wws

Ambassador Tamara Kunanayakam
Geneva

Dear Ms Kunanayakam,

The West has held back Sri Lanka’s economic and social development since Independence by flying in economic spin doctors to hector its statesmen.

The country was handcuffed no sooner it began to need help from the IMF.

Sri Lanka was turned into a raw-material supplying slave.

On the other hand, a selected group of countries were allowed unfettered growth. Examples of such countries include Sri Lanka’s friends Singapore and the Republic of Korea. Pupils from Singapore once gained an education in schools, including state-funded ones, in Sri Lanka. Trainees from Korea arrived at the state-funded Ceylon Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research.

On the other hand and later, after keeping Sri Lanka in economic bondage for more than half a century, the West attempts to pelt stones at its bondsman. A simple narrative on countries thus bound and exploited has been set out in the conscientious work “Bad Samaritans” by a South Korean-born Cambridge economist.

The Civil War that ended in 2009 provided a legacy of problems with new ones unearthed every day. Not least come the PR stunts of protection money racketeers and war profiteers who use lobbyists to influence some Western nations. Such money-backed influence may not technically visible by primary definition. On the other hand, Western economic protectionism is set out in printed volumes starting with the 1952 World Bank report.

So Sri Lanka has both war-era and earlier issues of half-century to deal with. Attempts to make the country run before it can walk must be understood as blame-shifting by those nations whose victim it is. An exceptional vehemence of tone at conferences may mark those nations in which protection money racketeers have set up their main bureaus.

Wishing you every success,

Yours sincerely,