By Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D.

Karu Jayasuriya, the Deputy leader of the United National Party(UNP) has lamented:“How do we sleep at night, knowing that 280,000 people remain interned behind barbed wire fences in the north?”

It is interesting to note that the UNP has now joined the League of Superpowers band led by Robert Blake, US Assistant Secretary in the US Administration, Millband, the Foreign Secretary of Britain and Boucher of France to demand that the people who have been kept in the camps in the North be released. He forgets that the people are kept at a considerable cost till their lands are de-mined and the LTTE cadres amongst them are identified. It is a well known fact that Robert Blake is entertaining the Tamil Diaspora and they have the blessings of the US, Britain and other powers like Norway. What the Superpowers need is to allow the LTTE to regroup and Karu Jayasuriya has also joined that gang now.

 All this is not surprising because not long ago, his Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe the UNP Prime Minister, signed the Cease Fire Agreement which bestowed on the LTTE many priviledges which they never had earlier. The Armed Forces of Sri Lanka were kept confined to the barracks and one by one key military personnel were singled out and killed. He even allowed the LTTE to establish military bases all over the District of Trincomalee and almost encircled the town of Trincomalee and its naval base which made the President Chandrika take over the Defence Ministry. Ranil’s actions can be construed to be helping the LTTE to strengthen the land area they held. Karu Jayasuriya has gone back to the UNP fold to help the LTTE!

 Every citizen of Sri Lanka should be grateful to our President, Mahinda Rajapaksa for ridding the country of the LTTE terror, which held the entire country to ransom with suicide bombers and blasts all over for three decades. No one was safe anywhere. Monks were gunned down at Arantalawa, pilgrims in their hundreds were gunned down at Sri Maha Bodhiya, Anuradhapura, hundreds were killed when the Central Bank was blown up. We have had Presidents earlier: they tried but could not defeat the terrorists. If not for Mahinda Rajapaksa and the armed forces, Sri Lanka would have been by now, a bifurcated country, like Cyprus with the land border including a part of the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa Districts in addition to the North and the East- a vast coastline from Puttlam to Yala in the South, with the majority Sinhalese living in eternal fear.

 It is sad that the UNP, the political party that once fought for our independence has now become the lackey of the Superpowers.

 The UNP’s spokesman . Gayantha Karunatileke has voiced himself stating emphatically that the Rajapaksa Government is wasting money on elections. Elections is the one and only method of ensuring that there is a democratic choice and now the UNP has come into the open to state that elections should not be held because it is a waste of funds. One must bow one’s head to the present Government for holding elections. One cannot forget that President Jayawardena of the UNP, was the one and only President of Sri Lanka who disenfranchised the entire population by holding a referendum among the Parliamentarians asking them to vote whether they would wish to continue in their member of parliamentary positions for a further term. It was a foregone conclusion- who would not like to enjoy the fantastic salary, pension and perks to be a Member of Parliament for a further five years, without facing an election and all voted yes. The people of Sri Lanka should never forget that Jayawardena got all Members of Parliament to sign letters of resignation and held it with him, threatening to dissolve Parliament if they did not vote at his bidding. I know this for certain because my friend Ronnie de Mel once told me that he was the only one that did not sign that death warrant. Further Jayawardena incarcerated all Members of Parliament in a Five Star Hotel in Colombo. When he wanted them to vote he would go there and take them under armed escort in busloads, to Parliament to vote. That was how the 13 th Amendment of our Constitution was passed. Today the 13 th Amendment which in the words of former Chief Justice Sarath Silva, was “compiled by taking parts of the Indian Constitution, does not suit Sri Lanka”.is holding the sovereignty of our country to ransom. The 13 th Amendment is an imposition of India on us. To my mind, all important legislation done by that Referendum Parliament should be declared Null and Void. It is entirely a question of our sovereignty and our sovereignty is non-negotiable. That is the legacy that President Jayawadena left for us. What a fantastic record of Democracy for the UNP to boast about!. Does Karunatileke want the Rajapaksa Government to follow that dictatorial precedent. No Chance, the Rajapaksa Government is not that. So Mr Karunatileke please stop talking about democracy to the Rajapaksas. You will never entice Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa to do the shameful act of having a referendum or having our Constitution amended to suit a Foreign Government in the Jayawardena style.

 Karunatileke aso accuses that the present government is neglecting the country’s economy, its education sector, its agriculture, health and development. Perhaps I have the ability to speak about development more than many others who have no experience. I served as an Administrator in Sri lanka for 18 years, at the grassroots as well at the helm in a District. I also designed and established the Youth Self Employment Programme in Bangladesh, which is today the premier programme of self employment one can find anywhere, a programme that has rendered over a million self employed on a commercially viable basis. It is a programme that has left its imprints on the sands of time. I can state that it was the UNP that did ruin Sri Lanka’s economy, its education, its agriculture and its development. The damage done during its eighteen years was so marked that even Sakra, the King of Gods, will find it difficult to retrieve it. Karu Jayasuriya too says that the present Government is moving towards a collective destruction. The economy was totally destroyed during the UNP rule and if anyone doubts it they can read my book, How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka & Alternate Programmes of Success(Godages).

Let me briefly tell the damage done by the UNP.

 The UNP followed the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programme from 1977. From the late Seventies the IMF urged every Third World country to follow this. The IMF’s strategy is to ruin our Third World countries and aggrandize its wealth to the Superpowers. They did this by urging, coaxing and compelling our countries to liberalize the use of foreign exchange- allow anyone to use foreign exchange as much as they wished and for the country to borrow money on interest to enable this lavish spending. They also asked the countries to privatize assets to find money for this expenditure. Then they sold the concept of free trade which meant that we had to import freely without restriction and also told us to increase our interest rates to as much as 25% which made our entrepreneurs close shop. In came the glut of imports. We provided work for people in the foreign countries from which we imported goods while our people were unemployed. This process made our country totally indebted. When Prime Minister Sirimavo handed over Sri Lanka to President Jayawardena our foreign debt was only $ 750 million and that too on project development. When the UNP handed over the country in 1995 the foreign debt was at $ 9,405 million. This was entirely on consumption borrowing.

 There was a major change in how Aid was allowed by the World Bank and the IMF in the late Seventies. Till then Aid was only given on projects that would eventually generate an income to pay both the capital and interest. The IMF relaxed this rule to allow Loans for anything and advised the countries to follow deficit budgeting. Earlier a country had to balance its foreign exchange budget somehow. The IMF now allowed loans to meet the extra expenses incurred by following the Structural Adjustment Provisions of liberalized imports and liberalized foreign exchange. Sri Lanka last managed to meet its budget and acted without deficit budgeting in the days of President Sirimavo. By 1995 overly in debt we had to find loans to pay our debts. In this situation if a country is to survive we have to draw loans to pay our dues and Sri Lanka is today caught up in this trap. To add to the misery we had to finance the war against the LTTE, which thanks to the Rajapaksa Government we have finished.

 To be convinced further of what happened to our beloved country, one must read Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins.. Perkins was a hit man employed by a leading multinational to write- fabricate project reports giving Aid in such a manner that the funds provided will find its way back to the Developed Countries and the donors with profit, while the country gets saddled with the debt. The money is fritted away by the Developed Countries in services provided for evaluations etc and to feed the rich in that country and the country’s rich is fed with things from the Developed Countries. The money that the rich get pours into the Developed Countries in the form of education provided for the children of the rich and travel, cruises etc.. Perkins wrote and wrote and worked as a Hitman for years, till his conscience told him to make a confession and that is when he wrote his book. In his own words, “We channeled funds from the Banks.. into schemes that appeared to serve the poor while primarily benefiting a few wealthy people…… we would identify a developing country that possessed resources our corporations coveted, arrange a huge loan for that country and then direct most of the money to our own engineering and construction companies..”

 Giving Aid to countries and getting the money back and also making the country indebted was worked out by the IMF in a shrewd and crafty manner. This process is aptly narrated by a journalist Karl Maier in the context of Nigeria:

“They lend Nigeria money, somebody here steals the same amount of money and gives it back to them and then they leave these poor Nigerians repaying what they never owed. The role of the Western Powers has been totally disgraceful”. (This House Has fallen: Nigeria in Crisis)The Stealing is done through a variety of methods- chiefly privatization,.

 This is exactly what the UNP did to Sri Lanka in its eighteen years. The country and its resources were sold to foreigners and to the rich of our country. The UNP in its eighteen years did what John Perkins did to Ecuador, the country where he worked.. They allowed the country to be swindled. Minister Dinesh Gunawardena has said of how the Hingurana Sugar Proiject was privatized. It was valued at Rs. 300 million, contracted to be sold for Rs. 128 million and ultimately the Government got only Rs. 25 million(Statement to Parliament 21/10/09). Why? Sugar is a key item to stay within the Developed Country Multinationals and any country that tries to develop any sugar project has to be sabotaged. Through Privatization, the IMF saw to it that all the commercial ventures of the Government were swindled. The IMF strategy is to open up the assets of the country for investment and investors are offered tax free periods. In come investors, use our assets- like porcelain, land, water and take away the profits. Our countries do not get paid for the assets used, but the investor country charges taxes on the investors and when the goods manufactured with our resources gets sold the countries get taxes. It is really exploitation in the guise of investment.

 Sri Lanka carefully developed the infrastructure for development from the days it became independent. During the Colonial Period the Superpowers had their aim as maintaining law and order and collecting taxes. There was no development except to show people that something was done. Sri Lanka had to build up the development structure from scratch. I was a part and parcel of this process- first in the Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing where I was an Assistant Commissioner. In 1956 I was in charge of the Vegetable and Fruit Purchasing Scheme at its central depot at the Tripoli Market, Maradana. Vegetables and Fruits were purchased by Marketing Officers all over the island and sent to Tripoli Market where it was distributed to retail depots all over. The motto was to buy from producers at the highest possible price and sell to the urban population at the lowest possible price. We ate into the profits that the middlemen traders made. Working at the Tripoli Market, I fixed the islandwide purchasing price for all vegetables in demand. Our Marketing Officers took their lorries to all the Producers Fairs in the island and our buying prices were displayed on a board. Producers sold to us and our officers purchased and dispatched overnight to Triploi Market, Colombo and our centers at Kandy. Traders had to be guided by our buying prices otherwise they would be out of business. In Colombo our retail sales depots were supplied with the vegetables by 10 AM the next day at a low price. The traders at the Colombo Market and all retailers had to be guided by our sales price as they would otherwise be out of business. Generally we kept a margin of ten to twenty percent as against the 50% profit that traders kept. Assistant Commissioners had to face the Commissioner at the end of every month where we were hauled over the coals if our profit happened to be near ten % or we had incurred a loss of near 10%. Our aim was to break even and those who incurred a loss of 2-to 3% or got a profit of 2-3% were applauded. Our aim was two fold. We offered a high price to the producer and this enabled us to be self sufficient in all vegetables and fruits. We adopted this scheme on eggs till we became self sufficient in eggs. The other aim was to supply veg and fruits at cheap rates to the urban dwellers and this controlled inflation. To add to this the Marketing Department had a Canning factory where we processed fruits into jam and juice. We offered floor prices for fruits like Red Pumkin, Pineapples and Oranges and all purchases were fed to the Canning Factory. We had major problems in canning but overcame them all. We became self sufficient in jam and fruit juice. Then came the bogeyman the IMF and their protégé the UNP that followed their dictate- privatized the Canning Factory and closed down the Marketing Department. This was a unique method of ensuring a good price to the producer as well as unofficially controlling the prices in the Cities a system that is not there in any other country in the world. This was the brainchild of R.H.Basset and Commissioner B.L.W. Fernando.

 Take what happened to Paddy Purchases. We fixed a premium price for paddy and purchased it directly from producers and not from middlemen or traders or rice millers. Then the subsidy given reached the producer. Then we had rice mills all over the island where we milled the paddy and handed over the rice to the Food Commissioner to give on the Rice Ration Scheme to the people. Down comes the IMF-UNP bogeyman and abolishes the Paddy Marketing Board. (Earlier these functions were done by the Marketing Department)The Rice Mills- the state of the art Rice Mills were sold for a song and scrapped. Once in the Eighties on my way to Kataragama I went to see the Ambalantota Rice Mill and could not fathom how it had been broken up and vandalized. It was one of three State of the Art Rice Mills in Sri Lanka, milling four thousand bushels a day and employing over a hundred workers. I gazed for ten minutes venerating the rice mill that I had worked for, earing my daily bread. Today the producers cannot be given the subsidy all due to the UNP scrapping the Paddy Purchasing System. Today the Government is trying to do something, but without a full Canning factory the vegetable and fruits production cannot be build up. We are importing vegetables and fruits. We cannot build the rice mills and have a scheme to buy from producers overnight.

