BETA

The island of Sri Lanka was unique among other third world countries in many ways, the high level of literacy and remarkably decent health care system put Sri Lanka in an unique position.
Whether you like it or not, the Sri Lankan health indices on maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate were comparable with affluent western countries. There are many factors contributing to this kind of paradoxical indices.

 Existence of a strong educational system and the tradition of academia left behind by the British helped to maintain a high level of literacy rate.

 Naturally very resilient people on both sides (Tamils and Sinhalese) of the divide.

 Many of the institutions and disciplines are still aggressively following the British system and accreditation of British standards. This is very much obvious in Sri Lankan medical establishment’s performance.

So why am I writing about maternal mortality rate?

Since the eruption of Tamileelam liberation struggle nearly three decades ago, Sri Lanka (Tamils and Sinhalese) had gone through numerous challenges in every aspect of life. Still Tamils are trying to live as normal as possible even if they are in an IDP refugee camp. This does not under estimate their hardships and sufferings, I would like to highlight the resilience of the people. On the other hand Sinhalese people also feeling the burden of this protracted conflict, even though they are in a far better living condition than Tamils. The successive Sinhala governments also tried to contain the war into the Northeast region and tried keep the Sinhala mass in the state of surrealism of ‘Jaya Sikkurui’ / victory assured.

Now there is a disturbance in this status quo; thanks to ‘Medamulla’ Mahinda Rajapaksa and his junta. There are signs of crack in the government machinery and signs of slow death of those renowned institutions established under the British rule. This could be the natural outcome of a system which embarked on a path of destruction by alienating the minorities and there fore ‘not catching up’ with the rest of the world. The Tamileelam liberation struggle was one of the longest and most destructive conventional wars after Vietnam War. So the current cracks in the government machinery could be due to long standing crippling disease of this island. But there are new factors which are aggravating the institutional decay and speed up the slow death into the fast forward mode. This is what I am going to write about in following passages.
Since the independence from British rule, this island has seen several Sinhala leaders as head of state; DS Senanayake, SWRD Banadaranaike, Dudley Senanayake, Dahanayake, Srimavo Bandaranaike, JR Jeyawardena, R Premadasa, DB Wijetunge, Chandrika Kumaratunga and now ‘our’ Percy!
Except Dudley, Srimavo and Chandrika rest of the leaders reached the top post of the government due to their hard work and perseverance. Among them DB Wijetunge and Mahinda Rajapaksa were lucky guys; the presidential post fell on their lap due to different reasons not due to their merits. Because of the death of Premadasa then Prime Minister DB Wijetunge was made president of Sri Lanka for the rest of the Premadasa’s term.

The elevation of Mahendra Percy Rajapaksa to the post of President of Sri Lanka was a ‘judgement day’ to Sri Lanka. Even though his father was an MP and one of the trusted lieutenants of SWRD Bandaranaike and Mahinda was the youngest MP to be elected to the parliament; his skills, expertise and knowledge are not up to the standard for a statesman. After a long stint as an MP since 1970, he first becomes the Labour minister in Chandrika’s PA government in 1994, and then he held the portfolios of ministry of fisheries and Ministry of Highways. Also he was the Prime minister of Sri Lanka since 2004 until the presidential election.
As a politician he failed to demonstrate statesmanship and he miserably failed to perform in any of those ministries as a minister. Once Sarath Amunugama ridiculed him by saying “country’s economy will not improve by regularly attending the temple poojas with flower trays”. As a politician he failed to achieve any thing substantially except the Post of president of Sri Lanka!!

to be continued

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