How to develop this country 

Ven. Soma Thero's Vision 

Continued ....... to invest in Business  development projects utilizing their knowledge connections and good will and encourage them to open environmentally friendly high-tech production facilities in the country in a mutually beneficial way.

Developing the Agriculture Sector. Helping farmers to improve there production, Good hygienic, attractive packaging and reduction of waste, fair system of pricing and buying the agricultural production from farmers and improvement of marketing. 

Restoration of the confidence in essential government services and restoration of the dignity of the Government servants and Officers. Improvement of the moral of Armed Forces and make it one of the most advanced forces in the region. But it is not done with the intention of killing own citizens but as a mean of national Security and protection like Singapore and Japan. Education of the high ranking Officers of the Armed forces to treat lower ranks humanly and make them directly and criminally answerable for inhuman treatment of lower ranks.  

De criminalisation of the police force and placing honest officers in the high posts. Restoration of the dignity of Courts and Judges. Stopping the dragging of court cases for years and years and establishing a maximum time limit to finish a case and reducing the back log of pending cases as a matter of National Urgency. Reducing the time people spending in remand prison waiting for their cases to be heard. Establishing a legal Aid system similar to what implemented in Australia so that the poor people can access the justice. Giving tougher penalties and prison terms for major crimes. 

For lesser crimes such as bribes, traffic deaths, property damage, arson etc. confiscation of the properties  of the offender or his immediate family in order to pay cost of medical and rehabilitation expenses of the victim. Thus reducing the congestion of prisons and inhuman conditions which leads to become prisons a breeding ground of criminals.  

Restoration of Agricultural Extension Service, Introduction of new farming methods. Protection of environment and forest resources. Restoration of Tanks (Vewa) in the Dry zone, improve irrigation and helping farmers to maintain those. Re establish the Department of irrigation and Public Works Department, to the previous strength. Encourage Sri Lankan Engineers to actively engage in the development of the country.  Orientation of Agricultural and Veterinary Research in a way the useful findings are  directly flowing and benefiting to the farmers rather than becoming Academic Thesis written in English and rotting in an library.

Boosting the respect for every job. The people must be taught that it is not only the job of the doctor or the lawyer is important and appreciated. The farmers and drivers job is also important and it is also a job which is appreciated.  

Bring back to life the National Housing Development Authority and the  concept of "Gam Udawa", implemented by President Premadasa. creating new job opportunities through housing industry.  

Improvement of the health of the people and the environment.  Implementation of an urgent national campaign to irradiate the mosquito problem and the reinvigoration of the Anti Malarial Campaign. Implementation of the existing law to improve the food hygiene, food handling and cleanliness of the environment. Increasing the penalties for such offences. As the above reasons are the main causes of the congestion of hospitals thus affecting the health of people  and increasing the cost of  treatments. Prevention is better than the cure.       

3. Developing an alternative energy basis. 

We must encourage our people to use more solar energy for house hold  use as it is a waste of money and fuel when we can easily produce sufficient energy for each house hold through solar panels thus releasing the burden on the national grid. If there is a will there should be a way to encourage the business community for  cheaper production of solar panels and a method to buy excess electricity from house holds .Also we must encourage our small businesses to produce electricity using small water turbines and solar collectors and buy the energy from. The researchers should be encouraged for developing electricity from ocean waves.

4 Bringing peace

The peace must come from the heart of the people with the genuine desire for it. It can not be achieved through hatred and suspicion of each other. The normal Sinhalese and Tamils both are fed up of this and wish to live in peace. But unfortunately there are a few who thrive in this conflict who want nothing but war not because they are patriots but because they become rich and powerful because of it. Such people had vilified Sinhalese on the eyes of Tamils and Tamils on the eyes of Sinhalese, making them a kind of monsters a subhuman species. First of all this barrier must be broken. Basically I think both has the same socio economic  problems nothing much or nothing less emanating from bad politics, bad government and bad implementation of law and order.