 The UNP of today should not forget that it was President jayawardena that abolished the Rice Ration Scheme which sold a small amount of rice to the people at a reasonable price. Jayawardena at first instead established a Food Stamp Scheme. In my own words, The Food Stamp Scheme was targetted to reach the real needy. Many who were not in that poor category could not afford to buy their food requirements. This was partly due to the devaluation of the currency and the high inflation that it brought about. This reduced their food intake and led to a situation of malnourishment, documented in the authoritative United nationsHuman Development Report of 1990.( From How the IMF Ruined Sri lanka, pg. 57)

The UNP should be ashamed of bringing about a situation of malnourishment in a country that never had such a situation earlier because for decades we have had the Rice Ration Scheme.

 The CWE was another creation whereby we imported and sold essential goods at cheap rates to the people. It was a method of selling essentials like lentils, sugar etc.to the people keeping a very low margin of profit.. The low prices of the WE unofficially controlled the prices because otherwise private traders will go out of business. The CWE was abolished by no other than Ranil Wickremasinghe and Ravi karunanayake two of today’s UNP leaders. They should hang their heads in shame for that very act.

This was in brief the infrastructure that was meant to develop our agriculture and as an administrator for eighteen years I myself worked the schemes and administered them very effectively. It pains me immensely to see the damage done to the working of the Departments that offered a yeoman service to the people.

 The UNP in its eighteen years neglected the State Education system and allowed a fee paying private education system to develop side by side, educating the children of the rich- because it was only the rich that could afford to send their children to these international schools. Then the UNP provided foreign exchange to educate these children at Universities in foreign countries. All this for around 100,000 students, while the education of four million students in State Schools was neglected. The amount of foreign exchange used for foreign education came from loans obtained at interest. The UNP has a good record of spending the country’s foreign exchange for the rich, in short the country became indebted because of the policies that enriched the rich at the expense of the masses.

 In fact , Sri Lanka’s Budget of 2002, when Ranil Wickremasinghe became the Prime Minister indicates what will happen to Sri Lanka if ever the present UNP comes into power. In my own words,

Sri Lanka’s 2002 Budget can be correctly called and IMF and World Bank Budget. This is because the budget proposals all stem from the measures that the IMF has been urging Sri Lanka to follow over the past few years. The Budget will take Sri Lanka a few further steps towards more poverty, deeper deprivation and increased indebtedness.

To take a few specific instances:

Reduction of taxes levied on companies and the abolition of stamp duty on property transfers only help the rich. The budget imposes a 10% taxation on interest paid on deposits. While this fleeces the small investor whose income is lower than the taxable limit, it provides a bountiful return for the large investor who can henceforth pay only 10% instead of paying the 35% paid earlier.

The Budget offered Sri Lanka on a platter for exploitation by multinationals. I wrote:

“Concessions and incentives will be offered to Transnational Companies in the fields of construction of residential buildings, roads, supply of water, mass transportation,,,professional services, finance, insurance and the production and distribution of energy and power.” In other words what will happen is that foreign companies will come, , invest, pay no taxes to our country and take away the profits that should stay in our country. In short if a hydro electricity project is privatized to a foreigner, he will administer the project, charge for electricity

supplied and the profits will go to the shareholders of the company overseas. This is happening all over the world as dictated by the IMF. Thus Transnationals are getting profits even from the provision of water in Bolivia. Once this is done the water bill paid by a consumer in Colombo will ensure a profit for a shareholder in the USA, if it is handled by a US Multinational..

The budget even reduces the 100% tax levied on foreigners when they purchase property in Sri lanka.

It is a total sell out of our country to foreign investors and to the rich. Austerity is only for the poor and the middle classes while the rich are better off in taxation.(Quotes from: How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka…, Godages, Colombo)

 The UNP has to be held severely responsible for taking Sri lanka on the “no-growth” path of the IMF.

 Devaluation of Currencies was another ploy of the IMF and Sri Lanka was one of the guinea pigs. The aim was to get our countries indebted and then to get foreign banks in and finally to get our State banks abolished. Our currency was at Rs 15.50 to the pound sterling in 1977 and it had been at around Rs. 15.00 for over a decade. Down comes the bogeyman-IMF and UNP and down goes the currency. We had to devalue the currency to get Loans and the Rupee that was valued at Rs. 15.50 to the pound dwindled in value to Rupees 31.60 to the pound by 1978- a drop of 103% in less than a year. That means that all our imports came to us at the increased value of the foreign currency and all our exports wsent out at the lower value of our currency. This process has continued to this day. Once a country is indebted it cannot raise its head.

 The IMF has ruined every country that has followed its Structural Adjustment Programme. Take Turkey, the Lira has dropped in value from Lira 336 to the pound in 1983 to Lira 2,640,000 to the pound by June 2007 marking a devaluation of 787,000%.. I had a grand holiday in Turkey using a few pounds due to this phenomenal devaluation. The Ghanian Cedi has been devalued from 5.7 Cedi to the pound in 1983 to 18,950 Cedi to the pound in 2007, marking a devaluation of 332,000%. The Bolivian peso that held a value of 116 peso to the pound in 1983 has dropped by 6,637,000 % to 7.7 bolivanos in 2007,. where a bolivano was equal to one million pesos in conversion in 1987. This devaluation is true of many countries that followed the IMF dictates and the drop in value indicates the extent to which the exports of the country was discounted.

. In short it means that the copper of Bolivia now reaches the manufacturers in the USA at a discount of 6.6 million percent. This indicates the poverty that the devaluation has created in the country and the immense profit that has been brought to the importing Developed Country,

 The UNP stalwarts also lament on the fact that journalists have had to flee the country. Journalists do try to make a drama out of nothing. I know this quite well as an administrator and some of my programmes have been distorted to gain prestige. Damage is done to us workers who have burnt the mid night oil to see that development programmes are done efficiently and I have had to defend my programmes to politicians who come to see the newspapers. Where a country’s development is concerned, journalists have to play a major role in providing publicity in a constructive manner which is not the art of journalism in Third World Countries.

It is not only Journalists that have taken to their heels to foreign countries in search of security- there are good opportunities for success in developed countries and one can get priviledges by criticizing their own country. It has been found that many journalists have been in the pay of Non Governmental Organizations to distort facts for their gain. Though the UNP has tried to distort facts and show that the media is running under a Gestapo by the Government of Sri lanka, the fact is that if there is a Gestapo in function a large number of our journalists like Tisaranee and NGO funded people,-Pakiasothy and Jehan Perera would have really ceased to exist by now. Many of the present leaders in the UNP are aware of what happened to Richard Soysa for writing a play,, the Gomes girl for reading out news on our radio and the poem writer Alwis. That type of situation no longer exists in our present Sri Lanka and our news papers are full of criticisms of the present Government.

 Let me finally hope that the UNP will mature to be constructive. That should be the motto of any political party in any part of the world. Let the UNP of today really understand that it was they that ruined our economy. It stands to reason that the UNP should at least, stand by this Government in its attempt to develop the country. They should cherish that the country had been rid of terrorism and cooperate in building up the economy which the UNP itself sacrificed to the IMF.

 Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D.(Michigan State)

Formerly of the Sri lanka Administrative Service

Author of How the IMF Ruined Sri lanka and Alternate Programmes of Success(Godages, Colombo) 2006

25/10/2009

By Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D.(Michigan State University)

The Norwegian Noble Committee has decided  that the Noble Peace Prize for 2009 be awarded to President Barak Obama. In the words of the Norwegian Noble Committee, The vision of a world  free from nuclear arms has powerfully  stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative  the USA is now playing a more constructive role  in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and Human Rights are to be strengthened.  

President Obama comes from a country that has little regard for Democracy. I have had the occasion to research the two US Presidential Elections of 2000 and 2004 and the manner in which democracy was flouted in both elections made me write and publish two books: The Administrative Bungling that Hijacked the 2000 US Presidential Election  and The Electronic Stealing of the 2004 US Presidential Election.   Having studied and worked in the development field in five countries over the past four decades I studied the progress of the US Economy and can make a firm statement that the  economy of the USA was ruined and President Obama inherited a failed State in severe debt, with crumbling banks, bankrupt financial institutions and  high unemployment. In addition Bush  had attacked Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction, which he never found and even made a foray into Afghanistan under the pretext that Al Qaeda had taken heels to its mountains. President Obama was hailed as the saviour to save not only the United States of America but also save the entire world economy.  His election pledge was to stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to put the US economy on a sound footing.  In my own small and humble manner I too was one of his supporters, writing and getting something published for this cause.  

Two winters and two summers have passed since President Obama ascended the Presidency but in this period though in the myopic eyes of the Noble Peace Parade there has been progress, in actuality there has been no progress whatsoever.  Lech Walesa, the Polish President opined that he(Obama) has no contribution so far.(The TimesOnLine,10/10/09) 

  As far as the US economy is concerned, the financial institutions have kept crumbling, the stimulus packages of finance ‘donated’ to the prestigious banks have ended up not in building up the capital starved economy but in the pockets of the bank mandarins in the form of bonuses, the very bureaucrats who craftily mismanaged the finance.  This week the unemployment level in the USA had reached 9.8%, the highest level in 26 years.  

President Obama has totally failed to sort out the wars waged  on foreign soil in Iraq and Afghanistan. Paul Craig Roberts, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan Administration  tells of the Obama Regime and its current modus operandi: When justification for war becomes almost endless- oil, hegemony, women’s rights, revenge for 9/11, denying bases to Al Qaeda and protecting against terrorists- war becomes the path to peace. From, “Warmonger wins peace prize”, in SrilankaGuardian, 9/10/2009)  

 The World has had the occasion to see President Obama in action. On foreign soil, the Bush foray into Iraq has been a success in terms of the US commanding the oil wealth of Iraq. The people of Iraq are subjected to foreign domination and the USA is establishing a puppet government, controlled by the USA. Though officially only 110,000 civilians perished many estimates state that as much as 655,000 civilians were killed. In December 2007 it was reported that there were 5 million orphans in Iraq due to the war. Daily the people of Iraq are killing the foreigners wherever they can get at them and bomb blasts are frequently reported. President Obama has only continued his predecessor’s policies, just the opposite of what he preached in the election campaign. 

  Take Afghanistan. Bush commenced reducing Afghanistan to rubble and a puppet Karzai was enthroned. Instead of pulling out troops- what=2 0President Obama promised, he has had to increase the strength. Worse, last month Karzai was accepted as the President by the USA when Peter Galbraith, their own diplomat who monitored the election reported that  there was rampant fraud in the election. Instead of appreciating Peter Galbraith’s findings, Galbraith was dismissed from his job for his comments. Galbraith now states that his boss, Kai Eide, the Head of the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan ordered a systematic cover up to conceal the extent of electoral fraud by President Karzai…I was ordered not to pursue the issue of fraud…My staff collected evidence on hundreds of cases of fraud around the country and more important  gathered information on turnout  in key southern provinces where few voters showed up but  large numbers of votes were being reported. Eide ordered us not to share this data with anyone including the Electoral Complaints Commission, a UN backed Afghan Institution legally mandated to monitor fraud. (The TimesOnLine5/10/2009)  The UN Chief Eide has denied the cover up but the commitment President Obama has for democracy today is reflected in accepting Karzai as the President though under a cloud of fraud.

Now the South Asian arena is seeing the USA making forays into Pakistan. President Musharaff once agreed to allow airspace and facilities for the US forces to attack Afghanistan because he was firmly told that his country would be reduced to rubble if he did not agree. That was when the US was under President Bush. Now under President Obama the USA is attacking Pakistan under the pretext that Osama Bin Laden is in hiding in the mountains of Pakistan. The people of Pakistan have taken up arms against this foreign domination and against the Government of Pakistan which has now become a puppet of the USA. Today the USA is compelling Zadari the President of Pakistan to agree to the Kerry Lugar Agreement, by which Pakistan will be given $ 1.5 billion annually for five years in Aid if Pakistan agrees to what the USA wants.  This Kerry Lugar Agreement was passed by the US Congress. This Agreement has been dubbed as  an Insult to Pakistan. The Agreement states that the USA has the right to monitor nuclear installations in Pakistan, and has access to officials working in the field. This is an affront to the sovereignty of Pakistan. Zadari likes to sign the agreement but it has been=2 0opposed by the people of Pakiustan and has not been passed by its Parliament. Pakistan will end up in total disaster like Somalia  very soon due to the machinations of the USA , all under the rule of President Obama.

 As far as a world free from nuclear arms is concerned President Obama appears to be continuing the task of his predecessors to ensure that nuclear arms will be limited to the Superpowers and their allies only.

