Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Sabry has spoken on Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring process, stating that encouraging signs have been seen thus far, although Sri Lanka is not ‘completely out of the woods’.
In an interview with Channel News Asia (CNA), the Minister said there is a glimmer of hope for us, but we are not out of the woods” when inquired as to where Sri Lanka’s optimism pertaining to economic recovery is coming from, despite the Asian Development Bank (ADB) predicting that things will get worse later this year, before seeing gradual improvement in 2024.
Sabry, who is currently attending the ADB annual meeting in Incheon, South Korea, noted that there are several factors contributing towards this ‘optimism’, including the stabilisation of the US Dollar, the increase of inbound tourists and the fact that inflation too, is relatively under control as opposed to the rates recorded in 2022.
We have, in fact a 11.2% gain on the dollar which has helped us to stabilise our prices, and with that of course the migrant worker are sending the money through the normal channels”, he said, adding that although it is possible to see a further recession in the coming few months, we should be able to see some sort of growth” next year.
Meanwhile, when questioned on Sri Lanka’s readiness for the first review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) approved by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is due to take place in September, the Minister assured that there is a sense of stability in the country, and that all queues and shortages have been eliminated.
Thus, he noted that lots of progress has been made with regard to several necessary actions and prerequisites which were due to be taken prior to the approval of the EFF, despite a few minor exceptions.
Speaking on the debt restructuring process as a whole, Sabry emphasised that the process should be one that is equal for all, with ‘a universal application of debt relief’.
He further highlighted the benefits of debt restructuring, adding that without it, Sri Lanka’s debts will no longer be sustainable, which will ultimately affect both investors and creditors as no proper investment will be made against such a backdrop.
Therefore, he emphasised that the longer the restructuring process takes, the more adverse the impact will be on the investors.
But they all understand that”, he said with regard to Sri Lanka’s investors and creditors.
I know some tough negotiations are around the corner, but so far, the signs are encouraging from our friends, both bilateral and otherwise”.
Commenting on the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia and its impact on Sri Lanka, the Foreign Affairs Minister noted that since the island nation received its main coal supply from Russia, they are currently looking for alternatives for the short term.
He explained, however, that measures are underway to establish a steady source of renewable energy within the country by 2030, as there is a very good catchment for both wind and solar power with Sri Lanka being an island.
He noted, however, that nearly 35% of the island’s electricity generation is powered by coal, and thus, the government is currently looking for alternate suppliers.
Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Sabry also addressed recent concerns as to whether China’s latest investment would give the country a naval advantage to use Sri Lanka as a military hub, asserting that the matter was completely out of the question”. We will not let anyone use Sri Lanka as a military hub or port for anyone that is very, very clear”, he said, adding that the investment was solely a commercial arrangement.
Legal action has been taken against 12 private hospitals and laboratories for overcharging patients for both, dengue tests and Full Blood Count (FBC) tests.
Accordingly, the 12 institutes were fined a total of Rs. 9.4 million for charging patients prices above those gazette for the relevant tests, a senior investigative official of the Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA), A. U. Ranjan said.
He further revealed that the respective fines were imposed as per court orders issued by the Nugegoda, Mt. Lavinia, Maligakanda and Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Courts.
The relevant institutions were taken to court by the CAA based on information gathered over the last four months by the CAA Special Raids Unit of the Colombo District CAA, Ranjan said, adding that measures are currently underway to impose a standardised price for other commonly used laboratory tests as well, although no such raids are being conducted in this regard.
The attempt to suddenly bring sex education to children above other more important issues is cause for concern especially if it is funded from foreign sources & curriculum is also written from foreign sources. Children should be taught values, to be animal-friendly, to be taught civics to learn the laws of the land before learning sex. Sri Lankan students already have a subject called Health Education – this is ample to cover the topic of basic knowledge of sex. Having infested eastern cultures with western culture of drilling young minds with sexuality & sensualism, children’s minds are being intentionally diverted. The West is openly including LGBTQ curriculum” into the minds of perfectly normal children, since including same will draw negative publicity, the insidious attempt is to bring sexuality” to children in the form of sex education”. All of these curricular comes via foreign funds, with NGOs drafting the syllabus and education officials asked to only endorse it. Therefore, patriotic educationists and parents must be alert & read these texts & protests if they attempt to bring LGBTQ or other unnormal sex education into the minds of our children.
Sri Lanka loves to import every headache to our shores. LGBTQ is the newest ‘fad’.
6 US States have passed legislation to include LGBTQ+ in course syllabus. Nevada starts from kindergarten.
n 2011, California became the first state to require that the social studies curriculum include the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) figures and their roles in contemporary society. Similar legislation was passed eight years later in Colorado and New Jersey. The point is anyone may have been gay but that was NOT what made their mark in society. It was not because they were gay that they have entered history books. The LGBTQ community are twisting this gayness” as a propaganda for their programs & now plugging into school texts as well.
US is encouraging youth to become sexually active with the same sex while also increasing health centres to meet the health challenges as well as hospitals, medicines, after-care (all owned by those promoting LGBTQ) It’s a very lucrative venture that has multiple goals & outcomes as those funding LGBTQ are also funding movements that seek to reduce population, which is being encouraged in multiple ways by discouraging marriage, presenting the futility of married life, making young couples fear having children, attracting youth away from natural opposite sex & getting them drawn to same-sex relationships & same-sex marriage which ends ability to give birth naturally and now the latest fad is the transgender movement where children are being brainwashed via sex education to change their sex & dent the normal process of life, marriage, family & procreation. This is unwanted meddling with nature & the natural and has nothing to do with any inherent qualities in anyone. It has everything to do with a well-funded, well lobbied, well campaigned well-coordinated global agenda seeking to legislatively make the changes to roll out programs across countries to fiddle with peoples sex & indoctrinate their young minds into becoming what they are not but being made to believe it is their choice. This ‘choice’ comes about by infesting their mind believing to be what they are not but something/someone else. This toying with minds of children often without parental knowledge is dangerous & needs to be identified before it is rolled out in Sri Lanka, where funds can do magic with people willing to do anything for money.
How is inclusive” defined, who defines it & in whose interest?
6 US States has LGBTQ inclusive” laws
California, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon, Illinois, Nevada
Notice the modus operandi.
Lobbies present a hyped-notion of discrimination”. This is to stir sympathy bring it to a point where the organizers put their next trump card of demanding legislative” changes to bring safeguards” to the discriminated” mostly using isolated incidents hype to present a global issue”. Further pressure is exerted by getting their other influential arms to exert political pressure diplomatically or hand economic carrots (we will give $XXX if you implement this) In all probability these documents would have already been prepared by them even before the whole discrimination” scenarios were launched. Thus, the subtle indoctrination has become complete having choreographed the scenario, built-it to a level of demanding system change”, drafting the ‘legislative change” to their advantage and then using their influence to ensure across the country, their program is implemented as per their plan. How many such
In all the above, children are made to believe that historical figures became historical figures because of being gay? The emphasis to being gay is a key operational clause embedded with ulterior motives.
If there are LGBTQ children & if they are being discriminated, the sensible thing to do is to take action against those bullying children. Not bullying children through course curriculum to learn about LGBTQ, infesting their minds to also join the club. If the argument is that LGBTQ are naturally” LGBTQ, why force the naturally” not LGBTQ children to think of becoming LGBTQ or think they are also LGBTQ via brainwashing through State school curriculums?
Confusing & confounding matters further is the pains being taken to teach the teachers about how to teach children to embrace LGBTQ as being ‘normal’.
Are US schools trying to turn normal children into LGBTQ? Are they trying to import this to Sri Lanka by first sneaking the agenda through SEX EDUCATION” & combining that with foreign grant/aid making it impossible for corrupt politicians & public sector to refuse? Don’t play with the lives of children to satisfy corrupt ways. Introducing sex education” is a ruse. Using ‘sex education’ as a camouflage, the attempt is to indoctrinate Sri Lanka’s children as young as 1 year olds to question their sexuality, distance them from family ties and bonds and create zombies out of them, making them dress abnormally, behave contrary to eastern culture, embrace ideals that are imported only to destroy their lives.
Phase 1: indoctrinating kids from age 1 to 7 & influencing their subconscious mind
Phase 2: kids begin questioning their sex, experimenting with sex & indirectly guided away from parental links
Phase 3: children encouraged to change sex, thinking it is their decision when it is clearly not. The course curricular was designed to infest their minds to become what they were naturally not & thereafter they are permanent customers of Big Pharma dependent on drugs to survive. Lifelong medicines have serious impact on a child & ruins the family & traumatizes them.
We are watching some sadistic people use funds to force countries to meddle with the minds of the child.
Sri Lanka’s parents must be awake to the sex education” gender” programs that are being rolled out simply because some foreign funding agency has given some money for implementing these programs that are going to ruin your precious child.
Disney+ Uses Drag Queens To Promote & Fund LGBTQ Curriculum In Public Schools
Over $200K being spent on drag queen shows at NYC schools, records show (2022)
What started in America was palmed off to UK & Europe. Americans are now European parents are up in arms over spreading of homosexual ideology among normal childen & passing new laws to curtail its spread.
Should we not be learning lessons & PREVENT same coming to Sri Lanka without embracing what has proved to be a failed project elsewhere but the damage done to the children is irreversible. 30 clinics are operating in US to change sex of children. Let this nonsense not come to Sri Lanka as well.
I am disappointed that an MP has made baseless allegations & spread outright lies in a book that should be labelled fiction”. For 75 years the US and SL have showed commitments to democracy, sovereignty and prosperity and future wecontinue to build together”, twittered American Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung soon after the launch of National Freedom Front leader MP Wimal Weerawansa’s book Nine; The Hidden Story”. Julie Chung should explain in detail the baseless allegations” and outright lies” that contain in Weerawansa’s book and clear her name as the Conductor of Galle Face Protest and Viceroy of Sri Lanka planted by the US. Her message reveals the poor knowledge she has regarding fiction. Weerawansa’s book discloses what type of a future” she wanted to build” for Sri Lanka.
The roc wings fanwise
Soaring ninety thousand li
And rousing a cyclone”(Two Birds: A Dialogue” by Mao Zedong -1965).
Current events show that within a few hours after the launching of the book Nine” in front of a packed audience at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute on April 25, has roused a cyclone as Mao put into poetry. According to Chinese mythology the bird called pengwhose wings were like clouds could rise ninety thousand li to the sky at one stretch creating a cyclone. Cyclone Nine” has hit not only Julie Chang. It has hit Fonseka and some other politicians, columnists, cartoonists, and satirists who make fun out of every serious political development in this country. Defense Ministry on behalf of Shavindra Silva has issued a statement that Silva was on an official visit to India in July 2022 to attend the meeting of the Colombo Security Conclave with the approval of the then President of Sri Lanka. In other words this shows that our security top brass was conferring in a foreign country when the country was burning and the life of the Head of State was at stake.
The book has generated dissension in the ranks of JVP/ NPP, Tilvin Silva and Lalkantha making statements contradictory to each other, the latter accepting US hands at Galle Face. Those you were in the pay list of USAID, NED, IRI, NDI, IREX, MEND, ROAR Media all US front organisations and operational in Sri Lanka and media personnel trained by such organisations and those who attended Julie Chung’s garden parties may be mapping out their counter measures. (It is pity to state that Rev. Pallegama Hemaratna, Atamasthanadhipathi of Anuradhapura becoming Chung’s latest catch”).
The speech made by an academic attached to Sripalee campus preceding Weerawansa’s fiery revelations paled into insignificance as it was a hotchpotch of sterile theory which has no practical value. The organisers could have selected a person for this task who was able to formulate a theory to Galle Face Protest as opposed to those who had theorised Galle Face Protest as a new type of mass uprising.
What is extraordinary in Nine”, a small book which contains only 135 pages? Most of the things discussed in this book were treated in different perspectives by writers who were critical about the Galle Face Protest, who understood the true nature of it, its handlers and US footprints from the very beginning of Galle Face Protest including this writer. Wimal Weerawansa was able to unfold many frightening happenings that previous writers were not informed of. Also, many incidents that are coming into light only now beg new and different interpretations.
The book contains two parts: part I or the major portion of the book (114 pages) is devoted to describe the hidden story” of the nines” in the cotemporary history of Sri Lanka.
The narrative begins with a brief discussion of the economic situation of the country that triggered protest movements. It says that the crisis was deepened as a result of intolerant, unresponsive, arrogant thinking and behaviours of GR, Basil and Jayasundera. The author exposes how at these initial stages of the crisis Victoria Nuland and Julie Chung entered the arena. Nuland arrived in the Island on 23 March 2022, just a week before that fateful day, 31 March. Nuland, apart from meeting GR and GL Peiris had met an unidentifiable cabal of civil society activists”. The griddle was heated; protesters wanted to bake a roti; but nobody knew what type of a roti they wanted to bake. It was known only to Julie Chang and few others.
Weerawansa correctly states that although the Galle Face Protest was labelled as peaceful” and non-violent”, the first wave of violence was unleashed on March 31 at Mirihana and the second a few days later with the attacks to private residences of some Government MPs and not on May 9 in retaliation to destroying of Protesters’ urban ghetto as propagated by protesters, media and opposition politicians. On 31 March when GR’s life was in danger, as the Commander-in-Chief, he was unable to get additional troops mobilised. The author says that the Army Commander was attending a wedding at a star class hotel at the time. Nine observations made by the Karannagoda Commission in respect of the delay in mobilising troop are listed here. Soon, Chung begins her Twitter campaign” interfering in internal affairs of the country violating international covenants. The author interprets her twitter messages as an open invitation demanding change.
The author draws parallels between Galle Face and Maidan Protest in Ukraine, the latter masterminded by Nuland.
We cannot agree with the way the author analysing the Rambukkana incident. Had the Rambukkana protesters succeeded in setting fire to the petrol bowser stationed at a level crossing for hours, the whole town would have engulfed in flames and the disaster was unimaginable. The author makes the fallen protester a hero dedicating the book also to the wife and children of the dead person. The author fails to see that the protesters countrywide were looking for blood, a dead body and how this death caused to stage funeral processions, dirges and wailing at the Galle Face Protest site. It is only now the black coated junior partners of the BASL, a beneficiary of USAID grants had washed their hands from this whole case. It should be reminded that some protesters wanted to make the President of BASL the President of Sri Lanka!
Next, the author draws attention of the readers to the convoy of army trucks parked near Galle Face Green. At this instance Julie Chung had persuaded GR and another Minister (name not given) to remove those trucks, otherwise the IMF bailout would not take place. In face of her threat” GR had ordered the removal of trucks from Galle Face vicinity. We ordinary people knew army trucks coming and going. But only now we realise what had happened exactly. Bringing trucks to the Galle Face vicinity cannot be a show of strength. The author says that Chung wanted to push the Galle Face Protest further until its fruition as envisaged by the script writers.
Meanwhile the US Ambassador continued meeting top level personnel of the security establishment including the IGP, Commander of the Sri Lanka Army and chief of intelligence services, all these officers had met the Ambassador without obtaining permission from the President, book says. This is tantamount to influencing them psychologically inducing them not to react against the protesters for the realisation of her ultimate objective in the midst of creating anarchy in the country. During this period the Ambassador had met CBK and Sirisena. The author states that she received many other MPs and politicians, government officials and civil society” activists without mentioning their names. We can add that one such person was Dayasiri Jayasekera, General Secretary of SLFP, a distinguished invitee at the launch of Nine”! In our previous articles we have mentioned the names of those politicians, MPs, media personnel and NGO aristocrats who were received by Julie Chung during this turbulent period. The author reveals that Chung was aware of the final outcome of the protest what the protesters themselves were not aware.
The author describes the events that took place on May 9, that unmasked the true face of the protesters. Senior DIG in charge of Colombo was instructed not to stop the goons that were advancing towards Galle Face Green as against the orders given by the Commander-in-chief, the author states. The book gives much space to discuss how the so-called protest of love” metamorphosised into unleashing murder, arson, destruction of property and overall mayhem and how certain groups of actors and actresses, singers, writers, poets, media men, U tubers, civil society” activists and university academics joined the social media campaign fanning the flames of violence, destruction and death. The author fails to name these persons, may be because they were small fry as compared to Ambassadors and other top rung officials. The author says that love” was only a veil hiding violence and destruction. Thus, violence was justified naming it as counter-attacks.
But in retrospect we can add that most of the protesters were activists or sympathisers of JVP/NPP or FSP and those singers, actors, lyricists, music directors were the very same persons who feasted on the cadaver of Mother Lanka paying homage to Rajapaksas during their glorious days. We can vouch that one such person had solemnised the wedding of his daughter at the Temple Trees with the full blessings and patronage of Rajapaksas. It was an historical irony that Ranil Wickremasinghe quoting a song of this person at the Independence Day Celebrations and a Face Book account of the person who initiated hanging lingerie at Galle Face and Polduwa Junction in one of his Parliament speeches respectively.