The result is now we have hundreds of thousands of Sinhalese and Tamil youth who know nothing but the science and the training of how to kill a fellow human being through use of weapons. Both groups has no good education nor employment skills. We can not allow this country to be broken in to tiny pieces, that is out of question. It is detrimental not only to the Sri Lanka but to whole region and the world itself.

So we must both Sinhalese and Tamils without being Shylocks and insisting on the pound of Flesh from each other, should do our best to come in to a settlement, something similar to the States in Australia or Canada, I am not an expert, but I think it is worthwhile following them. 

So once this problem is settled, we must get together and do some thing to bring back those youths to the normal society such as giving them employment skills, local and foreign language skills, farming or business skills etc Otherwise if we neglect them, they will easily go in the wrong way becoming bank robbers, criminals, gangsters, and exporters of deadly skills of terror. Therefore it is our duty and the obligation to the world to bring them back to normal society and help them to be good useful citizens.

Arms Buy Back and Amnesty 

Once the peace is established. The government should take steps to remove the deadly weapons from the hands of people. We must implement an arms Buy Back scheme similar to the one implemented by the Australian government recently. In return we can offer either money or Agricultural/industrial equipments and assistants for those who genuinely comply to it with in the given grace period. Those who do not comply are hardened criminals and they must be followed up and dealt with the fullest extent of law and punishments. Then only we can guarantee a safe and secure country for the citizens. 

5 Bringing harmony     

Harmony comes with the good and wise governance, discipline, law and order, culture, religion, peace and appreciation of the fellow human beings their cultures and religions.

When I was a student at The Colombo Ananda College in early 1970's .  I was taught that "You must first learn to appreciate, your own culture, your language, your religion. Then only you will gain the ability and the capacity to truly appreciate an another country, another language, or a religion". Else how can a person who does not know the value of his own heritage can understand the value of others heritage. 

Therefore, once as soon as we archive a good level of governance we must first of all encourage the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims become good Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims who value their own culture, heritage and Traditions. The Buddhists to become good Buddhists who follow the real Buddhist values and not just the lip service , The Hindus good Hindus and Catholic and Christians good Catholics and Christians. This will bring harmony and happiness to people. Not only to the majority of us Sinhalese - Buddhists but to every one of us. That will be the lasting peace and harmony.

6 Establishing righteousness in Government.   

The responsibility and the  answerability: 

There was a previous president called J. R. Jayawardana in Sri Lanka a very cunning shrewd power hungry politician. He took the power deceiving people by telling he is going to make Sri Lanka a "Dharma Dweepa". But in reality he did the opposite. He laid the foundations for making it "Adharmadweepa". He is one of the people who is responsible for the present calamity fallen in the heads of innocent Singhalese and Tamils who got caught in the vicious web deceit and ill will he knowingly or unknowingly helped to create. 

Therefore it will be a shame and a sin by talking about a "Righteous Country" we also start doing the same what JR did. Therefore should be very careful on placing the correct, genuine, honest qualified people on responsible positions who will be able and have the courage and self respect to admit the responsibility for their actions, if necessary they should posses the courage to admit blame or resign from the post which never happens now.  We should not get the people who shift the  blame on previous administrations for the short comings as they do now. If the person was in the position even for a one day, he must be responsible from that day on, if some one had done wrong previously, the reason he is here is to correct it.

We must reduce this ridiculous number of Ministers (One of the biggest number of  Ministers in the world, even some Ministers with out forth folios) MP's and their salaries. It should not exceed the normal Salary of a top Government Agent or a Officer. 

The responsibility of a righteous government does not stop with the people in the country. It is responsible for the welfare of all living being in its boundary. It is necessary to establish a powerful agency with the ability to prosecute people who are responsible for the animal cruelty . I believe that the RSPCA in Australia is a good model to follow in that respect. 

Web Master

Lakshman Abeykoon  
M. Sc. (Moscow University) Grad. Certificate. (Melbourne University) Graduate Diploma in Library & Information Services Management (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology - Australia)
Writing from Melbourne Australia 8/3/2004