The Northern Province's chief minister, C V Wigneswaran said Sri Lanka's central government was not paying attention to tourism in the Tamil region and was not sensitive to Tamil concerns.
"Some complex questions are arising regarding the tourism department - whether the tourism department will destroy our traditional values, whether those coming from outside will grab our resources.. there are also many other problems," Justice Wigneswaran said, addressing an event organised by the Karainagar Tourism Traning Authority Centre.
"Our people are also considering the effects [of tourism] our economy, culture, and environment. They are asking questions such as do we want tourism? Should we let our community get destroyed?"
"We cannot say that our people's fears and concerns are baseless. Our issues are different to other provinces. The central government should try to understand this."
"Tourism should be developed in a way so that our people can benefit from it and not the other way around," he said, referring to the increasing employment of Sinhala workers in the North.
“Those trying to change Northern Province into an alternate Thailand, have only money in their mind. This is not acceptable to us.”
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