 Where was President Obama when Israel was attacking the Palestinians in the Gaza strip and raining white phosphorous on its people.  Even today and in the past month Israeli forces are dragging East Palestinians out of their hearth and home at gun point, taking over their homes- homes for which they hold documented deeds . The homes are then bulldozed and new Israeli settlements are built and Jews settled on them. This episode was documented on UK Television where I saw the people thrown out seated on their mattresses on the roads and they were watching their homes – the homes in which they have slept for years being destroyed. They  were held at gun point by Israeli soldiers and I saw a journalist/photographer who documented this episode  being chased away by the armed forces of Israel. There was not an utterance from President Obama to this pillage that was going on in East Palestine.  The USA was silent about the Human Rights of the East Palestinians. One word from him- if he could dare to tell Israel that the Aid that the USA is giving annually to Israel would be stopped, Israel would stop forthwith. But President Obama kept silent. The drones and wails of the dispossesed people do not worry him any more. It is sad that Human Rights do  not permeate the white walls of White House!.

 Take Sri Lanka. For the past=2 0three decades the LTTE has tried to establish a rebel government in the Noirth and the East in land that totally belonged to Sri Lanka. I know this for certain because I worked in these areas as an administrator and have been traveling all alone in these areas at all godforsaken hours for my development tasks. There were Muslim and Sinhala villages scattered among Tamil villages. Firstly the Muslims and Sinhala people were thrown out at gun point- many were killed which made the rest flee. Then the LTTE mounted  attacks in Colombo and in many other parts of the island- in some like the attack on the Central Bank over a hundred were killed. At Arantalawa  over a fifty monks were gunned down. At Anuradhapura they attacked pilgrims at the Sacred Bodhi Tree- the most venerated sacred site of the Buddhists and the death toll was over three hundred pilgrims.  It came to a point where no one was safe anywhere and in families the husband and wife never traveled together for fear of their children  becoming orphans if both got blasted together. Even the armed forces were killed in the hundreds. This was the true situation  till President Mahinda Rajapaksa took charge. It did not take long for him to find out that negotiations did not take him anywhere. All previous Presidents were taken for a ride and President Premadasa20who even donated weapons to them was murdered by them. President Rajapaksa  took the rebels head on and brought them to their knees. Then the LTTE was finally routed out and captured. Today there is peace in a land that was torn with bomb blasts by  suicide bombers, by air and sea attacks.

 Mahinda Rajapaksa has upheld democracy again and again by holding democratic elections, even under difficult conditions,   and has never tried to act in an undemocratic manner like what President Obama did by accepting Karzai as the President of Afghanistan in the face of fraud done in the election.

 If the Noble Peacenicks who want to find anyone from the world that has really brought about peace then the choice has to be no other than Mahinda Raj apaksa, the President of Sri Lanka. Here is a personage who has within three years translated words and pledges to bring about peace into action.

 He did deliver peace and ensured the Human Rights of the total population of close to twenty million and delivered them from the jaws of death  in the hands of the most ruthless terroirist organization in the World. 

 I am certain that Presoident Obama has good intentions. Having listened to almost all his speeches on the election platform I stand convinced that he was genuine- he was a person speaking with a conscience- with a zeal to achieve what other have failed. As an administrator  at times I have run into the problem where though as the chief administrator I am trying to achieve somethin g, there are saboteurs dragging the earth from beneath my feet. This has happened to me again and again and this is what has happened to President Obama today. That will explain what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and even in Sri Lanka where Presidents Obama’s lieutenants are trying to set back the clock and to allow the LTTE to rise again.

 By any standards it is President Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka   that could have a rightful claim for the Noble Prize if a proper and righteous  decision is ever made.

 Garvin Karunaratne,

October 10, 2009

Author of How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternative Programs of Success, (Godages, Colombo)

By Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D.(Michigan State University)

It is sad that the USA, has decided to forget about vote rigging by President Karzai in the Afghanistan Election and has accepted Karzai as the President of Afghanistan for another five year term.

 This decision was in the face of definite evidence that up to 20% of the ballots cast at the Presidential Election were fraudulent. In fact Peter Galbraith, the most senior American Diplomat at the UN Mission in Afghanistan who said that results from 1000 polling stations should be annulled and votes from 5000 recounted has been dismissed from his job by the US Administration for speaking the truth- that the counting and the election was a fraud.(The Times, UK:1/10/09)

 Election monitors had opined that as many as a third of Karzai’s votes , amounting to over a million were potentially fraudulent.(Jason Ditz:Obama decides Karzai to Stay in Power Despite Fraud)

 The decision of the USA Administration to support Karzai as the President of Afghanistan, despite the rampant fraud does not come as a surprise to me, because not long ago, President George W. Bush won the Presidency, not once but twice in 2000 and again in 2004 through fraudulent manipulation.

 In 2000 I was a keen listener glued to the Television to hear of how the key elections officers in charge of the count were adopting delaying tactics which led to the election issues ending up in the Supreme Court of Florida. Once I was in charge of parliamentary elections in certain districts in Sri Lanka and if I had adopted such delaying tactics and had not ensured the orderly counting of ballots, I would have been sentenced to imprisonment and would have been summarily dismissed from my post in the Administrative Service. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount of key counties where frauds had taken place but the Federal Supreme Court decided that the decision of the Florida Supreme Court to ensure that the ballots were counted was wrong and ordered a stop. George W. Bush crept into the Presidency hiding behind the cloaks of the Supreme Court Judges. It was a hilarious act- so hilarious that I collected the material and set it before the public in my book:The Administrative Bungling that Hijacked the 2000 US Presidential Election, (The University Press of America)

 In the 2004 US Presidential Election, the Democrats were ever ready with armies of lawyers and bureaucrats and kept air planes at the ready to rush them to counties where the counting was going to be fraudulent, like in the case of the 2000 Election. But what happened was unpredicted in the annals of election administration. It was done by counting the ballots with fraudulent voting machinery. Voting machinery have had a history of faulty totaling, but this was not highlighted because there was a paper documentation that could be double checked in case there was any cause for concern. But sad to say the Democrats slipped very badly because in key States where the fraudulent counting took place there was no paper documentation. There was evidence that the counting was rigged but the totals coffed up by the machines had to be accepted as gospel truth purely because there was nothing that could be done to find out the real voting. It was a fantastic method of winning an election- a superb method of robbing an election which I have documented in my book:The Electronic Stealing of the 2004 US Presidential Election(Amazon.Com/BookSurge)

 Today we are seeing the USA acting in a high handed, totally undemocratic manner against sovereign countries.

 Pakistan was forced to allow airspace for the US armed forces to attack Afghanistan and once it was reported that all the foreign debts of Pakistan were to be foregone for allowing that airspace. More recently President Musharaff came into the open to state that he was firmly told to allow airspace and other facilities for the US armed forces and that if he did not accede to it, Pakistan would be reduced to rubble.

 Today we are seeing with our own eyes how the United States forces are attacking Pakistan. Now=2 0it is said that Osama Bin Laden has taken refuge in Pakistan and under this pretext attacks are mounted on Pakistan soil. To my thinking the time is near where Pakistan will disintegrate in the manner of Somalia purely due to the action of the USA.

 These days Israel is throwing out East Palestinians out of their hearth and homes, destroying them and building new Jewish settlements. The ousted families seated on their mattresses on the roads moan watching their homes being bulldozed. I saw on television a journalist documenting this horror being chased away. Their protests are silenced. All this has the grace and blessings of the United States. Earlier, when Israel attacked Gaza it was found that Israel had even used white phospherous. The Geneva Treaty of 1980 stipulates that white phosphorus should not be used as a weapon of war in civilian areas. All these inhuman acts of Israel are ignored by the USA.

 Sri Lanka was riddled with terrorist attacks by the LTTE for the last three decades and in fact the incidence of attacks in all parts of Sri Lanka was so frequent that no one could walk safe. It even happened that in any one family, the husband and wife never traveled together for fear of being blasted together which meant the siblings would end up being orphans. In many a bomb blast hundreds were killed and the LTTE was declared a terrorist organization by both Britain and the USA. But sad to say when the President of Sri Lanka took on the terrorists head on in 2006, and when the terrorists were cornered to a small stretch of land and about to be dealt with the final blow the USA, Britain, along with Canada and France all wanted the Government of Sri Lanka to cease fire. Up till then the Superpowers- led by the USA were advocating that terrorism had to be annihilated from the face of the Earth, But now comes the pleas and pleading at first and the warnings later to stop attacking the terrorists.

 It becomes a new phase of the Superpowers deciding that a particular terrorist organization- the LTTE should not be totally wiped out. The President of Sri Lanka was right in not listening to them because he was acting in his own country and terrorism was dealt with the last blow. Then the United States Administration has thought it fit to invite the same terrorist organization’s diaspora and is now trying to support them to resurrect the terrorist organization.

 Today instead of congradulating the President of Sri Lanka and the chief architects for their victory on the terrorists- on the most ruthless terrorist organization in the World, the Administration of the USA is today actively documenting the instances where it could be construed that human rights were violated in the attempt to rid Sri Lanka of terrorrist LTTE. A Report is said to have been prepared under the leadership of no less a person than Robert Blake the former US Ambassador in Sri Lanka who is now in charge of South Asia in the US Administration. Sri Lanka has no skeletons to be unearthed. It was an operation on Sri Lankan soil and the human shield that the terrorists had built was saved. If the strategies being used by the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan had been used this human shield would have perished. The World should also know that this is the only War where the enemy was provided with food, consumer goods, all free of charge- everything other than weapons was provided. In all other wars the enemy is starved to make them surrender.

 It is evident that the United States that is breathing fire in Iraq and Afghanistan has been tamed to be a poodle by the LTTE terrorist’s diaspora. It is a well known fact that the terrorist organization had provided funds for Senator Clinton to fight the election. Money talks in strange tongues!

 The USA is now attempting to bring the Sri Lankan Armed Forces into disrepute. Senator Hilary Clinton, the Secretary of State in her speech at the Security Council Meeting on 28/9/2009 has stated that rape has been used as a tactic of war in Bosnia, Burma and Sri Lanka. The US Ambassador in Sri Lanka Patricia Butenis has clarified this statement by adding that Senator Clinton did not implicate any specific perpetrators during her speech at the UN Security Council on Wednesday. Evidently the Senator was attempting to obliterate the good name that the Armed Forces in Sri Lanka have earned in wiping terrorism from within the island of Sri Lanka. No one has alleged that the Sri Lankan Army has used rape as a tactic of war and it is very unbecoming of the US Administration to make unsubstantiated statements at meetings of an august body like the United Nations.

 If Senator Clinton wants to know it is the American Forces that have been held for rape as a tactic of war as is evident from the following statement from Wikipedia.

 From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_rape

Asia

Rangoon, Burma. August 8, 1945. A young ethnic Chinese woman who was in one of the Imperial Japanese Army’s “comfort battalions” is interviewed by an Allied officer.

The term “comfort women” is a euphemism for the estimated 200,000, mostly Korean and Chinese, women who were forced to work as prostitutes in Japanese military brothels during World War II.[53]

“A former prostitute recalled that as soon as Australian troops arrived in Kure in early 1946, they ‘dragged young women into their jeeps, took them to the mountain, and then raped them. I heard them screaming for help nearly every night’.”[54][55]

It has been claimed that some U.S. soldiers raped Okinawan women during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. There were 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of20Kanagawa prefecture.[56]

Okinawan historian Oshiro Masayasu (former director of the Okinawa Prefectural Historical Archives) writes based on several years of research:

Soon after the U.S. marines landed, all the women of a village on Motobu Peninsula fell into the hands of American soldiers. At the time, there were only women, children and old people in the village, as all the young men had been mobilized for the war. Soon after landing, the marines “mopped up” the entire village, but found no signs of Japanese forces. Taking advantage of the situation, they started “hunting for women” in broad daylight and those who were hiding in the village or nearby air raid shelters were dragged out one after another.[57]

53. ^ Comfort Women Were ‘Raped’: U.S. Ambassador to Japan

54. ^ Eiji Takemae, Robert Ricketts, Sebastian Swann, Inside GHQ: The Allied Occupation of Japan and Its Legacy. p.67(Google.books)

55. ^ For detailed accounts of rapes by Australian occupation troop during the occupation of Japan, see Allan Clifton, “Time of Fallen Blossoms”. Australian Military Gang Rape of ‘Fallen Blossoms’

56. ^ Schrijvers, Peter (2002). The GI War Against Japan. New York City: New York University Press. p. 212. ISBN 0814798160.

57. . ^ Tanaka, Toshiyuki. Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II, Routledge, 2003, p.111. ISBN 0203302753

 It has also to be stated emphatically that it is the American Armed Forces that can be proved to have used rape as a tactic of war in many instances in the past. The USA has too many skeletons in their own cupboard-scattered from Diago Garcia, to Vietnam, to Iraq, Afghanistan and many other countries.

