Features
Follow Che’s footsteps – lead by example, not words: My Talk with Aleida Guevara, daughter of Che Guevara
by Nilanta Ilangamuwa
It was 1967. In La Higuera, a small village in the Vallegrande region of the Santa Cruz Department in Bolivia, there was a man leading a small guerrilla group that had been fighting for months to transform the Bolivian state. He had arrived in Bolivia from Cuba in November 1966 under the pseudonym “Fernando.” Initially, some members of the Bolivian Communist Party supported him, but the support was insufficient. At that time, General René Barrientos, a staunch anti-communist, was Bolivia’s de facto leader following a military coup that ousted President Víctor Paz Estenssoro in 1964. Barrientos was then elected president in a disputed election in 1966. The United States, determined to stop the spread of communism across Latin America, supported Barrientos. The harsh reality of the situation sealed the fate of the revolutionary who had come to Bolivia under the name Fernando. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, as the world knows him, took his last breath there.
On October 8, 1967, Che and his group hid in a deep ravine near La Higuera, known as “El Yuro Ravine,” to avoid capture by the military. However, a battle broke out shortly after. During the firefight, Che was wounded in the leg and captured by Bolivian soldiers.
Afterwards, Che was taken to a small schoolhouse in La Higuera, where he spent the night. The next day, October 9, 1967, Bolivian authorities, with the assistance of CIA agents, decided to execute him. Mario Terán, a Bolivian army sergeant, was assigned as Che’s executioner. Their plan was to shoot him and then claim that Che had died in combat, as executing a prisoner without trial is a war crime. According to reports, Che faced his executioner without fear and said in his final moments, “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.” While some accounts suggest that Mario Terán suffered severe mental distress afterwards and committed suicide in 1974, others claim he lived a quiet life until his death around the year 2000.
For years, the location of Che’s remains was a closely guarded state secret. In 1997, after decades of silence, a team of Cuban and Bolivian forensic scientists discovered a mass grave in Vallegrande that contained his remains and those of several comrades. His remains were later brought back to Cuba and buried in a mausoleum in Santa Clara, the city where he won a decisive battle during the Cuban Revolution.
This year marks 57 years since Che was killed. The mahogany plant he planted at Yahalakelle Rubber Estate, later renamed Che Park, in the Moragahahena area of Horana during his visit to Sri Lanka in 1959 has since grown into a towering tree. Che’s admirers honour his memory by tending to the tree every year. As in many countries around the world, some in this country also attempt to co-opt figures like Che to serve the interests of certain social groups. In some cases, this “blind adoration” prevents a critical examination of the deep socio-political ideas that Che sought to convey, leading to subtle distortions of his thoughts.
This special conversation with Aleida Guevara March, Che’s daughter, is significant in this context. The eldest of four children born to Ernesto “Che” Guevara and his second wife, Aleida Guevara is a Cuban physician. She has worked as a doctor in Angola, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, and is currently practising at the William Soler Children’s Hospital in Havana.
I first asked her: Aleida, how did your father’s revolutionary ideals shape your personal values and outlook on life? What specific moments from your childhood reflect his influence on you?
“Unfortunately, I lived with my father for a very short time, and I only have a handful of memories,” she began. Reflecting further on those memories, she added: “But those times were very beautiful. My father woke me up early in the morning. I was always surprised by how early he rose. He would take me with him to do voluntary work. I remember going with him to work alongside sugarcane workers. Even before entering the plantation, I can still recall how he interacted with those people. I remember how he used to cut sugarcane and give me a piece to eat. They talked about many things. I had a lot of fun at that time.
“I participated in voluntary services from a young age, but it was my mother who put me in a position to be a working woman in today’s society. Without her, we would not have been able to receive an education like any other Cuban child. Children often lose their fathers, especially a world-famous guerrilla. It is impossible to fill that gap, and many people try to address it from a material point of view. However, my mother stood up like an extraordinary fortress and ensured we had everything that other Cuban children did.
“We lived in such an environment. We were educated and brought up as ordinary women and men, with our feet on the ground. Today, we have become socially useful citizens because of that deep social understanding and education instilled by our parents,” she stated.
