A controversial power plant pits a bishop's word against a president's silence.
Sri Lanka's most senior Catholic bishop recently made a startling announcement at the country's biggest annual Catholic festival. President Chandrika Kumaratunga had scrapped plans to build a controversial coal-powered power station on the west coast 100 kilometres north of Colombo, said Bishop Frank Marcus Fernando, who claimed that he was informed personally of the fact by the president.
The crowd of several hundred thousand faithfuls, gathered at the feast of Saint Ann in the town of Talawila in August, burst into thunderous applause. National newspapers reported the speech on their front pages the next day, for it meant the end of years of acrimony between the church, environmentalists and residents of the area on one side, and the government on the other.
But strangely, the government stayed tightlipped on the issue. Journalists who tried to get comments from the president's office, got none. A few days later, came a statement from the Ceylon Electricity Board, the state-owned power company that is building the 600 million-dollar station, that contradicted the bishop's announcement. "We have not received instructions to stop work on the Nuraicholai project," said D.C. Wijeratne, additional general manager at the CEB. "Work is continuing." Bishop Fernando, however, stuck to his statement. "She said the government is returning the 600-million-dollar soft loan to the Japanese," he told reporters. But the president continued to remain silent.