 Senator Clinton should be aware that the USA stands discredited today in the World as a belligerent Superpower on the rampage. The USA does not follow democracy any more. Democracy, Human Rights have all gone through the window and the USA has now descended to the position of a helpless Superpower that has failed not only to wipe out the terrorist that they pursued in foreign countries but has also failed in rebuilding its own economy that is today riddled with a 9.8% unemployment- the highest level in 26 years, failed financial institutions and bankrupt banks, without any hope of recovery in sight. Providing stabilization finance, increasing Keynesian type of infrastructure expenditure alone cannot bring about the lost production base. The statement of Senator Clinton appears to be the wild utterances of a drowning person in distress.

 Gone are the principles that President Obama said he will uphold=2 0if he becomes President. Gone are the utterances of President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Nation shall under God, have a new birth of freedom and that Government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth. The USA has a sixth of its population without health insurance, perishing when they fall sick and frail as they cannot afford the treatment- all this in the richest country on earth, while its leaders try to rule the world with the sword!

 It is up to the enlightened President Obama to reclaim the USA from its present belligerent role. Let us hope that he does not follow his predecessor, President George W. Bush who took the USA to the brink of disaster. May he realize that the United States of America is strong and blessed with ample resources and that the USA stands to gain more in dignity and prestige by cooperating with other sovereign countries that are trying to annihilate terrorism.

 Garvin Karunaratne,Ph.D.(Michigan State University)

Formerly of the Administrative Service of Sri Lanka,

October 3, 2009

By Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D.(Michigan State University)

When Dr Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected to  the Presidency of Sri Lanka in 2005, the terrorists, the LTTE power was at its zenith, having aggrandized its position through the nefarious CFA peace agreement done by the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, which was in favour of the terrorists. The armed forces were confined to barracks and it has now come to light that  during Ranil’s CFA the terrorists had obtained ample replenishments for their deadly arsenal- an arsenal that could have brought the entire Indian sub-continent under its control. The terrorists entrenched themselves and even encircled the town and the naval base of Trincomalee with military bases, which made the President Kumaranatunge take over the Ministry of Defence. Every patriot was eagerly waiting for the President  to order the armed forces to oust the rebels from the military bases they had just set up, but sad to say not a soldier was moved.  

That was the true situation when Dr Rajapaksa became President. The terrorists ruled not only the North, except for Jaffna and the Eastern Provinces, except for the town of Trincomalee but even in the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa Districts a corridor of at least twenty miles including Horowpotana, Kebitigollewa and Minneriya were within their grasp. Having worked for long in the Anuradhapura District and having covered Trincomalee I was sad that all was lost and regretted that we did not have a leader who could stand up to the terrorists and regain our lost sovereignty. That was the cradle of Sinhala civilization, with epigraphical records dating back to the third century B.C.  

Then came  November 2005 and the rest is history today. We have seen  the legendary Mahawamsa and Thupawamsa stories of King Dutugemunu and his ten giant warriors in action and within three years the terrorists have been totally  routed, an achievement unparalled in the annals of history. When I was in Sri Lanka in July  2009, I was told that certain families in the South lit a lamp for the saviour who liberated Sri lanka from the terrorists. In any other country the saviour would have been hailed and venerated,  but not in Sri lanka where from day one the saviour has been criticized.

  The Superpowers are now engaged in a clandestine process trying their level best to discredit the Government of Sri Lanka, because they cannot bear up the very fact that a poor Third World country did achieve  what they have tried in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Somalia and miserably failed. The Sri Lankan Government’s statement that  the United States was  rapidly making a case of war crimes against Sri Lanka on the basis on the conduct of her armed forces, police as well as the political leadership during the recently concluded war(The Island,13/9/2009)does not appear unfounded.    

The Attempt of the Superpowers to stop Sri Lanka defeating the terrorists

The International Community of Superpowers led by the British and the United States again and again tried to stop the Sri Lankan armed forces from defeating the terrorists in the last stages. There was Robert Blake, the US Ambassador,  Senators of the USA, Millband the Foreign Secretary  of Britain, Boucher  and even leaders of the United Nations  appealing to President Rajapaksa to stop the assault.  At times it was a veiled threat. But our leader  stood undettered.  What we re their motives is anyone’s guess.  

 Now one by one the powers who did not want to see the terrorists being routed and defeated are  coming up with various pleas- various stories

The Superpowers supporting Terrorism

Perhaps the major Superpowers wanted to destalibize Sri Lanka and allow the terrorists to get a foothold because then they could expect the cancer to inevitably and automatically spread into the homeland of the Tamils- Tamilnadu and India would eventually be balkanized! India is a budding superpower and India and China stand to either join the superpowers or to even obliterate them.  In 1494 when the Pope decided in the Treaty of Tordesillas that Portugal should take charge of the East and Spain should control the West, the two superpowers were Spain and Portugal. In World War I, Britain was the superpower. World war II saw the USA in the prime place. 

   What beats me is as to why all these Superpowers are worried about Sri Lanka defeating the terrorists. On paper and for everyone to see, the Superpowers are against terrorists and that is why both the United States and Britain attacked Iraq- to search and annihilate the “weapons of mass destruction”, but they really found no weapons of mass destruction. In fact David Kelley, the weapons inspector from Britain who was of the opinion that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction  had to be silenced because when he spoke the truth  he was talking out of turn.( Reference. “The SuperPower Bullies” in Ministry of Defence, Sri Lanka, 6/4/2009   Japan played a dubious role. On September 4, 2009 The Island laid bare the story that Japanese experts  who were given access to LTTE areas after the Tsunami in 2004, “had helped terrorists build a channel to launch underwater craft…a 360 foot long 25 foot wide tunnel and a 300 ft long and 30 ft. deep dock” while they were really expected to attend to humanitarian tasks. And all this while Yakushi Akashi, the special representative from the Japanese Government for “peace building , rehabilitation and reconstruction” offers assistance and offers to facilitate  talks.  This exposes the credibility of the Japanese. The magnitude of the  work done for the terrorists  could not have been unknown to Akashi. This is proof that the Japanese connived to support the LTTE.  If Japan is to regain its name it should hand over the Japanese Tsunami experts for prosecution in the Sri Lankan Courts for supporting terrorism. Journalist Tissanayagam  was sentenced for writing in support of the terrorists. In this case the Japanese actively constructed subterranean facilities for  the terrorists.  

 Norway has again and again played a dubious role, pretending to facilitate talks for peace, even donating powerful communication equipment with the connivance of the Ranil Wickremasinghe  Government. Norway once even tried to settle Tamils from the upcountry to the Wanni to create a people supportive of the terrorists. This was the RedBaana Settlements. Take anywhere in the world  and Norway’s tentacles can be found. In “Norway has some explaining to do in Kisangani”,(Lanka Web,12/9/2009) Ajit Randeniya mentions: Two Norwegian passport holders traveling under the names Joshua French and Tjostlov Moland were sentenced to death after being convicted of espionage, arms smuggling and murder… Later it was found  that the two men  were members of an Norwegian Armed Forces’ elite unit known as Telemark Batallion. This was in the Congo.  

Human Rights

The USA, the UK, France, the European Community, Canada and ma ny other Superpowers are now gunning against Sri Lanka for its record on  human rights. They do not hail Sri Lanka’s routing the terrorists which indicates that the eradication of terrorism was no longer their aim.   Take Iraq, it was not to get rid of a dictator, because all Arab States are ruled by dictators and if so why single out Sadaam Hussein? In Iraq it can be argued that one motive was to defeat an Arab ruler who was becoming a threat to Israel and more to control the oil wealth of the Middle East. Oil is a necessity to keep modern civilization moving . 

   What of the Palestinians in East Jerusalem, who are being ousted at gunpoint by Netanyahu in Jerusalem today and new Israeli settlements being built and the ousted Palestinians  are left homeless and penniless, though they do hold valid deeds to every inch of land that Netanyahu has taken over. Why are the Superpowers silent about what is happening in Palestine today? Israel continues as the bullyboy because of the support given by the USA. The US is providing Israel with at=2 0least $ 7 million each day …in 2009…. Total direct US Aid to Israel  amounts to well over $ 140 billion in 2003. Israel receives about $ 3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year(Mearsheimer & Walt, The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy)   The USA is supportive of Human Rights abuses by Israel!.

  Take Afghanistan, a British Commander recently stated that Britain will have to be in Afghanistan for at least another forty years! In Afghanistan it was the mineral wealth. In the words of Christopher Bollyn, “ “Afghanistan has an extraordinary abundance of rare and strategic minerals-now all within easy reach of global planners who installed a puppet government that they both control and protect…Beryllium and Uranium are of the greatest strategic value.(“Mineral Rich Afghanistan a Valuable Corporate Property, “ by Christopher Bollyn, in American Free Press, 30/5/2003)

In Sri Lanka, at the last stages the terrorists were holding  innocent Tamils as human shields and it is to the credit of the Sri Lankan armed forces that they managed to defeat the terrorists without harming and killing the civilian human population that were held as a human shield. In the process the people who were caught alive have to be kept in camps till  they are resettled after their lands are de-mined. But the Superpowers want everything done at once. Perhaps they are forcing Sri Lanka to send the innocent Tamils to their homes before the lands are de mined because then when the people are killed with the mines exploding they can hold Sri Lanka responsible for genocide- for willingly killing unarmed Tamils.

 Comparatively the USA has failed to re settle the people who survived the Katrina diasaster which took place as far back as 2005. Many people are still in make shift homes, in trailer pa rks. In the case of Katarina there was no rebellion and no forces that had to be defeated. Katrina was a natural disaster and it is well known that the USA authorities had neglected maintaining the levees(bunds) that were put in place to save New Orleans. The death toll in Katrina was as much as 1460 innocent people! In the case of Sri Lanka the terrorists are hiding within the civilian people and they have to be identified before the people are resettled. This is truly a forbidding task and if the people ousted in Katrina could not be fully resettled even after four years what right has the United States to demand that a country like Sri Lanka which does not have all the resources that the USA holds, should complete such a task any sooner.

  The Sri Lankan terrorist war is unique in that the Government of Sri Lanka  provided food and other essential requisites to the terrorist areas and provided the total administrative infrastructure.  Not a cent was charged. It was totally free and it is a well known fact that the terrorists sold the goods to the people and found an income. This is the only war I have heard of where th e Government has been feeding the terrorists. In all other wars depriving food and other supplies is a strategy used to make the terrorists surrender.  

 The Sri Lankan Armed Forces could have  defeated the terrorists earlier if they used a fraction of the measures used by the USA in Vietnam. It is an established fact that the United States  sprayed 20.3 million gallons  of chemicals on Vietnam in the period 1962 to 1971. Agent Orange was mostly used and this resulted in 400,000 deaths, half a million children born with deformities and four million suffering from health disorders.(GM Watch: 6/8/2009)

 The cost of comprehensive clean up of bases is estimated at $ 60 million while the US Congress pledged $ 3 million. Deformities in births have continued to a third generation!(“Agent Orange Deforming a Third Generation in Vietnam” from AlterNet www.alternet.org 13/2/2008)  The United States r ecord of Human Rights in Vietnam is stained to the core.  

 Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country where the people are religious and follow  non violence and ulterior inhuman strategies used by the United States are totally ruled out. The Sri Lankan Government is doing its best to sort out the plight of the detained people. It is sad that the United States, easily the richest country in the world today  is yet not offering full compensation and clean up expenses to the suffering people  of Vietnam. Do they have to suffer in silence for generations?.  America’s Defence Secretary  in the Vietnam days was Robert McNamara who presided over the disastrous escalation  of the Vietnam War which killed 58,000 Americans  and 3.5 Vietnamese and which he now(at age 87) admits  was “wrong, terribly wrong”. It is of inter est to note that seven companies that manufactured Agent Orange in 1984 paid $ 180 million as compensation to a Fund for US Veterans.  The US Government could not be sued because  it claimed Sovereign Immunity!  

Take the human rights of the people arrested in Afghanistan. The USA incarcerated some as far as Cuba, in Guantanoma Bay.  By an Executive Order  President Bush stipulated that the United States could indefinitely detain  any non citizen whom he believed was involved in international terrorism.  Why were they taken to Guantanoma Bay is a good question.  It was because Guantanoma Bay was outside the legal jurisdiction of the United States and therefore the detainees were not entitled to any of the protections  of the Geneva Convention.  A total of 680 detainees were held in Guantanomo Bay. It is on record that Finally, over a hundred individuals  have been reported as dying in US custody, with approximately 26 deaths being investigated as homicide. According to Senator Warner,  more than 400 criminal investigations  have been conducted, 95 military personnel have been charged with misconduct and/or criminal offenses and 75 of these individuals have been convicted of misconduct charges. In June 2006 three detainees were able to commit suicide in their cells at Guantanamo Bay. (From  James Beckman, Comparative Legal Approaches to Homeland Security and Anti Terrorism, 2007 What an unblemished record of the Superpower that is trying to pose as a saviour!  