One of the main things that emerge from examining Che’s writings is that he was not only interested in overthrowing governments but also in building a new kind of socialist society. He believed that revolution should create a “new man” (hombre nuevo), enriched not by material incentives but by moral values. In his view, socialist citizens are people working for the collective good, guided by deep moral principles of solidarity, self-sacrifice, and revolution. This idea, he emphasized, was in stark contrast to the Soviet model, which relied too heavily on material rewards and failed to cultivate true socialist consciousness.
In this context, Aleida was next asked how, in her view, her father’s legacy has evolved over the decades since his death. She was also asked, “Do you believe that modern interpretations of his life and works are consistent with his original intentions, or have they changed significantly?”
In response, she noted, “Some people try to distort my father’s work and life. They devote their lives to it. But they rarely succeed. Che is a coherent example.”
She further mentioned, “He said what he thought and did what he said. He never asked anyone to do what he couldn’t do. His revolutionary ethics set an example for those around him. Respect for people is very important. Unfortunately, we have not achieved everything we want, and not all his works have been studied in depth.
“But his enemies could not crush him or make him disappear. He was such a complete person that anyone who learns about him is drawn to him. My father was a boundary breaker.
“Che is in faraway places and different cultures. We need to study him and master his ideas more. He is still a symbol of an extraordinary life. Our goal is to use his life as a tool to learn and create a more just world for everyone.”
It is well known that as a young medical student, Che took a motorcycle trip across the South American continent with his friend Alberto Granado. In 1952, he travelled with his companion for eight months, visiting various countries, including Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela, covering more than eight thousand kilometres.
The visit gave him a deeper understanding of the true nature of the social inequalities, exploitation, and poverty afflicting the region. It was in Guatemala that Che began to solidify his Marxist ideology in 1954, which coincided with the overthrow of the progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz in a CIA-backed coup in an operation code-named Operation PBSuccess. Witnessing the violence of imperialist intervention firsthand, Che determined that the only way to bring about real change in Latin America was through armed revolution with socialist consciousness.
Accordingly, Che Guevara played a crucial role in various revolutionary movements throughout Latin America. I asked Aleida, “What do you see as the most notable impact of his efforts in these regions? Are there specific countries or events that exemplify his contribution to the fight for social justice?”
In response, she said, “Che broke boundaries. He wasn’t just in Latin America; he still lives on in Africa, Asia, and Old Europe. Che was guided by ideals. Consider, for example, what is happening in Palestine today.
“My father went to Palestine in 1959. When he arrived, the Palestinian leaders explained the situation. Many people mistakenly think that this is a new problem. In fact, the Palestinians had already been expelled from their lands. They were forced to migrate from their territories. Most of the Gaza Strip was full of people.
“Dad didn’t want to see this suffering. He wanted to know where people were preparing to resist that abuse and where they were building weapons to support it. Today, the Palestinian people are fighting for the right to have their own land and culture. Che is relevant today. That’s right. Don’t you think so too?”
Decades after Che’s death, we are experiencing a different world. The world is more fragmented than ever before. The Western military alliance, led by NATO, is expanding, via proxies, into Asia, Africa, and Latin America. At a time when nearly nine hundred American military bases are located around the world, many aspiring nations are rallying for an alternative.
I next asked her: Given the complex political context in Latin America today, what are the biggest challenges to the ideals your father presented? How should current and future generations work to achieve his vision of equality and social justice?
In response, she said, “As you mentioned, the political landscape in Latin America is complex, but it’s even more intricate in Asia, the Middle East, and especially Africa. Che’s influence is not limited to one region; as I said before, he transcended borders.
“New generations should study him more. They should learn how to use his ideas as tools for life. Reading Che fosters unity among social movements seeking a better world. We must never lose respect for the people, for freedom and sovereignty. We must always affirm the necessity of these inviolable principles.”
“Che taught us something else. Anyone who calls themselves a leftist, anyone who aspires to a better world, must have a strong revolutionary ethos. It’s not just about talking or urging people to act; it’s about walking in Che’s footsteps and leading by example. This is especially important today, when many claim that these long-held principles will be lost on future generations.
