Editorial

The bright spring flowers are blooming, and the ‘koha’ (the Asian koel) has arrived to herald the traditional New Year, but the singing bird has to be told that this year’s ‘Avurudu’ is on a different note.

It is not the first time in contemporary history that the country has been under a curfew during this festive season. Back in 1971, the putsch by southern youth beginning April 5 forced a clampdown on all activity.

Not once during the three-decade long northern insurgency, however, was the traditional Sinhala and Tamil New Year disrupted with the country under an all-island curfew.

Today is also Easter Sunday when Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, His triumph over death. The enduring Easter message of hope and new life is never more relevant than in these times of fear and uncertainty. While churches around the world would usually be overflowing to celebrate this most important event in the ecclesiastical calendar, this year, COVID-19 will see most following Easter masses on TV and online.

Easter Sunday for Sri Lankans will also be a day of remembrance to mourn those killed in the brutal bombings of last Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019 that targeted churches and hotels. The trauma, the suffering of the families affected, the devastating effects on the economy and the country are still deeply felt.

One year on, families who lost their loved ones and breadwinners, who are struggling to survive and care for the injured need continued support, material and emotional, as they strive to rebuild their lives. In battling the global crises that invade the country, let them not fall through the cracks. Society as a whole also needs to address the issues that led the suicide bombers to embrace the path of violence and extremism.

That this week also marked World Health Day is significant. The world’s health is the foremost issue of our time. The COVID-19 virus is causing devastation to the lives of thousands, and anxiety to the lives of millions upon millions. It is recalibrating the way the people live.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations agency in charge of piloting the world’s health agenda, has come in for some severe flak for delaying in warning the world that the coronavirus was a global pandemic. Accusations are now being pointedly directed at the WHO Director General, a former health and foreign affairs minister of Ethiopia, whose election to that exalted post was reportedly backed by China among others. Ethiopia’s economic partnership with China, the country being an ally in China’s entré into the African continent during his tenure as foreign minister has cast a shadow over the DG’s handling of the crisis.

With the US President now accusing him of being a Chinese lackey, perhaps to deflect criticism of his own crisis management, the DG is urging his detractors not to politicise the battle against COVID-19.

If there is substantive proof to show that the WHO DG tried to cover up for China, even after China had locked down its Wuhan province where it all started back on January 23, 2020 only to announce the pandemic on March 11, 2020, the United Nations has a lot to answer to its member states.

The entire process of elections to these exalted international chairs is fraught with cheque-book diplomacy and big power gamesmanship. Without the backing and the blessings of the big powers, chances of sitting at the helm of a UN agency are well nigh impossible. Two Sri Lankan exceptions were Shirley Amerasinghe who chaired the Law of the Sea Conference being an ‘insider’ of the UN system and Dr Gamani Corea, who headed UNCTAD.

Be that as it may, in this country, it is the medical specialists and anaesthetists, nurses and minor staff especially from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Welikanda, Mulleriyawa, and Homagama hospitals, at ground level, the medical officers and Public Health Inspectors, Military Intelligence and local police and last but not least the 1990 ambulance service personnel who have shouldered the responsibility and been in the forefront in the war against an unseen enemy. Good wishes for the health and prosperity of the people in the New Year will be needed now more than ever before.

The hidden crisis waiting to explode

The United Nations Secretary General has called world leaders for a “ceasefire” of all wars to combat the unseen enemy that has taken on, and brought to their knees, the mightiest and the humblest of nations on Planet Earth.

Iran that received an early hit by COVID-19 says that it will defeat not only the coronavirus, but also the “virus of inhuman and unjust sanctions” imposed by the United States and reluctantly supported by the West. The guns and drones of the US-led military apparatus in West Asia, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan etc., have fallen silent. The trillion dollar military budgets are being questioned; why these powerful nations ignored their under-funded health systems and now are running in search of ventilators from China and medicines from India.

All odds are, however, that these nations will go back to their old ways of wanting to be the ‘policemen of the world’ when this crisis is endured and goes away. But they must know that there is another crisis waiting in the wings – climate change.

South Asia has been hit in the underbelly by the pandemic. Even if the number of fatalities ex-facie remains a fraction of those in China, North America and Europe, the Vice President of the World Bank overseeing South Asia says in a blog posting that he fears the worst is yet to come to the region even though current statistics are comparably conservative. The Bank believes millions will be driven to poverty and has rolled out USD 1.4 billion to help Governments across South Asia. That is the hidden crisis waiting to explode once the health crisis is overcome.

The hitherto dormant South Asian regional grouping (SAARC) which was gasping for breath in a diplomatic ICU due to rivalry between member states, especially India and Pakistan, has been given some oxygen as a result of this ‘common enemy’.  On an initiative of the Indian Prime Minister, a COVID Emergency Fund was established, but Pakistan was the last on board only this week still arguing that the Fund ought to be managed by the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu and not as it is currently formulated where member states must make a request to draw from that Fund on a Government-to-Government basis with three signatories involved.

This week, the Indian Government announced that it had sent 10 tonnes of essential lifesaving medicines “requested by the Government of Sri Lanka”, despite its own internal demands.

If there is a silver lining in every dark cloud, one would hope that the dormant South Asian regional cooperation would get a new lease of life through this common adversity.