City Life

Eric Ellis

21 July 2007

Peace would be a better business planfor the island of a hundred ministers

When last here in April, I saw the war up frighteningly close. While Sri Lankans watched their cricketing heroes on television jousting with Australia in the cricket World Cup final they would lose in Barbados, the Tigers’ jerry-built ‘air force’ launched a raid on the capital. The government ordered the power supply cut to deny the Tigers visibility. But home generators are de rigueur here, so when the power went off, Colombo was immediately bathed in light. A gun tower barked into action 50 metres from my room in the rococo Galle Face Hotel. I watched trigger-happy grunts blaze Rambo-like at nothing in particular: here was an opportunity to loose off a few rounds, when the most exciting thing they usually do is perv on bikini-ed foreigners in the hotel pool below. They even fired at a fully illuminated Malaysian commercial liner approaching from the Maldives. Colombo’s hotel managers were told not to tell guests what had happened or why, lest they leave and choose coup-ridden Thailand for their next holiday. I penned an eyewitness piece, causing a minor ruffle among Colombo’s chattering classes (and prompting a death threat or two). Colombo’s Daily Mirror noted how ‘unfortunate’ it was that a correspondent from the famous Fortune happened to be in town during the Tiger raid. ‘The adverse publicity globally has spread like wild fire’, my article dealing ‘a severe blow to Colombo’s efforts to position itself as an attractive air hub in South Asia’. All of which was flattering, and doubtless a relief to Dubai and Singapore aviation officials, though it did overstate the media’s authority. Making peace would be a better business plan.

The raid devastated the already war-shattered tourist industry. The Hilton, the only big hotel chain braving Sri Lanka, shut eight of its 19 guest floors ‘for renovation’. Back in the GFH, I’m paying $65 a night for a suite of a standard I would pay $250 for in India. Sri Lanka’s idyllic coastline is studded with shuttered hotels, and the unemployment is tragic. The Tiger tactics have also spooked shippers, many of whom have abandoned Sri Lanka out of fear their vessels will be attacked. The April raid took out a couple of fuel dumps. Freight costs out of Colombo for the tea and garment exports on which the island relies for foreign exchange are now as much as 50 per cent higher, for space on the fewer ships chancing Sri Lankan waters. The economy is being kept afloat by remittances from workers offshore. All that may be helpful to know when you notice your Marks and Sparks’ tea, knickers and negligées are a bit dearer this Christmas.

Eric Ellis is South-East Asia Correspondent for Fortune magazine