main staple food of the plantation community is flour. Therefore action should be taken to provide it to them with concessionary rates: Estate health system should be brought up to the national level and upgrade the estate hospitals: Provisions should be made for the appointment of Tamil nurses in the upcountry hospitals and a nurses training school established: Tamil language should be implemented in areas where Tamils are concentrated and Tamil officers appointed: Tamil Grama Niladharis should be appointed in Kandy, Ratnapura, Kalutara, Deniyaya, Kurunegala, Colombo and Kegalle districts: Tamil Divisional Secretariats should be established in areas where Tamils are concentrated: Upcountry youth should be given opportunities in the public sector employment, self-employment and the necessary resources: Present housing systems of lines and flats should be abolished and single houses should be built for the plantation workers, and interest-free loans should be provided: An environment should be created for Tamil speaking people to live in peace with all human rights. Meanwhile, a delegation of upcountry intellectuals led by a former Hind Affairs State Minister, P.P. Devaraj met Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse on Oct.6. They requested the Prime Minister to include a comprehensive Charter of Rights in the fundamental rights section of the Constitution that would consist the civil, political, social, cultural, economic, minority rights, language rights and community rights. Devaraj said the Select Committee on Constitutional Reform, in the year 2000, decided to expand the fundamental rights section and it was accepted by all parties. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse appreciated the proposal on the Charter of Rights and said this would allay the fears of minority communities. He said he would do the needful so that the Charter of Rights would be in par with the UN Convention on Human Rights. A new trade union is to be formed in the upcountry. The dissidents of the Upcountry People's Front have finalised the formation of a trade union. Central Provincial Council Member P. Dhihambaram said that unlike other trade unions this would be based on transparency and openness. The talk of the plantation area is that a trade union leader was asked about his opinion on the two dissidents of the UPF. He said that if they were the members of his party he would have their legs broken. But, an upcountry politician said that the leader was finding it difficult to remove one of his colleagues from his party who is still a Deputy Minister even after the leader had left the government.``The leader may be in fear as the Deputy Minister belonged to a different community", he said. |
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