Many groups including the FSP were mesmerised by these attacks and unleashing of violence. They saw in it a semblance of Russian Revolution and called for the formation of regional insurgent groups. The biggest slipup of the author at this instance is not highlighting the fundamentals of the Bolshevik Revolution and how the Bolsheviks captured power against tremendous odds. Nobody should be allowed to revise what had happened in the history to suit their narrow political games and paint marauders and banditry as revolutionaries and revolutionary moments respectively.
Next the author focusses his attention to the conclusions of the Karannagoada Committee. The author surmises that the protesters were able to unleash violence all over the Island as a result of security forces were made to witness all as silent observers. The author gives reasons for such negative action which are irrefutable. At the end all what matters is not the country or the state but personal affinities and familial ties.
Under the sub-heading Throne to Ranil” (p.57) Weerawansa does not fail to bring forward Ranil’s funny statements regarding the Galle Face Protest when he was made the Prime Minister by GR. Instead of dissuading the protest it was encouraged. The author does not mention the names of UNPers who made Galle Face Green their home and spearheaded a vigorous social media campaign in support of Galle Face. These were the people who got plum appointments when RW became the President.
Nobel laureate, the Nigerian writer and dramatist Wole Soyinka in 1978 performed a set of comedies in streets, at market places and lorry parks. One such comedy was titled Home to Roost”. The people who got appointments from RW remind us some characters depicted in these short comedies and its title aptly fits these grandees.
Still many blame Rajapaksas for the economic crisis. But the origin of the economic crisis goes to the days of yahapalana regime as explained in page 59 of the book. Reasons for the debt trap and crisis in balance of payments are pointed out quoting a report of an expert committee.
Another intriguing episode of this drama disclosed by Weerawansa is Omalpe Sobitha, who acted as the joint godfather of Galle Face Protesters with Malcom Cardinal Ranjith. Sobitha had forced some Anunayakas (names or sects not given; but Maha Vihara refers either to Asgiriya or Malwatta)) to request MR to appoint Patali Champika Ranawaka as Prime Minister. By this time Julie Chung had already met Ranawaka and discussed how to work in collaboration sharing his (Ranawaka’s) vision to solve the present economic crisis”. Nobody has given Julie a mandate to solve the economic crisis of Sri Lanka. How many actors in this nexus? Countless.
Weerawansa devotes pages 65 to 80 to elaborate US Footprints at Galle Face Green; how the imperialists staged so called Colour Revolutions” in different countries; US organisations operating in Sri Lanka utilised by the US to serve its geopolitical interests; how these organisations work to corrupt the mindset of the people and how they control various political forces in the country. All those persons who had attended various programmes conducted by these organisations and the representatives shown posing for photographs with Chung including media personnel played a pivotal and a debilitating role at Galle Face. The author includes many photographs of these crusaders” proudly posing for cameras, Chung occupying the center stage.
We invite the attention of the readers to our article entitled US Footprints at theGalle Face Protest Site” posted on August 20, 2022 in LankaWeb, which gives a more detailed analysis providing concrete examples. Weerawansa in pages 81-89 elucidates how the Galle Face protest became an anti-Buddhist campaign funded by Tamil diaspora. For a detailed account of culture of the Galle Face protesters we again focus the attention of the readers to our article Culture of Galle FaceProtesters” posted on September 3, 2022 in LankaWeb. In that we identified 21 aspects of this low and sordid culture.
The most despicable, appalling, horrendous acts unfolded are explained from page 90 to 102 of the book, July 9 and its aftermath. Many of these acts come to light for the first is the uniqueness of this book. Some of these were in the grapevine but they are being documented for the first time inviting further investigation.
The massive crowds that thronged to Colombo on May 9 had made the estimations of the Intelligence services a kid’s work. Army Commander was not in the Island. Weerawansa alleges that his trip to India was facilitated by Chung with the assistance of the Indians. Attitudes of some officers of the famous 53rd Division was questionable says Weerawansa quoting an observation of the Karannagoda Committee. He alleges that army fortifications (defenses/barricades) towards the Presidential House were loose and vulnerable that could not withstand a mighty force. Masterminds of the Protesters had planned to storm the Presidential House around 2 o’clock in the afternoon. But the protesters were able to break the army barricades easily than they have expected and storm the Presidential House before noon owing to weak defenses. GR was briefed by his defense chiefs that everything was under control. But a chance activation of a television channel had showed him that the protesters were storming the Presidential House, the place where he was residing after the Mirahana outrage on 31 March 2022. The decision was taken immediately to vacate the Presidential House and the navy Commander’s plan was executed. Protesters were able to forcibly occupy the Presidential House rather easily and earlier than they had thought.
Weerawansa next unravels the most hideous part of this underhand plot. India which promised an airplane for GR to flee the country has not honoured that promise. Indians wanted GR to sack RW. This request was made through Mahinda Samarasinghe too, Sri Lankan Ambassador to Washington. Milinda Moragoda, Sri Lanka’s envoy to New Delhi also had pressurised GR demanding Ranil’s removal. This is only another case showing how our envoys working to safeguard the interests of other countries while Julie Chung and her ilk trying to destabilise our country.
Weerawansa claims that Gamini Senerath GR’s Secretary had prepared two letters and send them to Maldives for GR’s signature, one proclaiming GR’s resignation and the other sacking RW. But according to Weerawansa GR had not signed the second one. At this time plans were set to storm the Parliament and capture it; the next step was occupying the Supreme Courts premises. This would signify the fall of the national state, leading to anarchy, legislature, seat of the executive and judiciary falling into the hands of anarchists.
Then Weerawansa reveals a leader of a very influential religious denomination (non-Buddhist) visiting the Speaker at his official residence, having a discussion with him for about two hours and asking him to accept the Presidency after GR’s resignation. Although Weerawansa does not name this religious dignitary it is easy to guess who it was. He cannot be the Commander of the Salvation Army! Why does Weerawansa hide this after unravelling so many things which the reader did not have access? Is it another hidden story”?
Next appears the unanticipated visitor. Julie Chung was her name. She pressurises and commands the Speaker to accept the Presidency. The Speaker had repeatedly told the Ambassador that it was against the Constitution. Now the readers may recall that the JVP called for an Interim Government headed by the Speaker as the Acting President. Julie Chung having received JVP leader AKD twittered, to me the JVP is a significant party. They have a growing presence. They resonate with the public during recent times. They are a growing political party and their ideas are accepted by the public”. Was the JVP used by Chung to carry out her plans? Wimal Weerawansa misses this important point. How Lalkantha had admitted US involvement in Galle Face protest? Did they participate in it clearly knowing its handlers and financiers?
Weerawansa analyses the strength of the FSP which polled only 14522 votes from the whole Island (p. 77) and asks how did it use a colossal amount of money during the protest. It’s very simple to understand. The then JVP leader Somavansa Amarasinghe said that this philistine (FSP leader) broke the party as instructed by a foreign intelligence service!
After Chung’s departure the Speaker goes to Security Forces Headquarters at Pelawatta and meets RW who was there. They view a telecast of RW’s private residence engulfed in flames. Weerawansa says that RW has not received a positive response from the security chiefs when they were asked to overpower the arsonists. RW leaves. At this juncture the Army Commander had asked the Speaker to request RW to step down. Army Commander had opined that bringing back normalcy was an uphill task to the security forces.
Weerawansa exposes that a person who commanded the Sri Lankan army at one time, now an MP, had continuously instructed the present Commander over the phone and the latter’s responses were extremely positive. At one instance this particular MP had rang the Commander 13 times. The author does not name who this person was.
Weerawansa concludes this part stating that the American Ambassador wanted to create another Libya in Sri Lanka. After killing Muhammar Gadhafi Americans installed an interim government in Libya headed by its Speaker with bits and pieces picked up from hear and there. Weerawansa does not forget to name who would sit in that government.
He further says that Julie Chung and Galle Face protesters failed to accomplish the Plan A”. Having failed to thwart RW’s ascent to presidency now the US is pursuing their Plan B”, working with RW to achieve their objectives. Weerawansa quotes many twitter messages that originated from Julie Chung’s desk to elucidate this. Weerawansa describes in pages 105-114 Nuland’s second visit to Sri Lanka in January 2023 and the Top Secret Mission” that took place a fortnight after, the visit of the top-level US delegation that included CIA Director William Joseph Burns and how RW had consented to three of the four US demands which are detrimental to the interests and aspirations of Sri Lanka. Weerawansa says that the release of the first tranche of IMF loan was tied to these conditions and the delay in releasing the first tranche was in anticipation of this consent. This shows us that opposition to IMF conditions” as perceived by trade unionists, academia and some politicians are imaginary and the real conditions” are shrouded in mystery known only to the Americans and their proteges in Sri Lanka.
Are we going to simply dismiss the allegations made against certain people in this book as conspiracy theories? People whose names mentioned in this book so far have not denied the allegations made against them. Weerawansa’s revelations should be investigated. But we cannot expect such a probe under Ranil Wickremasinghe or responses from either Julie Chung or others mentioned in the book, except defamatory statements already made by Fonseka, Tilvin Silva et al. Ranil Wickremasinghe is not a Lula da Silva. In our piece titled From PresidentialHouse in Colombo to Planalto Presidential Palace in Brasilia in Brazil and Andean Mountains in Peru” posted on February 5, 2023 we have described how the Brazilian authorities commenced a criminal probe into the insurrection. But at the same time, we have stated that it won’t happen in Sri Lanka as there were many intentional lapses in security that allowed the protesters in Sri Lanka to run berserk.
As the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress has appointed an Independent Commission to probe the causes leading to the state of anarchy in Sri Lanka” and called for evidence, the said Commission should accept MP Wimal Weerawansa’s book as written submissions and make a detailed study. Several members of this Commission were present at the book launch, got copies of this book and listened to Wimal Weerawansa’s speech (more or less his oral submissions).
Sudipto Sen latest video about Kerala’s demographic timebomb. Kerala will be converted into an Islamic state within 20 years: Leading filmmaker, Sudipto Sen quotes a former communist Chief Minister’s recorded admission on Kerala’s demographic timebomb
Prof. Nimal Senanayake (NS) professor emeritus, eminent neurologist and creative writer and producer of drama and films, continuing his commitment to write in Sinhala on important health issues for public education, has published the seventeenth in the series and the chosen subject is the deadly Rabies of which the public awareness could be insufficient from the point of view of prevention and treatment to prevent death. Prevention of onset of the disease is not difficult if treatment is instituted soon after a dog bite or bite by other animals like bats carrying the virus. NS deals with these aspects adequately and in simple prose in his little book of 165 pages.
NS showing his proclivity to drama and suspense starts in dramatic fashion, bringing in bats rather than dogs to beigin his story describing cases of rabies in Texas 1951, Florida 1953 and Pennsylvania 1953, all due to attacks from the sky as it were, all bitten by flying bats coming down and biting without any provocation. All these bats were not blood sucking vampire bats but apparently harmless insectivora. NS’s intention clearly is not just drama but to draw the attention of the reader to the strong possibility of bats developing as vectors of deadly viruses as was the case with Corona and several other virus diseases which NS has written about. NS has mentioned that Rabies following bat bite had occured in Sri Lanka too.
NS then embarks upon a very interesting journey through history starting with Diana the Roman Goddess of Wilderness and the Hunt and traces back the history of Rabies to 4000 years. He mentions great philosophers Democritus (500 BCE), and Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE) and the father of medicine Hipocrates who had written about disease due to animal bites. Greek physician Galen (129 – 200 CE) had recorded the natural history of rabies and also treatment measures including wound care some of which are still valid. NS has commented on Arabian writtings on rabies which is noteworthy as early development of medicine happened in the Arabian civilisation.
After history NS switches over to his usual practice adopted throughout this series where he asks critical questions and gives lengthy explanations. These questions are those that may arise in the minds of science writers, students, patients and ordinary people. They are designed to bring out the most important information that these categories must know about rabies and also lively anecdotes. This is a very effective and efficient method of conveying the knowledge with brevity and clarity, that the author has developed with his vast experience of teaching and practice of medicine.
Begining with the virology of rabies with a description of the rabies virus the author covers the entirety of all aspects of the disease. He connects up the physiology of the virus with the pathogenesis of the disease, how the virus enters the tissues of the human body, proliferates and then gains access to the nervous system through the peripheral nerves. What happens in the brain when the virus reaches it and affects the brain stem, limbic system etc. would be of particular interest to the medical students.
How the author looks at every aspect is exemplified when a question is asked whether the person who attends to the wounds of the patient could contract the infection and the explanation that follows showing how it could happen. Then the author explains why and how rabies is known as hydro-phobia, the horrendous result that ensues when the extremely thirsty patient attempts to take some water into the mouth and try to swallow it is the reason that causes severe fear of water in the mind of the patient. The physiological basis for this undue fear of water according to the author is ‘conditioned reflex’ and this is illustrated with the famous experiment by Pavlov and his dog. Similarly the patient is horrified of the wind blowing against his body which like water causes severe shivering and muscle contraction. A comprehansive description of the possible animals that could be a vector for rabies is given and also how careful people should be about their pets and the danger of being suddenly attacked by these animals who may appear to be harmless is vividly described.
Though these symptoms are seen in the advanced state the early symptoms could be similar to those of common cold except that there could be radiating numbness at the site of the wound. The wrong beliefs that the patient may bark like a dog or even bite others has no basis and the origin of these beliefs are explained. But the caregivers must be careful not to get contaminated by salivary secretions of the patient even on a minor wound or scratch on their skin.
The tragedy of the situation is that when the patient is not subject to severe muscle contraction and shivering he could be in his proper senses and he realises that he is facing a horrendous death. This state is really pathetic for everybody near and dear to the patient. Physio-pathological explanations of the often mysterious fearful clinical picture would be very useful to medical students. These fearful clinical features could be to some degree controlled with pain killers and sedatives. Apart from the nervous systems other organs also may be invaded via the nerves and consequently heart failure and pneumonia could result. Merciful death would arrive with the patient going into coma due to the development of encephalitis which is not any different from other types of encephalitis.
After this comprehensive discussion on all the importanr aspects of rabies the author talks about a rare type of rabies called paralytic rabies which is due to the spinal cord and the medulla oblongata being affected instead of the brain and brain stem. This condition is also known as the dumb or silent rabies as there is no violent spasms but a paralysis of limbs and other muscles. Yet slow death cannot be avoided. This type of rabies is more common with bat bites and there had been an outbreak of it of epidemic proportion in Trinidad in 1929 – 1931 period. Health authorities thought it was an outbreak of polio or botulism poisoning.
Author goes into details of diagnosis and draws our attention to the fact that the animal bite incident may even have been forgotten as onset of symptoms could be delayed. This makes diagnosis difficult and this is made worse by the fact that there may be several other conditions that may initially exhibit similar clinical features. NS with his usual thoroughness mentions that sometimes a person who has been bitten by a dog may undergo immense mental stress and go into hysteria which may simulate rabies!
NS gives a comprehensive description of tetanus which is one of the conditions that need to be differentiated in the diagnosis of rabies. Moreover tetanus could occure following bites by dogs and other animals who carry the bacterium that causes tetanus. In tetanus the bacteria do not travel upto the nervous system but the toxin it produces while proliferating in the depth of a wound could travel along nerves and effect the central nervous system. Spasms of muscles could result in a similar clinical picture to that of rabies though there are important differences that may help the doctor to suspect rabies. These differences are lucidly described by the author and illustrated with clear colour pictures which is a striking feature throughout the book which complements the text and adds value to the work. The fact that if adequate treatment is provided in good time tetanus could be fully cured which is not the case with rabies which needs to be nipped in the bud if it is to be cured is emphasized.
NS mentions botulinum toxin poisoning which is another condition that could mimic rabies. What is important to ordinary reader here is the fact that contaminated food, specially tinned fish that has gone bad could contain the toxin due to Clostridium Botulinum contamination. NS does not forget to tell us how to detect the possibility of such contamination by an examination of the can of fish which would appear to be swollen and the fish would be blackish in colour. Other diseases that the author mentions which may be clinically similar to rabies are encephalitis caused by malaria, delerium tremens and poisoning by certain locally found wild fruits like goda kaduru” and attana” and also ganja” which children may unknowingly consume.
Then the author deals with the tests that could be carried out to confirm the diagnosis particularly in the animal that had bitten the patient so that treatment could be started early to prevent death. He has a story to tell about the development of these tests and also the vaccines. He gives detailed account of how Frenchman Louis Pasteur succeded in discovering anthrax causing bacteria in cattle and attempts at developing a vaccine against anthrax and also against rabies. Description of Pasteur’s attempt to experiment the rabies vaccine he had developed on a human being is full of drama and suspense. Scientific detail which could be boring is embelished with human drama which is a feature of NS’s writings that make them so readable. Author has written several pages on Louis Pasteur in order to emphasize the great importance of the ground breaking discoveries he had made which eventually helped mankind to combat many killer diseases caused by micro-organisms. The description of how Pasteur risks his life when he sucked into a tube saliva from a rabid dog is fascinating.
