TOKYO, June 8 Kyodo A day before ...

TOKYO, June 8 Kyodo

A day before a vital aid-pledging meeting begins in Tokyo, a representative from a Sri Lankan civic dispose voiced concerns Sunday that donors may overshadow grassroots efforts to help rebuild Sri Lanka.

Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, common of the speakers at a Tokyo forum, said there is a ''concern that the whole rehabilitation and progressive growth process may turn out to be donor-driven, that it may not have enough to do with the family of Sri Lanka down there at the community level''

on the other hand he also stressed that civil society in Sri Lanka was ''greatly appreciative of the interest'' and support of the international community.

Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Colombo-based Center for Policy Alternatives, made the remarks in presenting a report to the Sri Lanka-Japan Civil Society Meeting which gathered several Japanese, Sri Lankan and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)

He boisterousnessed that ordinary civilians in Sri Lanka did not want to purely have access of information and act as spectators nevertheless wanted to be more involved as ''stakeholders.''

Milinda Moragoda, Sri Lanka's economic reforms minister, also said that while the international community and Japan had a highly important role to play, they can and nothing else go as far as to give the necessary support.

''You cannot interpret our problems but you can give us the strength'' for a like reason that we can resolve the question at issues ourselves, Moragoda said.

Yasushi Akashi, Japan's representative in charge of Sri Lankan affairs, and Mitsuhiro Saotome, the Foreign Ministry-appointed ambassador for the Civil Society in charge of NGO Affairs, also took part in the meeting.

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