By Sarojini Dutt

Jenner Edelman, the new Country Director of the controversial Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), had egg on her face when she was caught red-handed dishing-out fake news during a series of public presentations in Sri Lanka.

The MCC had acquired a malevolent reputation in Sri Lanka and the US was hellbent on whitewashing that image. Edelman embarked on a laundering campaign conducting a series of public presentations and artfully placed newspaper articles scripted by large US Corporate-funded organisations like Advocata.

Razeen Sally, a member of a secret and subversive organisation – The Mont Pelerin Society that is dedicated to destroying universal franchise and democracy -dutifully sang for his supper as instructed.

However, anger against the MCC  has been  snowballing and the Sri Lankan people are now demanding that any Presidential hopeful seeking their vote should publicly affirm before a Maha Sangha Council that he/she would not sign the MCC Agreement or any other similar Agreement, and that if such agreements, laws or Treaties have already been signed he/she would repeal such Agreements, Laws and Treaties when elected to office; furthermore, the people are demanding that the Presidential hopefuls make this the foremost statement, unambiguously, in their Manifesto.

It appears that the objective of Edelman’s programme, besides whitewashing the MCC, is to take the MCC off the political agenda at the forthcoming Election campaign.

When Edelman was caught out being untruthful and metaphorically with her pants down, critics were quick to pounce on her ham-handed deception, pithily describing her conduct as America’s ‘Millennium-Gate’ scandal.

Many in Sri Lanka have accused the MCC of subversion and of spearheading an alleged US military thrust into Sri Lanka; this campaign, people say, is in consonance with America’s much trumpeted, and bi-partisan, foreign policy doctrine of ‘Pivoting-to-Asia’ pronounced officially by Obama in 2012.

In all their presentations and contrived newspaper articles, Edelman and her assistant projected the MCC as an altruistic organisation, playing ‘Santa-Claus’ to the most poverty-stricken countries of the world and, making the poor in those countries rich.

Edelman went on to suggest that the MCC was created by Washington as a philanthropic arm of the US and not a tool of US foreign policy; she said that if Sri Lanka is not interested in America’s benefaction, the US would take their ‘gift’ to a more appreciative and grateful country.

Having said that, Edelman in the next breath did a positional pirouette;  rather sternly, she said, We are determined that Sri Lanka shall accept our ‘gift’; we shall sign the agreement before 17 Sep 19; if the people do not like it, the President, they elect, can annul the Compact at that time”.

Edelman then went on to say, The MCC has been maligned by much fake news. There are no electrified railway lines and there is no special economic Corridor running from Colombo to Trincomalee; everything being done by the MCC is what the Sri Lanka Government wants”.

At this point, a member of the audience got up; he fumbled through a wad of documents and, selecting one, he addressed Edelman, This document is not a spurious one; this document was produced by the MCC and was distributed by the MCC team leader Steve, at a meeting at Temple Trees, in September 2018, to all attendees that included legal officers from various banks and the President of the Bar Association, U R L De Silva.” This member of the audience then proceeded to show the first page of the document.

Turning towards the audience, this person then went on to show another of the pages from the document in hand, a page that had a Map. This writer has enlarged that map for greater clarity

As the lettering just above the map indicates, the map is a visual representation of the spatial structure of Sri Lanka in 2050, as perceived by the MCC.

Edelman was clearly upset and she mumbled feebly that Steve had erroneously shown the wrong map.

Contrary to what Edelman said, there is an electrified railway line running from Trincomalee to Colombo; see the map-legend on the right side of the map; it indicates ‘proposed electrified railway line’. The protective electric fences on either side of the railway line would be the electric border between the North and the South of Sri Lanka.

Again, contrary to what Edelman said, the Corridor between Trinco and Colombo is one of the focus areas for land investment selected by the MCC; it has been chosen by the MCC for maximum economic impact, as indicated in the MCC document above.

In the 7 districts along this Corridor, the Edelman team admitted that there are 10 Land Registries; the GOSL has authorised the Americans to go into these Land Registries where documents pertaining to Sri Lanka’s sensitive and precious Land-Assets are stored and secured; this, even before any Agreement has been reached.

Today, from all accounts received, there are Americans seen crawling out from all crannies and crevices in the Land Registry and Survey department buildings.

The Commissioner General of Lands is no doubt aware of the principle of law applied at the Nuremburg Trials; he is required to comply with only lawful orders; failure to do so would make him equally liable before the law. Perhaps, the Surveyor General, the Land Title Commissioner, the Government Chief Valuer, officials involved with digitalising land documents and other Government Officers thrust with responsibility should bear this in mind and consider themselves, to have been put on notice.

In that same MCC Map above, to the South East of Polonnaruwa where the MCC have projected an International airport, there is a distinct encirclement of an area bounded by Vallachenai, Kattankudi, Batticaloa, Sainthamaruthu, Kalmunai, Amparai, Moneragala, Badulla and Hingurakgoda.  

Within this area is, where the ‘Muslim University’ has been constructed, where investigators have identified the heartland of Sri Lanka’s Caliphate terrorists, where the US army, from the US Indo-Pacific Command, has built barracks that could accommodate a Division of US troops, where 20 Caliphate terrorists committed suicide following the Easter massacre, where investigators have identified the home-base of terrorist Zaharan and where the meeting between Hizbullah and Teplitz took place, just two days prior to the Easter slaughter.

Quite suspiciously, while Sri Lanka was yet in deep shock the MCC Board in Washington, just two days after the Easter massacre, unilaterally approved the MCC compact although there is much opposition to it from the Sri Lankan public (on the grounds that they have been deliberately kept in the dark about the details of the Agreement).

and, the matter not even discussed in Parliament; the ‘gift’ had been upped from 420M to 48OM USD by an organisation adjudged the most transparent in the US.

‘Matara-Spyhole’, Samarawickrema and Teplitz announced the details of the ‘gift’ gleefully to a Nation numbed by shock and horror; it is a silver lining was their message and a ‘gift’ that must be taken immediately, lest the Americans withdraw the ‘gift’.

It would appear that the Americans are using the Easter killings to force us to accept their ‘gift’. That, is food for thought.

An untruthful Edelman said that this ‘gift’, has no attached conditions, it is an outright grant and does not have to be repaid.

Bernard Gunathilaka of Pathfinders, of the same ilk as Prasad Kariyawasam the willing servant of the US, said Do not look a gift horse in the mouth”.

Was it Sri Lanka’s misfortune that these two persons had to be in the Foreign Ministry and head it too?

When does a gift horse become a Trojan horse? It is when the gift horse is given with attached conditions; it is when an Agreement has to be signed, to receive a ‘gift’. The ‘conditions’ laid down by the MCC for Sri Lanka to comply with, become the price Sri Lanka has to pay.

When payments are made by the receiver of the ‘gift’, the money touted as an outright grant, ceases to be a grant.

This is the type of modus operandi that was adopted by the travelling snake-oil-salesmen of the wild-west to dupe the people in America; MCC, Teplitz and Edelman have travelled a long way to Sri Lanka to do the same.

And in the case of the MCC Compact, Sri Lanka would be making  an eternal payment to the donor of the ‘gift’ horse; Sri Lanka by complying with the conditions laid down would be gifting the Americans, the donor of the ‘gift’ horse, the entire country for ever.

/ to be contd