Features

The transitional 1990s and beyond (JVP-III)

Published

5 years ago

2021/05/9

by Rajan Philips

If the 1980s were tumultuous, the 1990s were more transitional, even if not less tumultuous. In this ‘potted’ history, it is not necessary to recount all the details of the 1990s and the first decade of the new 21st century. Suffice it to focus on developments that have had a continuing influence on current events and the farce of 2021. The UNP and the JVP, which more or less came together in 1977, were gone by 1994, after seventeen years of assorted achievements. The UNP would never return to the same pinnacle of power that it seized in 1977. The JVP with a new generation of leaders transformed itself into a democratic political party with mixed results. The first half the decade saw the disintegration of the UNP under the weight of the presidential ambitions of three rival contenders – President Premadasa and his two younger challengers, Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake. The LTTE took out every one of them in 1993 and 1994.

LTTE violence took off in the 1990s after the JVP had been finished off in the late 1980s. In a telling commentary on that period, Wikipedia lists the names of political leaders, parliamentarians, professionals and political activists who were killed by the JVP, the LTTE, other Tamil groups and the armed forces over three decades of violence. The 1990s began with the assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and ended with the killing of TULF MP and Legal Academic Neelan Tiruchelvam in 1999. The old leadership of the TULF, with the exception of M. Sivasithamparam, had been wiped out in the late 1980s. That included TULF leader A. Amirthalingam, a consummate politician and parliamentarian, who started off as a fiery federalist and turned himself into a mellowed separatist.

As the 90s wore on, the LTTE asserted itself as the sole representative of the Tamils. It waged war against the state and its forces but not to capture the state of Sri Lanka but to establish a new state of Tamil Eelam. The JVP’s mission was different, but its ultimate objectives were never clear. Lacking the LTTE’s military prowess, it never seemed plausible that the JVP was serious about capturing state power through violent means. Politically, the JVP swung from its ultra-left attacks on a manifestly leftist government in 1971, to undertaking ultra-right attacks against the most rightwing government in Sri Lanka’s modern history. The left-right cleavage was not part of the LTTE vocabulary.

On the other hand, although it railed against the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and the presence of Indian armed forces in Sri Lanka, the JVP scrupulously avoided taking potshots at the Indian Army. The LTTE, in contrast, cut its military teeth fighting the Indian army and found common cause with the Sri Lankan government under President Premadasa to fight a common enemy. There was even grudging admiration among sections of the Sinhalese for the LTTE’s choosing to take on the Indian Army. For the record, the Indian Army came to Sri Lanka on the invitation of one Sri Lankan President and left Sri Lanka at the request of the succeeding Sri Lankan President. Hardly the modality for an occupying force. War or peace, Sri Lanka was again left to its own devices.

Illusions of Peace

The second half of the 1990s and the first half of the next belonged to Chandrika Kumaratunga. Her presidency began with a bang of charismatic inspiration but petered through for want of a clear focus and purposeful efforts. Perhaps her singular failure was not single-mindedly moving to abolish the executive presidency as she was universally expected to do. She was also the first and, until Gotabaya Rajapaksa arrived on the scene 25 years later out of nowhere, the only person to become President without previously being a Member of Parliament. Her parliamentary inexperience, untrammeled access to presidential power, not to mention her political ego, all combined to vitiate the promise with which she had led the People’s Alliance to power.

With the benefit of hindsight, we might say that parliament started becoming inexorably poorer from thereon. It is far worse now, in 2021, and for many new reasons. And it has taken a JVP MP, in Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, to take a spirited stand in defense of parliament and parliamentary democracy in Sri Lanka – against presidential authority and media hypocrisy. The ironies of history, you might say, but more on it later.

Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK) deserves full marks for starting the peace process during her presidency, but she showed inexplicable naivete in choosing to rely on people from her social circles to take the lead in serious peace mediation. The LTTE was going to be a difficult peace-dance partner anyway, and it required much more than social brokering to make any headway. In the end, the LTTE almost succeeded in assassinating her during her election campaign for a second term in office in 1999.

