A Plague of Indifference

By: Tisaranee Gunasekara

“…vision all-too fitfully narrow for the work thou has to do!Thomas Carlyle (The French Revolution: A History)

Unfortunately the regime does not realise that its present course is at variance not just with the international reality but also with the national reality. Because of the regime’s adoption of capital intensive methods, defence expenditure has sky rocketed. Because of the regime’s total war strategy international funding to Sri Lanka is decreasing. This is not a situation that can endure.

There is a limit to which the government can impose economic burdens on the people without undermining political and social stability in the South. And the government cannot maintain defence expenditure at their current exorbitant level for an indefinite period, without foreign assistance on a generous scale. If the choice is presented as one between starvation and appeasement, the majority of the electorate is unlikely to opt for the former.

Previously a prolonged war was more affordable to the Lankan state than to the Tigers. Time was then on our side. That was because succeeding governments tried to strike some balance between the war and the economy, between military expenditure and development outlays. The Rajapakse administration with its adoption of a capital intensive strategy has destroyed this balance. [Read Full Feature on this Link]