e-Con e-News

‘Modern Planters’ in Sri Lanka have successfully stagnated productive forces for over 2 centuries forcing workers to harvest using their 2 fingers, while in Kenya the process of harvesting is aided by light machinery, raising labor productivity and therefore real wages, while plantations increase profitability.’(see ee Random Notes, Mendacious)

A curious lawsuit is splashing about by the North Seas of the Atlantic in Scotland, involving Kenyan tea workers far away in East Africa. At present it is but a few frothy waves, but this lawsuit (an old manoeuvre in born-again ‘hybrid’ ‘lawfare’) is set to roil turbulence midst tea producers in Sri Lanka. Last ee reported on this case, but now emerge a few more details:

     The lawsuit is being brought ‘on behalf of’ Kenyan tea ‘pickers’ whose health and lives have been diminished by tea multinational James Finlay Kenya’s plantation practices, where certain ‘labor-intensive’ work practices (monotonous, incessant, backbreaking, & de-skilling) have predominated (those courts only interested in the ‘backbreaking’ part). Coincidentally, this MNC (multinational corporation) JFK is – according to Kenya’s The Star – ‘embroiled in a persistent dispute with local leaders and communities over the use of tea-plucking machines that saw hundreds of workers rendered jobless’.

‘The Rainforest Alliance said suspension of the licenses

followed an independent investigation over allegations raised in the BBC…

The revocation means tea exported by the 2 companies to international markets will not be accepted as it is not certified.’(ee Agriculture, We’re Working)

     This week, media continued to announce that Sri Lanka firm Browns Investments had bought James Finlay Kenya (except for a tea extraction facility) – a deal that ‘will be completed in the next few months’. Media also reported that an apparently unelected ‘international’ ‘regulator’– The Rainforest Alliance – has suspended JFK’s and Ekaterra (formerly Unilever)’s license to trade internationally due to sexual abuse of their workers! Who gives this NGO such power? Supermarket chains? Or the suppliers – Unilever?

     Then why is Browns buying JFK at such an hour as this? Perhaps the answer, again, lies (lies! indeed!) in the teaspoons of the tea exporters’ fraud. They have to learned ‘make a killing’ in many ways. MNCs like Unilever monopolize not just our own home market. They have a neck-lock over ‘those markets’ too. Many are the city precincts and rolling rural scape in Europe & the Americas built from the land & labor stolen from us and invested in industry & real-estate there. So what on earth is this slick subarctic ‘tea trial’ really all about? And what does it have to do with technical advances in the original land of tea – Cha! Cha! Cha!? (ee Random Notes & ee Focus)

Sri Lanka’s President bows before England’s King, instead of going to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting hosted by India. The IMF’s regional hacks return to Colombo’s Central Bank. A plot is uncovered at the University of Colombo. Police are deployed in numbers enough to whip the bulls on at the Stock Exchange. The US Envoy laments any use of force. The media wails in chorus. The IMF Waves Goodbye. Another Euro-American entourage descends. Another national plan postponed. Here in samsara: Press play. Pause. Rewind. And play again…

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The Sunday Times informs its readers that an unnamed ‘state agency’ in Sri Lanka is probing ‘allegations’ made in MP Wimal Weerawansa’s book – The Story of 9.

     9 examines the role played by the US & Indian governments and local actors in igniting the latest conflagration in Sri Lanka. Within parliament. Within officialdom. Within the armed forces. Within (import quality) civil society

     The Times also published their English translation of certain excerpts of Weerawansa’s 9. The book received a boost on being panned by the US Envoy as ‘fiction’ (a Booker Prize then?).

     The Island points to certain Weerawansa allegations involving both the USA & India, focusing on the supposed undermining of the chain of command, crippling both ‘national security’ as well as economic policy (see ee Focus).

     All around us – from the Yellow Sea to the Red Sea, from the Nan Hai (South China Sea) to the Cape of Good White Hope – examples abound to look back at and look forward to:

Unilever’s Tempest to Tumble Ceylon Tea