March of the Quads and emergence of Balancing Behemoths!
Posted on October 11th, 2020
Sarath Bulathsinghala
11 Oct 2020
Perhaps very few realize the dilemma Sri Lanka is in with respect to the Quad’s and their Indo-Pacific Strategy and its closest implications – earlier ACSA, SOFA and now MCC!
When big powers move in they don’t necessarily ask your permission to walk through your country. They just walk in prosecute their operations and sometimes leave a devastated country asking them to fend for themselves. This happened during World War I and World War II during the Vietnam War and more recently in Yugoslavia, Libya and the Middle East. The armies of the Allies sometimes in the garb of NATO and sometimes even UN Peace Keeping Forces walk through many a small nation violating their land and airspaces as if they owned them hiding behind craftily worded resolutions their Think Tanks have cooked up to subjugate the less powerful and the less endowed.
In today’s context, the US has assumed unipolar power and have declared themselves the Exceptional Nation, meaning they are above all International Laws and can do what they please around the world. All this they say is to protect democracy, human rights and sometimes reconciliation in subject nations they helped to divide and balkanize using the divide and conquer modus operandi. It is in this background the US has commandeered her lackey nations – India, Australia and Japan calling themselves the QUAD to counter the growing power of China in the Indo- Pacific region.
RANIL WICKRAMASINGHE, THE CAT’S PAW OF WESTERN CHRISTIAN POWERS IN SRI LANKA’S ROLE WAS TO MAKE SRI LANKA A FAILED STATE AS A PART OF THIS EXERCISE TO IMPLEMENT THE MCC AND ITS DICTUMS. IT WAS THE SOFTENING OF SRI LANKA BEFORE THE FINAL ONSLAUGHT WITH MCC TO OCCUPY SRI LANKA AS A LOGISTICAL BASE FOR THE INDO- PACIFIC COMMAND.
Ranil W inflicted heavy losses on the economy with the Central Bank Bond Scams, then went onto destroy food security, kill commodity markets and in the process, impoverish and disenfranchise the farmer. On the one hand, it made Sri Lanka import dependent and thus at the mercy of donors for funds and at the mercy of suppliers for food and other needs. The security was dismantled to its lowest limits throwing confusion and mayhem among the ranks ending up with the Easter Sunday attacks. All the evidence in this regard is now unravelling before the Presidential Commissions of Inquiry now in progress. The Easter Sunday attack was to bring chaos across Sri Lanka and to bring foreign boots on Sri Lanka’s soil on the pretext of R2P! At every moment, the sanctions on exports and imports and various bogus charges including war crimes are dangled like the sword of Damocles to keep us in tow!
Giving land titles to farmers occupying state land was also a part of this exercise directly in the purview of the coming MCC. The gambit was to enable selling of land for valueless Rupees to foreign companies and thus disenfranchise and make the very sons of the soil – landless in perpetuity! This is what happened to Hawaii now the 50th State of the United States of America!
However unfortunately for them the intended sequence of events did not eventuate exactly as planned and the unintended consequence of Sinhala Buddhists rising en masse ensured a massive victory for the Rajapakse brothers, this time even bolstered by a segment of the Sinhala Catholics and Hindu Tamils. In the aftermath Rajapakse Brothers brought about a change of government with a massive mandate. This mandate is to keep the nation undivided, unitary and independent and definitely not for a measly sum of $480 Million as envisaged by the MCC! Shenali Waduge has written how this sum of money they intend to spend – see:
However, this does not mean the 50 – 100 year plans for the world of the Neo Conservatives, Neo Liberals call them what may are going vanish or we can wish away their enterprise to gain hegemony over the entire globe. If one operation fails they have back up plans. Now they will do their utmost to woo the Rajapakse brothers using all in their statecraft and warcraft and get what they want done through them. Bribery, threats and blackmailing are part of their war arsenal. Rajapakse brothers’ challenge is whether they will become permanent shining jewels in the golden threads of our chequered history or go down in ignominy as Ranil W and Maithreepala Sirisena only to be scorned as pariahs who sold their nation for a few pieces of silver!
The silver lining for Sri Lanka and other nations similarly affected by the might of the powerful may be the Covid-19 pandemic. How this pandemic will pan out to re-position the so-called Big Powers in the world arena in the post Covid-19 era is something to be watched at closely in the future? Emergence of Russia’s military prowess – mainly her capacity to inflict devastating blows with newly minted hypersonic missiles will give a chilling prospect to those who espouse war as the final arbiter in settling the world balance of power. China’s economic and growing military clout as a power balancing behemoth of sizeable power is welcomed by nations around the world, who value their culture, identity and independence. Then this again is not carte blanche for China to replace the Western Christian Powers and their failing Neo Liberal or Neo Conservative thinking and ideology with another more tyrannical ideology of their own!
What is in offing is a Scylla and Charybdis situation for Sri Lanka – either loose sovereignty or the wrath of the Neo Cons led Western Christian powers! As always, the ultimate burden is with the people and people alone. Their vigilance to keep the rulers to their word will prove necessary if the push needs to be made a shove. That and that alone can ensure whether Sri Lanka which has been a single and separate geographical and political entity for the last 2600 years and more will be valid for the future! It is the Rajapakse Brothers keeping this endearing promise with history and their Motherland that will be valued for eternity. After all the flesh will go their way and soon become topsoil and only the deeds will remain either to be dumped in the dust heap of history or to be enshrined for ever in the mind of man to be valued and emulated by their progeny!
Please read Sriyan de Silva’s enlightening article on the Neo Cons, their genesis and power
October 11th, 2020 at 9:56 pm
There is a saying that the ‘best laid plans of mice and men goes awry’. MCC or the ‘pasku praharaya’ type of of things (planned by powerful people in the west or ME) which were the fore runners to various type of invasions have gone awry due to the unforeseen (or predicted by the likes of Bill Gates) Covid-19. If this is a 100 year cycle it may take few more years to clear in these day where going from one corner of the world to another is only a matter of few hour job. Hundred years ago this type of thing may not have spread so quickly.
I think the superpowers have understood this and are burying the hatchet. The obvious signs are the new cooperation on technology between the US and the China. US has allowed the use of their latest technologies in hardware and software (such as ARM NEON and the Chip design and manufacture) by the Chinese companies. These are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. When Trump fell sick Prez Xi wished him well. Therefore our worthies should not misread the events and take decisions.
October 12th, 2020 at 1:47 am
Sorry please read as: “…… of mice and men often go awry”.
One more comment about balancing Behemoths: at the moment we see that it is PBJ who is advising the Prez, to my mind. He needs better people to help him as he has already got his image tarnished. More over there may be other untainted but dynamic persons. The west seem either going towards the peak or at the peak of Corona epidemic. And our fortunes are very much tied with the west (so is that of China) and balancing them is very important. Most of Prez’s current term will be engaged in managing Corona. If he think of the next term a new team will have to be found asap. So, the best way is to give these guys diplomatic postings.