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'Meaningful devolution of power'

We as artistes and writers who have met in a Convention for Peace organised by the Centre for Performing Arts at the Sasakawa Hall in Colombo on September 14, 2002, acknowledge a responsibility in our work in serving as a collective conscience for our war-torn society.

We recognise that fundamental issues of remembrance, forgiveness, justice and reconciliation need to be addressed in the course of the peace process the leaders of our country are currently engaged in. We affirm that artistes and writers have a special responsibility in this regard to envision a revitalised and redefined Sri Lanka.

In particular, we affirm that

- there is no military solution to the civil war
- there is a need for a reasonable political solution based on the meaningful devolution of power
- artistes and writers in North, South East and West should interact with each other
- youth need to be introduced to each other's culture through youth exchange programmes
- human rights abuses and other injustices should not be tolerated by artistes and writers
- there should be more media coverage of the sufferings of people due to the civil war
- artistes and writers should express their opposition to biased and distorted media accounts
- the works of writers and artistes on peace should be translated into Sinhala and Tamil
- equal opportunities should be provided to all artistes to go before the public
- children should be taught the Sinhala and Tamil languages in schools on a compulsory basis
- children should be taught from common and mutually agreed history text books
- children should be taught about the shortcomings in the previous and present constitutions

At this Convention we commit ourselves to work non-violently for a society in which there will be peace with dignity and democracy in which human rights and the multi-cultural reality of Sri Lanka are celebrated. We commit ourselves to explore and express these universal values in our future work together Statement adopted by the Convention of Writers and Artistes for Peace. Around one hundred writers, artistes and media personalities from all communities and from different parts of the country attended.

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