“But the real question is: how do we educate them (this younger generation)? How do we instill in them respect for other people and for nature, for cooperation and love? They can help create the changes needed for a fairer world for everyone. How actively involved they will be depending on how we educate the new generations.”
Another important point to note is that Che often emphasized the significance of women in revolutionary movements. I finally asked Aleida: As the daughter of an influential figure like Che, how do you see the role of women in your father’s work and in the broader context of the Latin American Revolution? What lessons can be learned from their contributions and struggles?
In response, she said, “Before Che, the apostle of the Cuban Revolution, José Martí, highlighted the role of women in revolutions. He stated that even women who send their children to the battlefields to fight for freedom and sovereignty should be involved in a true revolution.
“Martí said something very beautiful: ‘Motherly love for the motherland is not the absurd love of the earth or the grass under our feet. It is the invincible hatred of those who oppress us and the eternal resentment towards those who attack us.’ My father studied Martí, respected him, admired him, and followed his ideas.
“There are very beautiful things that are repeated among great men. Respect for women, the right of all women to be considered equal to our comrades, is very important. He always said that a true revolutionary defends their ideas to the last consequence. But a woman defends her ideals. Not only does she defend a province or a nation; in her configuration, there should be 50% women. They understood that the participation of women in the whole process is essential; the tenderness that comes from a woman is important to fill it with energy. Therefore, I think we have to work a lot more on that side.”
Finally, she said, “There are many parts of the world that are still referred to as so-called first-world societies where women are not respected or allowed to have equal rights to education. The social acceptance we need is not yet established. We need to work on this. A culture that treats women as inferior even to cattle has existed for centuries. It makes it difficult to change the social injustice that we all aspire to. Che’s real struggle was based on this need.”
Prof. Ranjith Senaratne,
Emeritus Professor in Crop Science and former Vice-Chancellor,
University of Ruhuna and General President of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (2023) and
Prof. Prasad Jayaweera,
Dean, Faculty of Computing, University of Sri Jayawardenapura
Rice is not merely another crop in Sri Lanka. It is our staple food, an integral part of our history and culture, and a foundation of the civilisation that flourished around our ancient hydraulic systems. Revered as Buddha Bhogaya, the Buddha’s crop, rice has sustained our people for more than two millennia. Yet, remarkably, a country with such a profound relationship with rice continues to lurch from one rice crisis to another.
At one time, we have a surplus. At another, we face shortages. Prices rise sharply, consumers complain, farmers struggle to obtain remunerative prices, millers and traders become the focus of public attention, imports are hurriedly arranged, and governments announce yet another set of measures to contain the crisis. Then, after the immediate problem subsides, the matter recedes from the national agenda, until the next crisis arrives.
Why does this keep happening despite decades of agricultural research, policy interventions, expert committees and public debate?
Perhaps because we have been asking the wrong question. The fundamental problem is not simply how to produce more rice. Nor is it merely a question of prices, imports, fertiliser, farmers, millers or markets. The rice conundrum is a complex national systems problem.
We cannot solve a system by fixing its parts in isolation
Sri Lanka’s rice sector is an intricate web of interconnected systems involving agriculture, land, water, climate, technology, finance, energy, transport, markets, trade, governance, institutions and consumer behaviour. A decision made in one part of this system can have consequences, sometimes unintended, in another.
A change in fertiliser policy, for example, can affect productivity and production costs, which in turn influence farmer profitability, market prices and the need for imports. Irrigation decisions affect not only production, but also water availability, energy use and environmental sustainability. Guaranteed prices influence farmers’ cropping decisions, while import policies can simultaneously protect consumers and weaken incentives for domestic production. Likewise, market concentration can affect both the price received by farmers and the price paid by consumers. This is precisely why isolated interventions so often produce disappointing results. We keep treating symptoms while leaving the underlying system largely untouched.
For decades, we have generated valuable scientific knowledge on individual aspects of rice production and marketing. But knowledge generated within disciplinary and institutional silos does not automatically translate into solutions to complex real-world problems. What is needed now is a fundamentally different way of thinking.
From a “rice crop” to a “rice system”
The first step is to stop looking at rice simply as something that is grown in a paddy field.
