Sri Lanka has many friends but with some of them she needs no enemies. The best time for testing a nation’s friends is her adversity. Now that Sri Lanka’s war against terror to protect her territorial integrity has reached a crucial phase and she is in need of assistance, her fair-weather friends are deserting her one by one, laying bare their true faces.

It is against this backdrop that Japan’s reported threat to curtail aid to Sri Lanka, if she goes ahead with her war to eliminate the LTTE, should be viewed. What’s up Japan’s sleeve? Is it a yen for promoting terrorism? That threat couldn’t have emanated from Japan’s antipathy towards war. For, she has joined forces with the US to battle the latter’s terrorism. The Japanese troops have been inducted in Iraq and Japanese ships committed to offensive operations to prevent arms being smuggled into Afghanistan. Never has Japan uttered a word critical of the US-led war on terror. So, a logical conclusion may be that Japan’s opposition to Sri Lanka’s war against terrorism is consequent on something else.

It may be that Japan as Sri Lanka’s major aid donor is under pressure from her western allies desirous of the perpetuation of the conflict here to further their interests in the region vis-à-vis the rising Asian giants, India and China, and hitherto untapped natural resources believed to be hidden in Sri Lanka’s territorial waters, to help let the LTTE off the hook. If Japan is offering her services as an economic hitman, it must be ashamed of targeting a friend that dared defend her in the aftermath of the World War II, when her present-day friends were demanding their pound of flesh by way of reparation.

Japan’s threat to cut aid, as articulated by her Special Envoy Yasushi Akashi, has come at a time when Sri Lanka is making preparations for her 60th anniversary of Independence. What is there to be celebrated on so grand a scale? The country is yet to shake off the shackles of neo colonialism. She even lacks the freedom to defend herself without permission from a handful of aid donors!

The need is felt more than ever for a real independence struggle. This time round, freedom needs to be achieved through economic development which is the only antidote to the interference by aid donors in the country’s internal affairs.

One generation has to suffer to prevent the country from ending up as a colony of aid donors if future generations are not to be doomed. And we happen to be that generation whether we like it or not. Grasp the nettle we must! A lesson ought to be drawn from how Japan painstakingly built herself to the present level in the post World War II period, facing as she did many a challenge. There is no point in lambasting the Japanese for what they are threatening to do to us. Whether they cut aid or not, while thanking them for what they have already done for this country, we must determine ourselves to build the economy and wean ourselves away from the foreign aid that comes with strings attached. Until then, this country will continue to be a comfort woman at the beck and call of the Japanese, the Norwegians, the Americans, the British et al.

There are no short-cuts to economic liberation, which has to be achieved through sheer hard work and tremendous sacrifice. If the present day rulers we are saddled with are the patriots that they claim to be, they must set an example by cutting down on waste and corruption and practising austerity. No lethargic mendicant nation given to profligacy and plagued by corruption can aspire to development.