Next NS deals with the attempt at attenuation of the virus by Irish physician Sir David Semple (1856 – 1937) The attenuated virus could be used as the vaccine as it could initiate the development of immunity against the viral infection. Greater success was achieved by the efforts of Polish physician Hillary Koprowski (1960 -2013) and American bacteriologist Herald Cox (1907 – 1986) who used new methods to lessen the virulence of the virus. Methods of producing safe vaccines which may not have the complications of ealier varieties have taken vast stides with the development of DNA technology.
Finally NS writes about prevention and treatment of rabies which is of vital importance as about 55000 die worldwide annually mainly due to ignorence, negligence and lack of facilities for vaccination. What should be done after being bitten by an animal which could be a vector of rabies is clearly described. The use of Rabies Immunoglobulin (RIG) and Anti-rabies Vaccine (ARV) and their mode of action is given in detail. This section is very important for the student as well as lay persons. The final chaptor on animal management from the point of view of rabies prevention would be very useful for everybody, specially people who keep pets, animal lovers and animal farm keepers.
Prof. Nimal Senanayake has produced yet again a compact little book full of knowledge important for everybody written in beautiful Sinhala prose like a story, simplifying complex matters and vividly emphasizing where emphasis is necessary. This excellent piece of work would be of use to ordinary people, medical students, post graduates, animal farmers, and doctors who practice bread and butter medicine every where in the country.
Sri Lanka needs anti-terror and anti-subversion laws. Sadly, the seven decades since Independence are dotted with subversion, violence, disruption and terrorism. Current Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) introduced in 1979 has its use but falls short of many security risks the island faces. Parts of it are outdated.
Singapore’s Internal Security Act is a reasonable adaptation for Sri Lanka. It is very comprehensive and it has helped turn Singapore into a modern peaceful, diverse and developed nation.
A link to the Act is found at Singapore Statutes Online. (Internal Security Act 1960, 2020 REVISED EDITION)
A Chinese state-owned firm said on Monday it plans to take its investment in Sri Lanka to $2 billion by building a major logistics hub.
Sri Lanka is looking to kickstart its economic recovery after defaulting on its foreign debt last year, when shortages of essentials such as food, fuel and medicines sparked widespread anti-government protests.
The investment by the China Merchants Group in a large logistics complex at Colombo Port, with an estimated construction cost of $392 million, is the first major foreign investment in Sri Lanka since the default.
The logistics centre project will take CMG’s accumulated investment in Sri Lanka to… over 2 billion US dollars, making it the largest foreign investment enterprise in the island”, the company said in a statement on Monday.
CMG will have a 70 percent stake in the company set up to build the logistics complex at Colombo, the only deep-sea port between Dubai and Singapore.
Describing the project as South Asia’s largest logistics hub, CMG said it expects to complete it by the end of 2025.
CMG also manages the port complex at Hambantota on the southern tip of Sri Lanka.
That port was considered among the white-elephant projects launched by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who ruled the country for a decade until 2015.
Rajapaksa borrowed heavily from China for projects that many criticised as a debt trap that led to the worst economic crisis in Sri Lanka’s history.
Unable to repay a huge loan taken from China in 2017 to build Hambantota port, Sri Lanka handed it over to CMG for $1.12 billion on a 99-year lease.
China has loaned billions for projects in Asia, Africa and Europe under its gargantuan Belt and Road Initiative, which critics say is saddling nations with debt.
Neighbouring India as well as the United States have also expressed concern about China gaining a naval advantage in the Indian Ocean with its access to Sri Lanka’s ports.
Sri Lanka has insisted that its ports will not be used for any military purposes.
Chairman of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on National Security, Rear Admiral (retd) Sarath Weerasekara, has condemned the blacklisting by the US of Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda over the latter’s alleged involvement in ‘a gross violation of human rights during his tenure as a Naval Commander’ on the basis of finding made by NGOs and independent investigations.
The former Public Security Minister said so at last Friday’s meeting of the Oversight Committee held in Parliament.
The State Department last Wednesday (26) declared that Karannagoda and his wife, Srimathi Ashoka Karannagoda, wouldn’t be allowed entry into the United States in terms of Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programmes Appropriations Act, 2023.
The US action pertained to alleged abduction and disappearance of 11 youth during 2008-2009. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigated the spate of incidents blamed on a group of rogue Navy personnel after Karannagoda, in his capacity as the Commander of Navy, lodged a complaint with the CID on May 28, 2009.
Referring to the State Department’s disclosure that Karannagoda’s designation was based on findings made by the NGOs and independent investigations, the
Colombo District MP questioned the rationale in the State Department decision. How such a sensitive decision could be taken on the basis of information documented by NGOs, the Oversight Committee Chairman asked.
Rear Admiral Weerasekera reminded the parliamentary group how the US denied visa to the then General Sarath Fonseka during yahapalana administration and years later refused entry to Maj. Gen. Udaya Perera though him being issued multiple visa and then designated General Shavendra Silva in Feb 2020.
Both General Silva and Admiral Karannagoda have been designated by Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programmes Appropriations Act.
The Foreign Ministry, in a statement issued soon after the US declaration found fault with the State Department for taking unilateral action without following due process. The ministry asserted that the US action is counter-productive to the holistic approach that Sri Lanka has taken on addressing national unity and reconciliation.
Lawmaker Weerasekera said that the US couldn’t stomach Sri Lanka’s triumph over LTTE terrorism. The former Minister pointed out how Canada in January this year imposed targeted sanctions on former Presidents, Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa as well Staff Sergeant Ratnayake and Lieutenant Commander Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi. Canada dealt with them in terms of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Reference was also made to Australia denying visa to Maj. Gen. Chagie Gallage, one of the frontline commanders over him receiving the command of 59 Division after the conclusion of the war.
Former Minister Weerasekera said that Geneva-based Human Rights Council has categorized Sri Lanka conflict as humanitarian conflict. Regardless of that the US, Canada, Australia et al dealt with Sri Lanka in terms of the international human rights law, thereby acting contrary to the Geneva Convention, lawmaker Weerasekera claimed. The MP insisted that Sri Lankan commanders at any level couldn’t be held accountable in respect of command responsibilities as Geneva dealt with Sri Lanka in terms of international humanitarian law.
Responding to The Island queries, the naval veteran said that Sri Lanka should review the situation against the backdrop of Canadian parliament recognizing genocide in Sri Lanka. Referring to a motion by the Canadian government to recognize May 18 as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day, lawmaker Weerasekera said that Sri Lanka’s response to such drastic move was insufficient. We rejected the Canadian move, in a statement issued through the Foreign Ministry. That was in May last year amidst a rapidly developing political-economic-social crisis. In January Canada imposed targeted sanctions on four persons, including two ex-Presidents. We issued another statement. Now the US targeted Admiral Karannagoda. And we issued yet another statement.”
The ex-Minister said that the situation continued to deteriorate for want of a cohesive response on the part of Sri Lanka. The parliament should look into this matter, the MP said. The growing threat to the Sri Lankan State couldn’t be addressed by issuing statements, MP Weerasekera said.
This is a continuation of the article titled Export and Prosper published on LBN on the website https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2023/02/28/industrialize-and-prosper-part-i/
Historically SL had been an entrepot trade center. It can be assumed that there were also industrial goods produced locally in this trade. There is evidence that steelmaking was prevalent in many parts of the county where iron smelting was done in wind tunnels. The cutting and sculpturing of granite, remains of which are abundant could not have been done without hard steel instruments. It is unimaginable that a nation which is credited with a superior hydraulic civilization did not make a few industrial products. The manual skill of the labor is evident in the intricate wooden and metal craft and other forms of handicrafts. The innate skills of handling complex machinery without prior experience were displayed by the local workers employed in the Gal Oya scheme.
Many reports have been written on the potential of Sri Lanka to industrialize but rarely have they been followed up as investment projects. The former concept of comparable advantage has now been refined to competitive advantage. Despite recommendation of the Washington Consensus to South Korea to desist from venturing into heavy industries as the country did not have a comparative advantage, South Korea dived into the deep end and came out with remarkable success. World Bank refused to fund the Posco steel mill in Korea as they lacked the raw material but today admits that Posco as the most efficient steel mill in the world. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/441571468753249695/pdf/multi0page.pdf
Most mentioned comparative advantage of the island for a manufacturing hub is the strategic location straddling the busy sea route between the Far East the middle East and Europe. The newly added bounty is the 200-mile marine economic zone. A bonus is the deep-sea natural harbor and the oil tank farm in Trincomalee. In the modern era the literate trainable human resource has become a prime potential for an industrial base. This turns out to be more relevant for high tech service industries.
SL is also gifted with sources of inexpensive and clean solar energy with the tropical sun shining over the island almost 12 hours of the day on every day of the year. The prospective for wind energy is also high.
It is with industrialization that the country can earn foreign exchange and move towards productive high employment with better wages. With all these advantages the country can gain from industrialization and all those incomparable blessings of nature we have had a high prospective for industrialization, but these blessings were pearls cast before swine. This paper attempts to identify opportunities to industrialize in the following wide areas. These are random and broad-brush postulations which need further investigation. Most of the details on the potential have been culled from EDB publications. In very broad terms they can be considered under:
Value Addition in existing industries.
Import substitution and
New Physical resource-based industries.
New Human resource-based industries.
1.VALUE ADDITION
SL has not tapped the full potential to add value to the major commodities of Tea, rubber, and coconuts. In Tea we can produce more organic teas for niche markets. The market for tea in bags has grown very rapidly. But there was some reluctance of the tea traders to shift out of the bulk tea market. SL should follow the Dilmah example of branded tea in tea bags. It is sad that we have not still produced a tea beverage or an instant tea. In tea we should form a cartel with other major producers and bargain for better price.
In rubber we should focus on latex products which give more added value. The international system of grading of RSS is an unfair device to lower the price of RSS to the producer. Smoked sheets are downgraded on color, reefer marks or air bubbles. These standards have no relevance in the manufacturing process where dirt (carbon black) is added to the compound.
In coconut while more value addition is there when converted to desiccated coconut, coconut oil could be used for manufacture of cosmetics. Out of the 400,000 ha of land under coconut at least 200,000 ha could be intercropped with cash crops like pineapple, pepper, banana, ginger, papaya, groundnut, manioc etc. An informative website is: https://goodhands.lk/intercropping-under-coconut-in-sri-lanka/
Spices have a tremendous potential for value addition. Our spices are very high in quality and could fetch high prices as value added products. Value-added products accredited globally are black pepper powder, pepper oleoresin, cardamom oil, curcumin, turmeric oleoresin, bleached ginger, and cinnamon oil. A branded curry powder pack of SL spices could be introduced to the export market. India already has a few branded products in the market, but SL should be able to compete on superior quality. Every part of a coconut has room for value addition. Some examples are given in the following article from FAO. https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/rap/files/meetings/2013/131030-value.pdf
Fruits and vegetables can be further processed with canning, dehydration and fermenting. That will also reduce waste in seasons of glut. Fruits can be canned and made into juices and bottled. Many sweet fruits can made into wines. Wine industry must be made legal.
Most cereals can be converted into convenient foods like breakfast cereals as well into animal feed and alcoholic beverages. This could also reduce the consumption of the unhealthy Kasippu. Vodka and ethanol can be produced from sweet potatoes.
2. Import Substitution
Present neo liberals are averse to import substitution under any circumstance. The current objection of the IMF is that import substitution under protective trade regimes creates a bias against export promotion and hinders import competition, export diversification, as well as the entry of foreign firms. It must be mentioned that all high performing economies in the Far East resorted to import substitution under trade protection in their early stages of industrialization. A more balanced view of Import Substitution prevailed among economist some time back which indicated that an element of import substitution is necessary, although not a sufficient, condition for expanding domestic markets and help to sustain a satisfactory rate of industrialization. A well-conceived and adequately implemented strategy of import substitution can make a substantial contribution toward higher incomes and help to promote exports. It also can help to speed up the transition from a traditional and agrarian economy into an industrial society sharing in the benefits of international relations and trade”.
0015-1947-article-A005-en-1.pdf IMF Library
While Sri Lanka under the guidance of the IMF and World Bank followed their free-market policies South Kore according to notably Alice Amsden (1991), deliberately ‘got the prices wrong’—that is, Korea used trade barriers and other measures to ensure that infant industries, notably in the heavy industry sector, were protected from international competition and received prices well above world market prices for those products. While our industrial policy was based on politics the Far Eastern economies made their decisions using economic and technocratic criteria.
In Singapore, import-substitution efforts were strengthened in the early 1960s to shield new firms from foreign competition. Thus, tariffs were raised in both 1962 and 1963, and import quotas were imposed on a variety of products in 1963. By May 1965, some 230 commodities were subject to import licensing and quantitative restrictions. https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781557754639/ch003.xml
During World War II SL had established a few import substitution projects such as on paper, plywood, leather, glass, ceramic and steel rolling. Some of them were converted into public corporations and expanded. Some were later privatized. But SL has had no Posco like groundbreaking projects despite the IBRD report 1951 disclosing that there was 6 million tons of iron ore to be exploited nothing was done. Forget about expansion, the Hardware Corporation of SL has not been able to produce a mamoty to match the crocodile brand of Chillington. These agencies require new technology to upgrade themselves.
SL should produce in the country most agricultural tools needed in the country including small tractors. It is noted that the small tiller which is now popular in most Asian countries was the invention of Sri Lankan Ray Wijeywardhana. Sri Lanka could focus on the light engineering sector, which is the backbone of any heavy industry sector. In many industrialized countries the early stage of their industrialization they developed their light engineering sector, which sharpened the skills of the work force and the management. This sector became the incubators for more sophisticated industries.
For the first time, two natural gas discoveries were made in two wells out of the three wells drilled in Block M2 by Cairn in 2011. It took another 10 years to enact Petroleum Resources Act, No. 21 of 2021 to provide for the establishment of the petroleum development authority of SL the formulation of a national policy on upstream petroleum industry and regulation and management structure capturing the maximum economic value of domestic petroleum resources. Government should give the highest priority for the development of the petroleum resources.
3.Physical Resource based manufactures
Minerals- SL has a range of geological deposits from Pre Cambrian to Jurassic. The bulk of the world’s valuable mineral deposits (for example, those of gold, nickel, chromite, copper, and iron) formed during the Precambrian. Sri Lanka has not done a comprehensive survey of the wealth of minerals in the country. A good source of information of the mineral wealth of SL is @ https://www.srilankabusiness.com/blog/mineral-resources-from-sri-lanka.html
Graphite- SL is known to have the purest deposits of graphite. The mineral is still exported in the raw form. Elsewhere in this note it has been mentioned Sri Lanka can earne over USD 10 billion revenue with higher value addition in (Graphene, Conductive Graphite, Graphite Nanotubes, super Lubricants etc.
Gems and Jewelry- There is considerable scope for improvements in this sector on cutting and setting in jewelry. Most of our gems ends up in Thailand of which the export of gems and jewelry was $6.16 billionin 2022. It is reported that bulk of Thai exports consist of SL gems.
Ceramics-The Island is endowed with raw materials used in the ceramic industry such as kaolin, ball clay, feldspar, silica quartz and dolomite. The excellent quality and purity of these materials which is available in abundance contribute to the high standards of the products. SL already has a number of firms in this sector. There is more scope for small scale production in ornamental ceramics.
Glass –The country offers the entire moulded range of glass bottles for food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, cosmeticsand perfume industries. In the future with the elimination of plastic bottles there will be a strong demand for glass bottles. There is opportunity for small scale glassblowing.
Fertilizer- Our rare asset of the Eppawala phosphate deposits can be converted into superphosphate. The Nano Urea could be expanded. Organic fertilizers in refined form should be expanded. The conversion of garbage into compost should be given priority.
Inland Fisheries It is reported that the extent of inland waters in major rivers is 375 thousand hectares and the area covered by man-made water bodies exceeds 170,000 ha. in about 10,000 tanks. All these water bodies can be used for inland fisheries. One wonders why catfish which is so abundant in countries like Vietnam and Thailand and is the most consumed freshwater fish in USA is not cultivated in Sri Lanka. Catfish is a hardy fast breeding fish which can survive when water bodies dry up could be bred in mud ponds.
Ornamental fish- There is scope for the expansion of this industry.
Salt based products. – It is used to produce caustic soda and chlorine; it is also used in the manufacturing processes of polyvinyl chloride, plastics, paper pulp and many other products.
New ventures
Electrical & electronics -with a comparatively large talent pool of highly skilled middle tier workers and substantially large numbers of local Engineering Professionals, catering to many world-renowned brands in Automobile, Telecommunication, Consumer Electronics, Industrial Automation and Medical sectors, Sri Lanka’s Electrical and Electronic exports have shown sustained growth over the past two decades.
