When elephants fight ordinary citizens get crushed

President Ranil Wickremesinghe returned home on Friday night after completing a tight scheduled official visit to Japan and the Philippines.

One of the main objectives for his visit was to secure support from the Japan-led initiative for the debt restructuring process and restore diplomatic ties which soured in the past due to disastrous decisions taken by the previous administration.

Addressing the 55th Annual Meeting of the Asian Development Bank Board of Governors in the Philippines, President Wickremesinghe said amid major economic stress, Sri Lanka had undertaken an unprecedented fiscal effort as part of the Government’s commitment to restoring the country’s debt sustainability.

President Wickremesinghe, who still leads the grand old elephant party for decades, and is known for his sarcastic remarks, used a local saying to explain the current plight of small developing economies that are at the receiving end of potential global recession and a war in Eastern Europe.

“As they say in many of our countries, when the elephants fight, it is the grass that is crushed. This is the predicament of many of our member countries. Therefore, we must overcome the geopolitical rivalries to address the major threats to our existence, otherwise we will all fail leading to instability in our region reminiscent of Europe after World War I,” he said.

In the local context, it did not matter whether elephants or ants get crushed, but at the end of the day, ordinary citizens had to pay the price.