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There was countrywide participation at the JVP’s special summit held yesterday at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium where the party’s new vision and manifesto was launched
- Pic by Shehan Gunasekera
By Chamodi Gunawardana
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) yesterday launched its ‘Accord of Consciousness’ national program, which highlights the ways in which it expects to improve the county’s future.
JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, addressing a large crowd gathered for the party’s special summit held at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium, asserted that the JVP’s Accord of Consciousness was not like other election manifestoes.
“We drafted this in the county’s interest. It was different from each and every other manifesto which other political parties have launched.
We just wanted to change the method that past Governments followed to govern the country during the last 67 years,” Dissanayaka said.
The JVP Leader spoke about the country’s education system and stressed that they expected to produce more citizens with Advanced Level qualifications.
“Around 360,000 children enter Grade One each year. However, this number is reducing day by day.
Half of these students only sit for the Ordinary Level examinations and then leave school. We have developed a method to keep these children in school until they graduated after sitting the Advanced Level examination,” he stated.
Speaking about the export market, Dissanayaka stressed that Sri Lanka should be concerned about exports in order to generate more revenue from foreign markets.
“In 1978 Sri Lanka earned Rs. 1 for every transaction it conducted in the international market. Now it has reduced up to 10 cents. We have proposed some methods to earn more dollars from international market. We hope to create huge demand for Sri Lankan goods, more than the current demand for domestic workers,” he explained.
Dissanayaka talked about agriculture and said that the JVP would pay more attention to food security and cultivation.
“We believe our economy should focus on agriculture and we should introduce new varieties of rice and plants. We should invest more on agricultural research too. We have identified that our agricultural production cost is higher than other Asian countries such as China and India. Past governments did not give priority to these issues and now it has become a crisis,” the JVP Leader noted.
He alleged that previous governments had put people’s health in jeopardy by importing and selling food items that were unfit for human consumption.
“Past governments gave permission to import food containing harmful chemicals from European countries. People used them daily and suffered a number of side effects. We have calculated that around 6,000,000 patients are treated at national hospitals every year. We promise to provide healthy food for each and every Sri Lankan,” Dissanayaka asserted.
Dissanayaka added that the JVP would offer lucrative employment opportunities to economics graduates.
“The past Government relegated graduates to work low-paying jobs. We will never use graduates for bottom-level jobs. We will provide them with good and respectable jobs,” he said.
Dissanayaka went on to state that the JVP had several innovative ideas to unite the country’s different communities.
“We cannot change the dress, beliefs and language of each community. We should respect them equally. The JVP promises to build a united nation for a better future,” the JVP Leader emphasised.
The JVP Leader spoke about the new judicial system outlined in the Accord of Consciousness and Dissanayaka said that this new system would punish actual culprits and not the innocent.
“We have found that around 100,000 trials take place in courts every year. However, those guilty do not get sufficiently punished. The JVP wants to correct this situation and expects justice to be done,” he stressed.
JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva also addressed the summit and noted that the party was confident of victory at the upcoming elections.
“We have remained in politics for several years and our journey has not been a bed of roses. Some have left and some are with us. We have enjoyed victories as well as defeats. However, we were waiting for the moment when we could attain victory again. We believe that this time has come,” Silva said.
