Inside Asian Gaming

October 2013 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 15 COVER STORY which isn’t deterred by the war crimes issue, is expected to play a significant role, as it is in the Maldives, where Chinese are now the largest visitor contingent and Putonghua- speaking front desk clerks and waiters and diving instructors are much in demand. Chinese money helped build the island chain’s foreign ministry headquarters and its national museum, and talks are in progress The clergy-dominated National Heritage Party has warned the government not to get too promiscuous with its casino favors, and the hardline Bodu Bala Sena, or “Buddhist Strength Force,” also has vowed to keep a close eye on any overly liberalizing tendencies. for PRC involvement in road construction and education—all part of a China strategy known as the “string of pearls” aimed at outflanking India in a region where the Maldives and Sri Lanka happen to sit on or near the most important shipping lanes in the world. None of this will matter much if Mr Rajapaksa can’t maintain order across the ethnic and religious divides that keep Sri Lanka at war with itself. The Tamil north remains under heavy military occupation. The UNP claims it lost the close-run 2010 presidential election Mr Rajapaksa captured with 50.3% of the vote because Tamils were forcibly kept from the polls. His Excellency has, however, bowed to international pressure and recently allowed the first provincial election in the north in 25 years. The Tamil National Alliance, the political wing of the defeated Tamil Tiger insurgents—terrorists, the government calls them—was expected to win, and there were reports of voter intimidation and attacks on candidates and harassment of election monitors. They won anyway. courts declared illegal. She was accused of financial irregularities, though it appears her offense was to rule that a $600 million development bill floated by Basil Rajapaksa had to be submitted to the provincial councils for approval. Things looked headed for a standoff when she refused to vacate her office, but then she relented, fearing violence, she said, according to news reports. As for the media, they’re on a tight leash, having been schooled by a quarter- century of civil war to toe the government line as a cost of staying in business and out of jail or worse. On a scale of press freedoms, Reporters Without Borders ranks Sri Lanka 165th of 173 countries. The monks are a different matter. They’ve succeeded in legislating limits on the sale of alcoholic beverages and they’ve prevailed on the government to close down all the country’s liquor stores. The clergy-dominated National Heritage Party has warned the government not to get too promiscuous with its casino favors, and the hardline Bodu Bala Sena (“Buddhist Strength Force”), the“unofficial police”of the Sinhalese majority, as it styles itself, also has vowed to keep a close eye on any tendencies it considers overly liberal. Earlier this year, the BBS was implicated in news reports in a wave of attacks on Muslim businesses. His Excellency, meanwhile, rails against sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States in the wake of evidence pointing to war crimes in the suppression of the Tamil revolt, which the UN also is investigating, and continues to push forward on the economic front. Billions of dollars in investments have been committed to improve and expand road and air transportation and port facilities. China, Government’s goal is 275,000 Chinese tourists by 2016.