News vom 29.09.2005

[srilanka1998]

Sri Lanka's 'forgotten' tea workers
[ BBC ] [ 05:20 GMT, Sep. 29, 2005 ]

There is no electricity for daily tasks in Malar Malligai's simple, concrete home in central Sri Lanka. Gripping her baby with one hand, she pounds the flour for the family's daily meals with the other. Two generations of her family have worked on tea plantations in the country, which are some of the most deprived places on the island. The hills in this part of the island resonate with the past and the present. It is an idyllic scene with tea plantations as far as the eye can see. However, the beauty is only skin deep, for this is one of Sri Lanka's poorest regions. The tea pickers' wages depend on how many leaves they collect. Their average earnings are about $60 a month.

 

[Hänschen]

Kumaratunge speech avoids reference to presidential polls

In the first public rally attended by Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunge since her return from the UN annual general meeting in New York on Tuesday, she avoided making statements in support of her party's Presidential candidate Premier Mahinda Rajapakse, sources said. The public rally was held to relaunch the Sri Lanka Transport Board at Nittambuwa on Wednesday.

Hundreds of party supporters were present waiting to hear Ms Kumaratunge's views with regard to the forthcoming Presidential polls in November.

However, she spoke only on the history of the Sri lanka Transport Board which was first launched by her father and the late Prime Minister S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike in the mid fifties.

The SLTB's functions came to a standstill when the late J.R.Jayawardena government permitted the private sector to operate the bus services in the early eighties, she said.

Political observers said that her silence was likely intended as a message to her party supporters of her reservations about Presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapakse.

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