The main irony of that period was the nasty competition between Chandrika Kumaratunga (leading the SLFP) and Ranil Wickremesinghe (leading the UNP) for leadership in the peace process. It was a total about-turn from previous decades when the two main Sinhalese parties fought one another over who was giving more concessions to the Tamil Federal Party, even though what was on offer was way less than what would be included much later in the 13th Amendment. In any event, the CBK-RW competition over peace turned out to be counter productive both to the peace process and to their respective political calculations.

It may not be wholly accurate to say that presidential politics was the main driver of the peace rivalry, but it is impossible to view the rivalry in isolation from presidential ambitions. All the constitutional changes proposed by the CBK government included provisions to protect her powers, which made it even easier for RW and the UNP to reject the proposals out of hand and even, in one instance, make a bonfire of them right in the well of parliament. As for Ranil Wickremesinghe, his obsession with becoming a President, or at least a presidential candidate one more time (after two attempts in 1999 and 2005), became quite obvious when he deliberately subordinated every initiative of the yahapalanaya government (2015-2019) to that single obsession.

Back during his rivalry with CBK over peace initiatives, Ranil Wickremesinghe stunningly turned to the LTTE to strike a counter peace partnership to CBK’s peace partnership with the TULF. I am not aware of any public recounting of the mediation that brought RW and the LTTE together in a peace initiative. But objectively, it fair to surmise that Ranil Wickremesinghe reached out to the LTTE as a counter to CBK’s peace alliance with the TULF. What was fairly well known throughout the JRJ presidency was that President Jayewardene cunningly kept not only the TULF but also the JVP from joining forces with the SLFP/Left opposition at that time. In the end, there was no ultimate benefit to anyone from JRJ’s Machiavellian politics. The presidential house he built so adroitly would be eventually lost to the UNP. Now it seems it is lost forever. And it will be for other more upstart aspirants as well.

As JRJ’s successor, President Premadasa took a different tack, reaching out to the LTTE to get the Indians out. We know how that tack or track ended. The TULF that was left hanging, or what was left of its depleted leadership, broke with the UNP and turned to Chandrika Kumaratunga and the People’s Alliance for a new kick at what had become the proverbial viable solution, while Ranil Wickremesinghe modified the Premadasa approach to re-engage the LTTE with Norwegian insurance. To their credit, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe ‘fought’ over how to make better peace with Tamils, rather than about waging a more brutal war with the LTTE. They both admitted that the Sri Lankan state had failed in the building of its nation and were committed to creating a plural and inclusive polity. While their political spirits were willing their presidential flesh led them astray.

And their peace-fight was nasty. They could not work together even when they were forced to cohabit as President and Prime Minister between 2001 and 2004. Ranil Wickremesinghe, as Prime Minister, dashed everyone’s expectations of peace dividends by giving, not for the last time, free rein to corruption in government. For her part, and in what she would later admit to being among her more grievous mistakes, President Kumaratunga dismissed the Wickremesinghe government in 2004 (which she had the power to do under the pre-19A Constitution, unlike Maithripala Sirisena who flouted his own 19th Amendment in October 2018), dissolved parliament and won the parliamentary election in April 2004 with provisional support from the JVP.

The results of the April 2004 parliamentary election gave false hopes to President Kumaratunga and the JVP (that won 39 out of 105 UPFA seats in parliament, its highest on record), relegated Ranil Wickremesinghe to the opposition backwaters for the next ten years, and signaled the emergence of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the next presidential candidate from the true south. The country went through the tsunami devastation in December 2004, but that did not help the political leaders getting any wiser about working together. The Supreme Court abandoned President Kumaratunga when it rejected her bid to extend her second term by one year. Ranil Wickremesinghe even thought that Chief Justice Sarath Silva was helping him for not impeaching him earlier!

Those who had serenaded CBK during her rise lost no time in leaving as she declined. Mahinda Rajapaksa became the SLFP-UPFA candidate by acclamation. He reached a new agreement with the JVP. The unkindest cut of all was delivered by the LTTE to Ranil Wickremesinghe who thought that it would be a no contest. Mahinda Rajapaksa won the November 2005 presidential election by the squeakiest of margins, while Tamil voters in the north were ordered to stay home. Basil Rajapaksa’s familial prophesy that there will be a President from the south was finally fulfilled. But there were other dynamics at play.