The rice system begins with land, water, seed, inputs, technology and finance. It extends through cultivation, harvesting, drying, milling, storage, transport, wholesale and retail marketing, and finally to the consumer’s table. At every stage, there are different interests, incentives, constraints and actors: farmers, farmer organisations, input suppliers, machinery operators, millers, traders, wholesalers, retailers, financial institutions, government agencies, researchers and consumers.
And hovering over the entire system are climate change, changing consumer preferences, technological transformation and national economic conditions. A weakness anywhere in this chain can compromise the performance of the whole system.
Consider post-harvest losses. If significant quantities of rice are lost because of inadequate drying, storage or processing facilities, increasing production alone cannot solve the problem. Similarly, if farmers produce efficiently but face weak markets and poor bargaining power, productivity gains may not translate into improved livelihoods.
The question, therefore, should not be “How much rice can we produce?” but “How can we make the entire rice system work better?”
That requires us to see the connections.
The missing ingredient: reliable, real-time information
There is another fundamental weakness that deserves urgent attention: we still lack a comprehensive, integrated, interoperable and reliable national information system for rice. Information is scattered among different institutions, often collected using different methodologies and not necessarily available when decisions need to be made.
How much rice will actually be produced? How much is in storage? What is the likely demand? Where are the emerging production shortfalls? What are the stocks held by different actors? How are prices moving along the value chain? What are the likely consequences of climate conditions? Without timely and reliable answers to such questions, policymakers are forced to make critical decisions with incomplete information. This is not merely an administrative inconvenience. It is a national food-security vulnerability.
Sri Lanka should therefore seriously consider establishing a National Rice Intelligence and Decision Support System (NRIDSS), an integrated digital platform that brings together relevant real-time information from agriculture, meteorology, irrigation, markets, trade, statistics and other institutions. Such a system could support production forecasting, market monitoring, import decisions, early warning and evidence-based policy formulation. In an increasingly uncertain climate and volatile global economy, this should no longer be regarded as a luxury. It is becoming an essential component of national food-system governance.
The deeper problems cannot be ignored
A systems approach would also force us to confront some uncomfortable structural realities. Why does productivity remain relatively low despite decades of research? Why are so many holdings too small to achieve economies of scale? Why are modern technologies and precision agriculture not being adopted more rapidly? Why do farmers often have limited bargaining power? Why do substantial losses occur after harvesting? Why can market power become concentrated in a relatively small number of actors? Why are guaranteed prices sometimes announced too late to influence farmers’ production decisions? Why are policy interventions so often reactive rather than proactive? And how will droughts, floods, temperature extremes, changing rainfall patterns and emerging pests affect the stability of rice production in the years ahead? These are not separate questions. They are parts of the same system.
From crisis management to systems governance
Sri Lanka does not need another isolated discussion about rice. What is needed is a national policy dialogue and action forum that brings all relevant actors together, not merely to exchange speeches, but to develop a shared understanding of the system and agree on what needs to be done. Such collaboration must go beyond consultation or the exchange of views. The different parties need to work together from problem definition through to implementation, bringing their diverse knowledge, perspectives, interests and practical experience into a common process.
Farmers bring contextual and experiential knowledge; industry actors understand market realities and operational constraints; scientists contribute evidence and analytical capabilities; policymakers bring institutional and regulatory perspectives; while technology and data specialists can provide new tools for understanding and managing the system. When these different perspectives are brought together systematically, they can reveal interdependencies, challenge assumptions, identify feasible interventions and generate solutions that are evidence-based, practically implementable and socially acceptable.
This is the essence of a transdisciplinary systems approach: not simply working across disciplines, but bringing together multiple stakeholders and multiple forms of knowledge to co-create solutions and share responsibility for outcomes. The process should therefore go beyond presentations and speeches. It should involve systems mapping, causal analysis, stakeholder dialogue, scenario planning and the participatory identification of the critical bottlenecks and leverage points in the rice system. Most importantly, it should distinguish between what is urgent and what is important, and between interventions that merely alleviate symptoms and those capable of changing the underlying behaviour of the system itself.
