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The costs of war pile up

In terms of the human and social costs Lanka's ethnic conflict has steadily incurred over the years, the final estimate of damages could be unbelievably high. We are led to think on these things on learning, for instance, that up to 50 percent of our children in the conflict-affected areas of the country are underweight. An equal degree of concern should be caused by the news that approximately half of the women and adolescent female population in these regions is anaemic.

These little visible but astronomical human and health costs of the war which international organisations, such as the World Food Programme, have unravelled, should impress on the local body politic the dire need to speed up and bring to a satisfactory conclusion the current peace effort which would be entering a qualitatively new phase on September 16th.

Although the focus of the WFP findings which we highlighted yesterday, is on the North-East, these ravages of the war are far more widespread. True, the war has affected the North-East populace in the most heart-rending and damaging forms but it should be also remembered that over the past two decades, the war was perpetuated at the cost of development. Although comprehensive and definitive studies in these areas are yet to be carried out, we know for a fact that malnutrition and stunting, for instance, are the sad lot of most of our children, wherever they may be. If "Swords were turned into ploughshares" long ago, the condition of Lankans from a health and welfare point of view, would have been very much better. We make these sanguine appraisals in the belief that corruption and mismanagement in the public and other relevant sectors would be at a minimum. For corruption and financial irregularities gobble-up quite a slice of public funds.

This point on corruption in public life merits emphasis because peace and reconciliation couldn't be expected to yield the desired benefits in full, for the totality of the public, if evils such as corruption and misuse of public funds are allowed to flourish. Therefore the process of ushering peace should, ideally, go hand-in-hand with social reform focusing on heightening the ethical conscience of the public.

We regard these findings on the health and welfare consequences of the war as timely eye-openers which should remind the current political players that they would be only living in a fool's paradise by continuing with their power games.

Politicians would be fooling no one but themselves if they imagine that their efforts at jockeying for position and power could be carried out at public expense. For, a ruined country, a country which doesn't enjoy a degree of political stability, would be the bane of everyone.

The resolve, therefore, of our rulers should be to persist on the path of peace until a relatively happy and peaceful country is established. If this mission is not realised in a spirit of unity among our rulers, not only will conflict and discord continue to be endemic to Sri Lanka, but its inhabitants, wherever they may be, would be reduced to unreal spectres of a devastated land on account of deprivation. Is this the outcome that is desired for Sri Lanka?

Let's not make a mistake about it. Many a hapless country on the African continent was reduced to these very conditions as a result of continuous war and bloodshed. "Natural causes" didn't always produce these sad results. Anyway, crop failures, for instance, in these states, were too the result of skewed development policies which could also in turn, be traced to selfish interests of political elites. This, however, is a different but related story.

The task at hand in Sri Lanka is to turn "Swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks" without further delay. The Government has managed to launch this process and hostilities have been stilled. However this foundation has to be built on and unity of policy and action is urgently needed between the Government and the opposition, headed by the President, to make the flower of peace bloom permanently in the land. It must be remembered that malnourishment and malformation could be only the tip of the iceberg of evils war has bred.

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