Illusions of Restoration

In my last installment published two weeks ago (April 25), I alluded to Mahinda Rajapaksa becoming the presidential beneficiary of a new strand of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism fueled by the Jathika Chinthanaya school of thought. The school of thinking that JC advocated has not universally been accepted in Sinhalese political society. At one level, the electoral victories of Chandrika Kumaratunga (PA) and the partial successes of Ranil Wickremesinghe were moments of political pushbacks to the creeping influence of JC thinking. At another level, both the SLFP and the UNP were forced to come to terms with ‘JC forces’ and include them in their political alliances often on their (JC’s) terms.

The presidential system and proportional representation in parliamentary elections facilitated the emergence of alliance politics. The era of programmatic united fronts of political parties was gone. Serious political programs gave way to lawyerly Memorandums of Understanding. Multiple parties with bilateral/multilateral MOUs could come together under an umbrella alliance for contesting elections. The April 2004 parliamentary elections were the breakthrough election for the new Sinhala Buddhist nationalist organizations.

The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), the most electorally successful offshoot from the JC school, won nine seats in the election, all won by Buddhist Monks. The JVP which had been courting JC ideologues and followers from the 1980s, was part of Chandrika Kumaratunga’s alliance (UPFA) and won 39 seats. It was the JHU that successfully challenged President Kumaratunga’s attempt to extend her second term limit in the Supreme Court in August 2005. JC’s political consummation came within months, with the victory of Mahinda Rajapaksa in the November presidential election. That it came with support from the not so hidden hand of the LTTE did not dampen the significance of the moment. Mahinda Rajapaksa was recognized as the most authentic Sinhala Buddhist political leader since independence.

In terms of political analysis, the victory of Mahinda Rajapaksa has been described as the restoration of the linkage between the Sri Lankan state establishment and the political hegemony of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. The linkage had apparently been ruptured since July 1987 when JR Jayewardene and Rajiv Gandhi signed the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. Looked at in another way, the state of Sri Lanka which has traditionally been accused of alienating the Tamil and Muslim minorities, would seemed to have found a way to alienate even the Sinhalese majority.

And the restoration that was apparently achieved with the victory of Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2005, has not turned out to be as consequential as anticipated. To wit, the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and the Thirteenth Amendment that it created have survived two terms of Mahinda Rajapaksa presidency and may yet survive the first term of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa presidency. At the same time, a full restoration of the linkages between the state of Sri Lanka and all its ‘peoples’ will require a more sensitive and nuanced understanding as well as appreciation of the nationalist compulsions of the Sinhalese, Tamils and the Muslims. Anything less can be nothing more than a farce. (Next week: The farce of 2021).

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Features

Defend civic space upon which peace is built

Published

3 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

International Peace Day was observed on 21 September. It finds Sri Lanka with a genuine achievement to record and a demanding test to meet. The UN’s theme this year was “Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.” It also honoured the “everyday architects of peace”—people driving local action and building a lasting peace from the ground up. In the 2026 Global Peace Index, Sri Lanka rose 30 places, from 97th to 67th among 163 countries. Over the same period, global peacefulness declined for the twelfth consecutive year to its lowest level since the index began, and South Asia suffered the sharpest regional deterioration. The test is whether the government will protect the civic space in which those architects of peace work.

Sri Lanka’s improvement is real and deserves acknowledgement. In this year’s review, issued a few weeks ago, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledged progress in the form of action against corruption, arrests and investigations linked to political killings, enforced disappearances and the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, and continued official denunciation of racism. A ranking, however, records conditions at a particular moment. It does not guarantee that they will last. Sustainable peace will depend on three factors. These are whether the government addresses the unresolved causes of conflict, whether it strengthens accountability for past and present abuses, and whether it protects the civic space in which peace is built from below. On the first two the record is incomplete. On the third, the draft NGO law threatens to weaken the very organisations that press for the other two.

