Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake

There will be no honeymoon for the newly minted National People’s Power (NPP) Government in Colombo. The storm blowing from Washington across the Indian Ocean World–targeting China to the East, Iran to the West, and now it seems, India in the Middle is growing.

Development projects that promised much needed foreign investment in Sri Lanka have been thrown into disarray by expanding United States sanctions on Russian firms, as well as, court action against the Indian conglomerate, Adani.

Two months ago India’s Shaurya Aeronautics Pvt Ltd and Russia’s Airports of Regions Management Company’s plans for joint development of the Chinese built Mattala International Airport in southeast Sri Lanka were put on hold due to US sanctions.[i] The U.S. Department of the Treasury had sanctioned India-based Shaurya Aeronautics Private Limited, among 275 individuals and entities involved in supplying Russia with advanced technology and equipment. The airport near the Hambantota Port is located near some of the world’s busiest trade, energy and submarine Data Cable routes.

Meanwhile a bribery case was filed in New York against India’s Adani conglomerate last month. Adani was set to develop the Western Terminal of the Colombo port in partnership with local conglomerate John Keells holdings with significant US funding. This was before US authorities had accused India’s Adani, a partner of US hedge fund BlackRock, of bribery in India’s Andhra Pradesh and filed a court case in New York. Adani, said to be Asia’s richest man is seen to be personally close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

These US moves against Indian firms have likely given Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath a big headache. Meanwhile Donald Lu, US Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of South and Central Asia would be in Colombo this week to offer ‘capacity building’ assistance to Colombo, presumably, for more institutional capture. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka has been already effectively privatized to serve the interests of predatory International Sovereign bond holders, rather than the long suffering people of Sri Lanka– via International Monetary Fund reforms.

Will Mr. Herath be able to persuade Lu to hold back US sanctions, or make an exception for debt trapped Sri Lanka– to enable the Mattala International Airport and Colombo port west terminal projects to proceed with Indian and Russian investments? A US agency that agreed to lend $500 million to Adani’s port development in Sri Lankasaid it’s conducting due diligence on the project.

Targeting Indian Projects and Sri Lanka’s BRICS application

Indian firms are being targeted by Washington, which has long sought access to strategic Sri Lanka’s transport, telecom and energy infrastructure. This was evident in the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact, rejected by Sri Lanka back in 2019. At the time there were fears of the US establishing military bases under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), in the geostrategic island nation.

The Colombo harbour is South Asia’s busiest port but that development is also now on hold. Of course, the US promise to fund Adani’s port development to the tune of over USD 500 million was in any case a tall order! The sum was much more than the aborted Millennium Challenge Corporation MCC project, after which the mysterious ISIS-claimed Easter Sunday hybrid war attacks targeted tourist hotels and churches, crashing economy and society. The attacks were clearly designed to set off a ‘cascade of violence” in the multi-religious island nation.

The Mattala International Airport in Hambantota, initially built by the Chinese was perceived to be a White Elephant’ development project, but is actually located near one of the world’s busiest maritime trade, energy and submarine Date Cable routes in the world. The Indian Shaurya Aeronautics plan to develop the airport would bring needed foreign investment and showcase collaboration among the big three Asian powers- China, India and Russia but is now on ice due to US sanctions.

Sri Lanka, clearly caught in the cross-hairs of big power rivalry, had formally submitted an application to join BRICS and the New Development Bank at the meeting in Kazan in October where President Putin hosted China’s President Xi and Indian Premier Modi along with other Global South leaders. The new government in Colombo would be hoping to leverage regional growth and support from the Global South in the Asian 21^st Century”.

However, no senior Minister from Sri Lanka attended the meeting in Kazan where de-dollarization and trading in national currencies was a hot topic– an opportunity missed in deference to Washington? Sri Lanka’s application to join the New Development Bank has been accepted but the BRICS application remains pending at this time.

A New Regional Cold War: Delhi defies US Sanctions on Russia and Pivots to BRICS?

A new Cold War is clearly ramping up across the Indian Ocean–and not just on China. Having pushed Russia and China into ever close partnership Washington seems keen to ensure that India warmly embraces its erstwhile foe – China and the BRICS.

India had defied US sanctions on Russia over the past two year and ramped up Rupee-Ruble trade and Russian oil and gas purchases, benefiting from Russia’s decoupling from Europe and the war in Ukraine, also given historically strong and deep relations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War (1945-1991).

Was India rewarded with regime change in Bangladesh for defying US Sanctions and drawing nearer its neighbouring BRICS? India was also embroiled in a Canadian Sikh spy murder mystery with Woke Diaspora identity political overtones also emanating from Washington.

More concerning for India and indeed the South Asia region as a whole is the latest regime change operation with the obligatory student protests directed via social media right under India’s nose in neighbouring Bangladesh, and the weaponization of Hindu-Muslim-Buddhist regional religious identity politics that has followed.

