A deconstruction of the Sri Lankan government’s post-war economic and human development model and it’s ideology

Abstract

Introduction:

The post-war Sri Lankan context marks a crucial phase in the political economic history of the country (Liyanage, 2011 and IPS, 2010). The comprehensive military defeat of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009, signified a fundamental change in the balance of political power in both North and South of Sri Lanka. This change, increased the political power through strengthening the parliamentary seats and the emotional support of the majority of the population. It has resultedin been able to accumulate a new breed of multidimensional legitimization to the war- triumphed Sri Lankan Government during the post- war period of 2009 – 2012.

The government has focused its attention on a major development exercise for the North including ‘Northern Spring’ (UthuruWasanthaya / Wadakkil Wasantham) based on the government’s centralized planning, financing and supervising architecture reflecting the ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ (Thoughts of Mahinda) development programmes. The above development architecture has been targeted to address immediate and long-term economic and humanitarian needs of war affected civilians in the North with a collective approach. The basic research question of this study is whether Rajapaksha-regime development programmes could address the politico- economic and human development issues of the war affected civilians in Northern Sri Lanka.