‘Anybody can make movies with present day technologies and make what is unreal, real’

Views cannot be arrived at about a country on the basis of films made available by individuals or from information on computer screens with the aid of information technology, Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunga said at a post-CHOGM press conference in Colombo.

“There are a lot of people who criticise Sri Lanka from abroad,” he said and added: “This is not fair. You can create views about a country if you may, by coming into that country, visiting locations, talking directly to its people and getting their viewpoints on matters.” He said anybody can make movies with present day technologies and make what is unreal, real.

Weeratunga was fielding questions from the foreign media with regard to overseas criticism leveled against the country on alleged human rights violations.

“If you start creating viewpoints about a country by relying on whatever that comes to you from outside via the powers of information technology, you can be misled easily and be distracted from the truth about a nation.

It is easy to make films about ‘peace’ that ware patently false, with the use of modern technology available today,” he said. The Secretary said this was the reason that British Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to the North was facilitated by the government. “Prime Minister Cameron wanted to go to Jaffna after the opening ceremony of the CHOGM sessions. He did not participate in the executive sessions, instead he wanted to go to Jaffna.

The government fully supported it,” he said. “Prime Minister Cameron wanted to go and see, because seeing is believing and that’s what the President said,” Weeratunga added.

“The Commonwealth Leaders’ Summit, CHOGM 2013 enabled Sri Lankans to communicate their own spirit of capability, confidence, self respect, and dignity and to showcase that we are not a nation of five years or 10 years or of 200 years but a nation of 2500 years,” said Weeratunga.

“Here, we have all the more reason, to covey the message that three communities are living in harmony in precise terms to the world,” he said. Weeratunga said when Sri Lanka agreed in 2009 to hold the CHOGM 2013 in Colombo, it had barely come out of the war and its after effects. “It was trying to grapple with issues we had here, such as security in Colombo. Today we are secure. Anyone can go to any part of the country. This was not the case in 2009. There was some kind of hope that we would be able to hold a conference of this nature then, ” he said.

“What we have done is to provide the venue for an international conference. Mounting a conference of CHOGM’s magnitude is not easy. But we did this with so many hopes. We wanted to assure the world that this is a very safe country to travel to.”

He said during from 1985-1995, you could not even ask someone to come to Sri Lanka, because it was not safe for them on the streets of Colombo.

“There was not even a backpacker in Colombo. We have proved to the world that Sri Lanka is absolutely safe. Safe for anyone.

And if not for that guarantee and confidence, you could not have even thought of coming to Sri Lanka. So it is a great credit and great confidence to our country,” he said.‚