What holds Sri Lanka back from a higher place are the same things that fed the war at home and also feed international conflict that rages elsewhere in the world. These are racism or ethnic nationalism that is narrow-focused, corruption and lawlessness. Equality, accountability and the rule of law are their remedies. The present government has committed itself to these, and is a significant improvement over governments of the recent past. But these pillars are not held up by governments alone. Peace is made in villages, workplaces and university campuses. It is made by families who insist on the truth about their disappeared, by journalists and lawyers who expose abuse, and by community organisations that bring Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese into practical cooperation.

Unfinished Work

The UN High Commissioner’s report to the current Human Rights Council session, covering October 2025 to July 2026, shows how much remains to be done. The Prevention of Terrorism Act is still being applied, producing arbitrary arrests and long detention without charge. The report calls for a moratorium pending repeal and for the release of long-term detainees. Military-occupied land has not been released, memorialisation lacks support, and tensions over land and religious sites persist. The Batticaloa district illustrates how such problems endure. In the past three years, two Presidents, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, have visited and instructed that the dispute over grazing land in Mailaththamadu and Mathavanai be resolved. It is a dispute between Tamil cattle farmers and outside Sinhala cultivators, and it has not been resolved. When two Presidents issue instructions and nothing changes, the fault lies in the machinery of State. An unresolved dispute does not stand still. It hardens into the next grievance.

Accountability shows the same pattern. The report documents torture and deaths in custody, and surveillance and intimidation of activists, journalists and civil society. Serious cases remain stalled for years, among them the killing of seventeen aid workers of Action Contre la Faim in Muttur two decades ago. Sharper still is the case of the Eastern University refugee camp at Vantharamoolai, where in 1990 the army took away 158 persons in a single day. They were never seen again. The camp’s officer-in-charge, Dr T. Jayasingam, later Vice Chancellor of the university, identified the officers responsible. More than three decades on, those officers have not been questioned. These cases are still remembered because families, survivors and independent witnesses have refused to let them be forgotten. Meanwhile several commissions of inquiry have completed their investigations but nothing further has happened.

What South Africa, Argentina and other post-conflict societies have found indispensable are four pillars of what is called “Transitional Justice” which are truth, accountability, reparations and non-recurrence. In Sri Lanka’s circumstances, truth means credible, independent investigation of what happened to the disappeared, and support for memorialisation. Accountability means prosecuting Muttur, Vantharamoolai and comparable cases, and removing credibly accused persons from senior office. Reparations mean compensation for victims and the return of military-held land. Non-recurrence means repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act, releasing those held under it in the meantime, and resolving local disputes such as Mailaththamadu before delay hardens them. A country that buries its past does not escape it. The past returns in the next generation.

Civil Society

It is against this background that the draft NGO law is most troubling. The proposed legislation contains sweeping provisions for State oversight and control of civil society organisations. Among these are enforcing a licensing requirement on NGOs, which is to be renewed every three years, and severe penalties for not submitting reports on time, or for spending on emergency flood relief (for instance) when the NGOs mandate is peacebuilding (as an example) with possible sanctions including deregistration and having to shut down. Civil society groups have warned that it would confer excessive discretion over their registration and operations. Officials in Sri Lanka have abused such powers in the past. Additional power without effective checks invites further abuse. Sound regulation would have clear criteria for registration, an independent registrar and a right of appeal to the courts. What cannot be justified is a regime in which registration becomes a licence to be withheld from organisations that scrutinise policy, expose abuses or advocate for the rights of citizens.

Democracy is based on checks and balances. Those who press for accountability are part of those checks. The contradiction is plain. A government that has pledged accountability, equality and the rule of law ought not to be preparing to weaken the very organisations that press for their fulfilment. The organisations most exposed are those working on disappearances, land, memorialisation and reconciliation in the North and East, where the State’s record is weakest and the need for independent witnesses greatest. Silencing them would not remove the grievances they document. It would remove the channel through which those grievances are addressed peacefully. The government appears to be relenting, which is welcome, but a pause is not a withdrawal. The bill should be withdrawn and any replacement drafted in genuine consultation with those it would govern.