We need an implementation roadmap, not another report
There is, however, one important caveat. Sri Lanka has no shortage of reports, recommendations and policy documents. What we often lack is sustained implementation. Any national initiative on the rice conundrum must therefore end not with another set of broad recommendations but with a prioritised national action roadmap. It should identify short-, medium- and long-term actions, assign institutional responsibilities, establish timelines and define measurable indicators of progress. The ultimate objective should be to move Sri Lanka from reactive crisis management to proactive systems governance.
A national opportunity
The rice conundrum may, in fact, provide Sri Lanka with an opportunity that extends well beyond rice to deal with other important crops. If we can demonstrate that a complex national problem can be addressed by bringing together science, policy, stakeholder knowledge, real-time information and systems thinking, the approach could become a model for addressing other persistent challenges, from climate resilience and water security to energy, food systems and disaster risk.
The choice before us is therefore quite stark. We can continue responding to each rice crisis as it emerges, adjusting prices, arranging imports, appealing to millers, reassuring consumers and supporting farmers, only to repeat the cycle later. Or we can step back and ask a more fundamental question:
What is it about the way our rice system is structured and governed that continually produces these crises?
That is the question that needs to be answered. Sri Lanka has the scientific expertise, institutional capacity and stakeholder knowledge required to do so. What is needed now is the willingness to bring these fragmented sources of knowledge together and examine the rice sector as one interconnected system.
Our ancient civilisation understood the importance of interconnectedness: land, water, agriculture and society were organised as parts of a larger whole. Perhaps, in confronting the modern rice conundrum, we need to rediscover that systems wisdom, this time supported by modern science, technology, real-time data and transdisciplinary thinking. The time has come to stop merely managing the rice crisis. It is time to fix the system that keeps producing it.
It is against this backdrop that the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS) proposes to convene shortly a “National Policy Dialogue and Action Forum on the Rice Conundrum in Sri Lanka”, bringing together the key stakeholders across the rice system. The Forum is intended to provide a platform for moving beyond piecemeal and reactive interventions towards a coordinated, evidence-based and transdisciplinary systems approach, one capable of generating lasting and pragmatic solutions to what has become an “island-shaking national issue”.
78 Years of Demagoguery, Not Democracy
by Brigadier Ranjan de Silva
rpcdesilva@gmail.com
On the 4th of February every year, we raise the lion flag and speak of democracy. We speak of 78 years of “self-rule.” But honesty demands we ask: what kind of rule have we actually had? It was not democracy. Democracy is government for the common good, constrained by law, informed by reason, and accountable to truth.
What Sri Lanka has had for 78 years is demagoguery — government by manipulation, by party, and by passion.
Defining the Curse:
The dictionary defines demagoguery as “political activity that seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by rational argument.” Its tools are simple: divide the people, promise the impossible, demonize the opponent, and govern for the next election, not the next generation. That is the political culture we inherited in 1948 and perfected since.
78 Years of Evidence:
The record is not ambiguous. Policy by Pendulum – 1948–2024. Instead of a national development plan, we got a partisan wrecking ball. 1956: The “Sinhala Only Act” was passed not after linguistic study, but as an election mobilization tool. 1970-77: The SLFP nationalized private enterprise and imposed import controls. 1977: The UNP reversed course with an open economy overnight. 2005-2014: Mega infrastructure was built on Chinese loans with no feasibility transparency. 2015-2019: Those same projects were called “white elephants” and stalled. 2020-2021: The organic fertilizer ban was announced as a populist “green” policy, reversed 6 months later after it collapsed agriculture and food prices. The Colombo Port City, Hambantota Port, and the Central Expressway all followed the same pattern: started, stopped, rebranded. The country pays twice. The party takes credit once. Economics as Election Candy. Demagoguery is expensive. 1960s: Subsidized rice to win rural votes, leading to the 1971 food crisis.
