e-Con e-News

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

e-Con e-News 14-20 July 2024

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In 1504, Portuguese king Dom Manoel issued a decree forbidding

the insertion on maps of any routes beyond the Congo, and had any

references to these routes erased on all maps drawn even prior to that.

Portugal invaded Sri Lanka in 1505 – ee

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‘We will map out the whole of Sri Lanka’s every tree species,

and what the carbon output of each tree species.’

– Ruwan Wijewardene, Senior Presidential Advisor on Climate Change

(ee Agriculture, Govt to start flora spatial mapping, eyes carbon credit trading)

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US multinational McKinsey & Co, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), in alliance with India & Norway (who else but Mr Eric Solheim), are stealing Sri Lanka’s ‘data’ in broad daylight. They wish to map the entire country and its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). They are throwing money at politicians, military, judiciary and other government officials (who turn private ‘consultants’, or offered jobs abroad) to grab data.

     Information is a commodity – the most precious in the much-touted knowledge economy! GIS is therefore a powerful tool, and can be used of course for a variety of purposes, ‘just like the T-56 & the AK-47, not to mention the AR’!

     Who exactly owns national data? Including: a country’s GIS? Presumably, the people and the state own census data and other vital statistics. Yet much of what goes under the name of Big Data is of course privately owned by Google, Amazon, Cambridge Analytica, and the many peddlers of AI & other wares in the information market. But is all this, only about marketing?

     On Friday, July 19, 2024, yet another warning was given to Sri Lanka’s fake IT industry deep in the pockets of Bill Gates and his monopoly Microsoft fraud (see ee Industry, SLASSCOM). A single flawed software update by US cybersecurity CrowdStrike caused a widespread tech outage to thousands of companies running Microsoft’s Windows operating system. US industries nationwide were brought to a halt, causing major US airlines to ground flights, and further impacting banks, 911 services, stock exchanges, payroll companies, and numerous industries. Not only in the USA, in Hong Kong, India, Dubai, Berlin and Amsterdam, etc. The 3 main cloud providers (Amazon, Google and Microsoft) monopolize the juicy competition for military, intelligence and government contracts.

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• Some of the actors in this latest data grab, appear in virtue-signaling news lullabies, as in the recent headline ‘Sri Lanka launches locally-produced fortified rice… to combat micronutrient malnutrition with kernels being distributed via the government’s National Free School Meal Program’.

     It is unclear if ‘fortified’ is a euphemism for genetically modified (GM) food: ‘The kernels are enriched with Folic Acid and Iron through an extrusion process’. ‘The transfer of extrusion technology was prioritized by the Presidential Secretariat, and enabled by’ the UN’s World Food Program (WFP, USAID is now their largest donor), the Program for Appropriate Technology & Health (PATH, based in Seattle, US), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (now has an office inside the Sri Lankan President’s premises!), Akshata, and Connect to Care.

     Connect to Care (C2C) is remote-controlled by the President’s nephew Raknish Savan Wijewardene, a former ‘Head of Digital’, at Lakehouse (aka Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd, now government-owned, but founded as an imperialist mouthpiece by his great-grandfather DR Wijewardena). The C2C board also includes slimy Norwegian Eric Solheim; and Shamir Zavahir, who in 2020 ‘assumed the role of Head of Reforms at the SL Ministry of Justice, where he’s actively involved in shaping legal reforms’.

     Many of these characters also appeared at the recent ‘DigiEcon Global Investment Summit 2024’ in Colombo, including ‘strategic partner’ the World Bank & its International Finance Corporation (IFC), and ‘global giants’ such as ‘US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Gates Foundation, Mastercard, and Microsoft.’ They also popped up at the recent Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) ‘donor engagement dialogue’. But the recent grab goes way beyond just DPI.

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This ee begins looking at the latest ‘DATA’ grab, under the guise of giving cultivators land title, saving the environment, treating women ‘equally’, etc. Also, its repercussions on Sri Lanka’s economy & security, with military officials pointing to a lack of ‘guidance, ability & technology’ to defend the country (see ee Focus). It also examines the role of university ‘Geography Departments’ in Sri Lanka and the funding of GIS data grabs through them. And how the USA was already planning a new global ‘geography’ from the 19th century, midst its takeover of countries formerly invaded and occupied by European imperialists (see ee Focus). ee also notes: the International Seabed Authority opened its annual summit in Jamaica this week, with the Indian government attempting to take over Sri Lanka’s EEZ, while diverting with threats to take over that rock called Kachativu…

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• Some may recall that the Urban Development Authority (UDA), with dreams of a ‘megapolis’, wished to digitize urban land data into a massive GIS database for planning purposes. They were backed by the USA’s World Bank or such outfits ‘keen to lubricate the real estate business.’