Nano technology Sri Lanka has taken the first and the most important steps in developing and encouraging nanotechnology-based industries in the country. The formation of SLINTEC; the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology has been particularly instrumental in this regard. With the major universities and research facilities engaged in innovative and futuristic R&D, the future of nanotechnology-based industries in Sri Lanka seems to be quite promising. Use of nano technology in solar panels would be a promising field for investment. https://www.srilankabusiness.com/blog/nanotechnology-based-industries-sri-lanka.html
Tourism. There is so much of information on the development of tourism. The opportunities for Medical and Health Care tourism, and Buddhist tourism should be explored. If the Maldives with very much less to offer earned USD 3 billion from tourism in 20022 there is no reason why SL cannot aim at an annual income from tourism of !0 billion USD.
Boats and ships SL possesses the capabilities required to build quality boats Sri Lanka produces ships and boats that navigate global oceanic channels as well as inland waterways, with a wide range of manufacturers and shipyards delivering various boat and shipbuilding and dry dock services.
Alternate Energy. To start with the 4000MW of alternate energy projects which the Minister of Power and Energy claims as already approved but the CEB has not entered into power purchase agreements should be operationalized. Roof top solar should me more encouraged. It is suggested the exploration of using blow holes in the coastline as a new source of power generation.
Textiles & garments. SL continues to import the bulk of the fabrics used in the industry. There is scope for the production of grey fabric, denim, polyester yarn, and specialized fabric used for lingerie and sportswear. Modernization of the handloom industry with better looms and computerization could produce more employment. The handloom industry should also go into the production of high value products like pashmina shawls which could fetch over 500 USD for a piece.
Mariculture- SL has a coastline of around 1,340 km (832.6 mi) where ideal spots would be available to practice mariculture which is popular in many countries. In addition to fish and crustaceans SL could take to cultivation of sea weeds.
4. Industries based on Human Resources
BPM. (Business Process Management) Sri Lanka is one of the best destination for providing off-shore services for ICT and services in Finance and Accounting, Legal, Insurance, Banking, Telecommunication, etc. Many global service providers such as HSBC, WNS, Accenture, Dialog Axiata, Copal Amba, Medigain, E&Y, RR Donnelley have selected Sri Lanka to set up their businesses.
Logistics The country’s close proximity to emerging markets, and it’s already developed air and seaports in Colombo and Hambantota makes it an important logistics hub in the region providing entrepot and transhipment services to leading shipping lines and exporters.
ICT SL is blessed with a literate and trainable human resource base. This has given them the advantage in foreign employment in a wide range of skills. revolutionary structural changes are called for in education curricula, vocational training and technical education to prepare the work force to be able to cope with coming information and communication technology (ICT) developments.” More @ https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/BRI-Project_RP15_en.pdf
Among high tech ventures which SL should consider in the long term are artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), blockchain, drones, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, 3D printing and virtual reality (VR), Biometrics, Nuclear Energy and Genomics.
This is not an exhaustive list. I have depended on the excellent guidelines of the EDB for the brief introductions to each opportunity. A look at any product catalogue from China could identify hundreds of new possibilities. This is best done by our representatives abroad. They should be given targets to identify trade and investment opportunities at least one in each category every year. Sri Lankans domiciled abroad should also be encouraged to identify trade and investment opportunities.
BOI spends a great deal of funds and energy to promote investments abroad. But when investors arrive in the country, they are sent from pillar to post. One stop shop suggestion has been there for a long time. But implementation of that has been disrupted due to Ministries resisting the abandoning of their powers. One way to resolve the problem is to establish a panel of local experts to work with the investor to go through the maze. They can be paid a token fee for their support. If there was such a panel, we would not have missed the Samsung investment. We have to graduate from country promotion which was appropriate in the late 70 s and early 80s. Now it is fruitless to promote a failed state. It is time we focus on project promotion. A list of websites where model projects are advertised in India and Pakistan are given in following section on Projects for Investment.
There is a tremendous potential to expand their production.
In their website https://investsrilanka.com/ BOI gives a wide range of investment opportunities under two main categories of manufacturing and services. While these comprehensive lists of opportunities are useful it is necessary to develop at least pre-feasibility studies of them.
These agencies not only provide project reports but provide consultancy services. Export Development Board had developed a group of staff in a separate Division to evaluate projects from the private sector and Public Private partnership projects, and also help in the formulation of projects. A former Chairman of the EDB who had a predetermined notion that EDB should confine itself to only export promotion and not development disbanded this Project Division. It is important that the government establishes a unit in the EDB, BOi or in a major state Bank to develop an extensive portfolio of projects or feasibility studies to be made available to prospective investors. Such project reports would be of immense benefit to the SMI sector. Model projects of the Project Management Institute would be useful on high-tech projects. https://www.pmi.org/most-influential-projects-2021/
Now that there is a new dynamic professional as the Chairman of the EDB my appeal to him is to restore the venture capital facility and the Project development function of the EDB and undertake the formulation of feasibility reports/ project reports on the investment opportunities with export potential. For this, and to strengthen its financial capacity the EDB should ensure the restoration of the legal right of the EDB to the full amount of the EDB cess on imports. EDB could obtain technical assistance from India to operationalize the restored Projects Division on the model of the Indian agencies. China would also be another source for assistance in this field.
It is essential that more funds be allocated for R&D on new products. After the technical feasibility of a new product, funds must be made available for the commercialization of the research by the state or through venture capital. This again could come under the purview of the EDB.
The prospects in introducing new technology and value addition on a single product of graphite as indicated by an investor already in the product is impressive If 50 graphite mines could be activated and made operational, Sri Lanka can earne over USD 10 billion revenue with higher value addition in (Graphene, Conductive Graphite, Graphite Nanotubes, super Lubricants etc.) making it the biggest export earner of the country” said owner of graphite mines in Ragedara, Chairman, Sakura Graphite Kurunegala, Keerthi Wickramaratne.” Daily News-January 28, 2023.
It was inspiring to read the groundbreaking innovation of Sri Lankan Dr. Ranga Dias of Rochester University. He describes the innovation on superconducting—without electrical resistance and expulsion of magnetic field at room temperature—is the holy grail” of condensed matter physics. Sought for more than a century, such materials can definitely change the world as we know it,” Dr Dias says it has applications in including:
Power grids that transmit electricity without the loss of up to 200 million megawatt hours (MWh) of the energy that now occurs due to resistance in the wires
A new way to propel levitated trains and other forms of transportation
Medical imaging and scanning techniques such as MRI and magnetocardiography
Faster, more efficient electronics for digital logic and memory device technology.
SL President or the Prime minister should invite Dr. Dias to the motherland and should get his advice on R&D on some area of application. If these leaders are not keen at least the OPA should invite him.
We already have a successful R&D project on Nano Technology. What has been lacking is venture capital to commercialize the innovations.
It is reckoned that similar value additions can be expected from our heavy mineral deposits. If we do not have the technology, we should purchase the technology like what South Korea did. They did not wait for FDI in the early stages of their take off.
We have missed the bus many times. The present opportunities for export-oriented industrialization is not as good as in the 50s or in the 80s when the Asian tigers launched their production drives. There is more competition in the market and already established suppliers have a price advantage. SL is not gifted with an abundance of human and physical resources. At the same time SL has a niche market opportunity. SL has to capitalize on human resources and rare minerals. The space for service industries is still open. Global demand for Professional and skilled services are expanding. The demographic trends in the developed world continue to increase the demand for services. We can be a tourist hot spot.
In industries SL should focus on high-tech industries with technical leapfrogging. those with the most potential include artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), blockchain, drones, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, 3D printing and virtual reality (VR), Biometrics, Alternate energy and Genomics. The new champion industries program of India has identified growth areas which are given production linked incentives. The Indian program provides an abundance of information on potential areas for investment -reference https://www.investindia.gov.in/team-india-blogs/production-linked-incentive-pli-scheme-decoded. The choice of projects for investment has to depend on the physical and technical capability of the country.
A prerequisite for industrialization is the development of a skilled work force. This was highlighted in the IBRD report as far back as 1951. For this there should be radical changes in education policy where technical and vocational education should be given preeminence. In this regard the City University concept and a University of Technology which were mooted by GR regime should be pursued vigorously. We should follow the example of Taiwan which achieved a ratio of 7: 3 between technical and general education by 1980. Education Policy should not be left to the Academics who prefer to wallow in their comfort zone. In an attempt to close the high tech skills gap the Korean government created the Korea Institute of Science and Technology in 1966, a multi-disciplinary research institute mainly in the sciences and engineering. The Korean Advanced Institute of Science (KAIST) was established in 1971 as an educational and research institution, and rapidly rose to be among the highest-status universities in Korea and in international university rankings. Scientific and Industrial research institutions in SL would profit from entering into collaborative projects with such institutions with proven success.
In the present context of IMF intervention and the propensity of President Wickremesinghe on neo liberal policies one wonders at what price the country will benefit from the new policies. According to Stiglitz IMF and Washington Consensus believe in a set of policies which demand that countries should focus on stabilization, liberalization, privatization. It’s based on a rejection of the state’s activist role and the promotion of a minimalist, noninterventionist state. The analysis in the era of Reagan and Thatcher was that government was interfering with the efficiency of the economy through protectionism, government subsidies, and government ownership. Once the government “got out of the way,” private markets would allocate resources efficiently and generate robust growth. Development would simply come. They had a strategy for job destruction. They had no strategy for job creation. Many of the policies the IMF pursued as they were killing off jobs made job creation almost impossible. In the U.S., you couldn’t have job creation with interest rates of 30 or 40 percent. They had a philosophy that said job creation was automatic.” Reaganomics and Thatcherism policies have failed in the long run.
With the devaluation of the rupee wage earners and fixed income earners like pensioners have been forced to a loss of value in their income and savings of at least 40 percent. Traders are having a carnival in increasing prices of goods well beyond the devaluation and exploiting the consumer.
IMF is proposing privatization of SOEs using financial jargon as comprehensive strategy to restructure the balance sheets” which could include preparing for a sale, buyout, merger, change in overall goals, or transfer of ownership. Against this ‘government out of the way’ and privatization policies, Singapore followed with remarkable success policies of a ‘developmental state’. Many of its leading advocates refer to the Singapore case as evidence of the possibility of successful development planning (Lin & Vu, 2017; Esteban et al., 2013, pp. 585-589; Coyle & Muhtar, 2021; Rodrik, 2006; Weiss, 2016). The recently published Oxford Handbook of Industrial Policy hails Singapore as a paragon of the mission-oriented” and smart” industrial policy argument by Mariana Mazzucato (Rasiah, 2020). The leading advocate of industrial policy today, Chang (2013, p. 33), considers Singapore’s use of industrial policy to be the most successful” amongst developed countries. So successful and blatant was Singapore’s use of industrial policy that it was an effrontery to all kinds of economics”, mainly, the neoliberal ideas that ChaDevelopmental states make industrial policy front-and-centre in their policy agenda, establish numerous state-owned enterprises, possess high levels of state capacity, and rely on performance legitimacy—as opposed to the democratic legitimacy typical in developed nations—in their effort to remain hegemonic (Haggard, 2018). This school of thought advanced by the developmental state theorists argue that East Asian growth experience succeeded not despite, but because of governments deliberately avoiding neoliberal prescriptions and strategically intervening in markets through industrial policy (Wade, 2005, 2018; Amsden, 1994). While some dismiss the East Asian model as a historical relic, there has been resurgent interest in the ‘developmental state’ model today, under the popular banner of the entrepreneurial state” (Mazzucato, 2018; Wennberg & Sandström, 2022).”
Instead of privatization of existing SOEs Singapore created a holding company of the assets of the SOEs and installed efficient management systems. Assets of this holding company Temasek today is considered to be around 287 billion US dollars which is over 3 times the GDP of Sri Lanka. It is not the ownership but the management that influence the success of SOEs which have been affected by political henchmen appointed to manage them. What could be done is to establish a professional management cadre, similar to the SL Administrative Service to manage the SOEs.
There is a misconception that our business community lacked the knowhow in large scale industries and was not competent to manage complex export industries. The chaebols in South Korea were in trade and lacked the knowhow of undertaking manufactures. It is reported that Hyundai Corporation, for example, was founded in 1947 and specialized in construction work. Samsung the technology giant was a small export company Taegu, selling dried fish and vegetables. Daewoo, however, was not founded until 1967. They were in business, not in starting and operating industrial enterprises. Given the opportunity and incentives our business house which were in plantation management, real estate and finance and later in garments would have succeeded in new manufactures.
At the present moment there is a very high emphasis in the development of the Agricultural sector particularly on paddy cultivation. Massive subsidies are extended to paddy cultivation which suffered due to the precipitate policies of the previous government. The present overcompensation may have a political rationale of winning over the recently traumatized farming community. But it should not be at the expense of industrialization.
There should be no conflict between agriculture development and industrialization. One of the critical problems in agriculture is the fragmentation of land with the increase in farming population. Even in the colonization schemes the second and third generation are affected by the scarcity of land. The only avenue to absorb the surplus population is Industrialization which will also lead to urbanization. This will result in a profitable markets for the products of the farming sector. Industrialization could support the modernization of agriculture creating a demand for new products like micro irrigation, hydroponics, climate control and new fertilizers.
What is needed is an integrated national policy on industrialization, technology and education (skills development). A plan of action should be derived from the national policy. It is imperative that Technology policy precedes education policy. SL should follow the Korean example of selecting for example 10 business leaders who are provided with the incentives and protection to undertake a new industry with advanced technology. Where necessary they should be supported to purchase technology. It would be useful to marry identified University faculties to support them with research. This would be in addition to action discussed under the three broad areas of value addition, import substitution and resource-based industries.
I repeat what I said on LBN in the post titled Industrialize and Prosper on February 28th 2023. Industrialization could have transformed the economy to be more productive and generated more skilled employment and stimulated economic growth. It could have also engendered technological advances and innovation. Overall, industrialization would have vastly improved living standards.
Through innovation, specialization, and wealth creation industrialization would have shifted population from farms and villages to manufacturing centers. This would have developed more urban centers with better living facilities and services like education and health. Industrialization could have resulted in value addition to agricultural products and helped in the diversification of agriculture.
The neglect of industrialization by our policy makers despite having the experience of a number of basic industries like ceramics, paper, plywood, leather and glass established during the days of World War II was inexcusable. This was due to the politicization of economic decisions which continued for the last seventy-five years of independence. The curse of the original sin of ignoring industrialization continues to plague the development of the country. A land with a potential economic miracle and a paradise has been made into a miserable failed nation. Leaders who achieved political independence of the county also made the county economically dependent in continuity.
I pen this article for those who seek the possible basis of Anatta from a scientific point of view. I’m leaving out ‘of the equation’, the ‘Soul theory’ of an unchanging entity of theistic religions, as it is not pertinent in the ‘dhamma of the Buddha’, which refutes it.
Anattais at the core of the dhamma, preached by the Buddha 2500 years ago. The belief in a ‘self’ is our everyday experience in life. One goes to sleep and gets up in the morning, as the same person with the same memories, within the same body. It needs some sound explanation, if we are expected to believe there is ‘no-self ’. I will try to prove in this short article, that the concept of ‘no-self’ i.e. anatta, is true.
Evolution of the Human Brain
The self is a protective product of the brain. The problem with the belief in a ‘self ‘is that it tries to protect itself’.
Man is built biologically to survive and procreate. Hence such reflexes for survival are automatic to his brain’s inherent structure and psyche. It is reflected in the chronological stages of evolution of brains, of animal life-forms in nature. The evolutionary features of which (both structural and functional), we also carry in our brains.
Figure, of the human Brain cut sagittally in the middle
They are (as seen in the Figure of the human brain above), in chronological sequence, the Reptilian brain, the Paleo-mammalian brain (Limbic brain) encompassing it, and lastly, the latest, the neo-mammalian cortex of the brain. The former two are involved with instinctual reflex and emotional behaviour for survival, respectively, much like that found in evolutionary lowly animals and birds. The emotional brain, is evolved when birth begins to be from a womb rather than from an egg. Because this entails living within a herd, it becomes a must, to ensure security of the mother, who has to be protected at all times to care for the progeny and ensure the survival of the genus (species-herd). The rules of the herd cause auto-regulation of the emotional brain by the neo-cortex. Much later, education or the fear of religious pronouncements like the five precepts will help mitigating the reflex emotional responses, of the emotional brain.
The human brain carries within it, all three evolutionary brains with their inherent functions.
Neuroplasticity and Creation of a ‘Self’.
The brain was once believed to be an unchanging entity. This myth was debunked several decades ago. The brain keeps adapting to the needs of the environment and the circumstance in which it is placed, to help the ‘being’, to tenaciously survive. This takes place from about the age of 3-5 years, as a child. The ‘self’ is built over the growing years, i.e. the personality, it becomes unique to the ‘being’ based on its experience and education i.e. nurture. This process occurring in the brain is neuro-biologically termed neuroplasticity, and is goes on all the time in the network circuits of the brain. They are encoded into the very networks of the brain at a tissue level (i.e. neuronal network).
