Back home to a plateful of problems

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa returned home to Sri Lanka on Thursday to a plateful of problems, many of his own making. The farmers protests over the import ban on chemical fertilizer is nowhere near tapering off. Rather, it is gathering further highly-publicized momentum. Then there is the appointment of Bodu Bala Sena chief, Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, as the head of a Presidential Task Force (PTF) on ‘One country, one law’ which has been roundly condemned by a wide cross-section of the people. That Gnanasara, whose track record is by no means clean, enjoyed the patronage of Defence Secretary Rajapaksa before he ascended the presidency is well know. While the president was away in Glasgow at the COP26 Summit, defending (or justifying) the inorganic fertilizer ban, Justice Minister Ali Sabry, also a Gota loyalist who was on his legal team on the pre-election dual citizenship challenge, made known that he had not been consulted on the PTF appointment. There was some speculation that he would resign. But remember he didn’t over the Muslim burial issue.

Whether this will or will not be is likely to be clarified when Sabry meets the president in the short term. This is a country where sharp differences have been papered over or overcome before they caused irreparable damage; so some kind of fix is not impossible. Despite the noise they made, also well publicized like the farmers’ and teachers’ protests, few Lankans expect Ministers Weerawansa, Gammanpila, Vasudeva et al and eight other minor party leaders of the Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna constituents, to give up their ministries and attendant perks, national list seats in parliament and other benefits over the New Fortress Energy (NFE) issue. This too has been getting curiouser and curiouser as Alice said in Wonderland. The CEB Chairman says that part of the NFE deal, whose critics allege had been signed in secret at midnight behind the backs of the cabinet and parliament, cannot be disclosed. Pray why? We do know that non-disclosure arrangements are not an unknown business practice. But is it correct for the sovereign to commit a country to an agreement where its people will not see the whole picture and know the whole truth?

We have also heard political leaders, under pressure like never before from farmer protests, repeatedly promising that crop losses will be compensated. Although they are silent about whose money will be utilized for such payments, the people of this country are not konde bandapu cheennu (Chinamen in pigtails) to not know that such payments, if at all, will obviously come off the state exchequer and not out of the pockets of those responsible for taking hasty, irresponsible decisions. Friday’s news reported that India, using military aircraft, “had come to Lanka’s rescue as farmers protests intensify.” This was by airlifting 100,000 kg. of liquid nano-nitrogen for urgent distribution in the context of the ever-growing fertilizer crisis. Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage whose effigy is being freely burnt in the rural hinterland has been proclaiming that there was adequate fertilizer in the country even before the current Maha cultivation season began. Why then airfreight fertilizer? He admits that “we,” meaning the government, “got our marketing wrong” in the effort to convert farmers to organic fertilizer. Clearly there had been little or insufficient preparation for the great leap into the unknown through an instant ban on the import of chemical fertilizer that the country has been used to for the past several decades.

Today the whole world knows very well that mankind must urgently get its act right if planet earth and its population is to survive. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at COP26 that the “It’s one minute to midnight and the clock is ticking” while many other world leaders and UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres offered similar sound bytes. Like smoking, the information of the dangers of greenhouse gases, climate change, rising sea levels, carbon depletion and many more is everywhere. Yet stupids keep lighting up and inhaling harmful smoke to their own detriment and tobacco remains a multi-million dollar industry. So also the global community continuing to plunder natural resources and fragile ecosystems for economic benefits. Rich countries, particularly, refuse to acknowledge reality and do little or not enough to stem tide except mouth platitudes and offer lip service to the cause of the global environment.

Even the ranks of Tuscany cannot forebear but cheer President Rajapaksa’s organic thrust. It sounds very good in theory but can it be implemented in a practical and scientific manner heeding expert advice so that the benefit will outweigh the cost? In an article on Sri Lanka’s “organic experiment” that we publish today, the writer cites Sri Lanka as a cautionary tale from which the right lessons must be taken: organic farming may sound good in principle, but ideology must not be allowed to trump science. When that happens the outcome is likely to be very bad, he says. The EU has already done an analysis and found organic farming unsustainable and be bad for the environment through increased land use. It is no doubt what the writer calls a ‘boutique’ option very attractive to greens, but trying to feed the world (in our case Sri Lanka) organically would be a disaster.