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| Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe |
| Photo by James Overly |
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe remains confident
that his government’s strategy will win the
peace and launch a new phase of economic development
throughout the territory of Sri Lanka.
“I’m hopeful,” he says. “We have
been talking for one year now. There are going to
be bumps in the road, but I am hopeful of a settlement.”
The “bumps” refer to recent serious ceasefire
violations by the Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE). Indeed, many Sri Lankans
do not yet see a peace settlement as a sure thing.
If the peace process is to succeed, the Sinhalese
majority must have a degree of trust that the LTTE
has abandoned its quest for a separate state and will
live up to the terms of an eventual accord.
“The ceasefire has had partial compliance,”
the prime minister acknowledges, but he maintains
that public confidence in the peace process continues
to build. “The day-to-day pressure on the people
is gone; they haven’t got to worry about being
shot. The country is functioning normally, compared
to what it was. The people are satisfied with the
progress we have made. They are also looking at where
we were, when they had no hope for the future,”
he says.
The ceasefire violations feed the fractious nature
of politics among the majority Sinhalese themselves.
A loud minority maintains hard line opposition to
peace, making it easy for the opposition parties –
whose ranks include President Kumaratunga — to
pressure the government on aspects of the peace process.
Wickremesinghe appears unmoved by the clamor. “The
South (referring to the southern part of the country
where the Sinhalese are the dominant population group)
wants peace,” he insists. “The president
has played a leading role in the peace process. When
the president called for peace, I supported her. She
and I supported the 1987 provision by India of a peacekeeping
force. And we both supported the intervention of the
Norwegian government in the peace process.”
Political observers are not so sure. If Wickremesinghe
succeeds in his quest for an agreement, observers
predict a windfall political gain for his party. When
this possibility is juxtaposed against the country’s
history of confrontational and antagonistic politics,
rumors abound that the president may see a likely
gain for the prime minister’s party as reason
to sabotage the peace process by calling snap elections.
Wickremesinghe dismisses the threat. “I don’t
think she will (call for elections), but even if snap
elections are called, we will win. If there are snap
elections, we will have a larger majority in parliament.”
The prime minister sees the peace process inextricably
connected to the country’s economic development.
“Without peace,” he says, “there will
be no development, but in order for peace to take
hold, development must take place.”
A significant number of interested countries and
the international financial institutions are prepared
to pledge large amounts for the reconstruction and
development of the war-torn country’s infrastructure.
From the beginning, Wickremesinghe has called for
donor countries to begin development projects immediately,
rather than using donor funds as sweeteners for
a peace settlement.
Regaining Sri Lanka
The prime minister and his party have developed an
ambitious economic reform strategy to bring together
international aid donors and private investors in
a targeted reconstruction of the country. The program
is tagged, “Regaining Sri Lanka.”
Beginning with this month’s round in Japan, the
negotiations will begin to tackle the political and
fiscal arrangements for a new federal state that will
be formed as a part of the peace settlement.
These development funds are expected to attract a
large number of private sector investors from around
the world. Wickremesinghe talks of a ‘public-private
partnership” that he hopes will lead eventually
to the creation of some two million new jobs.
The prime minister’s initiative seeks to take
advantage of Sri Lanka’s geographic location
to make the country an air-sea hub and financial center
as well as a center for “competitive value addition.”
Sri Lanka already has the reputation of being one
of the easier countries in South Asia in which to
do business, but Wickremesinghe has a program underway
to make government procedures simpler, reduce waiting
and red tape, take advantage of new technology, and
make government more responsive to business needs.
In several ministries, joint task forces of government
and private sector business leaders have begun to
tackle nuts-and-bolts bureaucratic arrangements that
stifle the fast action that modern business needs.
Wickremesinghe, citing excellent bilateral relations
with the United States, said he wished American investors
to know that “Sri Lanka is a good bet.” |