     ‘Government departments such as the UDA hire consultants to supply ‘expert’ knowledge that they need because they do not – or claim not have – the in-house expertise’, reports a former urban planner. ‘Sometimes, if not often, consultants (usually private companies, because very few states outside of China have the resources to do this type of work) are contracted to process and produce data for clients (such as the UDA) end up owning data.’ Let’s examine the recent origins of this data grab:

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• Under PM Wickremesinghe during the US-founded Yahapalana regime (2015-2019), western aid agencies, think tanks and corporations shaped, drafted and helped to implement policies, opening new frontiers” for US hegemony. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which claims to be independent, is a US government body chaired by the US Secretary of State. The MCC project unit was physically located inside the Prime Minister’s office and was involved in drafting Wickremesinghe’s eight-year economic development plan, Vision 2025”, that was believed to be planning to recommend constitutional changes to make it easier for foreign corporations to buy land in the country…’

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• New laws to make data compiled by the state statistics office ‘more accessible’, was promised in 2019 by the then US-funded Yahapalana regime’s Public Distribution & Economic Reforms Minister CTC-Harsha de Silva. ‘I’m looking to amend the law for the Department of Census & Statistics for the data to be shared, more than what is currently being shared.’ De Silva complained to the US-funded Asia Liberty Forum 2019 in Colombo, co-hosted by the US Advocata Institute & Atlas Network, that ‘his department is protective of data it collects’. ‘The department tells others, This is my data, don’t come near it.”‘ He said a team of ex-researchers will help formulate legislation on ‘greater data sharing’. De Silva also claimed some statistical definitions are ‘archaic, such as how urban and rural areas are defined.’ – see ee Economy, Sri Lanka to make state statistics more accessible (2019)

• The US government had launched its thinktank Advocata in May 2016 at the Kadiragamar Institute in Colombo with (then State Minister of Finance) AOG-Eran Wickremaratne as Chief Guest. Advocata’s annual report, prepared even before Advocata had been officially set up, claimed 55 strategically important state-owned enterprises(SoEs) had been making enormous losses, 2006-15, They suggested a ‘productivity study’ to determine which to shut down and sell off.

     Wikileaks disclosed a discussion in 2005 between an MCC CEO and (then-yet-again-former PM) Wickremesinghe on ‘several  local political issues, including moves by the GoSL to  restructure the Ceylon Electricity Board and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, in the face of opposition by unions. Wickremesinghe’s solution to these challenges is to allow the entities to collapse, then pick up the pieces when people have no choice but to follow’.

     In 2016, then-Minister of Development Strategies & International Trade Malik Samarawickrama quoted US Advocata’s findings, just 3 months after its launch, & announced ‘far reaching privatization plans.’ The PM then proposed to hire the US firm McKinsey & Co for $2.3mn to establish a Central Program Management Unit in Temple Trees for ‘accelerated economic transformation’ & introduce a new Development (Special Provisions) Bill allowing sweeping powers to restructure & transform the economy.

The USA’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) agreement (US prefers to call it a ‘Compact’) with the (yet-again-Prime Minister) Ranil Wickremesinghe ‘after 2 years of very secretive discussions’, was to have been signed in November 2018 (but was derailed by the so-called ‘constitutional coup’ in Oct).

It turns out that under cover of ‘Megapolis’ development, the US was demanding from Sri Lanka an ‘economic’ corridor of 1.2million acres from Trincomalee to Colombo for a lease period of 200 years, with US law omnipotent along this corridor, which would divide Sri Lanka into 2 – the North & the South – like the earlier Eelam Map or the US DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) in Korea. This corridor holds the ‘Eppawela’ phosphate deposits (one of the world’s largest which the US tried to snatch in the 1980s), Ilmenite, Thorium (nuclear substitute for uranium), Monazite, and rare-earth metals Cerium & Lanthanum.

The MCC ‘Constraints to Investment’ analysis of Sri Lanka, demanded that to qualify for such largesse Sri Lanka would have to abrogate any land laws that protected her sovereignty and national security. Sri Lanka was instructed to pass new Land Laws that would legalize the sale of state land (privatization) and laws to permit the US to buy outright any extent of land in any part of the country.