Investment in peace as called for by the UN in its International Peace Day theme implies commitment over time, with returns that come slowly. Sri Lanka’s 30-place rise on the Global Peace Index is a first dividend and nothing more. It can be built upon only if the government matches its commitments with action: withdrawing or fundamentally redrafting the NGO law, repealing or suspending the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and bringing Muttur, Vantharamoolai and Mailaththamadu to resolution. A higher place in a global index is not a certificate of success. Sri Lanka’s higher ranking is an encouraging start, but it will endure only if the space in which citizens speak, question and organise is protected. Peace is built from below, and a government that is serious about it will treat civil society as a partner rather than a threat.

Features

Africa is buying: Sri Lanka must start selling

Published

3 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

A call to Sri Lankan exporters and agencies: Can Sri Lanka compete with China and India in Africa?

By Kana V. Kananathan
Former Ambassador

Sri Lanka has spent decades concentrating its exports on traditional markets in Europe, North America and Asia. Yet across the Indian Ocean lies a rapidly expanding market that remains significantly underdeveloped by Sri Lankan exporters: Africa.

The opportunity is not theoretical. Sri Lanka already exports packaging, textiles, rubber products, pharmaceuticals, paper, machinery and electrical goods to African markets. The question is whether these modest beginnings can be transformed into a serious export strategy—and whether Sri Lanka can compete against the enormous commercial presence of China and India.

The answer is yes—but Sri Lanka must compete differently.

Kenya: Gateway to East Africa

Kenya should be the starting point.

Sri Lanka exported approximately US$32.08 million to Kenya in 2025, while importing US$11.41 million. But US$32 million is tiny compared with the opportunity: Kenya imported more than US$24 billion in 2025. Even a 1% share of that market would represent nearly US$240 million in annual exports.

And the commercial base already exists. Sri Lanka’s 2025 exports to Kenya included approximately US$9.99 million in paper and paperboard products, US$9.73 million in knitted fabrics, US$3.64 million in pharmaceuticals, US$1.24 million in rubber products and US$1.20 million in machinery.

Kenya’s import structure is equally revealing. In the third quarter of 2025, industrial supplies represented 34.4% of imports, machinery and capital equipment 19.2%, food and beverages 9.0%, and consumer goods 7.3%. The opportunity for Sri Lanka, therefore, extends well beyond consumer goods—we can become a supplier to African industry.

But competition is fierce. Asia supplied around 70% of Kenya’s imports in 2025, with imports from China rising 16.5% and those from India 11.3%.

Sri Lanka cannot challenge China and India across every product category. Nor should it try. We must target sectors where quality, specialisation, reliability, technical capability, smaller production runs and flexibility matter more than simply offering the lowest price.

Where Can Sri Lanka Compete?

Packaging is an obvious starting point. Cartons, boxes, bags and labels are already among Sri Lanka’s exports to Kenya. Importantly, some Sri Lankan companies operating in Kenya are themselves importing these products from Sri Lanka. The market already exists; the challenge is to scale it.

As Africa’s food-processing, pharmaceutical, apparel and consumer-goods industries expand, demand for sophisticated packaging will grow with them. Sri Lanka already possesses the manufacturing capability and industry experience to capture a larger share.

Industrial rubber products, tyres, gloves and specialised rubber components offer another opportunity where Sri Lanka has established manufacturing expertise.

The apparel supply chain is equally promising. Rather than competing directly with African garment factories, Sri Lanka can supply fabrics, elastics, labels, packaging and specialised textile inputs.

Some Sri Lankan apparel manufacturing and export companies already established in Kenya, Togo, Ghana and Ethiopia are importing several of these inputs from Sri Lanka. The supply chain, therefore, already exists. The next step is to move beyond supplying Sri Lankan-owned factories and become a competitive input supplier to the wider African apparel industry.

Other sectors deserving systematic market development include pharmaceuticals and medical consumables, processed foods, biscuits and confectionery, coconut products, cinnamon and spices, electrical products and cables, industrial chemicals, ceramics, light engineering, agricultural equipment and food-processing machinery.

