The inaugural session of the two-day annual conference of the Organization of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka held on Tuesday at Kings Court in Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel, Colombo brought together economists, university dons, engineers, medical men, lawyers, architects and surveyors as a socially conscious group to discuss their role in sustainable national development.
The outcome of the OPA technical sessions will be published and made available to the public, the OPA announced at the conference.
The chief guest of the OPA’s 32nd annual conference at Cinnamon Lakeside was President Maithripala Sirisena.
The guest of honour was British politician Lord Naseby who in the British Parliament in 2017 disputed the Darusman Report figure of 40,000 Tamil casualties or civilians killed during last stages of the war in Sri Lanka, and wrote on the previously passed UN Human Rights Council (HRC) resolutions on Sri Lanka thus: “The motivation for the alleged need for the resolutions at all was the very heavy lobbying by that section of the diaspora in the USA, UK and Canada who in their heart of hearts still wanted an independent state ‘Eelam’.”
Naseby, the former Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, told the gathering representing at least 28 professional organisations at the OPA conference that UN assessment of Sri Lanka’s war is not true and added that Sri Lanka deserves the support of the UK in all its efforts and noted that Sri Lanka is one of the seven countries that came to help UK in World War II.
He said that Sri Lanka has restored the war-ravaged country in three years for which the British government had taken 13 years in its post-war years.
He said Sri Lanka at this juncture needs a leader who can pick up an issue and take it forward to address its current problems.
The keynote address was delivered by Prof. Mohan Munasinghe under the theme of the conference, ‘The Role of Professionals in Sustainable Development’.
OPA President Engineer Nissanka Perera, Secretary Engineer Shantha Senarath, the newly appointed President Saman Warusawithana addressed the conference’s inaugural session.
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