Columns

As the nation awaits to join the chorus singing hosannas to a new president—whoever that may be—to be announced in the course of the day, he will be instantly coronated with the thorny crown of the collective despair of a nation in the gutter of economic bankruptcy.

He will be expected to lead the people on a perilously dangling rope bridge to the promised land as pledged in his manifesto. There will be no euphoric honeymoon for him to imbibe his cup of triumph but, instead, a toxic chalice for him to gulp down in double quick time. The nation is in a hurry to receive the relief promised and cannot wait to get back to their normal lives. No amount of castles built in mid-air can satisfy their expectations, boosted to the sky.

The hub of the nation’s myriad problems in every facet of life lies rooted deep in the country’s economic collapse, which equalised all in the dust. With the Treasury coffers bare, the nation’s economic life came to a halt. It paralysed vibrant trade’s hustle and bustle, and the strident movement of a nation on the march was instantly sucked into the black hole of inertia, where nothing moved, where nothing stirred, except the silent tears that fell into a stagnant pond without a hush.

The result of Lanka’s economic bankruptcy was starkly brought to every citizen’s home, for each to detest its revolting and depressing presence inhabiting their space. Two years later, despite desperate attempts to evict, it still outstays its unwelcome advent

The 2022 economic crunch reduced the litany of government prayers into a short tantric stanza, ‘economy, economy, economy’ invocation, soon turned into a couplet with the addition of a second line, ‘IMF, IMF, IMF’, where the gateway to heaven awaited the economic pariahs of the financial world.

But in that dire hour, it was Lanka’s best shot. Nay, Lanka’s only hope of exit from the blackhole of despair. Lanka had already delayed seeking the IMF’s monetary succour. The former Gota regime had recklessly dragged its feet by furrowing the land for homegrown solutions, when there was no cash in the till to buy even fertiliser. With Mother Hubbard’s cupboard bare, there was no food on the nation’s table.

That decision hastened default, and beggared Lanka had to crawl to the IMF as a nation gone bust. A bailout loan offered on the harshest of terms with ‘a take it or leave it’ attitude to the government responsible for the crash, which, despite playing willing host to waste, corruption, and mismanagement, held itself out as being worthy of atoning the sin of bankrupting a nation since it could make its people pay the redeeming penance.

THE LONG AND WINDING QUEUE: People participate in the peaceful and hallowed rite of expressing their choice through the power of the ballot

But with all three main candidates agreeing to remain on the rope bridge—though two differ on the terms under which they’ll stay without quitting halfway to jump out in midair—it’s clear that the nation is in for the long haul to transcend the crisis, however pungent the IMF’s economic pill is to swallow.

Last Friday brought some welcome news when the IMF announced its willingness to revisit the IMF treaty with a new government after the elections.

IMF Communications Department Director Julie Kozack told a press conference, “The IMF is ready to move forward with programme discussions after the presidential election is held and a new government is formed based on the choice of the people.” However, Kozack warned: “The programme has made significant achievements, but it is important to safeguard these achievements to enable Sri Lanka to fully emerge from one of its worst crises.”

She stressed, “With respect to the upcoming presidential election, this is for the people of Sri Lanka to decide. From the IMF’s position, what we see is a programme that has made significant achievements, but that it is important to safeguard these achievements to enable the country to fully emerge from one of its worst crises. “Achieving the programme’s objectives is a key priority to give Sri Lanka a chance to emerge from one of its worst crises in history.”

No doubt a fresh mandate from the people—where earlier the government had none—will strengthen the hand of a new president to mitigate the hardships heaped on the people to a greater extent than before September 22nd. But it does not permit entry into a strictly no-go zone, one that will threaten the chains—by making it less taut—that precariously hold the rope bridge in place across the chasm of poverty.

In the warning words of Julie Kosack, “Sri Lanka has made a lot of progress, but the country is not out of the woods yet, and it is important to safeguard those hard-won gains.”

Else, the immense hardship, the pain, the suffering, the sacrifices and the tears that flowed these last two years would be reduced to naught.

Since all three main candidates, whether they like it or not, are walking the rope bridge walk toward the promised land, it thus behoves each one of them not to rock the IMF’s bridge lest it totally collapse. If any wish to leave, by all means, they can jump to the abyss below. And if they do survive the fall, they can, along with 22 million countrymen, feed on the home-grown grass that buffaloes devour.

Each one of them is treaty-bound to stay strictly within the IMF programme and not step foot beyond its well-defined ambit. No matter in whose direction the blowing winds have turned the weathercock, how to revive the economy is the main and most crucial issue that faces the new president. Without money, neck deep in debt, and insolvent to boot, promises generously pledged on election platforms will become as empty as the nation’s coffers.

Perennial problems that exist in every facet of life must be addressed. The salaries of those employed, which have long been stagnant, must be adjusted. Pent-up frustrations of unemployed youth must be found and released in befitting jobs that match their talents and manifold skills. The quality of education in village schools must be raised to a much higher level than presently exists, as well as visibly improving the environment in schools in which students learn and study.

Principals’ and teachers’ constant demand for better facilities in rural schools deserves to be heard. Also deserving to be heard is the babble of voices in the electricity, banking, transport, medical, and public sectors, not forgetting to give ear to the fishermen’s sea of troubles nor farmers’ weeds of woe found in fields producing Lanka’s rice bowl.

