Feizal Samath:

Sri Lanka has had a paucity of national leaders who have guts, courage and vision to steer the country on the road to prosperity and development.

Despite more than 55 years of independence from being a British colony, this country has struggled to wipe off its past and come out as a stronger, free and vibrant democracy. Half a century after we gloated over being a free nation and able to pick and choose the path we want — we are embroiled in a fight for equality amongst communities and battles between politicians.

It is in this context that a top Sri Lankan business leader on Sunday made a unique and unusual suggestion this week — allow world leaders like Nelson Mandela or Lee Kwan Yew to manage the strife-torn and priority-divided country for a 10-year period. Rienzie T Wijetilleke, a respected business leader and chairman of Hatton National Bank, the country’s foremost local bank, made the suggestion in the Island newspaper while saying that Sri Lanka has been let down by most of the political leaders who governed the country since independence.

Sri Lanka is struggling to settle a 22-year long ethnic row between majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils and currently is in the midst of a fragile three-year old ceasefire between government forces and Tamils rebels. Peace talks have been suspended for nearly two years. Bitter divisions within the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance over meeting LTTE demands for talks to resume have stalled its resumption.

Separately, divisions in the government and with the LTTE or the opposition over post-tsunami aid distribution have triggered widespread protests from tsunami victims who say they have not received government support despite promises. Most people agree that parties have been the cause of the ruination.

Wijetilleke’s proposal is bound to attract a lot of fire from firebrand parties like the JVP or People’s Liberation Front, a former revolutionary Marxist group that’s now a key partner in the government, whose opposition to anything foreign, particularly if it is from the west is well known. It was just last week that the country was on a roller coaster ride with the JVP organising protests against World Bank country director Peter Harrold pertaining to some pro-LTTE remarks he had made. The Bank was put on a sticky wicket after his comments in last week’s The Sunday Times about Tamil rebel-controlled areas in the north being akin to an unofficial state, triggering a furore that was raised in parliament and the streets of Colombo.

Counter-denials and streets protests over the statement, demonstrations and protests erupted in the south and the northeast over a plethora of issues. Main amongst them was the lack of support for tsunami victims, an issue that even attracted a petition in the Appeal Court against government agencies demanding transparency and accountability in the disbursement of foreign aid received for post-tsunami work. The affected are also furious with the new 100-metre buffer zone rules, which bars any construction or live-in residences except in the case of hotels that were already there and specified government buildings.

It was no surprise then that a prominent citizen and business leader urges that that Sri Lanka should be managed by a world statesman until we get our act together. For who could rely on the leaders that we have who are hell bent on routing the country just one way — downhill?

Samath, a freelancer, writes for THT from Colombo