Departing President Joe Biden seems to have run out of patience with India. The G-20 afterglow in Delhi now seems like a prelude to the parting of ways between India and the West, as Delhi appears to pivot to BRICS. Or perhaps it’s just Biden’s farewell to South Asia and the world, which increasingly seems like: ‘Apres moi le deluge!’

Debt Neocolonialism as a new Cold War takes Shape in South Asia

Will Sri Lanka caught in the IMF’s neocolonial debt and Eurobond bailout business be able to withstand US pressures as India has and turn its back on Indian and Russian investments? 

Will Colombo be asked to choose between Washington and New Delhi again? During the previous Cold War, Delhi armed and trained the Liberation Tigers (LTTE), against any possible US bases in its backyard as Colombo moved close to Washington under J.R. Jayawardena. This ensured that Sri Lanka’s so-called internal ethnic conflict’ which was really a regional Cold War proxy war, with India closely allied with the Soviet Union, would run for 30 years.

Geostrategic Sri Lanka’s ports and airports at the center of the Indian Ocean and a choke point of Submarine Data Cables are again of great interest to Washington’s neocons and the NATO war machine, which now aspires to Full Spectrum Dominance (FSD)–over earth, air, sea and Cyber operations.

The targeting of energy and electricity systems as well as transport and telecom infrastructure in the South Asia region– from MCC in Nepal in the north to IMF’s privatization push in Sri Lanka in the south may have much to do with the rush to setup Data Centers, as well as, control over trade and energy choke points as a new Cold War ramps up.

Cold War Redux: Regime Change and Debt NeoColonialism

Back in 2022 the Pakistan premier Imran Khan accused Donald Lu of running a regime change operation against him. Simultaneously a soft regime change operation also unfolded in Sri Lanka with the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded and social media directed Aragalaya ‘protests’.

The regime change in Colombo was masked as a people’s protest to ensure that the geostrategic island staged a smooth Sovereign Default into the waiting arms of the lender of last resorts- the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Washington backed President Ranil Rajapakse was installed for precisely this purpose.

Two years later, Imran Khan for his impudence in naming Donald Lu as the instigator of regime change in Pakistan in 2022 languishes in prison in Islamabad amid huge protests. Fate has been slightly kinder to Sri Lanka’s erstwhile president Gotabaya Rajapakse who was also ousted in the soft Aragalaya coup in 2022.

Rajapakse remains a free man albeit an ex-American citizen barred from travel to the US.  He was dispatched and humiliated amid the Woke Aragalaya protests that rocked Colombo, after the dreaded Victoria Nurland’s visit in early 2022 to triggered the regime change. Thus, South Asia’s only Upper Middle Income county was declared bankrupt overnight and forced to stage a first ever Sovereign Default!

Meanwhile, India the South Asian regional hegemon, grapples with yet another US instigated regime change right under her nose – this time in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Deposed secular Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina had sought refuge in Delhi given historic ties but religion/s have been weaponized in Bangladesh as part of an old Cold War project to destabilize the region.

A quiet parting of Ways? Weaponizing Diaspora Identity Politics

South Asia and the Indian Ocean region appear to be seeing a quiet parting of ways between the US and India, despite the G-20 hype of last year.  The side show with Canada may well be a distraction from the far more serious issue of regime change in Bangladesh, where religious minorities (Hindus, Buddhists and Christians), are now under threat from the same Saudi-funded Islamist Cat’s paw and handmaiden that the CIA with partner in crime Israel’s Mossad deploys around the world to destabilize countries and regions. Call it the ISIS, or Al Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood, whatever.

The recent regime change operation, weaponizing religious identity politics in Bangladesh that saw the ouster of Prime Minister Hasina a close ally of Delhi certainly put a spanner in the works in the West’s wooing of mother India with the Indian Diaspora in the west in tow; from Rishi Sunak to Kamala Harris who embodied the I2 (Israel-India) partnership given her Jewish husband, to all those Indian Diaspora CEOs of big US and EU corporations.

The Indian Diaspora in the West had been massively mobilized for the charm offensive to cement the I2 (India-Israel) alliance brokered as part of Washington’s Judeo-Christian-Hindu fundamentalist outreach via I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE, US), with the Islamist Cat’s paw to persuade India to fight a proxy war on China and crash the Asian 21^st Century. That kite did not fly.

The developments before and during the BRICS summit in Kazan where China and India made relative peace, and the regime change in Bangladesh may break the I2U2 partnership, or at least the I2, India-Israel part.  I2U2 was partly designed to help ‘normalize’ Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the massacre in Gaza via the Abraham Accords. The U2- UAE and US part may be fraying at this time.

As winds of change blow in Washington come January when Donald Trump would be ensconced President of the United States, Donald Lu would be perhaps saying a fond farewell to South Asia on this trip.

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[i] https://economynext.com/us-sanctions-indian-firm-involved-in-deal-with-sri-lankas-mattala-airport-186347/