On Wednesday, President Mahinda Rajapaksa armed himself with a tough Prevention and Prohibition of Terrorism and Specified Terrorist Activities laws under the State of Emergency to crack down on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Nowhere in the past has a Government faced the mounting twin threats together - one from a lesser known but potentially dangerous enemy from within and the other from a known and increasingly violent one from outside. Both have begun to shake the very edifice on which it stands.
What have been the reactions of the business community to the Budget proposals? These have been variously expressed, though businessmen appear to have been cautious in what they say for whatever reason.
Compared with some of their predecessor regulations that had surfaced following heightened intensity in the Northern war, emergency regulations proposed this week to combat terrorism may seem innocuous at first blush.
As Parliament sessions for the year came to a close on Wednesday, much of the optimism that was generated with the election of the new President last November seemed to have evaporated with the main topic of discussion being the threat from terrorism and growing calls on the Government to ban the LTTE.
Inside
the glass house
Not published with this week issue
By Thalif Deen at the united nations
Copyright
2006 Wijeya
Newspapers Ltd.Colombo. Sri Lanka.
