e-Con e-News

What is the relationship between the 19^th-century origins of the Bank of Ceylon (BoC) and the Oriental Bank Corporation (OBC). The BoC & OBC were first set up by the English to exploit Sri Lanka’s recently stolen lands and impose the coffee plantations,. Their HR (Human Resources, ahem) expertise was  based on American (yes, this term includes the Caribbean) chattel slavery. The OBC in 1863 effected ‘the largest transfer of property ever in Ceylon’.

The OBC later lent 500,000 silver dollars in 1868 to the Japanese government
‘to finance its path of modernization’, to industrialization,
as ee reported last week.

That loan to Japan did not prevent the Oriental Bank Corporation from soon declaring bankruptcy. So where did the interest from that huge loan of silver dollars go? And what did all this have to do with setting up an English spy network alongside its mercantile ‘agency houses’? (see ee Focus)

• India’s Foreign Minister Subramaniam Jaishankar buzzed in to Colombo imposing the usual conditions for India’s support for the US IMF’s debt restructuring. The IMF wishes to delay any assistance as long as possible to buy off some of Sri Lanka’s top national assets for a song (a rock’n’roll dirge perhaps?).

  In exchange for India’s playing along with Washington, Sri Lanka has to fully implement the 13^th Amendment imposed by the bloody 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord. Sri Lanka will also have to conduct local government elections ‘as soon as possible’.

  India itself could not fulfill its own part of the accord and disarm the Tigers they armed and trained. The media refuses to mention these discomfiting truths. Nor was there any clamor for ‘local elections’ when the US- and Indian-installed Yahapalana regime kept postponing them.

• More and more questions are now being asked about the so-called bankruptcy declared by the present Central Bank leadership. And also about the demand to rob national assets for a mere $3billion bailout by the IMF (see ee Economists, $53 billion).

  This week, it was reported that the IMF is purposely delaying their pittance, so as to get the best discounts from a Sri Lanka driven to & up the wall (see ee Economists, Jayati Ghosh). Delay was the IMF tactic & playbook in the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis also. (ee Random Notes)

  The Minister of Justice Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe said $53billion has been stolen from the country by the Import-Export sector. The Central Bank after promising to demand the return of these dollars, apparently participated in a flimsy coverup claiming exporters had returned 2 months’ worth of dollars! (ee Economists, $53 billion)

• As if to reinforce India’s imperial dictat, a US warship sailed into Colombo harbor to take part in war games with a Japanese shiba (poodle?) in tow, from January 19-26. There was no hullabaloo, not even a whimper, yelp or squeak by the anti-social media, only so prickly about China’s ‘intrusions’. 

  This week’s US & Japanese naval and aerial war games will also intrude into strategic Trincomalee and energy-rich Mannar (Mullikullam). The US & Japanese warships splash in the tinkling of US naval spy chief ‘Rear Admiral’ Eileen Laubacher’s visit last week.  As noted, Laubacher, the US ‘National Security Council (NSC)’s South Asia Senior Director’, is an expert in their ‘Integrated Undersea Surveillance System’.

Sri Lanka under Siege by US Cowboys & Indian Sahibs