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Sri Lanka’s last chance saloon
Battered by a civil war and an economic crisis, the island is trying yet again to get back on its feet. It has potential, provided domestic political feuds and geopolitics don’t get in the way.
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People watch a live telecast as Sri Lanka's President Ranil Wickremesinghe addresses the nation in Colombo on June 26.
PHOTO: AFP
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Shortly after the Sri Lankan civil war ended in May 2009 with the battlefield deaths of the Tamil Tiger leadership, I addressed a seminar at the Institute of South Asian Studies, and presented a highly positive outlook about the country’s economic prospects.
Tourism would boom, as the world again warmed to Sri Lanka’s beaches, highlands and forests. Sri Lanka even had the potential to be a stopover point on the so-called kangaroo route between Australia and Britain, I enthused. Fish that “died of old age” around Sri Lanka’s waters – the military had banned fisherfolk from using onboard motors in an attempt to stop militants from bringing in arms using high-speed boats – would now be farmed rather than imported. The close security ties with New Delhi as the war ended could be profitably used by Sri Lanka to tap the giant Indian economy next door.
