By Gandara John

 The Riddle

 Voters are encouraged to resolve the riddle posed by the facts given in the box below and forward their answers to gandarajohn@outlook.com to help forecast the future geopolitical direction of the country, after the forthcoming General Elections.

• 05 Nov 2018 – This was the original date set, for the MCC document to be signed behind the backs of the Sri Lankan people. Public outcry in the Island Nation against the MCC prevented the signing of the document despite US warnings that the money on offer will go back to the US coffers at the end of that year; this, the money going back to the Treasury, if not used, is a standard operating procedure in the management of US public funds.  
• 21 Apr 2019- A series of bombs initiated by ISIS-affiliated terrorists – a terrorist group founded by Obama and Clinton – explode in Churches and Hotels in the Island on Easter day, killing hundreds of innocents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCHuZM_9qTk

• 24 Apr 2019 –Barely two days after the Easter massacre, Teplitz announces gleefully to a numbed Sri Lankan Nation that the MCC booty has been upped to 480M USD; she threatens the Government to sign the MCC document immediately or else lose the money forever. Opposition to the MCC by the people prevented the signing of the document.
• 15 Sep 2019 – Despite repeated American threats to Sri Lanka, the reluctant donee, to accept their Trojan ‘gift’, the MCC money does not go back to US revenue and the US continues to apply pressure on Sri Lanka to sign the MCC document. Jenner Edelman, the Country Director of the MCC, new at the time, tried to sweet-talk Sri Lanka to sign the document, losing her credibility in the process. She issued an ultimatum to the Government that if Sri Lanka does not sign the document by 17 Sep 2019, the money will go back to revenue. The people ‘V-fingered’ her ultimatum; the document remained unsigned and behold, the money on offer, for over one and a half years in breach of US regulations, did not go back to the US Treasury, making a mockery of their regulations and their toothless threats.
• 05 May 2020 – Teplitz pays MR a sudden visit, purportedly to help Sri Lanka fight the COVID virus. (The visit, to say the least, was ill-timed; it came at a time when Sri Lanka had already come to grips with the virus and contained fatalities to a single digit, while in America, thousands were literally dying daily on the streets, with a hundred thousand already dead and, at a time when Sri Lanka’s Medics had foiled Agent-Moragoda’s mischievous attempt at pushing Sri Lanka to follow the American strategy of acquiring immunity -for the fittest only – by creating a scenario that could infect the entire population with the virus and making acceptable and permissible, under this strategy of social murder, a million fatalities; a strategy aka herd-immunization). At this ill-timed meeting, Clintonphile Teplitz instructs MR to finalise the pending MCC project immediately after the pandemic is over. MR responds airily, ‘Find me a market for Personal Protective Equipment manufactured in Sri Lanka’.
• 06 May 2020 – US makes an announcement that it will make a commitment to give Sri Lanka, at some undefined moment of time in the future, a sum of USD 4.5 Million to fight the COVID virus.
• 07 May 2020 -Robert C. O’Brien,  the US President’s National Security Adviser and Head of the White House National Security Council  gave Gota a  call and threatened him thus The long history of U.S-Sri Lanka cooperation and the strong bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Sri Lanka is an important part of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”  (Incidentally, the crux of the MCC message charges that Sri Lanka be handed over to the Americans, for the purpose of maintaining a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific region’). Translating O’Brien’s diplomatese the threat read, If Sri Lanka does not sign the MCC document, the US will consider it as an uncooperative and hostile act which will jeopardize US security interests in the Indo-Pacific region and will sour bi-lateral relations between the US and Sri Lanka. Therefore buddy, cut the crap, sign the MCC document, hand over the country to us, and don’t worry, we will look after you.” This threat came from the highest US political echelon.

***08 May 2020 – The US published the ‘Federal Registry’ in which Gota’s name is recorded as having renounced his US citizenship. (Gota’s US citizenship has been, for a long time, a thorn in his side, with the US holding his US citizenship issue as a Damocles sword over his political head.) Gota would surely have breathed a sigh of relief in seeing his name in the Federal Register

The riddle: What did Gota tell O’Brien?  No, I will not sign the MCC Agreement” or OK, I will sign the MCC Agreement; and by the way, thanks for the favour”