e-Con e-News

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‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’

e-Con e-News 17-23 December 2023

A ‘US Special Representative for Racial Equity & Justice’ was actually allowed to enter Sri Lanka this week to meet with Indian Tamils in the Sinhala highlands stolen for Unilever’s slavish plantations. But not to worry, in the midst of the US mega massmurder in occupied Palestine and in Yemen, the whites are still paying some of us coolies to kneel before sermons on ‘human rights’, corruption (how corrupt is stealing Palestinian land?), carbon footprints & green transitions (how green is a precision bunker-buster?).

     Indeed, this ee Focus also examines the role Special Economic Zones & Free Trade Zones have played in making Sri Lankans accede to ‘excluding or modifying the application of parts of national law in defined geographic areas…’ Welcome to Eelam Plantation-Styleee…

• Vat! What? Whack! – The bribed buffer classes (some call them the ‘middle class’) are sharing memes & videos warning of escalated muggings of decent citizens (returning bags-full from supermarkets), as well as home invasions, car hijackings, etc. Welcome to Pope Gregory’s 2024. Bring on the Year of the Dragon! And on to Buddhist year 2567 in April, and what shall it portend?

     Those aragalists who demanded ‘Go to the IMF, Stupid!’ are seeking asylum perhaps in a US embassy or English High Commission safe house. Electricity hikes, the World Bank’s Government Advisor Shantha Devarajan promises, are to get the air-conditioned ‘rich’ to pay their fair share. Yet, ‘over 500,000 red notices’ have been ‘issued to households’ over late electricity bills (see ee Workers). And then this week, the Central Bank Governor’s speech writers at the IMF office in the Central Bank, made him invoke another dead US President to declare ‘inflation’ as ‘public enemy number one’. He also announced:

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‘Any future government too has to align itself with the IMF agreement,

if not, it would amount to a breach of agreements

with external & internal creditors, inclusive of the IMF’

Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe

(see ee Economists, Future Governments)

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The Governor is responding to his critics that a future Sri Lankan government would have to ‘significantly amend’ the new Central Bank Act! This new Act (demanded by the US Congress) aims at preventing any attempt at investment in local industry (see ee Focus). The genie of JR Jayewardene who wished ‘to roll up the electoral map’ must turn on the current Central Bank Governor and his titanic crew.

The dangling of several million dollars by the US-controlled World Bank and ADB, followed Parliament’s decision to increase taxes (aka VAT). The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) this week also eased the selling of national enterprises (SoEs) on a new Catalyst Board (see ee Finance). The supine media plays their part, reporting worker opposition to the sale of national assets, only headlining a demand for bonuses etc. These incentives for US bribes by selling off the country will ensure the ‘manufacture of consent’, and will provoke considerable class warfare as well…

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• Then-president JR Jayewardene (aka Yankee Dicky) in September 1982 declared in Anuradhapura his intention, ‘To roll up the electoral map of Sri Lanka for 10 years’. Jayewardene was then elected to a fresh 6-year term as President in October 1982. A nonexistent ‘Naxalite’ threat was soon evoked ‘to orchestrate the biggest election fraud – the infamous referendum of 22 December 1982, which introduced unparalleled ‘state sponsored thuggery, hooliganism and mafia-style violence & lawlessness’ (recalled Anura Bandaranaike).

     The UNP-dominated Parliament’s term was due to expire in July 1983. The rest as they say is history. But not quite. It still mocks us in the face. The first time, it launched the horrors of the 30-years’ war, midst the farce of teledramas. This time they are dishing out more of the same.

     The merchant & moneylender ruling class, and its media, are therefore in the process of setting up various oppositions, acceptable and not, to push through their attempt to extend the colonial import-export plantation farce. Who will play the new Naxalites?

     Despite the IMF’s rosy panaceas and bitter elixirs, the whites are escalating genocidal war – this week at the closer mouth of the Red Sea, ignoring Yemen’s right to its waterways – to block our access to fuel (see ee Random Notes). Whatever happened to a ‘free & open Indo-Pacific’? Aney, palayan doh!

     And it is not just hot war but cold war now called hybrid warfare which is being waged on us all.

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• Can Sun Tzu Rescue Us? asked Nathasha Gunasekera at the recent 13^th World Socialism Forum in Beijing (see ee Focus). Gunasekera suggests, socialism’s biggest challenge now is to formulate ‘a grand strategy’ to restore ‘the sovereignty of nations’. A deepening ‘imperialist assemblage’ [of god? – ee], which hinges on the financialization juggernaut, is deploying hybrid ‘indirect’ warfare – as first detailed by ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu. The future of conflict will be marked by ‘protesters’ & insurgents, as in Syria & the Ukraine, and in the orchestrated nature of the ‘Aragalaya’. In Sri Lanka, imperialist forces have infiltrated ‘intelligence, bureaucracy, academia, military, judiciary, & media’. Civil society organizations and thinktanks, journalists, military service personnel, academics & legal professionals are greased with ‘scholarships, study tours, foreign trips, local trips in exotic destinations, promotions, and even political asylum in worst case scenario’. Such bribes are of course not considered ‘corruption’. Let’s call it ‘Exxon lube’…

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• Indeed, increased coordination between the US state machinery & their local agents is now more blatant. The US Congress last week approved the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA) as part of the annual war budget! Almost simultaneously, the so-called Civil Society Initiative (funded & backed by the most genocidal forces the world has ever seen) ululated calls for ‘the inclusion of IMF identified actions’ on corruption. The IMF should know, they are – with their overpaid economists – one of the most corrupt operations in the world. The CSI Core Group indeed ‘includes’ the usual US-funded NGO suspects (see ee Random Notes).

     Those trying to understand this ‘constitutional reform’ and corruption harangue to explain the economy’s destabilization, can examine it as a continuation of the colonial import-export plantation economy by any means. Look at what the US & EU are doing in the Ukraine, which it has destroyed. The comparison of ‘roadmaps’ is most enlightening (see ee Random Notes).

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• Who lurks behind the steady stream of exposes of pharmaceutical felonies of substandard medicines? It turns out the target is what remains of the public health system, which like the education system has been a target of a jealous rage by the World Bank & its IFC, and therefore subject to its financial shenanigans.

     This ee therefore continues examination of corporations & their NGOs, charting the corporate coup d’etat to overthrow ‘independent’ governments. Much of this information has been reproducied from Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy, by Claire Provost & Matt Kennard. However, being naif amateurs, rather than stock analysts, we have our own apprehensions about these sources. They refer to free trade zones as having to offer to investors ‘a steady supply of cheap & compliant labour’ for factories. However, for Sri Lanka, this labour is not cheap or readily compliant. They have to be cheapened and repressed to accept. The strategies used to recruit labour have involved extra-legal compunctions such as violence & bribes. The reality is in Sri Lanka, this attack is led by Unilever, one of the largest corporations in the world, which not only has captured our home market, but also controls our media… which aims to keep us stupid…

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Sri Lanka has 2,600 sq.kms of inland freshwater bodies,

a 1,585km coastal shoreline & 517,000 sq.km

of a maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ),

host to an abundance of seafood, valuable gas, fuel, & minerals

So while the ruling merchant oligarchy accedes to the control of our seas & waterways by the latest avatars of the old colonial powers, ee Focus continues sharing the Communist Party of Sri Lanka’s Alternate Program: this week examining The Blue Economy, pointing out the state should explore industrial opportunities beyond fisheries….

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Contents:

Hybrid Warfare Rages in Sri Lanka: Will Sun Tzu Help?