POLITICS-SRI LANKA: String of Woes Makes a Worried People

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Aug 31 2001 (IPS) - Sri Lankans are a worried people these days. They face a string of adversities, ranging from the stunning rebel attack by Tamil rebels on the country’s only international airport in July to news of half-a-dozen nasty road and rail accidents amid continued political uncertainty..

Many are starting to wonder aloud if the force of astrology is at work here, because most people in this island nation believe that the alignment of stars has an influence on both personal and national affairs.

“It might be our ‘apala kala’ (bad period) for this country,” says Danistus Perera, a vegetable vendor at the roadside.

Rev M Gnanaseela, a Buddhist monk and president of the Sri Lanka Association of Astrologers, concurs, adding that the country has to prepare for worse thing ahead. “We are facing man-made and natural disasters at the same time. In fact, we are heading for a worse period in September.”

According to the planetary periods and other calculations, September would have more turmoil in the country, including “killings, murders and mayhem”, he adds.

This is not a comforting thought for the average citizen, who also has to grapple with the high cost of living, rising inflation and power cuts that are being increased from 90 minutes to two hours per day next week for households and industrial consumers.

On top of that, people have had to face uncertainty at the political level. This is because the country’s two major parties, the People’s Alliance (PA) and the United National Party (UNP), have been unable to agree on a formula for a national or caretaker government since June.

This stalemate arose after President Chandrika Kumaratunga, from the People’s Alliance, sacked a key PA ally from the Cabinet, resulting in her party being reduced to a minority in parliament and then refusing to let the opposition UNP call the shots in the legislature.

Under Sri Lanka’s constitution, the president enjoys more power than parliament, including the ability to appoint a Cabinet of ministers from among parliamentarians of his or her own choosing.

But this week, the country’s cloud of gloom was broken by the prospect of some real change to come — the birth of a new civil rights movement led by a top Sri Lankan businessman.

On Monday, Lalith Kotalawela, chairman of the giant Ceylinco Group and founder and chairman of the Society for Love and Understanding (SOLO-U) launched a civilian bid to end ethnic strife through peace talks with the Tamil rebels, who have been waging a 18-year long battle for an independent homeland for minority Tamils.

“We can no longer watch helplessly while our political leaders stumble. We cannot allow the situation to deteriorate any longer,” he told a ceremony in Colombo marking the inauguration of the movement. So far, it has already raised 15,000 members and is aiming for a million supporters.

Kotalawela is no neophyte when it comes to wading in the uncertain waters of Sri Lankan politics. Two years ago, Kotalawela, whose family owns the Ceylinco group, the country’s biggest insurer, led a move by the Sri Lankan buisness community to bring the PA and the UNP together on a common peace platform. That 1999 peace effort floundered due to conflicts between the two parties.

But the new movement is expected to have a strong impact on the Sri Lankan political scene, and has already given support to a “human chain” protest by the little-known Association of Licensed Foreign Agencies (ALFEA) on Sep. 5.

ALFEA, which has found jobs for close to a million Sri Lankan workers in the Middle East and Asian countries, last week appealed to people to join this show of protest by stopping work, or for those travelling to stop their journeys for 30 minutes on Wednesday.

“Enough is enough. We need to show politicians from all sides that the people willnot tolerate this crisis any longer,” said Suraj Dandeniya, ALFEA president who has been appearing on television talk shows urging residents and the small and medium-sector business community to show their dissatisfaction with the crisis.

Sri Lanka has been devastated by the Tamil guerrilla revolt since 1983, but the latest crisis was worsened by the July attacks on the airport and a neighbouring military base. That was followed by a string of rebel raids on army camps and patrols in the north and the east last week.

The reaction to what is considered the most devastating attack in the 18-year long conflict — in terms of economic cost — was swift. Insurance underwriters raised war risk insurance premiums on planes landing in Sri Lanka and ships calling at the Colombo port.

The high costs curbed flights to Colombo while ships stopped calling until a delegation led by Ports Minister Ronnie de Mel rushed to London and pleaded with Lloyds, the world’s biggest insurance underwriter, to cut premiums by saying the port was safe from any rebel attack.

The airport attack has virtually crippled the tourism industry, one of the biggest foreign exchange earners for the country. Arrivals have fallen to a trickle, because countries including Britain, Germany and Japan raised normal travel advisories to sharper warnings for residents not to travel to Sri Lanka.

Likewise, in the past two weeks, at least 40 people were killed in two train accidents — the worst in recent years — while another 100 have been injured in these and other accidents.

S H Sarath, a businessman in the southern town of Matara, believes the country’s problems will not end unless the two political parties get together “at least for a short period” to solve the crisis.

Indeed, a survey of 35 top private-sector chief executive officers by a market research group found that the business community favoured opening peace talks with Tamil rebels by a national or caretaker government.

“The survey findings show that despite various attempts by the opposition and the government to divert the people’s attention to referendums and impeachments, the business intellectual feels that the most pressing issue or the issue that needs immediate attention is none other than the North-East (ethnic) problem,” ORG-MARG SMART, a top Colombo market research and polling unit, said in a statement.

ORG-MARG carried out the face-to-face poll with the businessmen between Aug. 10 and 21 to get their views on the political and economic crisis. The survey found that they put highest priority on the government’s reopening peace talks with the rebels, followed by economic reforms and the formation of a national government to break the current deadlock.