             Britain’s Human Rights record  stand tarnished over the shooting of Charles de Menezes on 22/7/2005 by the London Metropolitan Police.  Investigation, Stockwell I findings, initially kept secret, concluded  that there was insufficient evidence20to prosecute any of the officers concerned.  However the Independent Police Complaints Commission found that a police officer admitted  that he had altered evidence submitted to the inquest. The officer had deleted one of his own computer notes which quoted deputy assistant commissioner Cressida Dick as concluding that de Menezes was not a security threat.(Wickipedia).

  The sentencing of Journalist Tissanayagam by the Courts in Sri Lanka for a twenty year term has come in for criticism from the Superpowers.   The European union stated that the verdict and the disproprotionate sentence against Tissanayagam give rise to concern with respect to freedom of expression and freedom of the Press”. Tissanayagam was sentenced after a judicial inquiry where he was given the right to be defended by legal counsel,  a right that was denied by the US Administration to the Guantanamo detainees. Tissanayagam has a right of appeal to the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka is not a Kangaroo Court that would order the stoppage of counting votes cast at a P residential Election. Professor Dershovitz states that  the decision of the five partisan justices in the 2000 US Presidential Election was the partisan quest for immediate political victory. The US Supreme Court decision denied the Human Right of every US citizen  to elect their President.(From: The Administrative Bungling that Hijacked the 2000 US Presidential Election, by Garvin Karunaratne, The University Press of America, 2004).

  Police excesses are highlighted for the lack of Human Rights in Sri Lanka. One can be dead certain that the police personnel who are found guilty are adequately dealt with. It will never be a repeat of the Rodney King episode that happened in Los Angeles in March 1991, when Rodney King was stopped when driving,   beaten up and kicked- a victim of police brutality commited by Los Angeles police officers.. Unknown to the policemen who were on the rampage a video camera man was videoing  the incident.  What happened is history now: The officers were tried in a State Court but later acquitted. This acquittal sparked the 1992 Lo s Angeles riots that caused 53 deaths and 2383 injuries. A later federal trial ended  with two of four officers found guilty and sent to prison for 30 months.  

James Elder of the Unesco being expelled

Officials from various organizations and Ambassadors from various countries have been regularly found  making utterances critical of the Government of Sri Lanka.  Recently  James Elder, the media spokesman from the UNICEF has been expelled from Sri Lanka because  he, according to Palita Kohona, the Foreign Secretary of Sri  Lanka, had made a series of unfounded statements that echoed TamilNet, a Tamil News website said to be supportive of the LTTE. “How can a UN Official do this?  A UN Official should have an absolute commitment to impartiality. He was expressing his views in a very unprofessional manner”  Even the Secretary General of the UN has strongly regretted the decision of the Sri Lankan Government to expel James Elder.  It looks as if the United Nations Administration   is ignorant of the professional standards that their personnel should uphold which is referred to by Palita Kohona, the Foreign Secretary of Sri Lanka.

   Relating to my own experience, as the Government Agent at Matara, Sri Lanka,  I had heated arguments with the Secretary of the Ministry of Plan Implementation when he refused to approve employment projects submitted by me. I had the occasion to haul before the coals the entire policy of the Ministry in not approving  simple employment proposals like the boatyard for Matara, where we were to use our own timber and make sea worthy inboard motor boats for fishing. All the arguments running into heated debate criticizing the Ministry and the Fisheries Department were held within closed doors and none appeared in the news media.. Again, as a foreign consultant in Bangladesh I had to argue a case for the Youth Division of the Ministry of Labour and Manpower to undertake se lf employment guidance as a part of technical and vocational training. I had to point out that there was absolutely no point  in training endlessly and dropping the trained to fend for themselves within a market economy which they were all illequipped to face. I strongly recommended that we should develop a self employment programme where the youths will be provided training in basic economics, guided to draft their own employment projects and advise them intensively till they became commercially viable. It was total constructive criticism of development programmes running into over two hours, all held within closed doors which concluded with Hon. Minister Aminul Islam, the Minister for Labour and Manpower deciding that the Youth Development Division  of his Ministry  would be allowed to proceed to establish a self employment creation programme and looked forward to see for himself  a successful employment creation programme… especially within the context  of the massive defeat suffered  by the ILO in their  self employment programme in the three preceeding years.(From:How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternate Programs of Success, by Garvin Karunaratne, Godages, Colombo, 2006) The rest is history, with easily the largest self employment programme that has=2 0upto 2005 created employment for over a million and today guides as much as 160,000 a year to become commercially viable self employed. It was total constructive criticism of existing programmes held within closed doors and not statements made in a partisan manner to the media to gain political mileage. It is sad that even the Secretary General of an august body like the United Nations cannot understand what professionalism is and officials like Foreign Secretary, Palita Kohona and I have to teach the United Nations basic administrative procedures..  

   It would be good for diplomats and workers of UN and other institutions to understand for once that Sri Lanka is a sovereign country that follows Human Rights procedures and has so far not resorted to act against Human Rights as has been done by many Superpowers. The war done against the terrorists in Sri Lanka could have been sorted out in months without causing the deaths of as many as 30,000 soldiers if only Sri Lanka had used a fraction of the inhuman measures used by the USA in Vietnam and are currently being used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  It is upto the Superpowers to be supportive of the stance taken by the Government of Sri Lanka to suppress the terrorists and to be helpful to sort out the problems that have been created by the terrorists in having taken with them a human shield. As explained it is due to the painstaking care taken by the Armed Forces of Sri Lanka that as much as  a 280,000 human shield could be saved.  Is this not a record of achievement. The Superpowers- all of them have skeletons in their own cupboards- back in the past and even today. It is up to them to be reasonable and to understand the reality of the situation in Sri Lanka.

   It has not been a happy task to research and write of the wrongs of the Superpowers and to expose their double standards. It is time that we- everyone  including the Superpowers, all concentrate on eradicating poverty and destitution  an d bringing about development, instead of being belligerent and fighting amongst ourselves. Have we not got lost in the wood for the trees.   

Garvin Karunaratne Former member of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service,September 12, 2009 

By Garvin Karunaratne Ph.D.(Michigan State University)

I am happy that my paper: “The Wind Turbines of Spain, France and Portugal” (Lanka Web, 25/8/2009has evoked a response from  Noor Nizam, of Canada, in his paper, “Wind Energy Electricity Generation is a reality in Sri Lanka” Lanka Web, 26/8/2009)  

The thrust of my paper, based on my observation of wind turbines I have seen at work in Spain and Portugal is that these two countries have been building wind turbines on mountains, while we in Sri lanka have been building our wind turbines on the coast. It is only commonsense that on the coast be it in Hambantota or in Puttalam  the turbine blades can only be turned by the available sea breeze. I am aware that on rare occasions  the wind on the coast can be raging, but that is limited to cyclonic conditions and very rare. Comparatively in our hilly country at Ramboda, at Hayes, at Madugoda, ay Ohiya, the wind is raging at high speeds at almost all times and it is my opinion that this is where our wind turbines should be sited.  

 I am aware that our current plans are to have turbines at Puttalam and Kalpitiya. The wind turbines erected at these sites will also  produce electricity but that quantum will depend on the wind energy, which will always be at a minimum. In the USA the wind turbines at many places are located in the hills at vantage positions where the wind is forced through natural mountains to go through a small space- what we call a gap. This was also true of many places where I saw wind turbines in Spain and Portugal.  

 In my book, How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka, and Alternative Programmes of Success(Godages, 2006)I have included my paper, “The Energy Problem of Sri Lanka: Can Wind Power Help?”, I have quoted from studies done on the wind power available on the coastal belts in Sri lanka.  To quote from my paper:  

According  to the CEB Study, “ Study of Wind Power in the South Eastern Coastal Belt,” “The Study revealed  that the total potential of wind power generation in the South Eastern part  of the country to be 200MW. This excludes the land area  for wild life reserves and agriculture” The coastal belt winds are created in convection currents  and the velocity is nowhere  near the power available  in the hilly areas. The w ind power at Hambantota is established  at 5 m.p.h..……. I can state that if the wind power  in the South Eastern Coastal Belt can be estimated  at 200 MW, the wind power in the Deniyaya- Hayes area,  the Central Hills  and the Knuckles area  can be easily twenty times that amount i.e. 4000 MW which is far above our requirements. … Wind velocity of 11 to 14 m.p.h. is classified as good, while wind velocity of over 14 m.p.h.  is classified as excellent. I am certain that sites with wind velocity of over 14 m.p.h.  can easily be found         in the Sinharaja ridges, Madugoda on the Kandy-Mahiyangana Road at Ohiya and Haputale.  

The question at issue is why are we going in only for areas like Hambantota, Kalpitiya and Puttlam where the wind velocity is only 5 m.p.h. and behaving as if Sri Lanka does not have a hill country where we can easily bag high velocity. Spain, the country that is the third wind power country in the world,  concentrates wind turbines in its hill areas and not on its coast. 

  Even the Canadian Wind power project of 134 MW to be located in the North Eastern Province will suffer the same fate that the wind power plants at Hambantota suffer and finally enable the authorities to prove that wind power plants are not good enough for Sri Lanka. The Canadian effort will be more successful if the wind turbines are located in the hill country.  Sri Lankan development effort has been hijacked often by authorities who hold ulterior motives.  

  Another important observation I have made on my tour is the use of solar power in  Spain.  Spain is the fourth country in the world in utilizing solar en ergy. Spain produces 120 MW.  To see a stray solar panel on a roof is  a common site in many countries, but solar panels on acres and acres at times as much as ten acres or more is what I have seen in my tour.  Sri Lanka especially the Dry Zone is ideal area for solar power. However I have not had the occasion to look into the pricing of solar panels to ensure that solar power is what we can afford.  

On the contrary, wind power we can easily afford.  It is only the motor element that we cannot make. The rest – the blades, the main shaft etc can all be made locally and employment can easily be found for hundreds. Touring Spain and Portugal we found blades of wind turbines being transported. This will also save our foreign exchange. 

  It is hoped that these comments will reach the authorities in the higher echelons of power production in Sri Lanka.

By Garvin Karunaratne , former member of the Administrative Service

O.S.M.Seneviratne , the magistrate at Matara in 1959 was a legendary figure. In my eighteen years’ service in the Sri Lanka Administrative Service, which began as an Assistant Commissioner and ended as the Government Agent at Matara, I have had to appear before many magistrates, prosecute people and work with State Counsels in prosecutions. I have seen many magistrates in action, but OSM beats them all.

On the two recent instances of police brutality reported at Angulana and the IT Institute at Malabe people are worried and bringing back the hangman has even be suggested. All that is not necessary. What is required is a few OSMs to handle the judiciary.

 To introduce OSM , I quote from one of my Papers written in 2001:

It will be rather easy to get efficiency into the administration than tackling the question of law and order in Sri Lanka today. We have among us judges that can tackle this situation. One such Justice is O.S.M. Seneviratne who was a legend even as a magistrate in Matara in 1959.As young administrators it was great to watch him dispense justice. Any witness that dared to tell a lie was charged for perjury.

He gave a careful hearing to the accused but once proved no one could walk away paying a ridiculously low fine as happens today. It was very often the maximu m punishment and even police officers who were inefficient were taken to task. There are a few OSMs that can tackle this situation.(From How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternative Programmes of Success.(Godages, 2006) It will be appropriate for me to narrate a few instances of OSM on the bench as I can recall because this happened five decades ago, in 1959.

I was only an Assistant Commissioner of Agrarian Services at that time and one of my areas of work was the Paddy Lands Act, where I had to prosecute landowners who had evicted the tenant sharecropper. I had to hold an inquiry and record statements that laid bare the facts of the case- the circumstances in which the tenant farmer was evicted. If as the Inquiry Officer I was satisfied with the evidence, I had to enter an order that the tenant had to be restored and if this was not done had to prosecute the owner. In that process I used to visit the Magistrate’s Court at Matara frequently. We officers tried had to be well dressed, to be on our best behaviour- never to speak loud etc.

There was always pin drop silence when OSM came on the bench.

 Once I can remember a jeep driver of the kachcheri being charged for negligent driving. There were a few witnesses. The first two witnesses gave evidence and the second witness was at times contradicting. OSM knew that something was fishy. He ordered the two wi tnesses to be kept separate and they were actually incarcerated by officials. The witnesses were questioned by the counsels and the evidence was concluded, with the prosecution thinking that they had won the case, when OSM took over the questioning himself . He recalled the first witness and questioned him in detail about what the witness had said earlier. Then he sent him away and got the second witness and questioned him. They now went back on some statements they had made earlier and it was evident that they had lied. OSM was fast- he immediately discharged the accused. The witnesses were walking away.

