SRI LANKA: Turning Fifty, But Who is Celebrating?

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Feb 2 1998 (IPS) - Security is tight in the Sri Lankan capital ahead of the 50th independence celebrations on Wednesday, but there is little excitement, just mixed feelings about freedom’s gains.

Is there much to celebrate, ask people in a city over-run by security personnel who have put up road blocks, sealed off roads and checking identity cards of residents to foil any attempt by the separatist Tamil rebels to disrupt the official festivities.

The rebels took the Chandrika Kumaratunga government by surprise on Jan. 25, breaching security outside the island’s most famous Buddhist temple in Kandy and detonating a truck packed with explosives.

As the authorities scrambled to plug the security cracks, the government outlawed the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam guerrilla group, and shifted the independence day celebrations on Feb. 4 from Kandy, the island’s second city, to Colombo.

What the rebels did was to demolish government claims that recent reverses in battle have weakened the guerrilla force, fighting for independence for 15 years. Tens of thousands of civilians and combatants have died, in the north and west, and thousands of Tamils have been forced to become refugees.

“Freedom? … my foot. We are just second class citizens,” fumes a university professor, a Tamil from the minority community who says the government sowed the seeds of insurgency when it changed laws in favour of the majority Sinhalese.

“What is there to celebrate,” he counters. “The implementation of a state of Emergency for more than half the period after independence? Or draconian laws like the Prevention of Terrorism Act in which suspects can be incarcerated for an unlimited period?”

The civil war is a drain on the economy, with the military budget swelling annually, shattering hopes that Sri Lanka could be a newly industrialised country by the turn of the century.

“We have not been able to maintain the tempo of development,” says Dr. Gamani Corea, a former secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the country’s most eminent economist.

“Though we boast about a high literacy rate it means nothing more than the ability to decipher a telegram. Functional literacy of the population is much lower,” wrote Jayatillake de Silva, an associate editor at the state-run ‘Daily News’.

Sri Lanka is counted among the poor countries of the world, with half the 18 million people living below the poverty line, though human development indicators are higher than in the rest of South Asia.

For years it has been held up as a model for development, with levels of maternal mortality, access to health services, education and the birth rate on par with some industrialised countries.

The legacy of independence it seemed to most people was managed better by the Sri Lankan government than in neighbouring India or Pakistan, which were soon trailing behind in population control and food security.

Economist Corea says that one of the admirable things about post-independent Sri Lanka is that it has been able to manage the huge increase in population — from around five million during British rule to the present 18 million.

“Over this 50 years, we have coped with this population; absorbed it. We have not had massive famines, starvation or impoverishment,” he said.

But the raging ethnic conflict has taken a toll on human lives. Some 50,000 people are estimated to have been killed, and millions displaced from their homes in the last two decades.

The war shows no signs of ending, and with both sides taking very hard positions, the government’s continued preoccupation with the elusive peace process will lead to further neglect of issues like the high cost of living, say observers.

Deputy defence minister Anuruddha Ratwatte, who submitted his resignation owning up moral responsibility for the blast in Kandy last month, had said government troops would re-take a strategic highway in the north by Feb. 4.

But eight months after the launch of operation ‘Jayasikuru’ (victory assured) to capture a short 10-km stretch of highway which would open a new route from Colombo to the northern town of Jaffna, nothing has changed except the mounting death toll.

On Sunday, in what is being described as the biggest attack in recent months, the Tiger rebels attempted to smash through government defence lines just south of the Elephant Pass army camp, at the neck of the Jaffna peninsula.

Defence officials in Colombo said on Monday that 218 rebels were killed in the fierce battle that lasted several hours. The number of soldiers killed was revised upwards to 35, including an officer. With journalists not allowed into the war zone unless taken by the military, war reporting is one-sided in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan President Kumaratunga still believes a new constitution being drafted would solve the country’s ethnic problem, and has been relentlessly mobilising support from the majority Sinhalese.

But eminent social activist Tudor Ariyaratne points out ordinary people are not interested in peace packages or wars. “They have lost faith in all politicians and scholars … To them the cost of living is astronomical.”

In its 50th year of independence, Sri Lanka’s politicians have much to reflect on.