Brain networks
There are so far 8 networks that have been imaged based on their activity, by neuroscientists as up to now. Two dominant networks concerned with the mind, are the Default mode network(DMN) and the Central Executive Network(CEN). The DMN deals with self-referenced thinking. Thinking of the past, events etc. and worrying about the future. In contrast CEN is used when thoughts are of the present, are task oriented and positive. Human beings are considered to be in the DMN, most of the time (in Rumination). Training to live in the present moment, by intense Mindful-meditation, helps to encourage the gradual withering away of neuro-plastic change that has occurred in the DM Network (placed in many interconnected foci in the brain) by disuse (synaptic pruning). Since DMN which enhanced ‘self- referenced thoughts’ its attrition is salutary. Persisting with Mindful meditation, secures by neuro-plasticity changes in the CEN, the task positive state and this then progresses to a trait, which permits the meditator to enter into the CEN the brain at will.
Self; comes on only at 3-5 years, develops throughout life, being located at multiple foci of the DMN, its attrition by Mindful meditation and its impermanence with its dissolution as brain tissue at death, are four valid arguments that there is no locus for a ‘Self’ in the brain and its lack of permanence. These highlights the truth of Anatta. Then one can ask, what goes across with rebirth, it is Kammic energy, said the Buddha.
Anatta is a core concept in the dhamma and is backed by current neuroscience.
Buddha Dhamma and Neuroscience
The Buddha, in deep meditation, had it revealed unto himself the natural laws that apply to forces dealing with life-forms i.e. that of Kammic energy. That this Kamma is a link in the law of causality (paticca sammuppada), whichleads to rebirth and a Sansaric existence. The latter in turn leads to Dukkha.
Atta or ‘self’, when provoked, responds emotionally as it always underlies the mindset of an untrained being, with its predilection for thoughts, words and deeds on self-preservation and procreation. This is due to the human brain harbouring both the Reptilian and Emotional components. Thereby leading to instinctual responses of a ‘survival nature’, like clinging to self, i.e. Bava Tanha, it leads to other Kammic acts such as anger, hatred, envy, jealousy and greed ( even altruistic acts are motivated, as seeking privilege and priority in the herd) with their kammic consequences.
Hence the realization of Anatta as being truein reality, and that the ‘self’ is simply neuro-plastically determined ‘construct (fabrication)’ to withstand the environment and the circumstances, for survival becomes clear. As all formations are impermanent (Anicca), in which this neuro-plastically developed construct ( i.e. the ‘being’) too is placed in, is not a permanent, but an ephemeral entity in true reality.The Buddha dharma states that it’s only one’s acquired Kammic energy seeks ‘vipaka’ and this results in the next lives.
Awareness of the truth of Anatta, mitigates Kammic acts and de-links paticca samuppada i.e. Sansaric progression, and dukkha that follows. This is the Buddha legacy to humankind.
A more detailed exposition, will be presented in a book, ‘Buddhist Philosophy and Neuroscience’, I hope to publish in the very near future.
The issue of the ordination of Mahapajapati Gotami, step-mother nursing mom of Prince Siddhartha,
later Buddha, continues to be controversial. The general understanding, as encouraged in the Pali version, is that she was denied ordination, not only once but twice, and was finally given at Encounter 5, Buddha’s hands pushed by Ananda. The Chinese Madhyama agama and Sanskrit, however, include a specific line that speaks to her ordination at the first request.
So to introduce the context first, the Buddha visits father King Suddhodana in 1PE (year 1, Post-Enlightenment). At this Encounter 1, listening to the Dhamma, she becomes a stream-entrant (sotapanna) while the King becomes a nonreturner (anagami). In 5PE, he makes a second visit, father on death-bed. After the King passes away, the Buddha stays behind at hometown Kapilavatthu, spending the rains season (vassana). With both son Nanda, and grandson Rahula, already in robes, Mahapajapati understandably has her mind on it, too.
At the end of Vassana, she approaches the Buddha, and in this Encounter 3, makes her first Entreaty – a polite request, regarding women leaving hometo homelessness, to train in the Path. But to be noted is that she is not specifically requesting personal ordination for herself.
A year or two later, Buddha successfully averts a fight over the waters of river Rohini. Inspired by a Dhamma talk, 250 soldiers from each side – Koliyans on mother’s side, Sakyans on father’s, seek and are given ordination. Pajapati, on behalf of the wives, making the same request again, it comes to be turned down.
But a careful look at the wordings of the very first Entreaty (Encounter 3) seems to tell a different story. Here then is the text, as per the Madhyama agama:
MAHAPAJAPATI
BUDDHA
Can women attain the fourth fruit of recluseship?”
[Noble silence]
For that reason [can] women … leave home to homelessness
Now, Gotami, do not have this thought… [to] leave home to homelessness ….
… to train in the path?”
Gotami, you [a] shave off your hair like this, [b] put on ochre robes and [c] for your whole life [d] practice the pure holy life.
The response she gets for the first part of the question is a ‘noble silence’. It may be noted that when invited for alms, Buddha’s acceptance was through silence. So his silence to the question then means that he indeed gives the hint that, yes, women can attain the fourth fruit”, meaning Arahanthood, meaning Nibbana while alive. His answer to the second part of the question, Now, Gotami, do not have this thought..”, true enough, may have a negative ring to it. But, it can be seen as a mere cautioning about leaving home into homelessness. But, as if in relation to her last words, … to train in the path?”, the Buddha seems to take her to the personal level – [a] shave off your hair like this, [b] put on ochre robes” and [c] for your whole life [d] practice the pure holy life” (as in the Madhyama-Agama wording).
Now doesn’t putting on robes, and shaving off hair mean giving up lay life, as was also done by Siddhartha upon leaving the Palace? Having no hair and being in a robe are what mark a Bhikkhu and Bhikkhuni from the laity, then as it is today. So, what would the Buddha have meant with his words other than ordination? Isn’t it further confirmed when the shaving and donning is to be for your whole life”?
But Pajapati seems to have taken the words to mean that she was denied ordination, seemingly again for a very good reason. Today, ‘ordination’ entails leaving home into homelessness, hair shaven , and wearing the robes. Required also is a begging bowl. Ordination directed by two Sangha Elders, Higher Ordination Upasampada call for 10 monks, to be held in an authorized seema ‘boundary’.
So today, ordination basically EQUALS formalities and rituals. No ritual, no ordination! Period. And by the time when Mahapajapatī makes the first entreaty, such formalities had certainly come to be in place, too, in relation to male ordination.
However, and this is the critical point, in the earliest stages of male ordination there were no such formalities. Visiting the Group of Five, with whom Samana Gotama future Buddha had spent time in the bush exploring liberation, he was to teach them the Dhamma, addressing them simply as ‘O Bhikkhus’, when they reply Lord”. Ordained! And many a wanderer of the time being Brahmins, they most likely had long hair, and beards, too, and were bare-bodied waist-up. But no call to shave off the hair or wear robes.
But to take the case of the first laymale Yasa, there was no call to leave the household either to be given ordination, even though he came from luxury. As for his higher ordination, the Buddha’s words were, Come, oh Bhikkhu. Well taught is the Dhamma. Lead the holy life to make a complete end of suffering”.
Re other male seekers, too, ordination comes to be when the Buddha addresses them: Oh, Bhikkhu”, or ‘Come Bhikkhu’ (ehi bhikkhu), or if more than one, etha bhikkhave. There is no mention of shaving off hair, getting into robes, getting a begging bowl or leaving the household. For all the absence of formality and ritual, when it comes to male ordination, the tradition has clearly had no hesitancy in recognizing the first five and the others as being ordained. And nobody even today would deny that the one- or two-word call from the Buddha did not constitute an ordination.
To continue with the caution as in all three versions – Pali, Chinese and Sanskrit, about leaving home into homelessness, in real pragmatic terms, could a royal lady, by this time of about the age of 55 (or possiblyolder by another tradition), have lived in the bush? Never mind the animals, but what about the human predators? Could she have survived the onslaughts of weather – sun, rain and wind? What about begging for food? Could she make the rounds for hours? Would there be no harassments by the males in a society where women were mere chattels? If food collected, would there be animals going after it? So would allowing Pajapati to leavethe household not be an invitation to suffering? To be remembered is that Buddha himself was to abandon extreme self-suffering, arriving at the Middle Path. Additionally, would such materialistic impediments in the bush not stand in the way of qualities supportive of liberation such as meditation (sati; samaadhi), happiness (peeti) and relaxation (passaddhi)? On the other hand, would remaining in the Palace, by herself, not be supportive of a lifetime commitment and practice? Would it be an impediment to her spiritual life? Husband passed away, and son and grandson in robes, who would be in her way, physically or psychologically? The only ones interacting with her would be her women attending on her . Would they be in her way? Would their attending on her be an attraction back to lay life to one with hair cut off and in robes, specially for one already a sotapanna?
So, in essence, then, the palace by herself would have been the perfect fit – a peaceful environment, guaranteeing food, safety and security. Indeed this may well have been the context that prompts the Buddha allowing an ‘empty house’ (sunnagara) as the third option for Sangha living, in addition to the bush and under a tree. If this be the case then, that would show that Mahapajapati was by no means denied ordination. What she was denied was ‘leaving home to homelessness’ (agarasma anagariyan). What we see is the Buddha, in his pragmatic creativity, finding a way ofordaining her. So while the physical going forth had been cautioned against, she is clearly being guided along into a psychologicalgoing forth, this for a full lifetime.
While Buddha instructing that she shave off her hair and put on robes for her whole life, as in the last line, is only in the Chinese and Sanskrit versions, a definitive piece of evidence that she was given ordination comes from the Pali version itself. In relation to the final encounter, Mahapajapati making her way to the Buddha in Vesali, with a number of other ladies, and asks the same question – as to whether women could come by the fourth recluseship, leaving home into homelessness. But at this Encounter, laying down a set of Vinaya Rules, called Garudhamma ‘Principles of Respect’, the Buddha specifically says that accepting them would constitute the higher ordination (upasampada) for Mahapajapati. Now, does one not have to have an initial ordination, pabbajja, to qualify for the higher ordination?
So when was it given? As seen above, it was certainly not when the request was made the second time on behalf of the soldier wives. The obvious context when she receives the initial ordination would be none other than the initial Entreaty.
The Buddha spending Vassana at Kapilavatthu when the King passes away is another piece of evidence, this being the only time. It may have been for grief counseling to Pajapati. But it may indeed have been to provide an opportunity for her to come to him.
To be noted is that both levels of Pajapati ordination were given by the Buddha by way of an instruction. If we need a precedent in relation to male ordination, we have the case of Mahakassapa. It was a distinct form of ordination by accepting an instruction”. While this method is not shown in the Vinaya, has the Elder responsible for the First Council ever been considered to be not ordained? So it is then the same method that is used by the Buddha in relation to Mahapajapati Gotami.
But still, if the case has still not been made, there is the case of the Buddha making exceptions”, Subhadda, the last to get ordained under him, being an example. The rule by now was that a disciple of another teacher looking for discipleship under the Buddha was to mark time for four months before being admitted. And, of course, upasampadā was to be given after several years following pabbajja. But says the Buddha, I make individual exceptions”, and then he asks Ananda to ordain him in his very presence, at both levels. So asking Pajapati to shave off and put on robes may be seen as an exception made by the Buddha.
To be noted is that Mahapajapati comes to be ordainedat the first Entreatyeven when she had not specifically asked for it! In doing so, the Buddha can be said to achieve two goals. One is to create conditions for the personal liberation of his nursing mom, in an expression of gratitude, katannuta, a rare value as pointed out by him. And the second is that by admitting this single female to the monastic life, the Buddha was also opening the door for women’s ordination in general, though in time.
What the Buddhian pragmatism shows then is his clear interest to build a Bhikkhuni sangha, and no reluctance, as is in the general thinking. Buddha charactering himself ‘forward looking’ in this context should also dispel the myth that his hands were pushed by Ananda. If male ordination was now a grown up plant, it began with a single seed, namely, Kondañña, the first to gain insight to the Buddha’s teachings. Likewise can the Buddha’s proactive offer to Mahpajapati Gotami be seen as the first single seed towards female ordination. Disallowing a collective ordination up until the right time would, of course, have no bearing on Mahapajapati Gotami herself, already on the Path. There could have been no better conditions than asking her to wear ochre robes with hair shaven, but implicitly suggesting that a room in the palace be her Empty House, in a self-isolation.
A parallel apple to apple comparison then would be early female initiation to early male initiation, while apples to oranges would be early female initiation to late male initiation. In conclusion, we can say that just as in relation to male ordination in the earliest stages, entailing no ritual, Mahapajapati was indeed ordained at the very first Entreaty. The Buddha can also be said to be confirming in his noble silence that women in general can attain to the fourth recluseship, keeping the door ajar for a wider Bhikkuni ordination.
While the last line as in the dialogue does not occur in the Pali version, nor is there mention of the Buddha spending the vassana, showing it to occur the very first time the Buddha visits father Suddhodana following his Enlightenment. So while the Pali version is clearly the earliest written version, on this issue, there seems to be some confusion. But our analysis should show that there is no question as to the authenticity of the Chinese and Sanskrit versions, later as they are.
Ven. Bhikkhu Mihita is the former Prof. Suwanda H. J. Sugunasiri, who introduced Theravada Buddhism to Cuba, also getting ordained in Havana by way of inspiring Cubans. Pioneer activist and spokesperson in Canadian Buddhism beginning in the 1980’s, he is Founder of Nalanda College of Buddhist Studies, Toronto, and Founder, Canadian Journal of Buddhist Studies, Toronto, his latest initiative being the Buddhist Literary Festival Canada.
The recent pronouncement by President Ranil Wickremesinghe (RW), that The government has no business to be in business.” was music to the ears of those who believe in a free market economy. However, it also drew the ire of the loony left, the trade unions, a few die-hard academics who still cling to ideals of socialism as well as a few journalists.
In all probability, if a straw poll is conducted, most voters would say that the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) should continue to own and operate state-owned enterprises (SOEs). It is indeed a paradox that despite it being well-known that SOEs are inefficient, corrupt and a drain on taxpayer funds due to significant losses, many in our country still believe privatization is undesirable. One can only assume this is due to the entitlement mentality ingrained in us over several decades and the belief that the government should be our provider.
What ails the SOEs
Citizens ultimately own SOEs but have no voice and lack the interest or wherewithal to monitor them. Therefore, efficiency is entirely dependent on the existing system of governance. Political patronage is the criterion for selecting the top management of SOEs allowing government politicians to choose their relatives and close friends despite their having no prior experience in holding such positions. That such appointments have resulted in adverse consequences to the enterprise and the country is a well known fact.
Employment in state institutions has been on a ‘Jobs for the Boys’ philosophy to which many, including university graduates, subscribe. All SOEs are overstaffed primarily due to elected politicians using their power and influence to overload them despite no existing vacancies. The problem has been compounded by the fact that most of those appointed are poorly skilled. Once employed, they join trade unions and demand above-average wages and bonuses even when losses are being incurred. They want their personal income tax paid by the SOE and light work norms. So it is not surprising that despite the economic Armageddon we have hit, many still hang on to the belief that the government should be running businesses.
The need to educate the public
The recent announcement by the government that it intends to divest its investments in Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), Lanka Hospitals (LH), and the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC) has resulted in many, including the leader of the opposition, the JVP, trade unions, a few journalists and other media personnel together with some academics to say We are against the privatization of profit-making SOEs.” Their opposition to the sale resonates with the public and supports the theory of selling the family silver.
When a young journalist posed this question to RW at a media conference, he told her in his typically offhand and condescending tone, We have debts to settle as well.” I believe it was an opportunity lost by RW to explain through the media to the people why it makes perfect sense to dispose of the shares held in SLT, SLIC and LH.
In my opinion, when it comes to the economy and finance, most people in our country are ignorant. Many highly educated people and experts in their own field I know say, I don’t know or understand finance.” In the last couple of years, we have seen greater discussion and information sharing on the economy and finance due to the economic crisis. However, there is still a lack of understanding and proper appreciation of the issues. The government must disseminate the policy through its media with greater focus and transparency. I have often been dismayed when RW and other government officials say, The IMF has told us to do this and that”. Instead of passing the buck to the IMF, GOSL needs to say commonsense and financial prudence demands what we’re doing.
Why it’s sensible for GOSL
to sell its SLT stake
For me, the logic in selling the shares of profitable enterprises is evident on both financial and ideological grounds. In the case of SLT, the GOSL, through the Treasury and the Employees Trust Fund (ETF), currently own a controlling 50.9% of the company. A share of SLT trades presently at around Rs. 94 on the Colombo Stock Exchange. This means the company’s value is around Rs. 168 billion. Therefore the GOSL stake is worth around Rs. 86 billion.