Wickremesinghe then had 2 new Bills – the ‘State Land Bank’ Bill & ‘Land (Special Provision)’ Bill – and the ‘Constraints to Investment’ Report drafted at Harvard University, Massachusetts, and subsequently sent to Sri Lanka’s Attorney General and the Legal Draftsman for their signatures. Here are some exposing highlights excerpted from the preambles to the Bills:

The State Land Bank Bill: a. Provides for the establishment of a State Land Bank: b. Requires the compilation of a register of all State Lands belonging to Public Institutions: c. Makes provision for these Public institutions to lease such lands to persons making a request for same: d. Repeals Parts 1v, v & v1 of the Land Reform Act No1 of 1972 (this repeal includes the restriction in place on ownership of property by a single individual to a maximum of 50-acres): e. Vests the powers of the Land reform Commission in the State Land Bank: f. (Sec 17) – Enables any person, including foreigners, to lease out State Land.

The Land (Special Provisions) Bill: a. Grants absolute title to citizens who presently, by ‘Government Grant’, have regulated usage of State Lands: b. Permits citizens, who hold title to state lands, to mortgage such land to banks: c. Permits banks to sell off such State Lands, mortgaged to the banks, to private individuals including foreigners:  d. This Act shall be in operation for only 7 years.

The US further instructed the PM to ‘replicate’ in Sri Lanka’s rural areas, the ‘40-Acres & a Mule’ concept that had been enforced in the US in 1865; the former slave-owners were required to give each of the emancipated slave-families, 40-acres of land & a mule. ‘Without wherewithal, the Black families survived the first month on the flesh of the Mule; thereafter, to survive, they sold their property back to the former slave owners for a pittance and the Black families, in droves, trekked & trekked & trekked to the industrial cities like Detroit, Michigan & Chicago in search of employment’.

The ‘40-acres & a Mule’ concept ‘drove out the Black community from their lands in the South, pauperized and bonded the former slaves from the inception of their emancipation, created mass urban migration to the industrial centres, was responsible for the creation of Black ghettos in US cities, created the foundation for a large number of the Black community to be sent to prison for drug offences and be deprived of their voting-rights, created a bank of surplus labour which the US private sector exploited by paying them less-than-subsistence wages.

Wickremesinghe then announced his intentions of giving each rural farmer family 2 acres of land. With the proviso in the ‘Land (Special Provisions) Bill that this law applies only for 7 years, the problems the US Black community have come to be burdened with, would be compounded and accelerated, and it could be anticipated that the rural poor would hurriedly sell off or mortgage their lands. When the rural poor are compelled and encouraged to mortgage their lands and trek to the cities, the land (devoid of any one occupying it) becomes available for companies like Monsanto to initiate their assault on our land. Over 80% of Sri Lanka is State land.

MCC also had added features, and projections into the future: An ‘electrified’ railway from Trincomalee to Colombo would ensure a distinct physical separation of the north of the country from the south, with an international airport (Hingurakgoda) in Polonnaruwa. By the year 2100 a Suez-like canal, would have been dredged along the length of the economic corridor from Trincomalee to Colombo. Such a canal would open up the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea via the Laccadive Sea, affording the INDOPACOM and its RIMPAC military alliance a tremendous strategic advantage, over such other powers as India, China, Russia.

Many of these plans are now unfolding before our eyes. (The above information has been gleaned from LankaWeb, Shenali D Waduge & Tamara Kunanayakam).

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• Internet Companies treat societies as Data-generating resources to be strip-mined. Platforms like Google & Facebook track and analyze every ‘search, location, like, video, photo, post and punctuation mark’… Google & FB pivoted from serving to surveiling their users, harvesting more and more data. They bypassed privacy settings or made it difficult for users to opt out of data-sharing. They source their raw material – users’ experiences ­– for free, and translate them into behavioral data. Tech companies promote ‘surveillance’ to only mean governments spying on individuals. FB maintains lists of users’ personal interests, eg, their political leanings, for advertisers. Cambridge Analytica, the voter-profiling company, improperly harvested the data of millions of Facebook users.

• The collection, handling & use of data dominates all other policy issues. Calling on nations to enact legislation to protect privacy, and defining ‘personal data‘ as any information that can be used to identify an individual, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1980, set standards in many countries, including guidelines. Then digital data exploded – from the web, smartphones, sensors, genomics, etc – becoming the ‘free’ raw material exploited by modern AI companies….

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Contents:

Bill Gates Mudaliyar: USA & India’s Mega Maps & Data Steal