COLOMBO: These are surreal times for Sri Lanka's political leaders. Never before have they been sought after, sympathized with and offered promises of assistance from an impressive list of international figures as has happened since the tsunamis ravaged the coast of this island nation.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, World Bank President James Wolfensohn and US Secretary of State Colin Powell were among the latest in this procession of largely first-time visitors that has wound its way through sections of the destroyed coast.

The list of concerned world leaders is expected to length as the country comes to grips with a tragedy that has left over 30,000 dead, nearly 12,000 of whom were children, and over one million displaced.

By the weekend, the Sri Lankan government estimated that the damage caused by the Dec 26 disaster was over 1.3 billion dollars. Devastation includes miles of flattened homes, schools and commercial buildings, long stretches of road ripped apart and the twisted railway tracks along the country's southern coast.

In all, the Indian Ocean tsunami has killed over 160,000 people, most of them in Indonesia's north-western Aceh province, making it among the world's worst natural disasters in decades. India, Malaysia and Thailand are among the other 12 countries that have suffered from the deadly waves.

Yet this surreal moment in Sri Lanka, the country worst affected after Indonesia, has given rise to a question aimed at the political leadership: will it give life to a more accommodating and conciliatory vision to rebuild the country, or revert to views that divide a deeply fractious land?

Hints of such a shift gained ground during the first week after the disaster, with arch rivals reaching out at times from across the many political divisions in this country of 19 million people.

Most notable was the common ground reached by sections of the government and members of the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels to help the tsunami victims in the heavily battered eastern regions.

At the same time, the government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga appeared willing to work with the country's opposition United National Party (UNP), a move that was applauded by the local press and commentators on television.

However, the little hope Kumaratunga triggered that her administration will pursue a policy of accommodation has begun to founder in the wake of moves that betray a clear political bias rather than the more urgently needed humanitarian one.

Colombo demonstrated this when it prevented UN chief Annan from visiting the areas in northern Sri Lanka held by the Tigers that had been as badly devastated as the rest of the country.

This move helped buttress the argument made by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as the rebels are officially known, that the government is denying tsunami victims in the north an equal share of the aid heading to the island.

In another realm, too, the country's political leaders are under scrutiny over the way it manages aid and assists the victims. Here the focus is on how civil society groups and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) get the people in the devastated regions to play pivotal roles in rebuilding their communities.

''A top-down approach will not work. The politicians have to let the people participate in the process of rebuilding," says Aritha Wikramanayake, a lawyer and founder of the Sri Lanka branch of Transparency International, the global anti-corruption watchdog.

''Organizations working at the grassroots will have to be brought into the process," he added during an interview. ''We will have to watch those trying to make political gains from relief. It is already happening."

Some political leaders are backing that call, hoping that it will mark a shift from the customary system that dominates aid programmes - where the government or local political heavyweights create bottlenecks aimed at controlling the flow of assistance in order to gain all the credit for it.

"The policymakers must push for a bottom-up approach in rebuilding areas affected by the tsunami, otherwise we will create tension and acute social problems," Rauff Hakeem, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, a political party that has a wide following in the devastated eastern areas, told IPS.

''The people should be made to understand what is at stake and brought into the picture from the beginning," he added.

While Colombo has still to embrace such a people-centred approach, the prospect of ignoring it completely and returning to the old top-down system is being challenged since the tsunami.

Spearheading such efforts is a broad spectrum of civic groups, sports bodies, foreign volunteers, charities, NGOs, businesses and individuals who are drafting plans to build shattered communities at a speed that the government cannot match.

For the moment, the Sri Lankan government has still to answer the question that these initiatives prompt: Will it, in a show of endorsing the politics of accommodation, back such an abundance of goodwill in rebuilding the country? Or is this - a shift by Colombo to place humanitarian and development needs over narrow political gain - too much to expect? -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service.