Economic Woes Higher Priority than Peace

by Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Mar 24 (IPS) - New poll results showing that Sri Lankans are most concerned about daily economic woes explain why it is not easy to mobilise more mass movement in support of the peace process, analysts say.

This is despite the fact the ethnic war in Sri Lanka has cost 65,000 lives in the past 20 years.

A total of 48.2 percent of the people polled in the Peace Confidence Index (PCI), whose results were released Mar. 20, said they believe the rising cost of living is the most important issue of the day, followed by the ethnic conflict (18.8 percent) and unemployment (16.5 percent).

The poll, conducted across the island, sought the views of majority Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and upcountry Tamils, referring to Tamils of Indian origin working in plantations. It did not say how the respondents were broken down among these groups.

These results do not come as a surprise to Sri Lankan political analysts and economists, who say the war is less of an everyday concern for people living outside the north and eastern regions which are most affected by the armed rebellion by Tiger rebels seeking a homeland for minority Tamils there.

"The cost of living is still the main issue -- and has been over the years -- for those living outside the northern and eastern regions," says Dr Jehan Perera, director at the National Peace Council (NPC), the country's biggest peace promoter.

Perera says this helps explain why it is not easy to have the mass public support to push the peace process the sixth round of talks just finished in Japan on Friday -- harder.

Sri Lanka's majority Sinhalese community lives in the southern, western and central regions of the country. Most of the minority Tamil and Muslim communities, who together account for less than 25 percent of the country's 19 million people, live in the north and the east.

Among the Tamils, the results of the Peace Confidence Index showed that 30 percent cited the ethnic conflict as the most critical issue for them, followed by a close 27.5 percent who cited cost of living as they main worry.

"The terrors of war is faced mostly in the conflict zones (apart from the occasional bombs that go off in the capital)," Perera says, adding that for the Sinhalese, the price of going back to war is not such a big issue for the majority community.

But the poll, conducted in January and February 2003 by Social Indicator and financially supported by the Canadian International Development Agency, also showed that an overwhelming majority (83.7 percent) of the 1,400 respondents believed the conflict could be solved through peace talks, not fighting.

This shows a sharp increase in this belief from 59.1 percent in May 2001.

Social Indicator is the social research unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a well-known policy think tank in Sri Lanka. The Peace Confidence Index was launched in May 2001 and has been conducted every two to three months since then.

SI officials, noting that this was the first time the cost of living issue came up in the questionnaire, said the purpose of this study was to gauge public confidence in the peace process.

Peace talks between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as the Tigers are formally known, have been on since September. A ceasefire between the two sides has held for more than a year now, but has been marred by violations.

Still, the current round of talks has been the longest running ever.

In recent weeks, the United National Party (UNP) government accused of increasing the people's economic woes - has been forced to turn its attention to the rising cost of living by appointing committees to recommend price stabilisation in essential food items.

The People's Liberation Front or JVP, the most strident third political force and former militant group that has proven its skills at organising mass rallies and street protests, has gleefully watched as middle and lower income groups struggle to cope with price hikes.

Fuel prices are rising monthly, triggering a chain reaction among prices of essentials across the board.

Economic reforms, particularly the removal of subsidies on fuel and wheat, are gradually biting into the pockets of middle-level income earners. Hard times have prodded many of whom to ask the question, through letters-to-the-editor-columns in newspapers, is the government paying too much attention on the peace process and ignoring economic realities?

Likewise, growing opposition rallies and protest marches have begun focusing on rising costs and corruption in state tenders, more than antipathy toward peace talks.

In short, the peace dividend that everyone expected to placate the Sinhalese-dominated southern parts of the country has not come as quickly as expected. Local and foreign, private investment is slow, as investors wait for a permanent peace package to emerge before taking major decisions.

"Clearly an advancement in the living conditions of the people hasn't happened since the peace process began," says Kethish Loganathan, a CPA director and head of its conflict analysis division. "Peace and the economy are inseparable."

He said the peace process will not work unless sound planning and management policies are put in place and have a positive impact on larger sections of the people.

"People have begun to question as to what has happened to the so-called savings from lower military spending? Why hasn't it being reinvested (to bring down prices, for example)?" he says.

Jagath Sumanasekera, a grocer in a Colombo suburb, agrees that the cost of living is the main issue among most Sri Lankans. "Customers who used to buy half a dozen eggs at a time, now buy ones and twos, grumbling about the cost. Invariably the conversation is about the cost of living and how the government has failed to pay enough attention to it."

Another question in the Peace Confidence Study sought to find out the impact the peace process has had on living conditions.

To this, nearly 34 percent of the respondents said there was no impact, 29 percent said it had a negative impact while 24.1 percent said that there has been a positive impact. (END/IPS/AP/IP/FS/JS/03)