Drama was to unfold when OSM sent the police chasing after the two witnesses. They were lined up and OSM told them that they would be charged for giving false evidence and I think were locked up till they were bailed out. He made a scathing attack on the police for prosecuting the driver based on false evidence. It was a tense moment and we were worried that OSM would lock up the policeman that prosecuted. OSM was magnanimous.

If OSM sensed that any witness was telling any lie he took over the questioning himself. There was no way that any one would cook up evidence for any purpose. OSM was feared by every policeman. We government officers were also dead scared.

On another occasion, I remember a young lady counsel coming in well draped in a flashing saree, gliding in, parading herself. while he was on the bench. OSM told her, “ Did you think this was a beauty parade”.

Once in 1961, I was attending his court in Morawak Korale. It was I think at Morawaka.

Before our case was called, the police prosecuted an old woman for possessing an unlicensed firearm. It was clear that she was not the owner but she pleaded guilty. OSM was of the opinion that she was not the owner and he said in undertones We shall find the real owner soon.

OSM was always very jovial and had a good sense of humour. The question was as to what amount should be fined. OSM checked up and imposed the maximum amount that could be fined. There was an uproar and the woman pleaded that she did not have so much, hoping that OSM would fix a lower amount. How much do you have, asked OSM. There was no answer. The woman was hesitating. After a few minutes the woman looked towards a man who appeared from the crowd at the back. Now we see the real owner, quipped OSM in undertones. Answer my question, OSM said again. The man came up to the woman and opened a bag. OSM gave a smile and a small laugh. OSM ordered the Court Sergeant: Go and find out the full amount of money in the bag. Out went the Court Sergeant and found out the full amount in the bag which was almost the fine already levied. OSM then decided that the full amount found in the bag would be the fine to the surprise of the woman. She went away crying. I think the gun was also confiscated.

I was seated at the back of the Court, enjoying OSM on the bench- which was always a marvel to be watched. It was entertainment at its best, far better than a cinema. Then he looked sharp in my direction and recognized me.

I see some senior officers wasting their time at my court house. Have I not told you senior officers to mention your presence to the Court Mudliyar and get the case called soon. Senior officers should not have to waste their time in my court.

I wondered what he would say next. It was a tense moment. I was worried. I got up from my seat. I am sorry sir, I did not want to worry the Court. I was happy when OSM ordered: Court Mudliyar Get Mr Karunaratne’s case next.

It was a Paddy Lands Act case which I had decided on when I worked as the Assistant Commissioner at Matara. I was transferred to Kegalla District and I was summoned because I had made the decisions in the case. This was decided to be a difficult case and the Department had obtained the services of the Attorney General’s Department and a senior Counsel, was also present. The case was called up. The Counsel and I got up and moved towards the table and the landlord too came forward . The Counsel commenced the oration deta iling the case and it was clear to me that OSM did not like to keep listening. I had watched OSM for hours on end and could fathom what would happen next from his very looks. The Counsel said that I had held the inquiry about the eviction and called me to give evidence. I grabbed the file and moved forward waiting to answer the questions I would be asked. The Counsel asked me a question about the inquiry and I commenced answering when OSM barged in.

I do not want to hear the Assistant Commissioner speak. I want to hear the landlord and why he evicted the tenant.

The Counsel was not amused. Please let me lead the evidence. Mr Karunaratne was the Assistant Commissioner who held the inquiry under the Paddy Lands Act and that was why I am using him to give evidence.

OSM barged in: I do know that this is a Paddy Lands eviction case. I know that Karunaratne held the inquiry. The landlord evicted the tenant.

The Counsel replied: But please let me lead evidence as we normally do to prove that the landlord did evict the tenant.

OSM spoke: I want to hear the landlord and what he has to say about the charge.

The Counsel :But sir, beg your pardon, Please let me prove the case. I have three witnesses and I will prove the case beyond doubt.

It was clear from OSM’s face that he was getting angry. Normally on the bench, he was jovial, cracking a joke here and there, sm iling with us. There was none of this on his face.

Sit down, learned counsel, this is my court and I deal with cases as I like .I do not deal with cases in the manner that you decide. I have no time to be wasting listening to details. I know how to get to the point fast.

The Counsel said again: Your Honour, Please let me lead evidence and prove the case to you.

OSM looked very stern. I was worried as to what was happening. I could not tell the Counsel to stop talking. I could not speak because though I was a senior officer in the Department in a court hearing the Counsel that came from the Attorney General’ office was a specialist and he had the prerogative to deal with the case in any manner he decided. OSM was very sharp and rough. It was an order.

Do take a seat. I am not here to do my work as you please. I have my own methods. You will see for your self what I mean in a few minutes. I do not believe in listening to various witnesses when all that is required is as to whether the tenant was evicted. My court will not hear the evidence today and again postpone hearing for another day and another day. That is not this court.

OSM addressed the landlord.

Did you evict your tenant?

Yes sir, he replied

Do you know that you should not have evicted the tenant, asked OSM

Yes sir, the landlord replied.

Do you agree to hand over 0ther paddy land for cultivation back to the tenant.?

 Yes sir,

OSM ordered Hand over the field back to the tenant at the end of this season and report to this Court when that has been done. Court Mudliyar fix a date for the tenant and the landlord to appear in court and inform me that this has been done.

OSM was then in a jubilant mood. He looked at the Counsel and said;

See how we have decided this case within a few minutes. I have no time to listen to witnesses again and again sitting on this chair for hours and going on for days and days and you people creating work unnecessarily. The case is over.

The Counsel had to eat humble pie and I was happy that I did not have to face grilling questions from the learned counsel that will question me in detail about the commas and full stops on my inquiry record. I was used to that type of questioning at other court hearings.

 OSM is what we need now. The hangman comes only after a case is decided on. OSMs are live bodies that do instil into the police that they should not impose the rule of jungle beasts. OSMs are also institutions that assure the public that they will be looked after.

Further in every establishment be it in the police or in administration the higher level officers have the sacred duty of ensuring that the public is served.

Not long ago, I read in the newspaper of a slovenly dressed=2 0man who turned up at the Dehiwala Police Station at midnight to make a statement. He was chased away by the constable who was at the entrance wielding a gun. The man insisted and pleaded of the cop to be chased away again.. The person was no other than my friend Edison Gunatileke then the SP in charge of the area and I am fairly certain that the cop was punished. High level officers are entrusted with their areas, provided with government vehicles and if the officers in charge at DIG and SP level had done their job, the Angulana incident could not have happened. Working in the Agrarian Services, I used to go at all hours of the night to my stores, to see whether the watchers are on duty and whether they are drunk. Once I was at the Mutur Paddy Stores early in the morning and there was no watcher on duty. I performed the watcher’s duties till he merrily walked in hours later. I told him that he could go home and be at home for the rest of his life. It was a standing sack. I covered the Trincomalee District from Anuradhapura at that time. Many a time I had visited my sub offices, parked my car far away and walked in unknown to see what was happening. My officers did know what their fate would be if they were found reading newspapers or shouting at members of the public.

To get back to police atrocities, this is nothing new. It is not a =0 D creation of President Rajapaksa. In 1971 we were stirred with the murder of the Manamperi girl at Kataragama at the hands of the Army.

Lieutenant Wijesooriya and another soldier. They were held responsible and Wijesuriya died in custody. The Government Agent Hambantota, the late Sonny Gunawardena did a yeoman task in handling the initial inquiry. There have been similar instances and the news is out today that SSP Douglas Peris has been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for abducting two persons in the late Eighties.

Police excesses are there but have to be controlled.

I lived back in Sri Lanka from 1995 to 2000 and am aware that in some areas no one would dare go to the police station for fear of being framed.

In my book: I have stated my encounter with a cop from Mirihana around 1999. He was waiting for a bus at a stand. I gave him a lift.

While talking to him it was disclosed that his take home salary was only around Rupees three thousand. He had a wife and two children to feed. He was a two striped cop. President Rajapaksa after he became President has sorted out salary problems by giving massive increases and today the lowest level commences with a salary of over Rs. 12,000, a fairly living wage compared to what they earned earlier. He was the one and only President to have given such salary increases.

The Police have to change face and become the guardians of the people and to my knowledge there are many good patriotic officers in the police force that can put things right .The Police has to be human.

I can narrate a live and true story. A teenager had lost his cheque book and wrote a letter to the bank to get that book cancelled. He posted the letter and went home where he found the cheque book. He then came to the post box where he had posted the letter and waited patiently till the post collector came to tell him and get back the letter he had posted. He mentioned this to the post collector who said that once a letter is in the box it belongs to the Post Office and he cannot get it back. As the mail was being collected the young lad spotted his letter. He grabbed it and tore it before the post collector could stop him. The post collector struggled to grab the letter and the lad threw him into a corner parapet. The post master on hearing the commotion rushed into the melee to be thrown in another direction. The lad hastened home while the police were informed. The Police called the lad and obtained his statement and told him he had done wrong and was asked to appear with his parents. The mother pleaded of the police not to charge him. The lad was due to enter the University that September and a criminal charge was all that was required to end a bright future.

The Police decided that the lad should apologise to both the post collector and the post master and follow it up with a solicitor’s confimation. That was a human decision. The place was Scotland and the lad an Asian.

Let us hope that our Police will also be as magnanimous and will look after the public. This change is essential.

The need is for OSM right now. With OSMs around no public officer will rule with the law of the jungle. That is for certain.

Garvin Karunaratne
Former Government Agent, Matara District.

August 28, 2009

By Garvin Karunaratne.

Touring the three above countries in April and May 2009, many ideas came to my mind about how  we have failed  to develop Sri Lanka.  

In turning out electrical power for the national grid.  I saw clusters of about twenty five or more wind turbines near  various cities. We in Sri Lanka have  some five wind turbines at Hambantota near the sea, turning out about half a megawatt or less each because there is hardly any wind power there other than the sea breeze. I lived=2 0a year in Hambantota and there is not a grain of sea sand  on the beach untouched by my toes. I trod on the beach daily with Cooperative Commissioner Rajaguru and the OA of the Kachcheri. There was definitely more wind power near my residence at Browns Hill Matara, but the big wigs of wind power had decided to have the turbines at Hambantota.

There are afoot some plans to have wind turbines at Puttlam and though I have not worked there I have passed that way many a time. There is definitely no more wind power in Puttlam than at Hambantota.   The sharp question comes to my mind is why are we flogging a dead horse. As pointed out by me go to Madugoda, Ramboda Pass, the Forest Circuit Bungalow at Ohia, Hayes near Deniyaya and see the roofs of houses blown away. Are there any roofs blown away in Hambantota.? None.  

 Someone is trying to prove that wind power is not feasible and the oil lobby is so strong as to sabotage the feasibilit y of wind power. John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hitman  comes to my mind.  Perkins was an insider, an economist- a highly paid worker of a multinational who once wrote out – rather fabricated  plans that were intended to sabotage development in Third World countries. The Plans drafted and approved  by lobbying the big wigs in power in various countries were meant not to develop our countries but to give our countries Aid in a manner that the Aid money flowed back to the donor countries with interest. The Superpowers make fanciful profits when they can sell one Thermal Power Plant to our countries and also tie us up to buy oil endless making our countries more and more indebted.  The plan of the Superpowers is  to make our countries indebted so that we will for ever dance to their tune.  

I am happy that JohnPerkins has written that book  He tells that he had given a great deal of thought to the wrong done to world development by the multinationals and decided that20he cannot carry the burden of culpability any longer and therefore decided to make the Confessions. Someday, I hope to write how we administrators in Sri Lanka have  struggled to bring about development despite the odds  created by multinationals who have crept into our country in the guise of “investment” and today command many essential services.  

Good food for thought to our leaders at the Electricity Board  

Let me be a bit bolder to make a suggestion- not aimed at creating a problem for our Government that has successfully battled a war with terrorists and now has  to contend battling with the opposition the United National Party that ruined our economy since 1977 and now talks big about development which they themselves undid and sabotaged making our country indebted.  

 It has so happened that I have since leaving my eighteen years in the Administrative Service  roamed all over the world and have seen many many wind turbines working day and night churning power for the national grids. In April 2009 I was in Amiens in France touring in my Campervan and slept under a dozen wind turbines that churned power for the French Grid. Amiens is flat land at more or less sea level. It was a low breeze like the force at Hambantota.  Then my travel took me past Bordeaux- the wine land to the North of Spain. In Spain and Portugal I came across clusters of wind turbines located on hills.  At Tarifa on coastal mountains  I saw hundreds of  wind turbines- some of them even perched up on basic “Third World” type of pylons built up with angle iron, all churning energy for the national grid. Spain is the World’s third biggest producer of wind power, after the USA and Germany. Spain in 2008 produced 40.8% of its power requirements from wind turbines and they are marching ahead to produce 20,000 Megawatts capacity by 2010.  In Spain there are over 500 companies with over 150 wind turbine production plants. Each wi nd turbine turns out 2 to 3 MW. My tour took me through the Pyrenees and I saw many wind turbines erected on mountains. Finally  near the Motorway Service Station near Abbeyville in France I spent a night under a wind turbine churning electricity for the French grid. A tour of 45 days in France, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland  was concluded and the highlight of it all was the majestic sight of wind turbines on mountains, a sight I will never forget.  

