The Great Divide

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

- By Mark Salter

The falconer cannot hear the falconer

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”

—W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming

LAST weekend's arrest of former Sri Lankan president (and many times prime minister) Ranil Wickremesinghe on corruption charges has unsurprisingly generated large amounts of heat — but not, so far at least, much light.

The charges themselves are the subject of continuing scrutiny and debate

The charges themselves are the subject of continuing scrutiny and debate. Does the failure to declare the costs incurred by a 2023 visit to the UK en route from official business in Cuba and New York constitute corrupt behaviour by the former president, and as such worthy of official investigation and eventual punishment?

The courts are expected to make a determination in this regard, most probably sooner rather than later. Suffice to say that for now, the jury remains — literally — out on the subject, with one side urging the Government to follow through on making a showcase of Wickremesinghe in its declared war on official coruption, the other decrying his arest as emblematic of a targeted NPP administration-directed campaign of political victimisation against its opponents.