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By Lloyd F. Yapa
This article is about the positive and professional means of conflict resolution as there have been various types of public protests all over the country for some time. If they are allowed to continue without being solved at the outset, the damage that will be caused to the economy, especially by way of discouraging badly-needed investment, particularly Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which could bring in scarce capital, skills, technologies and global market access for goods and services, could be enormous. In this discussion one of the issues that is focused on is the series of protests and strikes against the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM).
There are genuine protests and there are others for political and mischievous reasons. The major reason for most types of public demonstrations and indeed for politically motivated and mischievous protests is the lack of awareness among the people of the country regarding the damage they inflict on the economy, leading particularly to prolonging poverty, unlike in the case of the South East and East Asian economies.
In Japan for instance it is reported that strikers wear black bands while at work without going on a rampage to only indicate their dissatisfaction to their employers and the public, or if they want to go out onto the streets to demonstrate, they do so during the lunch hour, apparently to avoid interruption of production at their workplaces or hurting the economy of the country! This is the culture that has been created in that country with spectacular success.
There are two main ways of creating such a culture. In some South East and East Asian countries, particularly in South Korea, China, Taiwan and even in Singapore this has been brought about in an authoritative manner by enlightened leaders who had a passion to serve their people. In democracies the method that could be adopted is to undertake it by creating public awareness regarding the means of developing an economy for realising prosperity or alleviating poverty. Although China has been ruled by the Communist Party in a dictatorial manner, its leaders, particularly Deng Tsiao Ping, have also used persuasive tactics to create such public awareness, as indicated by his famous statements like, “It is glorious to be rich” referring to the need to avoid the levelling down process advocated by the Communist Party and “it does not matter whether the cat is black or white if it catches mice”, which offers the reason for advocating the capitalist means of production to achieve prosperity.
In Sri Lanka, politicians have failed to create such awareness of the means of alleviating poverty, using investment for creating jobs for instance, as they have been interested mainly in short-term electoral gains and once elected to use their office to enjoy life at the expense of the taxpayer or just give excuses for not serving the people. For example it is amazing that some ministers are claiming that they are not given the necessary powers to undertake useful work when the various public demonstrations raise hundreds of issues that need resolution. Such a minister has to merely select an issue relevant to his or her ministry and work hard to resolve it. Perhaps such ministers and their officials need to be trained, especially on conflict resolution methods for this purpose.
A very good example of the selection of such projects is the Gammedda village development program undertaken by the Sirasa TV station under the Capital Maharaja Organisation, although its responsibility is only broadcasting.
It has identified villagers in need of essential assistance to carry on their lives such as providing safe drinking water or building houses, schools, community meeting halls, culverts, minor irrigation works etc., mostly gaining the assistance of the University of Peradeniya to identify such cases. It has then ventured to prepare feasibility studies and prepare projects reports, in consultation with the villagers concerned and relevant professionals, that indicate the investments required. It has very successfully found donors to contribute the necessary funds by broadcasting the details of such projects over a daily evening TV program during a working week, which also indicates how some of the projects have been implemented at a minimum of cost and time, bringing immense joy to the villagers concerned.
This is a magnificent example of leadership with a passion to serve the people and the smooth implementation of projects, while coordinating with the people concerned and other stakeholders. The keywords here are ‘leadership with a passion to serve the people’. Once there is such passion all else has a tendency to fall into place.
Therefore, first of all Sri Lankan political leaders have to make the people aware that the ultimate aim of economic development is the wellbeing of the people in terms of the Sustainable Development Goals approved by the UN, that includes poverty alleviation, better living conditions, clean drinking water, etc.
In this connection the people have to be made aware of the close relationship between (export-oriented) investment and productive work on the one hand and job creation and poverty alleviation on the other.
This passion to serve the people by politicians and officials itself can be a powerful development tool as the people will then hesitate to resort to activities that may obstruct the goal. They may not resort to extremist speeches and attacks on the basis of racial and religious divisions as such acts may increase the risk of investment in the country. They might not say national assets are to be‘sold’, when foreign investors indicate their willingness to invest in projects like the Hambantota Port or in a sugar production project. Instead they might make it a habit to undertake activities or make statements which will contribute to achieving prosperity.
The other reason, especially for the genuine type of protests, may be the inability of the parties concerned to settle matters in a peaceful way due to ignorance of professional techniques of conflict resolution. A good example of such ignorance is the SAITM issue.
The protests and strikes against SAITM have reached a stage of conflicts at a personal level as it has not been resolved at the beginning itself. But the question that arises is whether in this instance the authorities have exhausted all professional means of settlement.
The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) complains that the SAITM medical degrees do not conform to the standards required and therefore should not be allowed to continue in their present form. The striking university students demand that SAITM should be either nationalised or closed down as private universities should not be allowed to operate in this country.
There are several important issues to be considered here. Out of about 300,000 students who sit for the GCE A/Level examination each year only about 30% are absorbed into the universities which are State-run. A few children of rich parents can afford to move over to universities abroad or follow courses at local private fee levying institutions. The others are virtually left in the lurch especially as there are no private universities here. Most of them start looking for jobs which are very scarce; those who cannot find jobs are left to their own devices, which may include becoming drug addicts or criminals. In the meantime, most of those who pass out of state universities also cannot find jobs as their qualifications and skills do not conform to the skills demanded by the private sector.
The solution to this problem is opening more universities with a curriculum that could produce the technical and soft skills required. But the Government does not have the resources to do so as its Budget runs deficits every year and it is heavily in debt.
In any case the quality of the state universities is notoriously low. So the solution is to encourage the setting up of well-regulated, quality private universities with an ability to produce the required skills. It is reported that several foreign universities which had plans to open universities here have decided to wait along the sidelines apparently until the SATM issue is settled and political and economic stability is restored.
It also means that the acute scarcity of technical soft skills here will have to wait indefinitely for a solution and therefore major investments to produce the required jobs as well as the goods and service for export will not take place. It would therefore seem that the SAITM issue is holding up the faster development of the economy to improve the wellbeing of people to ransom! It is strange that the authorities, the GMOA and the striking students do not appear to realise it.
Therefore the authorities first have to go on to indicate which line ministry is responsible for the SAITM issue or any other conflict as there are too many ministries. The selected ministry has to thereafter completely depoliticise the issue and communicate to the parties concerned the (professional) lines on which the problem will be resolved. These may include for instance the rationale of the policy of the Government with regard to higher education, particularly that the establishment of private universities will be encouraged and that quality conforming to internationally accepted standards will have to be maintained to help solve the acute scarcity of technical and soft skills demanded by businesses.
The ministry or agency concerned has to then proceed to appoint an independent professional conflict resolution or mediation committee with the required terms of reference. In this regard it could consult business schools which teach conflict resolution.
As required by professional means of conflict resolution, the committee should then meet and announce the goals to be achieved, the ground rules of discussion, analyse the conflict, encourage the parties to communicate all the details of their concerns using neutral language and not belligerent words, compromise to give up some of the less important demands, accommodate to satisfy the major concerns of the other party and collaborate to find a win-win solution that may lead to the wellbeing of the people of the country ultimately.
Government takeover of SAITM or its hospital is a negative solution as prospective investors will not invest here, fearing nationalisation.
Thus creating awareness among the people about the means of creating prosperity for instance by encouraging investment especially by FDIs and resorting to professional means of conflict resolution may help the authorities to implement development programs faster.
(The writer is a Development Economist.)