But most of all deserving to be heard, and most ignored of all, is the silent, plaintive bleat of the voiceless, goddamned seven million, trapped below the poverty belt in Lanka’s backwater. Their anguished plight goes unseen, unheard and unanswered, and they must depend solely on the pittance the government doles out as charity. This forgotten bundle of human misery has long languished in the gutter, but none have seen a star of hope yet shine on them.

These are some of the few in all walks of productive life that go to make the wheel of economic activity turn. The spanner in the wheel to prevent it from smoothly turning will be the paucity of debt-ridden Lanka’s financial means. Money is what greases the wheels to smoothly turn.

Whoever inherits the presidential crown today, it will certainly be a thorny one, each spiked with a thousand and one piercing issues, each competing on equal merits to be heard and satisfied on equal terms. The president-elect will discover no sooner he’s sworn in, the people have not handed him a silk-wrapped bouquet of a thousand coloured fragrant flowers to adorn his office but a straw-tied bundle of course nettles to gnaw his conscience.

We must not celebrate his victory but sympathise with him as he, like the biblical scapegoat, is piled with the nation’s problems and set free on a people’s leash with the ultimatum: solve the people’s burning problems or face political banishment at the end of the term or even before.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, Sleep, that gives its repose to the poorest in the land, is denied to him. And that ‘uneasy lies the head that wears’ a presidential crown. Perhaps, as time passes, he will come to realise the glorious triumph he celebrated was nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory.

The Sunday Punch joins the nation in wishing the new president to be a long and successful tenure in the Presidential Office. May the Noble Triple Gem and the gods shower blessings on the new president of Sri Lanka.

Lawyers say ‘monster’ late Harrods owner abused dozens of women

By Akshata Kapoor

LONDON (AFP) – Dozens of women from across the world have accused late Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed of sexual assault, lawyers said Friday, likening the allegations to those against fallen figures like Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

At least 37 women from Australia and Malaysia, to Italy, Romania, the United States and Canada have so far come forward to allege abuse by the Egyptian billionaire, who died last year aged 94. One was just 16 when she was allegedly assaulted.

More women are expected to contact lawyers as a result of publicity surrounding a BBC investigation into the claims, including five who said they were raped. Lawyers representing some of the women said they were victims of “systematic abuse” over 25 years “within the knowledge of Harrods”, which Al-Fayed sold in 2010.

The new owners of the upmarket London department store said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations. But lawyer Dean Armstrong said there was an “abject failure of corporate responsibility and a failure to provide a safe system at work”.

Fayed is accused of sexually assaulting, raping and attempting to rape multiple young women — including minors — hired as his secretaries and personal assistants at the west London store. “He was a monster enabled by the system,” Armstrong told a news conference. The assaults allegedly took place in his apartments in London and at his properties in Paris, including the Ritz hotel, which he also owned.

Armstrong said the current claims were focused on Harrods because of “collective corporate responsibility” and “vicarious liability”, with the evidence showing that “clearly there was a pattern beyond peradventure”.

Pattern of events

Allegations include a repeated pattern of women who underwent a selection process for positions close to the chairman.

Once selected, they were subjected to an “invasive” gynaecological examination, the results of which were “rarely” shared with the women, but were shared with Fayed, according to lawyer Maria Mulla.

One of the survivors, Natacha, said she was a 19-year-old employee when she was “subjected to an unnecessary and intrusive medical examination” and tested for sexually transmitted diseases. “I was subjected to AIDS and STD testing without consent, and now believe in hindsight, I was checked for my purity,” she added.

Natacha, who did not give her last name, called Fayed a “highly manipulative” employer whose abuse included “forced kisses” and instances of sexual assault. Women who tried to complain about their abuse were threatened by security heads, demoted and targeted by false allegations until they had “no choice” but to leave Harrods.

Many of the women shared their story, according to the BBC, after disagreeing with Fayed’s portrayal in the Netflix drama “The Crown”, which dramatises his friendship with Princess Diana, who died in a car crash with Fayed’s son Dodi in 1997.

Global claim

The claims have not yet been issued, lawyers said, adding that they would welcome it if Harrods decided to “compensate the women financially”, but that the case was about “much more” than money.

Lawyer Bruce Drummond said the scope of the allegations was “vast”. One of three Canadian accusers said she was just 16 when she was allegedly assaulted, and six were Americans.

Some of the alleged assaults took place overseas, including in Saint Tropez and Abu Dhabi. Some of the women were employed by the Ritz in Paris, said Mulla.

Fayed sold the Knightsbridge store to the investment arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund for a reported £1.5 billion ($2.2 billion).

He also owned Fulham Football Club, where the lawyers were also “aware” of claims of sexual abuse.

Fayed had previously been accused of sexually assaulting and groping multiple women but a 2015 police investigation into a rape allegation did not lead to any charges.

“Underneath the glitz and glamour”, there was “a toxic, unsafe and abusive environment”, said Gloria Allred, an American lawyer on the case who has represented victims of convicted sex offenders like Jeffrey Epstein.

She called Fayed the “epitome of a serial sexual abuser”.

Armstrong likened Fayed to Epstein “because there was a procurement system in place to source the women and girls for abuse”, and Weinstein because he was “at the top of the organisation”. He also said there were similarities to the paedophile BBC children’s television presenter Jimmy Savile, because “the institution, we say, knew about the behaviour”.