Sri Lanka should also look beyond physical goods. IT, fintech, banking technology, engineering, healthcare, hospitality management and professional services largely escape the freight disadvantage confronting merchandise exports.

The Tariff Problem Can Become an Opportunity

Market access cannot be discussed without tariffs.The East African Community applies a Common External Tariff with bands of 0%, 10%, 25% and 35%, while certain sensitive products attract still higher protection. Simply filling containers in Colombo with finished consumer goods will therefore not always be commercially competitive.

But that obstacle points towards a bigger opportunity: manufacture in Africa.

Sri Lankan businesses could export intermediate materials while undertaking final assembly, manufacturing, processing or packaging in Kenya. Packaging companies could establish converting plants; electrical manufacturers could assemble locally; pharmaceutical companies could explore manufacturing or packaging partnerships; and food companies could undertake final processing closer to consumers.

Kenya would then become more than an export destination. It could become Sri Lanka’s manufacturing and distribution gateway into East and Central Africa.

With the East African Community now comprising eight partner states and extending geographically from the Indian Ocean towards the Atlantic, establishing a regional presence is increasingly more important than viewing each African country in isolation.

West Africa Cannot Be Ignored

Sri Lanka simultaneously needs a West African strategy.

Ghana offers potential as an English-speaking commercial gateway and host of the AfCFTA Secretariat. Nigeria, with its enormous population and consumer economy, should be approached as a major market in its own right, despite its greater regulatory, currency and operational complexity.

ECOWAS tariff bands of 0%, 5%, 10%, 20% and 35% again make product selection critical. Sri Lanka should concentrate on products with sufficient differentiation and margins to absorb freight, tariffs and distributor costs.

Pharmaceuticals demonstrate both the opportunity and the challenge. Nigeria imported approximately US$766 million in pharmaceuticals in 2025, with India supplying roughly US$394 million and China US$131 million. Ghana imported approximately US$301 million, with India supplying about US$140 million.

Sri Lanka cannot simply offer another generic product and expect to beat India on price. We must identify specialised products, reliable supply arrangements, partnerships and, where commercially justified, local production or packaging.

Stop Promoting Sectors—Identify Products

Sri Lanka now needs an Africa Export Opportunity Study based on individual products, not broad sectors.

The Export Development Board, Foreign Ministry, chambers and private sector should jointly identify 15–20 priority products. For each product, Sri Lanka should calculate the HS code, African annual import demand, principal suppliers, Chinese and Indian market shares, applicable duties, freight from Colombo, regulatory requirements, distributor margins and final landed price.

That will tell us where Sri Lanka genuinely has a competitive advantage.

The Commercial Test

Before spending resources promoting a product, apply one simple test:

African import demand + Sri Lankan production capability + tariff + freight + distributor margin + regulatory cost = final landed competitiveness against China, India and local African production.

Only products that pass this test should receive concentrated export-promotion resources.

This would move Sri Lanka away from exhibitions, delegations and general discussions towards what ultimately matters: specific products, specific buyers, specific distributors and actual export orders.

Give Our Missions Targets

Commercial diplomacy must become results-driven. The Government should set clear annual trade and investment targets for every Sri Lankan mission in Africa.

Missions should be evaluated not merely on diplomatic activity, but on buyers and distributors identified, business introductions made, investments facilitated, market barriers resolved and measurable exports generated.

In a competitive Africa, our missions must become active economic frontlines not merely diplomatic outposts.

A practical strategy could operate through three commercial gateways: Nairobi for East and Central Africa, Accra for selected West African markets and Lagos for Nigeria.

Sri Lanka’s total exports of goods and services reached approximately US$17.25 billion in 2025. Capturing even a small additional share of Africa’s enormous import market could, therefore, make a meaningful contribution to export earnings, investment and foreign-exchange generation.

Africa Will Not Wait

Sri Lankan exporters must stop looking at Africa as a distant or difficult market and start treating it as a strategic growth market.

We cannot compete with China and India on scale, but we can compete on quality, specialisation, flexibility and reliability. Exporters must identify country-specific opportunities, establish strong local distributors, build partnerships with African businesses and use Sri Lankan companies already operating on the continent as gateways into regional supply chains.