2005-2014:
Fuel subsidies and public sector hiring sprees that doubled the wage bill. 2019:
Unfunded tax cuts that removed Rs. 500 billion in annual revenue with no offset. By April 2022, external debt hit $51 Billion and we defaulted for the first time. The party that cut taxes was not in power to manage the IMF program. The party that inherited it was blamed for the austerity. This is the cycle. Institutions captured. A democracy needs referees. We turned them into party cadres. The 17th Amendment 2001 created independent commissions. The 18th Amendment 2010 abolished them. The 19th 2015 restored them. The 20th 2020 gutted them again. Police transfers, university vice-chancellors, and state bank chairmen have all been decided by party headquarters, not merit.
When the institution serves the party, the citizen gets leftovers.
Identity over Ideas: From 1956 to 1983 to 2009 to 2022, our elections have been won on fear, not spreadsheets. “They will erase your language.” “They will sell the country.” “Only we can protect Buddhism/the minorities/the nation.”
Rational debate on debt, productivity, or climate adaptation never wins a rally. Prejudice does. That is demagoguery by definition.
Party Interest subverted the National Interest. The core damage of 78 years of partisan politics is this: the nation became secondary to the party. Need power sector reform? Impossible, because our unions will strike. Need to cut 300,000 ghost employees? Impossible, because our voters will defect. Need a 20-year education and export plan? Impossible, because it won’t show results before the next election. So, we borrowed. We patched. We lied. The result: a railway system that still runs on 1950s engines, hospitals without paracetamol in 2022, and a brain drain of 300,000+ skilled workers since the crisis. The parties rotated. The country declined.
The Opposition’s Original Sin and here, all parties share guilt equally. In opposition, the job is not to govern. It is to destroy. The UNP in the 60s called the SLFP “communist.” The SLFP in the 70s called the UNP “imperialist.” The JVP called both “traitors.” The SJB, SLPP, and NPP today use the same script with new logos. Every tax is “anti-people.” Every reform is “a sell-out.” Every crisis is proof the other side is evil and must be removed at any cost. Then they win. And implement 80% of what they opposed. Because demagoguery has no principles, only positions. 78 years of unmerciful, bad-faith criticism has not produced accountability. It has produced cynicism. The public now believes all politicians are the same — because for 78 years, they have behaved the same.
Breaking the Curse:
Changing the party in power will not end this. We must change the incentives that reward demagoguery. Three reforms are non-negotiable: Bind future Parliaments to national policy. Pass 10-year frameworks for energy, education, and public debt with 2/3 majority protection. Infrastructure and fiscal rules should outlast one government, as they do in Chile and New Zealand. Depoliticize the state. Independent commissions for police, elections, public service, and bribery must have constitutional budgets and appointment panels that exclude MPs. No more 18th/20th Amendment style rollbacks. Demand better from voters We must stop rewarding the best slogan and start demanding the best spreadsheet. Town halls over rallies. Costings over promises. A 5-year plan over a 5-minute speech.
In 1948, we did not inherit democracy. We inherited an election. For 78 years we have used that election to choose our favourite demagogue. The prize has been debt, division, and decay. The curse of partisan politics will only end when citizens and leaders agree on one principle: Party second. Country first. Until then, February 4th will remain a ceremony, not a celebration.
Export diversification – Missing the wood for the trees – Part II
by Gomi Senadhira
Sri Lanka established its diplomatic presence in the Gulf region only in the early 1980s. First, a small embassy was opened in Abu Dhabi, covering the UAE. Then in 1982, embassies were opened in Jeddah and Kuwait. The embassy in Jeddah covered Saudi Arabia while Kuwait was responsible for Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain. Commercial Diplomats were also assigned to these two embassies. A senior private sector executive, with experience in marketing, was posted to Jedda as the commercial counsellor. I was posted to Kuwait as a second secretary (Commercial). Our instructions were very clear. Focus not only on traditional exports. Product diversification was a priority.
Developing Markets for Agricultural Products
At that time, Minister Lalith Athulathmudali had just launched his Export Production Villages (EPV) programme. He believed that the EPVs working closely with the exporters would provide an ideal opportunity for rural households to directly benefit from the government’s new open trade policy. Agricultural products, particularly fruits and vegetables, were a key component of this approach and the ministry thought that the Gulf countries, with large Sri Lankan communities, would have a ready-made market for these items. Thus, from day one we were compelled to explore the market for nontraditional exports; fruits and vegetables (F&Vs) were on the top of our priority list.