However, the current market price of an SLT share is significantly overvalued due to the anticipated sale of the government stake. According to the company’s latest Annual Report, in the last 10 years up to the end of 2021, the highest price the share commanded was Rs. 57.30 in 2014. However, in 2022 the highest traded price was Rs. 78.90, whilst the lowest was Rs. 28.70. Obviously, an independent valuation would need to be carried out considering that a controlling stake is being sold. Several well-established methodologies are used in the valuation of companies.
To illustrate my point that it is beneficial for GOSL to sell out, I will assume Rs. 65 per share is the price the government will get on the deal. The GOSL would therefore be able to receive Rs. 59.7 billion by selling its SLT stake.
I have set out below the last five-year financial performance, capital expenditure and dividends paid to GOSL by the SLT Group.As can be observed, despite posting healthy profits, the dividends declared have been constrained by the high capital expenditure incurred. Given the rapid technological development and the ever-expanding use of mobile communication and the Internet, all telecommunication companies need to incur continuous capital expenditure to keep abreast.
The table shows the GOSL has only received total dividends of Rs 5.4 billion over five years, an annual average of Rs 1.1 billion a year.
So the question is whether retaining its SLT shares and earning Rs. 1 billion a year against receiving Rs. 59.7 billion as sales proceeds, is beneficial to the country or not. As stated by RW , the GOSL by selling could then utilize the Rs. 59.7 billion proceeds to retire some of its current debt and also not raise new loans as is currently done at interest rates above 20% plus. The interest saving for a year on the new debt at 20% would be Rs. 12 billion.
Opportunity cost is the criterion for making prudent financial decisions. The definition of opportunity costs is the value or benefit of what you lose or miss when you choose one alternative over another. In this instance, in case the GOSL does not sell its SLT stake at my assumed price of Rs. 65 per share, the opportunity cost foregone is Rs. 11 billion for a year.
The sale of SLT shares will not impact on our national security as the largest telecommunications operator in the country is a foreign-owned entity.
In 1997, the government, through a competitive bidding process, sold 35% of its shareholding in SLT to Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) of Japan for US$ 225 million. This was then the largest ever privatization transaction of GOSL.
The transformation of SLT under a Japanese CEO after partial privatization was immense and is often cited as an example of why SOEs should be privatized. The days when we had to wait nearly five years to get a new fixed-line connection were ended as SLT was transformed into a service-centric business enterprise. However, even after two decades, the Chairman of SLT, in his message to the shareholders in the 2021 Annual Report, laments, In January 2020, we saw a company with immense potential, but its progress was obstructed in several areas. Staff unrest was at the top of the list with regular strikes and work stoppages leading to poor messaging (signalling) to the customers, especially the corporate sector.”
Staff remuneration cost at SLT versus its competitor
According to the latest Annual Report (AR), SLT employed 8,058 staff. In 2021 costing Rs. 20.7bn. wages. In contrast, Dialog Axiata Plc, its main competitor, with a significant market share (17.7 mn subscribers vs SLT’s 9.3 million) and revenue (Rs 142 Bn vs Rs. 102Bn) over SLT, employed only 3,631 staff with a total wage bill of Rs. 10 bn. The bottom line is that SLT incurs Rs. 10.7 bn staff costs over its competitor to service a subscriber base significantly lower than its rival. These figures reflect the cost inefficiencies at SLT and other SOEs and is the primary reason the trade unions vehemently oppose the sale of the GOSL stake.
Furthermore, Dialog Axiata Plc has stated in its Annual Report that they have invested US $ 3 Bn since inception. In 2021, they paid Rs 8.4 billion as direct taxes and collected Rs. 14.8 Billion as consumption taxes. Another benefit of privatization for the GOSL is that it stands to collect higher direct taxes from companies operating efficiently with a cost focus.
The logic I have applied to the sale of the SLT stake is equally applicable to the sale of the GOSL stakes in Lanka Hospitals and Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation.
We need to set aside, at least now, this long-held view that the government should be involved in controlling and operating businesses. The process of privatization is lengthy and, as can be seen, will meet various hurdles. However, the GOSL must be steadfast in its determination to go ahead with the planned privatization/restructuring process of SOEs and actively engage the public and educate them of the benefits.
Transparency and competitive bidding when Privatising SOEs
A mandatory requirement for privatization is that the process must be totally transparent and be based on competitive bidding. Furthermore, the base price/valuation for sale should be arrived at by an independent party so that they are no doubts that the GOSL and the people received the best possible deal.
The success of India
Sri Lanka should look across the ocean at India, which since 1991 has been following a strategy of Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization that has led to consistent economic growth; India is now considered a global economic powerhouse. A few years back, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the government has no business to be in business, and his administration is committed to privatizing all PSUs barring the bare minimum, in four strategic sectors.
It is the government’s duty to support enterprises and businesses. But it is not essential that it should own and run enterprises,” he said. Modi also said the Centre’s policy is to either monetize or modernize public sector enterprises on the basis that the government has no business to be in business”.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are of the author and are not of any institution or organization that he may be associated with.)
Jayanath Bodahandi (Bodhi), the eldest in his family, would have been just out of school when his father, an illustrator at an advertising agency, passed away. Bodhi could draw and the kind people at the agency offered him a job.
There was a problem. Bodhi lived in Balapitiya and the salary would hardly cover expenses such as rent, food and bus fare. There was a solution. The hamuduruwo of the village temple arranged for him to stay in a temple in Colombo.
Bodhi returned to the temple late after his first day at work to find there was no food for him. The loku hamuduruwo had explained that it wasn’t a rich temple frequented by wealthy and generous laity; it was not possible to provide meals.
Bodhi went to sleep hungry. He was up early the following morning. He decided that this arrangement wasn’t working. He had just enough money for the bus to Balapitiya. So he went to work. No, not to the advertising agency. The temple.
He picked up an idala (ekel broom) and started sweeping the temple premises. As he was finishing, he noticed the loku hamuduruwo watching him. When he was done, he kept the idala aside, went up to the loku hamuduruwo, worshipped him, thanked him for allowing him to stay and told him that he had decided to give up on his job and return home.
The loku hamuduruwo understood Bodhi’s predicament. He dissuaded the young man: ‘thiyena vidihakata kaala imu; yanna ona naha (you don’t have to go; let’s manage with what we have).’
Years later Bodhi said that in retrospect the exercise of sweeping the temple compound was like an advertising campaign.
It was a simple act. An act of gratitude for something simple that he received — a roof over his head for one night. It led to a career in advertising that saw him become a creative director at a top agency and then starting off on his own.
Two things reminded me of Bodhi’s story, a poem and a photograph. First, the poem.
Essentially: the ekel broom sweeps around or close to the feet, but it is an entire compound that has got swept.
The poet throws soft light on the simple and commonplace and makes visible profound truths, as is evidenced in most of the poems in the collection, Suminda Kithsiri Gunaratne’s sixth, Prisma (Prisms).
And the photo: that of a hamuduruwo, idala in hand, sweeping the compound of the Buddhangala Monastery in Ampara, apparently belonging to the Digamadulla Kingdom, 4th Century BC. Buddhangala, although located deep in the jungles around Ampara, was brought back to life, so to speak, by a brave young hamuduruwo in 1964, Rev Kalutara Dhammananda Thero. I am not sure if it is this hamuduruwo who is captured in the photograph, but most certainly the complex developing to what it is now owes much to the fact that the Thero had focused on sweeping close to his feet.
On a tree close to where the hamuduruwo is sweeping there’s a board with the following line from the Dhammapada: ‘Appamado amatha padang — nopamaava nivanata hethu ve,’ which can be loosely translated as ‘timely action, i.e. without delay, paves the way to nirvana.’
That which needs to be done right now, then, needs to be done with absolute integrity of the faculties, with composure, dedication and unwavering resolve. Large and complex extents, physical and otherwise, get cleared thereby.
Bodhi was sweeping the area close to his feet; the entire compound got swept . Rev Kalutara Dhammananda Thero was sweeping the area close to his feet; and now people know there’s a place called Buddhangala in Ampara. The hamuduruwo in the photograph is sweeping the area closest to his feet; it’s an example, a study in concentration that throws a lot of light on right conduct.
Tharindu, in his photographic endeavours, is essentially covering or rather clearing nearby-ground; he ends up clearing vast areas of the mind, his and (at least) mine. Suminda uses pen as an idala. He removes clutter, keeps things tidy. He is in fact casting a thin ray of light on the mind’s prisms which duly disperses and shows things in their true colours.
All sweepers. Focusing on that which needs to be sorted in the here and now. The rest follows.
The Power and Energy Minister has decided to reduce the retail prices of Lanka Petrol 92 Octane, Lanka Petrol 95 Octane Euro 4, Lanka Auto Diesel and Lanka Super Diesel 4 Star Euro 4 from tonight.
The announcement was made by Minister Kanchana Wijesekera this evening.
Consequently, a litre of Lanka Petrol 92 Octane (Rs. 340) will be reduced by Rs. 7, and the new retail price will be Rs. 333. A litre of Lanka Petrol 95 Octane Euro 4 (Rs. 375) will be reduced by Rs. 10 and the new retail price will be Rs. 365.
The price of a litre of Lanka Auto Diesel (Rs. 325) will be reduced by Rs. 15 and the new retail price will be Rs. 310. The retail price of a litre of Lanka Super Diesel 4 Star Euro 4 (Rs. 455) will be reduced by Rs. 135 and the new retail price will be Rs. 330.
However, there is no price revisions of Lanka Kerosene (Rs. 295) and Lanka Industrial Kerosene (Rs. 330). (Chaturanga Pradeep Samarawickrama)
The Ministry of Justice has decided to obtain public opinions and suggestions with regard to the new proposed Anti-Terrorism Bill.
Accordingly, any individual including the political parties and civil society organizations will receive the opportunity for this purpose, Minister of Justice Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe said.
Thereby, the general public can hand over their suggestions and opinions regarding the matter to the Justice Ministry until May 30, 2023.
It has reportedly been decided to hold several rounds of discussions with regard to this, after obtaining the public opinions and to decide the future actions related to the new proposed Anti-Terrorism Bill in consideration of all those suggestions by the public.
Furthermore, Minister Rajapakshe also emphasized that measures will be taken to table the relevant bill in the parliament in a manner that is acceptable by all.
The new Anti-Terrorism Bill was published by the government in the gazette recently and certain parties raised objections regarding the matter.
Accordingly, Justice Minister Rajapakshe took steps to temporarily halt the tabling of the relevant bill in the Parliament.
Cash-strapped Sri Lanka’s inflation eased to 35.3 percent, the lowest in a year, the statistics office said Friday as the country pressed ahead with austerity measures under an IMF bailout.
Fuel and food prices coming off their record highs helped inflation moderate in April, the Department of Census and Statistics said.
April is the first full month since the International Monetary Fund released the first instalment of a $3 billion loan spread over four years.
The rate of price increases peaked at 69.8 percent in September as Sri Lanka struggled to finance imports of essential goods after declaring a sovereign default on its $46 billion foreign debt in April last year.
April’s inflation of 35.3 percent is the lowest since the 29.8 percent recorded a year earlier.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe warned his 22 million people soon after the IMF bailout in late March that they may have to endure more hardships due to austerity measures.
The South Asian nation went through months of food and fuel shortages, along with runaway inflation and prolonged blackouts, due to an unprecedented foreign exchange shortage.
The economic crisis led to months of protests that eventually forced then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and step down in July.
Wickremesinghe has doubled income taxes, increased electricity tariffs and removed fuel subsidies as part of moves to shore up state revenue since replacing Rajapaksa.
He has also cracked down on trade unions protesting against high taxes and the government has warned it will confiscate the property of anyone staging work stoppages.
In its latest annual report, released on Thursday, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka expected an economic revival next year after a record 7.8 percent GDP contraction in 2022.
The bank forecast the economy to shrink by 2.0 percent this year but said it could grow at 3.3 percent in 2024.
Although human rights violations are cited as the reason for sanctioning, the West has been using sanctions mainly to attain geopolitical objectives.
The US this week sanctioned the former Sri Lankan navy chief, Adm. Wasantha Karannagoda. Earlier, Canada had sanctioned former Presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. These listings have been portrayed as measures to enforce human rights. But, in fact, human rights have been a veneer, a fig leaf so to speak, to cover hard-nosed geopolitical objectives.
The history of sanctions clearly demonstrates that the West, particularly the US, uses sanctions as an instrument of geopolitics to browbeat weak and dependent nations and cripple leaders who would not bend to the American ill.
Sanctions are not applied against strong countries or strong leaders who are pro-US. For example, the US will not sanction Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for human rights violations because he is now a powerful, pro-US leader. Earlier, when he was a provincial leader (Chief Minister of Gujarat), the US had no problem about barring his entry into the US for alleged complicity in the 2002 Gujarat killings.
Holier Than Thou
The sanctioning power would not punish its own citizens who had committed war crimes abroad.
The UK had tried to bring legislation to prevent its troops from being dragged to courts in vexatious” litigations. Eventually, under pressure from rights groups, that move was abandoned.
The US, had been a major violator of human rights in Afghanistan. But it had threatened to arrest and sanction judges and other officials of the International Criminal Court (ICCC) if they moved to charge any American who served in Afghanistan with war crimes. White House National Security Advisor John Bolton had called the ICC unaccountable” and outright dangerous” to the United States, Israel and other allies. He said that the US was prepared to slap financial sanctions and criminal charges on officials of the court if they proceeded against any Americans.
We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States. We will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system,” he fumed. We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.”
Actually, Canada sanctioned the Rajapaksa brothers and the US blacklisted Adm.Karannagoda not for the reasons stated (war crimes) but for not letting the separatist Tamil Tigers off the hook in the crucial final phase of the war in Sri Lanka as per the West’s wish. And after the war, they had brazenly invited China to take the lead in infrastructural development worth billions of dollars.
Bangladesh
Likewise, the US sanctioned top officers of the Bangladesh anti-terrorist outfit, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), not for extrajudicial killings and disappearances, as claimed, but because Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was accommodative toward China. She had refused to be bullied into joining the Indo-Pacific anti-China line-up Quad”.
Both the Rajapaksas and the RAB were assessed only from the US foreign policy angle in total disregard of their role in ridding their countries of terrorism and separatism (and drug running and Islamic radicalism in the case of Bangladesh).
The Rajapaksas took the Canadian sanctions in their stride, perhaps given Sri Lanka’s dependence on the West for the IMF bailout. But the Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen summoned the US Ambassador Earl Miller and delivered a protest about the sanctioning of RAB.
The sanction against Bangladesh came in for adverse comment in the US itself. Derek Grossman, national security and Indo-Pacific analyst at RAND Corporation and Michael Kugelman, South Asia Senior Associate at the Wilson Center, viewed the US action in the context of strategic competition against China,” and noted that the Biden administration had not been happy about Dhaka’s growing ties with China.
Russia
In an unprecedented step against geopolitical rival Russia, which had invaded Western ally Ukraine, the US and its allies imposed wide-ranging sanctions, cutting off economic and trade links; seizing Russian assets, and blocking Russians from global payment systems like SWIFT, PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard. Sanctions made Russia’s Central Bank struggle to support the rouble.
The long term goal of sanctioning Russia is to overthrow the recalcitrant Vladimir Putin and to prevent Russia from being a global challenger to the hegemony of the US and its allies.
ICC
The International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague has also become an instrument of Western hegemonic politics. Since the inception of the ICC, Africans have been brought to trial, predominantly. None from the West. In protest against such anti-African bias, Burundi left the ICC and the Kenayan parliament voted to leave it in 2013. South Africa threatened to quit.
The fundamental problem is that the court is operating in a world that is unequal politically and economically,” James Goldston, a former attorney in the ICC prosecutor’s office, was quoted as saying.
Futility of Sanctions
Do sanctions deliver the goods? Mostly not, says Daniel W.Drezner in a piece entitled: The United States of Sanctions: The Use and Abuse of Economic Coercion in Foreign Affairs (Sept-Oct 2021).
Sri Lanka’s ideas or policies on human rights have not changed as a consequence of sanctions because the existing policies have the approval of the majority Sinhala-Buddhist community, and because these policies are considered necessary for the survival of Sri Lanka as a single entity.
In the case of Bangladesh too, the sanctions did not lead to any change in policy because Sheikh Hasina’s political clout has been based on her merciless action against drug peddlers, drug smugglers and Islamic terrorists, actions which are necessary for law and order and economic development.
Globally too, sanctions have not worked, though they have been the most oft used tool of US foreign policy. Daniel Drezner points out that during President Barack Obama’s first term, the US designated an average of 500 entities for sanctions per year, for reasons ranging from human rights abuses to nuclear proliferation to violations of territorial sovereignty. That nearly doubled during Donald Trump’s presidency. President Biden imposed new sanctions against Myanmar, Nicaragua and Russia.