Where freight and tariffs weaken competitiveness, businesses must be prepared to move towards local assembly, joint ventures and manufacturing in Africa. Exporters cannot do it alone. They need aggressive, measurable and results-driven commercial diplomacy from Sri Lanka’s missions.

Africa is buying. Its markets are being captured now. Sri Lanka must stop watching from the sidelines. We must enter, compete, build our presence and secure our share.

(Ambassador Kana Kananathan is a businessman, Diplomat, lobbyist and an expert in African affairs, with over four decades of experience on the African continent. A long-time resident of Africa, he served as Sri Lanka’s envoy to Uganda and Kenya, with concurrent accreditation to 22 African Nations, and was the permanent representative to UN Habitat and UN environmental Programme. Over the years, he has been the Elections Monitor across the continent, working closely with African governments, and built enduring partnerships with African leaders. He also served as Economic and Investments Advisor to former President Professor Alpha Condé of the Republic of Guinea)

Features

Memories and Midnight Magic: Recipe for a perfect 31st Night dance

Published

3 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

The heart of a great 31st Night dance is memory, and memories come rushing back when those 70s, 80s and 90s golden oldies begin to play — those timeless tunes that make revellers, young and old, rush to the floor and dance the night away.

A perfect 31st Night is not just a party. It is a journey. A journey through time.

The music should flow like a love story. Start slow, start soft. Let couples glide into a waltz for romance. Let the floor come alive with a twist, a rock ‘n’ roll, a jive. Let nostalgia build with beautiful sing-along oldies generally associated with a New Year’s Eve dance.

This is the art that many of our entertainers seem to have forgotten.

The final hour, before midnight, is sacred. It should be collective energy at its peak. The entire crowd, on the dance floor, linking arms, swaying together, singing, at the top of their voices, those sing-along favourites.

Yes, I’m referring to those immortal, nostalgic favourites that unite the world: ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ ‘When The Saints Go Marching In,’ ‘Roll Out The Barrel,’ ‘Celebration,’ ‘She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain,’ ‘Happy Days Are Here Again,’ and so many more.

One wonders if some of our modern entertainers have even heard of these nostalgia anthems that traditionally lead up to the dawning of the New Year! This is not just music; this is ritual.

Then comes THE moment: Lights dim. Music pauses. A hush falls. The countdown begins — 10, 9, 8… — hugs, wishes, tears of joy, and then … ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ Hands crossed, voices united, bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new. That moment makes or breaks the night.

Here is the truth that many genuine 31st Night revellers feel but hesitate to say — an overdose of baila music at New Year’s Eve events is NOT welcome.

Of course, baila is required. Baila is our Sri Lankan heartbeat! But a 31st Night dance is for everyone.

When it’s ONLY baila, the twist and rock n’ roll lovers, the waltz kings and queens feel left out. And they are the very people who MADE nostalgia! They are the die-hard revellers who have kept the 31st Night spirit alive for decades.

A family mentioned to me that they went along with friends for a 31st Night dance, in the city, to usher in 2026, and were thoroughly disappointed with the setup.

The bands in attendance, they said, failed to generate the excitement generally associated with a 31st Night event.

If given a free hand, the music at certain Colombo venues will be mostly baila, and that is going to disappoint many. Some are already worried that it will be just a baila scene this year, as well.

A memorable 31st Night respects all rhythms … yes, a waltz for romance, a twist and rock n’ roll for that 60s magic, a cha-cha, a slow foxtrot, and then the baila, after the countdown anthem.

That balance is what makes it inclusive, classy, and truly fun-filled.

Organisers, especially in Colombo, should keep this in mind: let it be 70% nostalgia – Western, and 30% baila, with the last hour left for pure baila madness, after the New Year is in!

Organisers must work out the programme for their 31st Night and instruct the entertainers to follow those instructions. The band should not dictate the night; the spirit of nostalgia should.

This New Year, let’s give Colombo what it truly wants — memories, midnight magic, and music for every soul on the floor.

Let’s dance into 2027 with class.