US condemns A’pura attack - US Ambassador

NIMAL WIJESINGHE
Anuradharpua Additional district group correspondent

The US Government and its people condole over the deaths of Air Force personnel in the Anuradhapura Air Force Base attack recently and also condemn the attack, said US Ambassador Robert O. Blake.

Blake was speaking at a gathering of administrative and executive officers participating at a workshop in promoting good governance and transparency in public service at the CTC Conference Hall, Anuradhapura on Tuesday.

The programme was initiated with effect from December 2006 by the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs and National Integration being fully-patronised by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Anuradhapura district as a pilot project with the purpose of offering the public in the district a better service on the basis of conflict transformation approaches for good governance.

The workshop had been organised for reviewing the progress so far achieved since the launching of the programme.

Ambassador Blake said, “the USAID has since 2003 implemented various development schemes worth US$ 1.5 million and are also hoping to continue to carry out more development schemes in future too in the area.”

The Ambassador said it was a memorable and a great occasion for him to visit the historic city of Anuradhapura with it scenic beauty. He appreciated thoroughly the endeavour of the youths of the Rajarata University and the NYSC Anuradhapura in the successful implementation of the project.

North Central Province Governor Karunaratne Divulgane said people in Rajarata are poor and innocent. There has not been any other district exposed to severe enemy attacks in the past and as well as honoured and respected as Anuradhapura.

“Nearly 30,000 State employees serve in Anuradhapura and population exceeds 700,000. We are not government servants. We are the servants of the people. We have been educated by them. They pay our salaries. When the peasants come to us we must be able to go into the root of their problems.

They are our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. There should be a revolution in our ideologies based on sympathy towards these innocent, sometimes illiterate people who are descending from the time of our heroic kings,” the Governor said.

As such the programme initiated by the Government with the support of the USAID on the theme of promoting good governance and transparency on the basis of conflict transformation is highly appreciable and encouraged, Divulgane said.

The Chief Minister Berty Premalal Dissanayake, Chief Secretary A. Talakotunage, Government Agent Anuradhapura H. M. K. Herath, Additional Governments Agent Anula Indrani, Managing Director of USAID Keith Doctaters and lecturer of the University of Colombo in political science and conflict resolutions Shanthini Jayasundara addressed the workshop.