Drezner says that economic sanctions have hurt the targeted countries but have not broken them. But this is not grasped by the US leadership. A 2019 Government Accountability Office study concluded that not even the federal government knew if sanctions were working.
The truth is that Washington’s fixation with sanctions has little to do with their efficacy and everything to do with something else: American decline. No longer an unchallenged superpower, the United States can’t throw its weight around the way it used to. In relative terms, its military power and diplomatic influence have declined.”
Two decades of war, recession, polarization, and now a pandemic, have dented American power. Frustrated US presidents are left with fewer arrows in their quiver, and they are quick to reach for the easy, available tool of sanctions,” Drezner says.
Sanctions have hurt the US too, but the US is oblivious to this.
Sanctions strain relations with allies, antagonize adversaries, and impose economic hardship on innocent civilians. Thus, sanctions not only reveal American decline but accelerate it too.”
To make matters worse, the tool is growing duller by the year. Future sanctions are likely to be even less effective,” Drezner predicts.
Sanctioned countries attract sympathy and material help. China and India came to sanctioned Russia’s rescue. China will help Sri Lanka and India will not give up its policy of wooing Sri Lanka, irrespective of US sanctions. Geopolitics is the determining factor.
P. K. Balachandran
P. K. Balachandran is a senior Indian journalist working in Sri Lanka for local and international media and has been writing on South Asian issues for the past 21 years.
The middle class, fed up of the shortages of the Sirimavo government, hailed the arrival of JR. They welcomed his appointment as head of state. They became disillusioned later, but his core group of admirers did not desert him.
JR handled the transition from a controlled economy to a more open one with great political skill said KM de Silva. JR was one of the few intelligent and educated politicians of Asia, said Daya de Silva. He was a visionary who transformed this country into a modern market economy. It was all good and smooth running since JR took over. JR was a benevolent dictator. He had a strong team and took firm decisions. The open economy was good. Tourists and foreign investors came in concluded Daya.
One of the spectacular achievements of JR was the Accelerated Mahaweli Development Scheme said Sarath Amunugama., A project which was to have taken 30 years was successfully completed in 10 years. It was a gigantic engineering, financial, land settlement, agricultural and management undertaking which changed rural agriculture irrevocably.
This was the largest river valley development which could be undertaken in the country. Many dams were needed. Sarath noted that the early work of the damming of Mahaweli Ganga was done by CP de Silva during 1965-1970. When JR and Gamini Dissanayake got onto it, most of the preliminary planning work was already complete.
The Mahaweli project ignored the creation of a Trincomalee development corridor, it concentrated on dams, reservoirs and power stations. So human settlements and its spatial networks suffered, said Willie Mendis. The Mahaweli programme carried out mostly through aid programmes did bring many benefits but the liberalization policy undermined local agricultural and industrial programmes, said IPC Mendis.
Sarath Amunugama noted that the Tourism sector was started by JR. He set up the Tourist Board. Hotels such as Lanka Oberoi, Intercontinental, Hilton, Taj and other International hotels built in Colombo as well as many resort hotels in scenic parts of the island were built in JR’s time. Trincomalee became an important tourist destination. A busy hotel industry was in operation in the area led by Nilaweli Beach hotel, Blue Lagoon and so on, said Jayatissa Bandaragoda.
The first southern resort was at Bentota, at the Bentota Rest house. Sarath found much land fragmentation when he went to the south to see about the development of tourism there. In Balapitiya there were more than 200 pangu holders for each small block of land. Once the big hotels were built and tourists started coming, an amazing development took place said Sarath. Around our main destination a large number of middle and small level hotels restaurants, batik shops and grocery stores sprang up he noted.
Sarath Amunugama noted that the Cultural triangle” was another achievement of JR, though many tend to overlook this.
I was told long ago, had Japan had offered to introduce television to Sri Lanka free, during the time of Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Her government had turned it down. In 1965 JR too had suggested the introduction of television, but the idea was shot down.
In 1977 JR was in a position to introduce television to the island. He wanted it to be a state venture supervised by the media ministry. He turned to Japan. The enthusiastic Japanese ambassador got us the whole project free of charge as an outright grant said Sarath Amunugama who was in charge of the project.
The Grant could be given according to Japanese law only for education, so we said this was for education and the original agreement carried this. One of the studios in Rupavahini was specially designed to facilitate the making of education programmes and we did start broadcasting lessons in English and mathematics which won awards at international competitions, concluded Sarath.
JR started the National lottery to supplement the national budget. Other ministers also saw the advantage of this, specially the printing contract it carried and started their own lotteries. Prime Minister Premadasa started Sevana fund, then came Mahapola. Eventually JR stopped any more lotteries.
President JR Jayewardene decided that a new parliament building was needed to accommodate the increased number of Parliamentarians. He requested the Embassies to help with the necessary expertise. The only Embassy that responded was the French and following consultation a team from Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient for new towns led by Dr. François Daniel and Architect Planner Deloche arrived in Sri Lanka. Architect Ashley de Vos was asked to join the team. JR had read something that Ashley de Vos had written, visited him and requested him to join.
Ashley recalls that the team toured the country for about a week to understand the history of the island. The historical monuments and the use of water as a feature in the landscape was impressive and taken note of. The team looked to see whether it was possible to create a connection of the new with the past and a location in Anuradhapura for the new Parliament was suggested.
Meanwhile, AnandaTissa De Alwis the MP for Kotte had suggested Kotte where there was marsh land with very little habitation. The island in the middle of the Diyawanna Oya was thought to be appropriate for the Parliament project, especially with the marsh and the potential for the use of water in the design. This island belonged to the E.W.Perera’s.
The Dutch hydrology expert brought over by the French reported that the marshes had to be preserved inviolate with the rain water flowing over the maximum area and finding its natural outlet to sea. If the marsh was intruded into or filled, and the free flow of water obstructed, the site and anything on it will get flooded.
Accordingly, the cleaning up and freeing of the natural lakes of the accumulated reed beds and other accretion was done The Diyawanna Oya now had a free flow into the lakes behind the old Christian College, Kotte and into the sea.
However, having got wind of the proposal, large areas of the marsh were hurriedly sold by the owners to private developers and many areas were subjected to arbitrary filling. Two large tracks of land was bought up and resold for development. This affected the landscape and interfered with the proposed location of the Ministerial offices and the housing for the officers who were going to work there.
This was totally against the views of the Dutch Hydrology expert. He wanted the marsh kept inviolate. He concluded that arbitrary filling and blocking of the free flow of excess water of the Diyawanna Oya into the natural lakes behind the old Christian College Kotte, and the canals leading to the Wellawatta canal and to the sea should not be restricted or closed off. If not flooding would occur.
If you interfere with the free flow of rain water in the marshes and along the Diyawanna Oya into the natural lakes, into the canals and into the sea, the heavy rain will inundate the little marsh that is left and the unfortunate outcome will be that the Parliament building will get flooded he said. The parliament went under water on two occasions, noted Ashley de Vos. (Continued)
It is now established that the US dollar’s status as a global reserve currency is eroding. When corporate western media begins to attack the multipolar world’s de-dollarization narrative in earnest, you know the panic in Washington has fully set in.
The numbers: the dollar share of global reserves was 73 percent in 2001, 55 percent in 2021, and 47 percent in 2022. The key takeaway is that last year, the dollar share slid 10 times faster than the average in the past two decades.
Now it is no longer far-fetched to project a global dollar share of only 30 percent by the end of 2024, coinciding with the next US presidential election.
The defining moment – the actual trigger leading to the Fall of the Hegemon – was in February 2022, when over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves were frozen” by the collective west, and every other country on the planet began fearing for their own dollar stores abroad. There was some comic relief in this absurd move, though: the EU can’t find” most of it.
Now cue to some current essential developments on the trading front.
Over 70 percent of trade deals between Russia and China now use either the ruble or the yuan, according to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.
Russia and India are trading oil in rupees. Less than four weeks ago, Banco Bocom BBM became the first Latin American bank to sign up as a direct participant of the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), which is the Chinese alternative to the western-led financial messaging system, SWIFT.
China’s CNOOC and France’s Total signed their first LNG trade in yuan via the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange.
The deal between Russia and Bangladesh for the construction of the Rooppur nuclear plant will also bypass the US dollar. The first $300 million payment will be in yuan, but Russia will try to switch the next ones to rubles.
Russia and Bolivia’s bilateral trade now accepts settlements in Boliviano. That’s extremely pertinent, considering Rosatom’s drive to be a crucial part of the development of lithium deposits in Bolivia.
Notably, many of those trades involve BRICS countries – and beyond. At least 19 nations have already requested to join BRICS+, the extended version of the 21st century’s major multipolar institution, whose founding members are Brazil, Russia, India, and China, then South Africa. The foreign ministers of the original five will start discussing the modalities of accession for new members in an upcoming June summit in Capetown.
BRICS, as it stands, is already more relevant to the global economy than the G7. The latest IMF figures reveal that the existing five BRICS nations will contribute 32.1 percent to global growth, compared to the G7’s 29.9 percent.
With Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Indonesia, and Mexico as possible new members, it is clear that key Global South players are starting to focus on the quintessential multilateral institution capable of smashing Western hegemony.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) are working in total sync as Moscow’s partnership with Riyadh in OPEC+ metastasizes into BRICS+, in parallel to the deepening Russia-Iran strategic partnership.
MbS has willfully steered Saudi Arabia toward Eurasia’s new power trio Russia-Iran-China (RIC), away from the US. The new game in West Asia is the incoming BRIICSS – featuring, remarkably, both Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose historic reconciliation was brokered by yet another BRICS heavyweight, China.
Importantly, the evolving Iran-Saudi rapprochement also implies a much closer relationship between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a whole and the Russia-China strategic partnership.
This will translate into complementary roles – in terms of trade connectivity and payment systems – for the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), linking Russia-Iran-India, and the China-Central-Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor, a key plank of Beijing’s ambitious, multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Today, only Brazil, with its President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva caged by the Americans and an erratic foreign policy, runs the risk of being relegated by the BRICS to the status of a secondary player.
Beyond BRIICSS
The de-dollarization train has been propelled to high-speed status by the accumulated effects of Covid-linked supply chain chaos and collective western sanctions on Russia.
The essential point is this: The BRICS have the commodities, and the G7 controls finance. The latter can’t grow commodities, but the former can create currencies – especially when their value is linked to tangibles like gold, oil, minerals, and other natural resources.
Arguably the key swing factor is that pricing for oil and gold is already shifting to Russia, China, and West Asia.
In consequence, demand for dollar-denominated bonds is slowly but surely collapsing. Trillions of US dollars will inevitably start to go back home – shattering the dollar’s purchasing power and its exchange rate.
The fall of a weaponized currency will end up smashing the whole logic behind the US’ global network of 800+ military bases and their operating budgets.
Since mid-March, in Moscow, during the Economic Forum of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CSI) – one of the key inter-government organizations in Eurasia formed after the fall of the USSR – further integration is being actively discussed between the CSI, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICS.
Eurasian organizations coordinating the counterpunch to the current western-led system, which tramples on international law, was not by accident one of the key themes of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s speech at the UN earlier this week. It is also no accident that four member-states of the CIS – Russia and three Central Asian stans” – founded the SCO along with China in June 2001.
The Davos/Great Reset globalist combo, for all practical purposes, declared war on oil immediately after the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. They threatened OPEC+ to isolate Russia – or else, but failed humiliatingly. OPEC+, effectively run by Moscow-Riyadh, now rules the global oil market.
Western elites are in a panic. Especially after Lula’s bombshell on Chinese soil during his visit with Xi Jinping, when he called on the whole Global South to replace the US dollar with their own currencies in international trade.
Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), recently told the New York-based Council of Foreign Relations – the heart of the US establishment matrix – that geopolitical tensions between the US and China could raise inflation by 5 percent and threaten the dominance of the dollar and euro.”
The monolithic spin across western mainstream media is that BRICS economies trading normally with Russia creates new problems for the rest of the world.” That’s utter nonsense: it only creates problems for the dollar and the euro.
The collective west is reaching Desperation Row – now timed with the astonishing announcement of a Biden-Harris US presidential ticket running again in 2024. This means that the US administration’s neo-con handlers will double down on their plan to unleash an industrial war against both Russia and China by 2025.
The petroyuan cometh
And that brings us back to de-dollarization and what will replace the hegemonic reserve currency of the world. Today, the GCC represents more than 25 percent of global oil exports (Saudi Arabia stands at 17 percent). More than 25 percent of China’s oil imports come from Riyadh. And China, predictably, is the GCC’s top trading partner.
The Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange went into business in March 2018. Any oil producer, from anywhere, can sell in Shanghai in yuan today. This means that the balance of power in the oil markets is already shifting from the US dollar to the yuan.
The catch is that most oil producers prefer not to keep large stashes of yuan; after all, everyone is still used to the petrodollar. Cue to Beijing linking crude futures in Shanghai to converting yuan into gold. And all that without touching China’s massive gold reserves.
This simple process happens via gold exchanges set up in Shanghai and Hong Kong. And not by accident, it lies at the heart of a new currency to bypass the dollar being discussed by the EAEU.
Dumping the dollar already has a mechanism: making full use of the Shanghai Energy Exchange’s future oil contracts in yuan. That’s the preferred path for the end of the petrodollar.
US global power projection is fundamentally based on controlling the global currency. Economic control underlies the Pentagon’s ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ doctrine. Yet now, even military projection is in shambles, with Russia maintaining an unreachable advance on hypersonic missiles and Russia-China-Iran able to deploy an array of carrier-killers.
The Hegemon – clinging to a toxic cocktail of neoliberalism, sanction dementia, and widespread threats – is bleeding from within. De-dollarization is an inevitable response to system collapse. In a Sun Tzu 2.0 environment, it is no wonder the Russia-China strategic partnership exhibits no intention of interrupting the enemy when he is so busy defeating himself.
JR’s role in creating an all powerful President, bringing in a highly defective Constitution in 1978, his introduction of Proportional Representation, the Manape, the National list and Bonus seats, which allowed defeated candidate to sit in Parliament , the Open Economy, the Indo Lanka accord which gave the Trincomalee tank farm to India, made Tamil a national language and created the hated Provincial Councils, have all been discussed heavily in newspapers, in the social media and elsewhere.They are still under angry discussion, but the country has not succeeded in eliminating any of them. They are still in existence.
A post of Ombudsman was created in 1978. Vittachi pounced on this. The Ombudsman could not entertain complaints from the public on his own, observed Vittachi. He could only look at cases referred to him by a parliamentary committee and these could be approached by a member of the public only through an MP. Further the Ombudsman could not inquire into anything done by the President, Minister, deputy ministers, MPs, members of the Public Service Commission or Judicial Services Commission. Also exempt were members of the President’s staff.
MPs received many benefits during JR’s time. MPs received a lifelong pension after five years in Parliament. Public servants have to work for ten years to get a pension, critics observed.
In 1986 media noted that brand new fleets of luxury Mercedes Benz limousines were acquired by government for use of MP and visiting VIPs. This is in Vittachi’s book. The year before, government had ordered 16 Mercedes Benz cars, one was a fully bullet proof one which has been sent to UK for special modifications. One politician, who had got a luxury Benz complained that the cassette player did not work and a new one was sent via DHL within three days as replacement at the cost of Rs. 40,000, recorded Vittachi.
In March 1986 there was a Special Presidential commission to probe complaints of bribery and corruption against MPs. Once the commission had disposed of allegations against two or three minor officials, JR wound it up. It had received 1973 complaints, of which 634 were under investigation at the time. His ministers were safe. No one had seriously expected JR to permit his Mps activities to be probed by the Commission, said Vittachi.
JR wanted to give punitive powers to Parliament. In 1987 Parliament powers and privileges Amendment bill was passed. Parliament was both complainant and judge, observed Vittachi.
JR’s administration had many unsavory aspects and these are remembered even today, specially the way he crushed the 1980 trade union strike. The July 1980 strike was on cost of living and reinstatement of some interdicted workers and a wage increase of Rs 300 per month. Government used emergency regulations and declared all service as essential services and that all strikers be considered to have vacated post. Strike was crushed. 40,000 workers had lost their jobs. Thousand remained sacked. Many committed suicide.
A simple demand of a wage increase to meet the hardships of cost of living was allowed to escalate, without government trying to talk to them at all. Was it a showdown deliberately engineered by government to crush the Trade union movement, asked Vittachi. Many unionists lost their jobs in the 1980 strike. Many committed suicide, others lived for the rest of their lives in utter poverty, said Sarath Amunugama. When he became Minster of Finance, Sarath gave them compensation but many of them were dead by then.
In 1981, JR’s government introduced a highly controversial white paper on education. After introducing pro-market policies in the late 1970s, the UNP sought to liquidate free education, said angry critics. In 1981, it published a White Paper on Education” that proposed school management committees, with parents responsible for seeking funds to run schools. Mass opposition forced the withdrawal of the plan.
