Jaffna Chamber of Commerce exposes farce of development

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 August 2012, 22:02 GMT]
Citing unwillingness of Colombo in actually putting into action the much talked about re-activation of the Achchuveali Industrial Zone in the Jaffna Peninsula, the Chamber of Commerce in Jaffna said that development is only in the lip service to show account to the outside world, but it is carefully designed to stop only at certain ‘infrastructure development’ calculatedly aimed at converting Jaffna into a market for the South and to suck and transfer the capital in Jaffna to the South. All the banks mushroomed in Jaffna serve only this agenda of transferring capital and they don’t invest of provide loans to any substantial economic activity based on the land of Tamils, accused the local chamber members who were unsuccessful in their initiations and applications.

Despite tall claims by Colombo and its ‘reconciliation’ partners, unprecedentedly prodigious flow of money from various international monetary organisations and visits by an array of international personalities, no substantial economic programme based on Jaffna has been initiated so far, the chamber members pointed out.

On the Achchuveali Industrial Zone, which was actually conceived in the pre-war times but never took off, the chamber members said that there were only ‘visits’, but no action to help the locals who wanted to make it a reality.

Naïve visitors from the diaspora and others are disillusioned by seeing only the roads laid newly and think it is development, but they don’t realize the superficiality of the development designed only for the economic subservience of the locals, the chamber members were particularly addressing the diaspora.

Interestingly, the chamber came out with a good word about the USAID, compared to New Delhi’s bragging of billions invested to the benefit of Tamils.

The only local economic activities so far, despite their insignificance, were started with USAID, the chamber members said, citing activities like ice production for fisheries.

Commenting on the scenario, an academic of economics in Jaffna said that what is happening in the country of Eezham Tamils is a classic example for the farce of world imperialists, who want to keep people away from politics, claiming that development could resolve political questions. They want us to believe, and even intimidate us to believe or face dire consequences such as genocide, that placing oxen behind the cart is the right and sensible way.