Sri Lanka Cabinet planning to Surrender the Country to the Americans through the MCC SOFA and ACSA Compact
Posted on November 10th, 2019

Mahinda Gunasekera

Thanks to the report published in the Lankaweb on November 6, 2019, by the Indian investigative journalist Sarojini Dutt, we are now able to see the foolish and dangerous steps taken by the present government to sacrifice our independence and sovereignty to the USA for a mere handful of dollars  ($480 million) promised as a grant, which too would go directly to US contractors engaged to carry out the work involving land surveys and converting the land grants given to landless farmers into freely marketable units to be registered in a digitized land bank system. This no doubt would make the land holders in the not too distant future, rootless and landless, selling off their land that provided them their livelihoods to the highest bidders including foreigners as provided in the new State Land Bank Act and the Land (Special Provisions) Act replacing the LRC Act which guaranteed them tenure over their lands.

Her expose’ reveals some of the hidden areas in the Millenium Challenge Corporation’s Compact under negotiation which was inadvertently distributed to invited participants by the MCC team leader Steve Dobrilovic during a briefing to senior legal officers of Sri Lankan banks and the then President of the Bar Association in September 2018. The documents released included a map of Sri Lanka as envisaged in the year 2050 following implementation of the Compact which the present Cabinet of Minister approved for acceptance and nominated the Finance Minister, Mangala Samaraweera to sign it on behalf of the country while the people were focusing their attention on the Presidential Election scheduled to be held on November 16, 2019.  The map in question also showed a 200 mile corridor between Colombo and Trincomalee to be awarded to the US authorities coming under US jurisdiction where an electric rail track was to be built effectively dividing Sri Lanka into a southern and northern region. These negotiations took place in absolute secrecy between representatives of the government and the MCC team from the USA housed within the Temple Trees complex used by the Prime Minister.  Due to the lack of openness and secrecy involved, the concerned citizens were jolted into shock and dismay, leading to the Most Venerable Ududumbara Kasyapa Thero to undertake a fast unto death at the Independence Hall demanding that the President, Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition commit themselves in writing not to proceed with the signing of the Compact Agreement prior to same being discussed in Parliament and a decision taken in a democratic manner. With opposition mounting and the fast of the monk going into the second day, the key officials of the government provided the written assurance enabling the venerable monk to call off his fast.

The USA which operated a major military base in the island of Diego Garcia from which they carried out hostilities in the Middle East, Afghanistan, etc.  obtaining a 50 year lease of the territory from the UK which expired in 2016, having tricked and cheated the indigenous Chagossian people of a place to live by instilling fear in them about a life threatening disease that would strike them if they continued to remain, and thereby expelling them from Diego Garcia and moving them away to live in Mauritius. The Chagossians have since appealed to the UK Supreme Court and the UNGA which have ruled in their favour which will allow them to get back to their island homeland soon with Britain being compelled to hand back the island to Mauritius in whom sovereignty rests.  No wonder the USA is eyeing Sri Lanka as a logistics hub and potential military base to replace Diego Garcia for which they were willing to make a grant of $480 million to the political party whom they helped to install in the year 2015. Please click on the LINK below to access the article:
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2019/11/06/sri-lanka-cabinet-surrenders-the-country-to-the-americans/


It is unimaginable that the politicians elected for just a five year term had the audacity to secretly negotiate the break up of our sovereign country for a bundle of $480 million, overturning our Non-Alligned policy, and tie up our country with the military industrial complex of the USA which has evolved a policy of continuous war necessary to profit from the sale of weapons and war material and impose their will on other nations.  Having co-sponsored a resolution at the UNHRC along with the USA, UK and other western powers to put on trial our heroic security forces personnel that sacrificed their life and limb to regain the country after three decades of  Tamil Tiger terrorism, it was still not expected of them to drive their dagger into the heart of this country ending the independence, freedom and sovereign status enjoyed by the people from time immemorial over many millennia.

Mahinda Gunasekera

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