The United Front government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike put Rohana Wijeweera in prison. But Wijeweera did not stay there for long. When JR came to power in 1977, he ordered Wijeweera’s release. JR negotiated with JVP and offered them three portfolios. They asked for defense. Then the UNP chairman and Secretary were assassinated by JVP within few weeks of each other, observed Sarath Amunugama.
During JR’s time there were two foreign ministries, said Sarath. One was the formal Ministry. The other was an informal one created around Minster ACS Hameed. This second ‘Ministry’ was staffed by his favorites and relatives. It ran a parallel service making appointment, soliciting funds and scholarships, privately contacting NCOs and entering into all sorts of negotiations where the donors were held to believe that they were negotiating with the formal Foreign Service and not the Minister’s private bureau. 10 Cuban medical scholarship holders were handpicked by Hameed. Ambassadors fell over each other to carry the minister’s suitcase. ( Amunugama p 179)
Lionel Fernando as GA Jaffna was very popular. At the time, the best of Sinhala teachers were attached to Oriental faculty of university of Jaffna, Sucharitha Gamlath, Dharmasena Pathiraja, Sunil Ariyaratne, observed Sarath. JR suddenly transferred Lionel to accommodate Doraiswamy, who angered Jaffna by his haughty ways. ( Continued)
Joe Biden with a dismal approval rating of 37% has announced that he is running for a second term. How can he possibly win? By again stealing the election.
Democrats control the large cities in swing states. In the past two elections, they have proven that they can easily steal the election. It is now impermissible to even report evidence of election theft. Experts who provided evidence were threatened with prosecution, and Fox News management rushed to pay more than three-quarters of a billion dollars of shareholders’ money in order to create the precedent that reporting evidence of stolen elections constitutes defamation. As Democrats control election procedures and vote counting in large cities, they, and not the voters, determine election outcomes. The last two American national elections prove the truth of Stalin’s dictum: It matters not how people vote; it matters who counts the votes.
The All-America Economic Survey found that 70% of Americans disfavor a Biden second term. This indicates that a large percentage of Democrats themselves do not want Biden. In America today, elections are nothing more than a veil behind which the elite rule.
The Democrats have a good candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. But RFK opposes Big Pharma’s control of US medicine and the agencies–FDA, NIH, CDC–that serve as Big Pharma’s protectors and marketing agents, and he opposes other aspects of the oligarchic system protected by official narratives upheld by the media. RFK will not be permitted to be president.
Republican Trump has by far the largest number of voters, but the Democrats have weaponized law in an effort to stop him from running. Other possible and strong Republican candidates–Ron DeSantis and Tucker Carlson–are unacceptable to the ruling elite and to the Republican establishment. If DeSantis makes himself acceptable to the establishment, he will lose his luster with voters.
The long-term ongoing collapse of US education has produced a population many of whom are comfortable with censoring and suppressing information that they are programmed to regard as offensive” or misinformation.” These two categories of unwelcome information refer to truths that are inconvenient for the elite and their official narratives. The regard of truth as hurtful has gained a foothold and exercises peer pressure on parts of the population, which makes it difficult for the people to act in their own interest.
Essentially, democracy has ceased to exist in the US. Increasingly, elected” representatives are appointees of the ruling elite, who control the selection of candidates by their allocations of campaign funds. Trump was the last elected President (twice). It is unlikely the ruling elite will allow Trump to again enter the White House.
When facts can’t matter, there is no science. Remember how easy it was for a crank to destroy Soviet genetics. Already in the US we have reached the point where mathematics is said to be a tool of white supremacy. Americans might think this is laughable, but the Soviet geneticists who were executed and imprisoned didn’t find it laughable.
In America today there is no remaining foundation for democracy. The media has been captured and turned into a propaganda ministry for the ruling elites. Truth is discredited as hurtful, offensive, and a danger to national security–remember Julian Assange has been in effect incarcerated for a decade without due process of law simply because he reported leaked facts inconvenient for the US government. Tucker Carlson has just been fired from Fox News for telling truths inconvenient for the ruling elite.
Formerly, the Democrats represented the working class, and Republicans represented the business class. Today both parties represent the ruling oligarchy. No party represents the people.
JR made a huge change to Sri Lanka‘s economy by ‘liberalizing’ the economy. That was in 1977, but JR’s economic policy is remembered today as well, with deep feeling. His policy is blamed for the current economic collapse and JR is criticized all over again.
Sri Lanka had liberalized too soon, said critics. Sri Lanka had opened its economy in 1977, while all other South Asian countries commenced opening their economies only after 1990, said economist Srimal Abeyratne. Sri Lanka was the first in south Asia to openly embrace neoliberalism, added others. India started implementing neo liberal reforms only in the 1990 and at a much slower pace.
JR is remembered with deep feeling as the person who brought in the ‘Open Economy’. Critics observed that the ‘Open economy’ did not help to improve Sri Lanka’s economy. It made it worse. Welfare gains were reversed. Food subsidies were trimmed and transport subsidies eliminated. The protections that had been in place for small scale businesses were removed. The existing small businesses were closed down but no new industries were started. This meant that existing jobs were destroyed without creating new jobs.
The emphasis was on imports. The private sector was encouraged to import and market almost anything from a pin to a Rolls Royce said critics. Smuggled goods flooded the consumer market with low priced imported goods. Local goods could not compete with these goods, their cost of production was too high. Out went the handlooms and the power looms and instead fabric was imported. CWE shops were disbanded, commented Garvin Karunaratne.
Perfectly acceptable local products such as the Wadsco clock and Menik spaghetti disappeared. Satisfactory local products were replaced by inferior foreign products. To give two homely examples, the imported plastic curtain tape was far inferior to the locally produced cotton item I had used for years. For decades we had used a locally produced file tag for our files. This was replaced by a complicated imported plastic tag with three separate components. These continue to be used in offices today. The local tag has disappeared.
Food and agriculture were affected by JR’s policy. The Paddy Marketing Board was abolished. The government scrapped the Guaranteed Price Scheme for rice and the farmers had to sell their goods to traders at low prices. Rice mills and paddy stores became neglected to pave the way to import rice. I could not believe the way the Ambalantota Rice mill had been vandalized. It had been my home for one full year, lamented Garvin Karunaratne.
A vegetable and fruit purchasing scheme and a canning factory were set up in the Marketing Department and were functioning well. Under JR the Marketing Dept was abolished because it interfered with the private traders. The canning factory was privatized. Instead of buying fruit from local producers they now imports fruits and produce jam, continued Karunaratne.
The CWE and the Marketing Department which purchased vegetable, fruits at fair prices from producer and sold the goods at cheap rate to city consumer, the canning factory which enabled us to be sufficient in jam and fruit juice, and the rice mills were enterprises which Sri Lanka had built up over three decades. They were all blown to bits by the JR Jayawardena government at the behest of the IMF, said Garvin Karunaratne.
This policy of importing food stuff continued long after JR. In 2019, a newspaper editorial said that even kurakkan is imported today. Cheap imports have taken their toll on the local food production. There have been instances where rice was imported shortly before the commencement of the harvesting season, here, so as to bring down the prices of rice and, thereby, enable big-time millers to purchase paddy at extremely low prices and hoard it. This kind of exploitation has caused many farmers to give up paddy cultivation, unable to recover even the cost of production, concluded the editorial.
Privatization was introduced by JR. The first to be privatized was United Motors. They were selling Mitsubishi vehicles and the Japanese were prepared to pay a big price and buy the firm, but JR said no. They were finally given 5% of the shares. This trend to privatize continued thereafter. Bogala mines, when it was in private hands it was doing so well .Then the government took it and after that it was sold to the Germans, said Karunasena Kodituwakku. Assets like Insurance Corporation and Distilleries Corporation that brought in money to the government were singled out and privatized for a song.
Petroleum Corporation’s Sapugaskanda refinery worked well throughout the 1970-77 period, despite difficulties. A new urea plant was built next door by the State Fertilizer Manufacturing Corporation, to produce urea for fertilizer for domestic agriculture, using naphtha, a byproduct from the refinery. After JR took over in 1977, the government decided to export the naphtha. It shut down the new fertilizer factory and handed it over to a private business for producing nails.
The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) brought in by JR did not benefit Sri Lanka. The benefits went to the foreign company. The best example of this is Prima, the first recorded FDI signed by the JR government. JR gave Prima a lucrative deal in Sri Lanka.
Prima had started as flour mill in Singapore in 1961 and rose to be a world flour milling company. Prima wanted to expand and had decided on Sri Lanka, with Maharajas as the local negotiating partner. The preliminary discussions were in Singapore between Cheng Tsang Man, founder of Prima and a representative of Maharajas.
Sri Lanka was purchasing 400,000 tonnes of wheat mainly from France. Cheng proposed setting up a state of the art flour mill in Sri Lanka, with foreign investment of more than USD 50 million. For every 100 metric tonnes of wheat the government supplied, Prime would give 76 metric tonnes of wheat flour, keeping the 24 metric tonnes of bran. There would be no payment from Sri Lanka. In 20 years the mill would be handed over to Sri Lanka. It sounded good but actually, Prima was benefitting, Sri Lanka was losing. Prima was getting the valuable part of the wheat, the bran. Sri Lanka was getting the left over flour.
Negotiations began with JR’s government .Prima were hardnosed business men, who knew to strike a deal. After an interminable amount of time, there was agreement on both sides. Prima got unprecedented tax concessionsand government allocated land for the project in Trincomalee.
Prima was quick off the ground. Prima had earlier identified the perfect location to build the Prima facility, at China bay, Trincomalee through an aerial survey of the Trincomalee harbor. Mitsui Japan was nominated for the construction of the flour mill. This was Mitsui’s maiden foray into Sri Lanka. Prima brought in the best expertise and world’s best equipment from Germany for the mill.
Construction was completed in 1980, and flour milling by Prima Ceylon started in China Bay. The collaboration was so close between government and Prima Company that the foundation laying ceremony was held at the Government Agent’s residence, recalled Jayatissa Bandaragoda, then GA Trincomalee .
The Prima project was presented to the public, as though it was a public investment project, which it was not. JR used this mill as a trump card in his election campaign. He would craftily say on the election platform’ I am giving you eight kilograms of grain’, but never said that the public was paying for it, observed Sumi Moonesinghe.
When the time came for the plant to revert to Sri Lanka, 20 years later, President Chandrika Kumaratunga sold the mill back to Prima. If it had been placed on the open market it would have sold for much more, said Sumi Moonesighe.
In 2019 Prima happily celebrated 40 years’ uninterrupted operations in Sri Lanka. Prima said it is getting on splendidly. It was operating one of the largest integrated flour-milling complexes in the world . The silos store 350,000 MT of flour with the harbor having the capacity to berth vessels with a 100,000 MT capacity. Prima exports 45 different flour varieties. Wheat is imported from the US, Canada, and Australia. Exports are mainly to South East Asia, India, the Middle East, and other Asian destinations which include Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. ( Continued)
A recent book by a parliamentarian equates the events of Aragalaya (2022) in Sri Lanka to Euromaidan uprising (2013) of Ukraine. However, the two are vastly different; in fact, opposed to each other. Most of these claims are unsubstantiated and only based on either hearsay or guesses. Understanding key differences between Euromaidan and Aragalaya is important.
On the surface both were aimed at removing their respective elected presidents and both relied heavily on social media. As with every trouble spot around the world, Americans were seen around both. However, similarities end there.
One major difference between Euromaidan and Aragalaya is that the former was driven by Urkainian ethno-nationalism while the latter (Aragalaya) shunned nationalism. Euromaidan was not supported by Ukraine’s minorities and in fact hurt their businesses, connections and even security. Ethnic Russians in Ukraine were severely affected by the Euromaidan Uprising. On the contrary, Aragalaya had the support of all minorities including Christians. Instead of alienating minorities, Aragalaya created unity with minorities. Following Euromaidan, all minorities in Ukraine felt unsafe and a civil war started targeting them which escalated into a full-scale war in 2022. However, Aragalaya on the other hand strengthened reconciliation between ethnic groups both during its activities and even after its conclusion. The deposed Ukrainian president won his mandate from Ukrainians of all ethnicities but the deposed Sri Lankan president only won his mandate from the majority community. Over 90% of Ukraine’s minorities voted for Yanukovych but over 90% of minorities rejected the deposed Sri Lankan president. Events after each uprising were significantly shaped by this difference.
Although Euromaidan changed the policies of Ukraine’s government, Aragalaya didn’t. Even after Aragalaya, the same policies are carried out by the Sri Lankan regime. Real power still remains with the same people in Sri Lanka.
Euromaidan Uprising had political leadership from the formal opposition of the nation despite being jailed. However, Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya had no such political leadership. Individuals with no political party membership at that time led it collectively. Some of them have since been lured into various political parties but they were not party members at the time of Aragalaya.
After Euromaidan, the then Ukrainian president fled to Russia where he lives. However, the Sri Lankan president returned to Sri Lanka where he and his wife live.
The then Ukrainian president ordered its military to attack civilians who participated in Euromaidan but the Sri Lankan president did not. In fact, the Sri Lankan president himself designated Galle Face as a protest site, provided sanitation facilities to participants, police assistance to ensure the safe passage of vehicles and the general safety of participants, water facilities and even allowed them to occupy high security zones for months. The then Ukrainian president had Russia in mind for his retirement whereas the Sri Lankan president had USA in his mind for his retirement. Aragalaya replaced Sri Lanka’s US citizen First Lady and US citizen economic affairs minister with local citizens.
The Ukrainian president was accused of major corruption during his term as president but the Sri Lankan president did not have serious accusations of corruption against him during his term as president.
Another key difference is the fate of participants. All participants of Euromaidan were released from court cases and criminal liability but hundreds of participants of Aragalaya face court action, are remanded and some are convicted.
Ukraine had a thriving economy when Euromaidan was launched, however, Sri Lanka had a shrinking economy for the third consecutive year when Aragalaya was launched. In fact, Sri Lanka declared loan creditors’ bankruptcy with a week of the official commencement of Aragalaya in April 2022. Ukraine then had adequate supply of electricity, gas, fuel and fertilizer when Euromaidan was launched. In fact, Ukraine was a net exporter of all these then! On the other hand, Sri Lanka suffered severe fuel, gas, electricity and fertilizer shortages when Aragalaya was launched. Fuel queues stretched up to 10 kilometres, gas queues lasted for five days and electricity was supplied for only 14 hours a day. Farmers had to forgo fertilizer for over a year.
Ukraine maintained a single-digit inflation rate when Euromaidan was launched. Sri Lanka had double-digit inflation which was the fourth worst in the world when Aragalaya was launched.
Euromaidan was opposed by Russia but Aragalaya was not. In fact, Russia extended trade with Sri Lanka even more after Aragalaya in terms of fertilizer, tourism and tea and also extended a very generous fuel offer which Sri Lanka rejected. Sri Lankan authorities detained a Russian passenger plane before Aragalaya but following the change, none of it was even contemplated.
Ukraine’s relations with China suffered heavily following Euromaidan but Sri Lanka’s relations with China improved following the change brought by Aragalaya.
During a discussion on the 178th Anniversary of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka (RASSL) at the Mahaweli Centre on Thursday (April 27), President Ranil Wickremesinghe shared his intentions to establish the Institute of History, with the aim of bringing together the museum, archives, archaeology, cultural triangle, and universities with the RASSL as the focal point.
The President emphasized that this institute should not be in competition with RASSL or any other institute. Rather, it should work collaboratively with these institutions to enrich the process.
Once the final draft of the Institute of History is ready, it will be discussed with the relevant parties such as the universities, Archaeology, and RASSL.
Additionally, President Wickremesinghe stressed the importance of protecting libraries and the need to collect various collections from museums, archives, and universities, including unpublished theses. He also highlighted the importance of funding projects and urged officials to prioritize them.
Regarding historical programs, the President emphasized the need to resolve funding issues related to the Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology, seeking assistance from the legal draftsman to finalize a copy, followed by the establishment of a committee to carry out the functions and appoint members.
He is hopeful that these efforts will give a better impetus to the study of history in the country, as many people do not study history.
The Head of State further assured monetary assistance to establish air conditioning units to preserve library books and urged the organization of conferences that were postponed due to COVID.
During his visit to the RASSL Library, the President inspected the facility and took an official photograph with council members, as well as signed the Visitors Book.
During a discussion held at the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka (RASSL), the President of the RASSL, Dr. Malini Dias presented the 175th anniversary medal, two scholarly books, and a letter to President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Additionally, Dr. Bohingamuwa and Ms. Hasula Wickramasinghe presented RASSL journals, while Dr. Chandana Jayawardhena handed over Science and Technological volumes to the President. Past President of the RASSL, Archt. Ashley De Vos and other RASSL Council members were also in attendance.
