by Northern Breeze

Can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink!

Myself having lived through the civil-war years in Jaffna and knowing what was needed, conceived a pilot development  plan in consultation with people at grass root level. The plan was presented to the authorities, could be suitably altered to rebuild the war torn regions in the country.

In 2009, with help from friendly nations the civil war in Sri Lanka was brought to finish. Then the selfish rulers, should have pruned down their security forces to meet peace time needs. Instead, the rulers, having annihilated its opposition, maintained full strength in the previous war regions, making life miserable for the locals, forced to continue struggle as they did during civil-war years.

On power generation page 18 of the report read as follows:

In 2010 many presentations were made both at the Vali-West Pradeshiya Sabha and at the Divisional Secretariat; and received valuable comments. Finalised plan was submitted to the Governor of the Northern Province.  Following an interview with Governor a letter was received from Governor’s  Office; since then many items from the concept plan were selected by sector officials for implimentation. However, due to change of rulers and the apathy of the officials all prevented its full implementation.

If development plan invisaged in 2010 was applied to every Pradeshiya Sabha in the country, it would have prevented government offices working a reduced four day week and people get ready for a life with two meals instead of three per day. What is even worse, there are no positive plans yet from the rulers to lift the economy of the country back to normalcy.

The economy began crumbling, with the unwanted civil-war, which country could not afford. Sri Lanka is in shambles today, due to the failure of past rulers to take constructive actions to resolve issues; in spite of many unproductive talks to resolve people problems.

Under this sinario, people protest is meaningful and justifiable. For friendly nations assisted our country to bring the civil-war to finish and helped the rulers to sort the root cause of the conflict; but with more than a decade has passed negative peace continue in the country.

Sri Lanka today is in a pathetic situation; confirms the saying that you can provide someone with an opportunity, but you can’t make them take it if they don’t want to; as the saying goes: ‘one can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’!