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Dengue can be controlled only by the public

It is an absolute truth that dengue can be controlled only with the participation of the citizens. It should be a multi-pronged, sustained, 24- hour vigil by every single citizen of the country. If not, the plan is doomed to fail. If we could eradicate Malaria surely we can conquer dengue too.

First of all there must be continuous education of the masses to bring about absolute awareness of the danger of dengue. It is a disease which affects the people irrespective of age, social status, area and immune status of the individual. It can only be eradicated by eradicating the mosquito menace.

Every single household, school, office and institute must be reminded to look for possible breeding areas of mosquitoes each morning before starting work. All radio stations, TV stations, newspapers and any other mass media must remind people of the danger and preventive methods. The country must be flooded with posters, leaflets and reminders in whatever way possible.

The campaign obviously has to be coupled with proper garbage disposal and looking out for breeding locations of the mosquitoes. The housewives will be the best contenders along with other members of the family.

Many more public health workers have to be on the field to check on common areas and rather than hauling people into courts or imposing spot fines, persuasion of cleaning up and maintaining a clean environment must take precedence. Each lane, each area must be persuaded for the residents to corporate to take responsibility to look after their areas.

There are many plants which ward off mosquitoes and they are not expensive. People must be persuaded to grow them in their gardens. Sometime back a school boy came up with an ingenious, inexpensive method of controlling the breeding of mosquitoes using a plastic bottle cut into two. It was talked about highly and then the idea was dumped. Why not resurrect this novel way of killing off all mosquitoes?

Fumigation and spraying malathion are ineffective temporary measures. Similarly mosquito coils, mosquito mats or nets cannot actually help in total eradication.

This is a national menace so the nation must come forward to eradicate it. This cannot be achieved by a few individuals or few departments. It cannot be sustained by an anti dengue week or anti dengue month. It can only be achieved by a long term sustained effort by the government itself encouraging the whole nation to be part of it.

It sounds difficult but it is not - not if we put our hearts into it.

Dr. Mareena Thaha Reffai, Dehiwela

Was anyone responsible for a security lapse?

Fifteen years ago, the LTTE attacked the Katunayake Bandaranaike International Airport and the adjoining Air Force Base on Tuesday, July 24 2001.

According to media reports up to around 9 am on July 25, the predawn attack lasted more than six hours. The Air Force lost eight aircraft and five out of twelve Airbus passenger planes of SriLankan Airlines were knocked out of service. Out of the five aircraft of the national career, two were completely destroyed.

Nine rebels and five military personnel lost their lives. Fortunately no tourist was injured. Despite that deadly attack, surprisingly, the Sri Lankan Rupee held its ground and traded around Rs. 90.20 against the US. Dollar compared with Rs. 90.25 on Monday, 23rd. There was hardly any change in the call money rate and it ended, at around 19%.

The government at that time feared that the tourism industry was going to be the biggest victim, as hoteliers began to accept the continuous flow of cancellations.

I hardly remember anybody being held responsible for the lapse of proper security.

Lalith Fernando

Dispute resolution

Many educated and intelligent people have faulted Western powers for their intervention in Iraq and Libya, leading to many deaths and widespread destruction.

People also point out the culpability of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who joined the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Western powers intervened and helped the rebels to overthrow Libyan leader Gaddafi in 2011 through overt and covert operations and plunged the country into chaos ever since.

These military actions have claimed thousands of lives in Iraq and Libya.

The British now regret the military action.

We must also pay attention to the recent declaration by US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that the killing of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has caused terrorism world over.

We must learn and practise dispute resolution methods. Dispute resolution generally refers to one of several processes used to resolve disputes between parties, including negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation.

We must not use war or terrorism to settle disputes.

War is armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country. This should always be avoided. We call this fighting, battle, combat or take up arms.

Some people use terrorism to settle disputes. This is extremely dangerous and should never be used or encouraged.

Terrorism is unofficial or the unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. Terrorism is also defined as the use or threatened use of violence-terror, to achieve political, religious or ideological aims.

We must always say no to war or terrorism and use dispute resolution methods such as discussion, negotiation, mediation and, arbitration to resolve disputes.

D. Weeratunga,  Nugegoda