I keep wondering why we in Sri Lanka are yet lingering harnessing the sea breeze when we do have real wind power in our hills. I am truthful when I say that in my endless circuits I have had narrow shaves with death  on the Ramboda Pass and on my tours in Walapone during my years’  stint at Nuwara Eliya.  Again I grazed death many a time on the wind swept Madugoda stretch on my weekly circuit to Mahiyangana when I worked in Kandy. At times the wind comes down with a sheer force at bends on the roads and one has to be alert to the maximum to avoid being turned over or pushed into the deep ravines below.  

A question comes up in my mind- why are we kidding ourselves while other countries like the USA, Denmark, Spain, Germany and the UK have really stolen a march.  

My first paper on wind turbines appeared in the Lanka Monthly Digest  of May 2002. In introducing my paper: Candle in the Wind, the Editor wrote: Having traveled and lived in southern Sri Lanka and several hill stations where wind power is strong Dr Garvin Karunaratne is convinced that this source of alternative energy  is the key to unlock the country’s present power crisis.  

 I stand by this statement and am prepared to convince anyone  that the solution to our power problems lie in utilizing our wind power. I keep remembering a song I sang in Sinhala long ago when I was a child:
Wind, wind,
wind, You do come from all over,
You hit my body And sway my entire being.
Then I was really mesmerized with the power of the wind.  

           My Paper, The Energy Problem of Sri Lanka,  appeared in my book:How the IMF Ruined Sri lanka and Alternate Programmes of Success(Godages, 2006).   The Paper begins;  While touring California, I was stunned to see the wind farm at Altamont Pass near Livermore, California. I saw hundreds of turbines  turning out energy for the national grid. 

This paper also highlights what I saw at Hyde in North Dakota:

I visited a wind farm of 27 wind turbines at hyde County in North Dakota, run by the Bismark Regional Cooperative. There 27 wind turbines  produce 40 Megawatts sufficient power for 14,000 American hoimes. These are new generation turbines a development over the older turbines that generated power at 30 cents per kilowatthour. These wind turbines produce electricity at  less than five cents a kwh. The turbines are 330 ft tall on a foundation 28 feet deep. Computers turn the nacelle and the rotar to face the wind and the turbine shuts off automatically if the wind power exceeds 56 miles per hour.

I emphasize that the cost of kwh is less than five US cents which is equal to five to six Sri lankan cents. Today  the Sri lankan consumer is being charged around twelve cents per kwh. Is this not because the UNP Government of 2002 entered into hasty agreements with foreign firms to provide electricity at this exhorbitant cost.               

Again in my paper,  Wind Power: The Solution for South Asia’s Energy Crisis on  The Asian Tribune of 27/12/2007  I stated that wind turbines is the only solution for Asia’s Energy Crisis.  

What we require to get all the power we need is a few hundred wind turbines.  

Each wind turbine is perched on a pole that can be made of iron or pre stressed concrete. On this a turbine mechanism is mounted and three wings fixed. The only foreign exchange required is to import the turbine motors. The rest can be fabricated locally.  Then it is a pure administrative matter to get  the sites selected, construction done and the pieces assembled. This will create a great deal of employment.  

 I am not fantasizing or day dreaming. Let me narrate how we in the Agrarian Services Department tackled the problem of constructing paddy stores.  We needed paddy stores fast and the Public Works Department with all its engineers was not fast enough.  Our heads were two members of the Civil Service, M.S.Perera, a history honours graduate and J.V.Fonseka, a classics graduate. They were working as Commissioners in the Departrment of Agrarian Services.  Earlier J.V.Fonseka had worked as Director of the Land Development Department which carried a record of more construction work than the Public Works Department. The Colonization Schemes had the irrigation tanks rest ored by the Irrigation Department and the rest- the construction of roads and bridges, the houses, stores etc. had all to be done by this Department of Land Development and under the gaze and supervision of a few chief engineers the Land Development Officers became masters at their task. They were all members of the Administrative Service. None of us were engineers. We were all administrators who had done our bit in everything. The only bit of engineering I did was in minor irrigation, where we were in charge of minor irrigation maintenance and construction. I learned how to handle a dumpy level and the theodolite to do surveys and  acquired a knowledge sufficient not to get bluffed by Cultivation Superintendents. In fact on my investigations and checks two senior Cultivation Superintendents had to kiss good bye to their jobs and pensions.

 The Department  obtained the services of an administrator who had worked long in the Land Development Department. He was M.P Jayasinghe. In addition a retired chief engineer one Fernando was recruited. Plans were drafted for stores that were easily a hundred feet or more in height, two hundred feet in length and breath, tenders were called and construction work commenced. Land was identified and  we built the stores. Some were of massive size and these have st ood their day- firm on the ground even today. When I do travel in Sri Lanka I gaze at some of these stores  built by us-at Koggala, Dehigahalanda, Mihintale etc. they stand  firm even today. 

  Today we are  a country that has taught the world how to battle and annihilate a tremendous terrorist organization.  Let that manpower be unleashed on our energy problem. The USA is a country where the Army Corps of Engineers attends to difficult tasks in the development of natural resources. Let me quote from a publication by the US Army Corps of Engineers:

Rules and Regulations Governing Public Use of Corps of Engineers,   
       Water Resources, Development Projects(May 2000)
It is the policy of the Secretary of the Army, acting through the chief of engineers to manage the natural, cultural and developed resources of each project in the public interest.  

In my travels in the USA- criss crossing from coast to coast twice I have seen many construction works accomplished by the US Army Corps of Engineers. In particular I have been overly impressed by the McNary Lock & Dam on the Snake River. It was a hydro electric dam with a capacity of 980,000 kw. The river has a four dams all equipped with locks for navigation. When the USA Administration experienced difficulty in constructing roads etc at Yellowstone National Park it was the US Army Corps of Engineers that did tackle it.  

  Let me close with a wish that our victorious armed forces can also be unleashed on  development tasks that have so far defied us. One such task would be to erect a hundred wind turbines at Ritigala and a few hundr ed in Hayes at Deniyaya- Rakwana, and at Ohiya and we will kiss good bye to  the power cuts for good. 

  Garvin Karunaratne, formerly of the Sri Lanka Administrative ServiceAugust 25, 2009

By Garvin Karunaratne Ph.D.(Michigan State University)
Formerly of the Administrative Service of Sri Lanka

Not a day passes by without a dictate from the International  Super-Warlords. They have now to be called Warlords because now they have become dubious, are contradicting themselves and no longer uphold either democracy or human rights. They only know to be dictatorial. The latest is a free for all between the two main Superpowers- Britain and the USA over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. The USA accuses Britain of helping terrorists.  

Robert Blake the newly found Assistant Secretary in charge of Asian Affairs of the USA has even given Sri Lanka a firm warning that any Aid in the future will depend on progress made with regard to the people being released out of the IDP camps.=2 0The USA of all should know that the people in the IDP camps does consist of the hard core LTTE cadres as well as the innocent tamil people whom the LTTE  kept by force as human shields and the Sri Lankan authorities have to differentiate between the two categories. It was only a few weeks ago that the USA is reported to have offered an exchange system for the cadres. That was not to put them in a Guantanamo Bay incarceration, but instead to “rehabilitate” them. One can recall how Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India in the early Eighties called the LTTE cadres from the North of Sri Lanka and “rehabilitated” them- fed them into specially established training camps in South India, provided them with weapons training, gave them weapons- more sophisticated weapons than what the Sri Lankan Army had, and dropped them back into Sri Lanka to destabilize the country. Robert Blake may have been a College student in those times. But this is history and history is what Robert Blake does not know. There were rumours of these training camps but none knew for certain till Denzil Peris, the Deputy Editor of South, an international  magazine published a paper with photos of these military training camps. Strangely, Denzil died in a restaurant a few weeks afterwards- perhaps that was an assassination!  Denzil’s brother in law, the late Cappie Kannangara was due to speak o n the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka at the University of Cambridge that afternoon in 1985 and had to haste back to London and I had to take his place and make an impromptu speech  at the debate.

  To get back to the clandestine ways adopted by no less a person than Robert Blake and he has been ably joined by  Schwartz, Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees who has said that Sri Lanka is confining people against their will and they should be allowed to live freely.  Both Blake and Schwartz are siding the LTTE cause  for a homeland.  As Palita Kohona the Foreign Secretary recently said even if the homeland concept is accepted it is impossible to locate the homeland because a full 55 % of the Tamil speaking people live amongst the Sinhala people, scattered all over Sri Lanka and the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka also called the Wanni is an area where no people lived. As a member of the Administrative Service of Sri Lanka I have worked years in the Wanni and it consists of a network of roadways within uninhabited jungle, leading to dilapidated tanks(reservoirs). Once the N orwegians attempted to settle Tamils from the upcountry to the Wanni and Lt. Col. Amerasekera in his visit to the IDP camps found that some of the people held in the camps were actually upcountry Tamils. If one were to backtrack historically the Wanni is full of Sinhala inscriptions- dating as far as the third century B.C. which proves beyond doubt that it was Sinhala people that occupied the  Wanni.  

Robert Blake has also been chastised for discussing matters with the Tamil Diaspora. The USA of all countries to entertain  terrorism!.  

 The problem today is that the USA, Britain and the other Superpowers are taking revenge on Sri Lanka for not stopping the eradication of terrorism from our island in the last stages when Prabhakaran was pushed to a small section of the island. Was it right on the part of the USA and other Superpowers to tell Sri Lanka to stop the battle and give the LTTE a new lease of life?

  In the meantime there has been high drama in Scotland. The Lockerbie bomber- Al Megrahi, a Libyan was released on “compassionate” grounds of illness. This Al Megrahi was convicted in 2001 on the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. His release was done in a hush hush manner, but Al Megrahi was accorded a royal hero’s welcome at Triploi, Libya. Gadaffi, the Libyan strongman said that now the set up is complete for trade and investment relations. In fact  The Times on August 15 ran headlines:Killer’s release would free BP to join the rush for Libya’s Oil Riches.

The USA as well as the relatives of the victims have been thunderstruck with the British decision to release the terrorist. The Director of the FBI-Federal Bureau of Investigation has accused Britain  stating that the release has made a mockery of the rule of law. He accused Britain “Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the World”  

Now we have a situation where the Director of the FBI accuses Britain of helping terrorism, while  Robert Blake and Schwartz, Assistant Secretaries are persuading Sri Lanka  to release terrorists. It is now left to Sri lankans to tell both Blake and Schwartz that their action demanding that the people in the IDP camps- including the terrorists in them be released is action that gives comfort to terrorists around the World-  to quote no other than the Director of the FBI.  

There is another matter that both Blake and Schwartz need to be warned. The Wanni was heavily mined by the LTTE and to release people before the land is de-mined will cause genocide. So far Sri Lanka has avoided any occasion for genocide. If people are released before de-mining they will pay with their lives. So far the USA has not helped Sri Lanka to de-mine. Blake and Schwartz had better send help for de-mining.  

 Let us now look at how the Superpowers have been acting in respect of looking after the human rights of their own people.  So far  the USA has failed to resettle the people who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Some of the people are yet living in temporary Trailer Parks. The USA is a peculiar country- the richest country in the world where the administration has so far failed to offer either a free health service or free education. In both these, the USA can look up to Sri Lanka ,because Sri Lanka can boast of a better State health service than the USA and there is free tertiary education. It is a fact that doctors, dentists and engineers  all educated under the free education system  in Sri Lanka find their way to the USA, Britain and such countries.  Many US citizens known to me cannot find the money to finance their children at US Universities.  Their children have to linger in lower jobs because the USA has an education system for the rich. Their poor have to forego both health and education. There is a mass of 47 million- almost a sixth of the US population without health insurance and it is reported that President Obama has had to withdraw his plans for a State Health System!.  

 In an earlier paper of mine I highlighted the manner in which the USA  has deprived human rights to its Native Americans- the people from whom the Americas were taken by force of arms some 300 years ago. (Britain- all the Superpowers. You do have blood on your hands wherever you went, Lanka Web,29/7/2009   Is it right for there to be a mass of human misery, with unemployment levels at 60% to 80% within the affluent and elitist richest country! These are the areas that Schwartz and Blake and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton should look into  before they start preaching to other countries.  

