{"id":181082,"date":"2017-08-14T14:12:08","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T08:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=181082"},"modified":"2017-08-14T18:47:22","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T13:17:22","slug":"sl-transitioned-from-low-to-middle-income-status-but-np-did-not-wigneswaran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sl-transitioned-from-low-to-middle-income-status-but-np-did-not-wigneswaran\/","title":{"rendered":"SL Transitioned From Low To Middle Income Status But NP Did Not: Wigneswaran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">&#8220;This Country as a whole has transitioned from a low to a middle income Country. But the Northern Province has not. It is still a low income area.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>This must be remembered,&#8221; says Northern Province\u00a0Chief Minister Justice <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=C.V.+Wigneswaran\">C.V. Wigneswaran<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_116719\" style=\"width: 266px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/C.V.Wigneswaran-e1386942745472.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-116719\" class=\" wp-image-116719\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/C.V.Wigneswaran-e1386942745472-705x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"256\" height=\"372\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-116719\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">C.V. Wigneswaran &#8211; Northern Chief<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"p4\">Addressing\u00a0<span class=\"s1\">the United Nations Country Team (UNCT)\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">at Chief Minister\u2019s Ministry Conference Hall, Kaithadi today, Justice Wigneswaran said:&#8221;<\/span><span class=\"s1\">Let us not forget that still an Army of 150000 is stationed in the North using our arable lands, official buildings, using our natural resources including drinking water. They are a source of fear and annoyance especially to our fishing communities since they openly get down fishermen from the South to resort to illegal methods of fishing in our waters depriving the locals of their livelihood.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>We publish below Justice C.V. Wigneswaran\u2019s speech in full:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Hello everybody! We are indeed happy to have all of you representing many an arm of the UN with us today. We are aware that you all are presently working on the UN Sustainable Development Framework (UNSDF) 2018-2022. In fact our present Provincial Council will be in their last year when your Project under the UNSDF comes into being in 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">We would expect you to explain to us the difference in scope and content between the UNDAF (2013- 2017) and UNSDF (2018-2022). We were aware that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Mahinda+Chintanaya\">Mahinda Chintanaya<\/a> was mentioned in the UNDAF documents. You may be aware that the People of the Northern Province rejected that Chinthanaya. We were almost exclusively elected at the Provincial Council Elections having rejected the Mahinda Chintanaya whatever that meant. We were the dominant force in bringing about the change of Government on the 8<\/span><span class=\"s3\"><sup>th<\/sup><\/span><span class=\"s1\"> of January, 2015. It is because our perceptions were not taken into consideration by the then Resident Representative that we had differences of opinion with Mr. Subinay Nandi who felt we need to be an appendage of the Central Government, carrying out what the Central Government wanted. We were not prepared to do so. In fact I have pointed out to Ms. McCauley the close resemblance between us and the Irish people! We are glad that she heads the UN Family in Sri Lanka now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">We had told Mr.Nandhi that many matters that needed consideration by the UN at that time were not considered by him. I find you have mentioned yourself in your documents referring to \u201c<b>Leveraging the<\/b> <b>UN\u2019s unique strengths in Sri Lanka<\/b>\u201d about addressing the perception that the UN has not been a neutral actor in Sri Lanka<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>in order to improve its standing as an \u201chonest broker\u201d between the Government, the donor community and civil community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\"> A few matters we were interested at that time as appropriate subject matter for inclusion in the Peace Building Matrix were demilitarization, rehabilitation of ex combatants, providing of sustainable livelihoods for widows and women headed families and the providing of environmentally sustainable and economically productive human settlements for our poorest of the poor specially in the Wanni.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">This Country as a whole has transitioned from a low to a middle income Country. But the Northern Province has not. It is still a low income area.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>This must be remembered. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Let us not forget that still an Army of 150000 is stationed in the North using our arable lands, official buildings, using our natural resources including drinking water. They are a source of fear and annoyance especially to our fishing communities since they openly get down fishermen from the South to resort to illegal methods of fishing in our waters depriving the locals of their livelihood.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">There had been criticisms leveled against projects by UNHABITAT in the Mullaitivu District. Forests have been cleared to put up roads and houses for Muslims without going through the normal processes. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">It is not my intention to criticize your activities. I need to mention the manner in which a closer collaboration is possible provided the UN recognizes the fact that we of the North and East have been agitating for our special rights in consonance with our individuality for over half a century and still there is hesitancy on the part of any Government to grant our legitimate rights. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Since the introduction of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as basis of the UN\u2019s post 2015 development agenda we have a common ground with the Government in pursuing our needs and wants through the said SDGs.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>What the Government had been hesitant in granting the North and East could now be introduced through the SDGs. It may be appropriate for us to discuss this matter today. Closer collaboration with you is what we want but not at the expense of being manipulated by the Central Government. There are many areas in which we have seen such manipulation.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>We shall discuss them now. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":118102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2186,1,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-featured-news","category-news","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SL Transitioned From Low To Middle Income Status But NP Did Not: Wigneswaran - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sl-transitioned-from-low-to-middle-income-status-but-np-did-not-wigneswaran\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SL Transitioned From Low To Middle Income Status But NP Did Not: Wigneswaran - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sl-transitioned-from-low-to-middle-income-status-but-np-did-not-wigneswaran\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-08-14T08:42:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-08-14T13:17:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/C-V-Wigneswaran-.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"636\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"426\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"C.V. 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