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Campaign for the Protection of RICE in
Sri
Lanka. |
30th August
2006
National Farmers' Assembly and Movement for National Land
and Agricultural Reform launched a campaign for the protection
of paddy cultivation in Sri Lanka and small farmers engaged in
the same at a press briefing on August 30th.
Launch statement:
The yala harvest is over. Millions of farmers
are waiting to sell their
paddy. Government has spent millions of rupees to
subsidise fertiliser and has promised to spend millions
more to buy paddy at the guaranteed price, but most
farmers will still receive less than they spent.
They will fall further into debt, some will even
commit suicide. It happens every season. This is
the paddy crisis. continue...
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Anti COCA COLA Campaign |
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23rd August 2006
The South Asian Games got underway in Colombo
on 18th August. The official drink is Coca Cola. Only a week
earlier, the Indian state of Kerala imposed a total ban on the
production and sale of Coca Cola after studies found that
their drinks were contaminated with dangerous pesticides. Six
states now have partial or full bans on Coca
Cola. | |
An
approach better than “Marketing” for
water
in Sri Lanka.
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19th
January 2007
Government has again announced a policy towards water
marketing in Sri Lanka. Now, this is done under the
guise of a policy for better water management. Under
pressures of the International Financial Institutions
and other global water businesses, introduction of
water marketing has been attempted over the last 25
years. These measures had to be withdrawn under public
protest. This article tries to explain that there
are much better ways of managing water adopting much
less costly and much more people friendly and ecological
approaches in which Sri Lanka has tremendous advantages
and experiences. Such ecological approaches makes
use of the tremendous contribution that people could
make towards improving their water, with added benefits
of better food security, nutrition, soil improvement
and improvement in health adopting approaches for
recovering the regenerative capacity of nature’s
resources.
This
is an added dimension in the water debate that needs
serious attention, not only in Sri Lanka but also
in most other countries where water privatization,
pricing of water and converting water into a commodity
could result in a serious ecological and human disaster.
Full
Article
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14th September 2006
More than 2,000 people marched on the offices
of the World Bank in Colombo today under the banner ‘World
Bank creates poverty. Eradicate it!’ Farmers, fishing
communities, women’s groups, trade unions, plantation workers’
organisations and many others participated.
The World Bank was forced to recognise the scale of
people’s opposition in Sri Lanka. They accepted this
letter and agreed to talk to a delegation from
the Alliance for the Protection of National Resources and
Human Rights. The result was a promise on the part of the
World Bank to bring their bosses from Washington for a public
meeting in Colombo to hear people’s proposals for poverty
eradication.
The rally
took place on the last day of the meeting of Commonwealth
Finance Ministers in Colombo as they prepared to attend the
annual meetings of the World Bank in Singapore.
The
Alliance for the Protection of National Resources and Human
Rights will continue the struggle for the people to take over
the task of planning for poverty eradication. The World Bank
has lost all legitimacy after fifty years of failure in Sri
Lanka. |
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