We left Colombo at 4 am on Sunday to go to Arugam Bay, a small town on the East coast of Sri Lanka. Our driver, Wasanta, is a forty year old man, who works in the textile industry and drive tourists around to get a bit of extra money. He was recommended to us by the AFP bureau chief and so knows to be discreet. We were stopped at check points on our way out of Colombo, but the soldiers were rather friendly and did not ask many questions once Wasanta said we were tourists.
The military presence increased considerably as we traveled further away from the capital. Soldiers were posted every few hundred meters alongside the road. At some point we even passed tanks going west. Were they going towards Colombo? Was it the route they had to take to go to the North in order to avoid the mountains? There are only a few good roads in Sri Lanka, no highway, and traveling around the country often requires taking detours from what seems the most direct itinerary. Even once on a good road, driving can be difficult as roads are narrow and tortuous. It took us nine hours to go from Colombo to Arugam Bay, a mere 330 kilometers!
According to Chandra Jayaratne, the former chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and a retired business man, this is one of the reasons why Sri Lanka has not developed economically to its full potential. Of course, the conflict has been fought at high costs in the past years, and it deterred foreign investment, but for Jayaratne, the economy will not do better now that the fight is officially over. “The other issues facing Sri Lanka will remain”, he says, “We do not have good roads or a railway system, our public services are inefficient, the productivity is very low, we have too many holidays as half of the year can be off work for Sri Lankan people if they wish so, and corruption is rampant”. Sri Lanka needs to reform and to go about its future with a fresh set of mind. One that is about bringing a country back on the track it should have always followed. “People set of values has changed with the conflict, they accept things like the lack of freedom of speech, high taxation, or corruption. They see it has fate. We need a leadership that has good values and attitudes in order to develop our infrastructure and justice system, give people the incentive to develop skills and use them in a way that is beneficial to the country”. This, he doubts, will be brought by the current regime. “I have always voice my opinions openly and it never really affected my business. But I think today it would be different, the regime is so much harsher”.