From cane baskets to cardboard boxes
Fortunately, the market for the F&Vs products in the region was at a very early stage of development. That provided an opportunity for Sri Lankan exporters, who were also inexperienced, to work with the importers and grow together. For example, in Kuwait, one of our first customers for F&Vs was a small supermarket where the manager was a Sri Lankan. After the first shipment arrived, he invited me to inspect the shipment. I visited the supermarket and was shocked by what I saw. While produce from other countries was packed nicely in cardboard boxes, our packaging mirrored transport to Manning market, cane baskets! As a result, fresh produce had suffered significant damage. A long report, with photographs, to the trade ministry produced an immediate response. After all, this was a pet project of the Minister. Within weeks, shipments were packed in cardboard boxes. Immediately afterwards, an expert on packaging from the Commonwealth Secretariat was sent to Kuwait with an official from the EDB to study the problem.
By then, we had also managed to develop a friendship with the management of the Salmiya supermarket, a large upmarket supermarket patronised by wealthy Kuwaitis and expats. It was a cooperative and the chairman was a Kuwaiti public servant. I could only meet him after 6 PM when his large office functioned as a diwaniya, a cherished cultural space in Kuwaiti society. Guests moved in and out the room. I had to spend time with them sipping many cups of tea. Though that meant at least two hours on each visit, it helped greatly to develop a close relationship. The general manager was an efficient and friendly Palestinian. After many visits we had succeeded in getting an order for F&Vs. The day after the first shipment arrived, I got an urgent call from the GM to come and inspect it. Once again, I was in for a surprise. Inside the cold room, the consignments from other countries were stacked neatly on top of each other, while vegetable boxes from Sri Lanka had collapsed once placed on top of each other, crushing the produce within.
Fortunately, our packaging experts arrived in Kuwait soon after this incident. They spent two days in the Salmiya Supermarket, studying the packaging from other origins. We were also successful in assuring the GM our packaging would improve. After that, packaging improved and exports moved smoothly. With that, Sri Lanka emerged as a small but reliable supplier to the mainstream market, not just the ethnic segment of the market.
Export of Fresh Vegetables by Sea
Towards the end of my tour, a Sri Lankan businessman requested me to find a buyer for cabbages, which he was prepared to export in large quantities by sea. I introduced him to the largest fruit and vegetable importer in Kuwait. Their regular suppliers of similar vegetables were Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Luckily, the company was keen to diversify the supply sources. A few weeks later, the first container load of cabbages from Sri Lanka arrived in Kuwait. Immediately after the arrival of the container, I visited the company. They were pleased with the quality and the price and were looking forward to importing more fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a one-off event. Later on, when I was back in Sri Lanka, the exporter informed me that he couldn’t continue with it due to the problems with the local supply chains.
Floriculture
During the period I was asked by the EDB to explore the market for floricultural products, more particularly for cut flowers. At that time Kuwait was a relatively large importer of cut flowers and live plants. The main suppliers were the Netherlands and Colombia. Importers were also reluctant to move out of the established supply chain, particularly due to “snob value” associated with the product from Europe. However, after some difficulties, one importer agreed to place a pre-paid trial order. After the arrival of that shipment, he was impressed by the quality of the product and the orders expanded rapidly. As a result, by the end of 1985 Kuwait had become a major buyer of Sri Lanka’s floricultural products.
From village to global markets
As a result of the proactive promotional work undertaken by the EDB and the embassies in the region, by 1985, Sri Lanka had managed to acquire a small but significant share of the F&V and floriculture markets in the GCC countries. We had also identified domestic supply chain issues that hindered exports. All that was done, long before Southeast Asian or African countries even entered into that market. In fact, my Southeast Asian colleagues used to contact me often to reserve “durian” for them at the “Sri Lankan supermarket”.
Most importantly, a substantially large share of produce from Sri Lanka in Kuwaiti supermarkets originated in the EPVs. Of course, that didn’t just happen. The ministry (or the minister) using the carrot and stick approach “encouraged” exporters to buy the produce directly from the newly established EPVs. (The writer can be reached at senadhiragomi@gmail.com)
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