 Can anyone stop the war waged by the USA  and Britain on Iraq and Afghanistan. Compare this to what the USA has done in Afghanistan. The USA thought that their own trainee- turned brigand-Osama Bin Laden was hiding in Afghanistan. They unleashed all the weapons of mass destruction on Afghanistan turning it into a mass of rubble and failed=2 0to find Osama. Now they think that Osama is hiding in the hinterland of Pakistan and the USA has “invaded” Pakistan to search for Osama. Many  do not yet realize that the USA has in fact invaded Pakistan- they first sent drones and remotely attacked and now they openly attack.  Zadari- Pakistan’s new ruler  can easily handle the fortunes emassed by the late Benazio Bhutto, but has failed to govern Pakistan. The demise of Pakistan was created by the USA. When they wanted to attack Afghanistan they had to get President Mushraff’s approval and the USA is said to have made an offering that all the foreign debts of Pakistan would be written off- treated as paid if Pakistan  were  to allow the USA  to use their air space. First it was airspace and then the weaponry rolled through Pakistan highways And now there is mayhem with the USA hitting targets in Pakistan and the Pakistan militants wrecking damage wherever they can. If I remember right they  wrecked  over fifty military vehicles that were being security escorted. President Musharaff was tight lipped at first and recently spilled the beans by stating that he was ordered to open up and told in no uncertain terms that if he refused Pakistan would be reduced to rubble!. Now the World is seeing who are the real Warlords!. I too wrote papers in support of Obama for the Presidential Election.  It is hoped that under his enlightened leadership it will be possible to make the USA stand up to be righteous.  

President Obama actually won the vote to become the President of the USA. George W. Bush never won the vote. In 2000 he walked in  through the cloaks of the Supreme Court, which decided that the votes that were being counted should be stopped and in amazement I wrote a book:The Administrative Bungling that Hijacked the 2000 US Presidential Election.(The University Press of America). There was a repeat performance in 2004, with the Voting Machinery malfunctioning to deliver the Presidency to Bush. This too was  an amazing feat and I wrote The Electronic Stealing of the 2004 US Presidential Election.(Amazxon.Com) Comparatively, President Rajapaksa won the vote to become President.  Even Tony Blair did not have a mandate from his voters to engage his armed forces in either Iraq or Afghanistan. While his labour Members of Parliament revolted he had to seek votes from the opposition Torys to get parliamentary approval. You promise the voters one thing and do just the opposite. Labour supporters now vote with our feet at the polls!  

So mush for democracy, human rights.  

Let me close with the words of Robert Mueller, the Director of the FBI, to both Blake and Schwartz: Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the World  

Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D.(Michigan State University)
Formerly of the Administrative Service of Sri Lanka
23 rd August 2009

By Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D. formerly of the Srilanka Administrative Service

The IMF voting on 24 th June 2009  granted the loan applied for by Sri Lanka. However this incident was marred by Western Superpowers- the USA, Britain and France abstaining from voting.  It is well known that these Superpowers led by France and Britain  were persuading the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to stop battling the terrorists.  The Superpowers wanted to see that terrorism  was not wiped out! The terrorist LTTE had earned for itself the title of being the most ruthless terrorist out fit in the world and yet the Superpowers were dictating to the Sri Lankan President to stop battling them!.  Abstaining from vot ing at the IMF  was their method of punishing Sri Lanka for ignoring their dictate to stop battling terrorism.

In the meantime the USA supported ably by Britain is battling Alkaida in Afghanistan to catch Osama Bin Laden whom they think masterminded the 9/11 atrocities.  Osama was once  trained by the USA. Both these Superpowers are also yet searching for the Weapons of Mass Destruction held by Sadaam Hussein of Iraq. That effort, now, years in action saw no weapons of mass destruction belonging to Sadaam Hussein. Instead the world beheld weapons of mass destruction belonging to the USA being unleashed on innocents in Iraq!.  It is said and I too am of the opinion that the invasion of Iraq was purely to ensure that the Superpowers do control the oil wealth of Iraq and also to ensure that Iraq would not be of military might to be a threat to Israel.   The invasion of Iraq has seen thousands of innocents being made homeless and daily people are dying and living in want and the Western Superpowers who are so vociferous about the Human Rights situation in Sri Lanka and Dafur are silent because it is they themselves who have created this human misery in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sri Lanka was battling the LTTE in its own territory within the boundaries of its own small island and not in lands far away- 5000 miles or more away.  If the  Western Superpowers are sincere about wiping terrorism off the earth, why were they trying their best to stop Sri Lanka from  wiping out the military might of the LTTE. Therein lies  the truth of the Superpowers’  attempts to wipe out terrorism. That is not their concern. In the case of Iraq it was OIL and Israel. In the case of Afghanistan it is different. It is not well known that Afghanistan has a vast amount of mineral wealth, especially vast deposits of uranium and beryllium.. California  based  geologist Bonita Chamberlin states that   Afghanistan could rule the World in mineral wealth.

The Colonial Period

During the Colonial days there is blood on the hands of every Superpower. Take any problem that besets the World today and a historian can trace it to some action of a Superpower during the last four centuries. It goes back to the days when the Pope ruled that  Spain  should conquer the West and Portugal should conquer the East, Then these were the two Superpowers in the World. Portugal, the Dutch, France and Britain went to the East and plundered the wealth of the coloni es. Spain went to the West and plundered the New World. Mexico a glorious country was totrally subjugated and its wealth- mainly in gold ended up in Spain. Britain conquered North America and its colonialist suppression made the USA fight it out and declare independence.  The USA of all countries should realize the ill effects of colonial domination.

Then there is slavery where a mass of easily over 13 million men were taken at gun point from their hearth and home in African countries, taken incarcerated in ships across the Atlantic in extreme inhuman conditions- packed like sardines in a tin!. Half of them died in the seas.  The Portuguese had a monopoly over slavery  and took away as much as 4.5 million, while Britain, the Superpower that preaches human rights to the world at large today in the cloak of a saint took away at least 2.5 million slaves. The economies of the African continent  suffered due to the fact that this work force was taken away. It was wealth and riches for the European nations. Slavery enabled the USA to have a  cheap work force- a work force that slaved to bring about production, cvaused the economic miracle of the country but did not even have citizenship rights till     . What a great human rights record!

Take Sri Lanka.

The Portuguese first came to trade and established a store to keep their goods. Later the store became a fortress and they waged wars. and forcibly occupied the coastal belt. Their rule was scarred by incessant wars and  massacres of innocents.  Then came the Dutch who not only aggrandized more land but even brought in indentured labour from India to plant tobacco. Later the Dutch territories were handed over to the British who conquered the entire island in 1815. President Rajapaksa has recently highlighted the Human Rights record of the  British in the 1818 rebellion- where  in the two Districts of Moneragala and Badulla every male above the age of 12 was hunted and killed, every fruit bearing tree was cut down and every reservoir was  breached. Recently the Jatika Hela Urumaya made a demand that $ 50 billion should be paid for the damage which persists to this day.

Little is known of the fact that the East India Company of Great Britain compelled farmers in Bengal at the point of the gun, to cultivate opium and thereafter trafficated opium to destabilize China. China in its turn imposed the death penalty for trafficking in opium. 

During  the colonial period , the Superpowers entirely changed the self reliant economic structure of the colonies, took over land en masse from community control and  commenced plantations for products like rubber, coffee, tea and coconut which the Superpowers required for their industries.  The peasants in all colonies suffer from this  plundering of land. The only Third World leader stand and  fight on this cause was President Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Sri Lanka’s Srimavo took over the estates in the early Seventies.but was forced to pay compensation in foreign exchange to foreign owners. Many Sri Lankans have forgotten that the poverty caused in 1971 to 1977 was due to this fact.. In Zimbabwe at the Lancaster House Agreement Britain agreed to pay  £630 million        to finance foreign owners of estates when their lands are taken over by the Zimbabwe Government.  But sad to say that when the estates were taken over Prime Minister Tony Blair reneged and refused to pay what Britain had agreed to pay at the Lancaster House Agreement.  Instead of holding Tony Blair as the culprit the Superpowers including their IMF held Mugabe responsibe, imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, no loans in the first instance till Zimbabwe’s economy broke down with inflation  annualized at 89.7 sextrillion percent as of November 2008 , a currency devalued a trillion times,  poverty and destitution.   The Zimbabwen dollar was devalued  in February 2009 to the extent of 1 trillion- one New Zimbabwean dollar is worth  one trillion of the previous Zimbabwean dollars.

Africa’s problems were entirely created by the Superpowers who colonised. In the process of conquering the African continent the Superpowers started fighting among themselves till Bismark the Chancellor of Germany in 1885 called The Berlin Conference where Africa was parcelled between the European Superpowers, breaking up tribes, countries and natural boundaries in the process. Indentured Labour : What a Human  Rights Record The Dutch and thereafter the British moved thousands of people from India to their colonies as indentured labour. That was a good human rights record to move human beings as indentured labour tied to serve their masters till they repaid the cost of bringing them- that was almost for life. Fiji is worst hit due to this where the Indians are almost 50% of the population forcing the Fijians to take control through a dictatorship.  The ethnic problem in Sri Lanka  was created by Britain by its bringing in indentured labour to Sri Lanka. There is a similar problem in Malaysia too. Britain cannot ever shi rk their responsibility.

The USA & How they treated the Native American Indians with Dignity

Take the Superpower USA. Its entire  early history is scarred with the wars waged with the American Indians who ruled the Americas. History  is full of agreements that were reneged by force of arms when new natural assets were found. Finally the original inhabitants of the USA were incarcerated into Indian homeland territories. In my travels across the USA twice by road it was very easy to spot the  Indian Reservations. If one can find destitute wasteland, an area where there is no water and no vegetation, then that is the homelands that were left for the original American Indians!  The American Indians homes are shanties; they have no employment avenues and suffer in agony all in a land of affluence and luxury.  Unemployment levels are very high. Let me quote from ‘A People in Peril- Native Americans face unemployment and poverty’, From Current Events Feb24, 2007  

The Sioux …along with the more than one million Native Americans living in Reservations have suffered huge cutbacks in government aid, in everything from home repair to education. Because government aid for home repair has dropped  by one third since 199520many homes on the Standing Rock Reservation have holes in their walls…… Unemployment on the Standing Rock Reservation is now at 75%, compared with 1.9% for North Dakota as a whole. On the Pine Ridge Reservation  in South Dakota the unemployment rate is at a startling 85%… According to the 1990 Census  31% almost one third of all Native Americans earn incomes below the poverty line. 

On Health, Let me quote from The New England Journal of Medicine, (Vol.353. pages 1881-1883 of 3-11-2005) where Dr Yvette Roubideaus states of an Indian reservation in rural Arizona- a community of 10,000.   the unemployment rate hovered around 80% and alcoholism,  substance abuse, injuries, accidents were common….the outdated  understaffed hospital in this community had only four beds, a busy outpatient clinic… although the hospital was built to be staffed by 12 physicians, only 3 others worked there when I arrived. Although the Federal Government has a trust responsibility to provide health care for the American Indians and Alaska natives the Indian Health Service is  substantially underfunded and understaffed.

It is important to note that over 1000 nuclear trial explosions were done on Native American Shoshone areas – a great human rights record to talk of.

Schwartz the Assistant Secretary of State who is currently in Sri Lanka on a fact finding mission has said that he is concerned over the facilities provided for the thousands who are held in camps in Northern Sri Lanka. In his words, the Government of the USA believes the focus now must be on the prompt return of the displaced in safety and dignity.  These camps house the people who were liberated from the ruthless clutches of the LTTE only a few months ago. Our President has vouched to re settle them within a few years and this will be done. Compare this with the services the USA has  provided for the American Indians who have not been provided with basic services like health care  and education. Why have their been cutbacks. in services.  This is the dignity with which the USA Administration  has treated its own people not for the past two years( the time given for Sri Lanka) but for two centuries!.  It was only in 1924 that Native Americans were given citizenship.            

 The USA and its brilliant, articulate and vociferous  Senators and able Administrators should first address this mass of m isery that is within their territory. Please treat them with the dignity they do deserve. I had some American Indian colleagues studying with me at Michigan State University.  They had hardly any food to eat, hardly any proper clothes to wear and they could ill afford the University fees. 

The USA could learn from Sri Lanka to allow free education to University Studies for all American citizens  I am myself a product of our free education system.   I have met many talented Americans who are destined to be holding third grade jobs and be relegated to poverty for life purely because they cannot find the money to pay exorbitant University fees. . It would behove of the leadership in the USA, now that it claims to be benevolent and enlightened since the advent of  President Obama , to make a human gesture and offer full free University education to all American Indian students in the first instance and secondly to offer full free education to the poor- to those that cannot afford to pay fees.  The USA has to put its record straight before it preaches to others.

The Exploitation of the Third World

Let me quote from a world authority,  Rene Dumont, an enlightened  French Minister, from his book: Stranglehold on Africa. We are first and foremost  exploitors of the poor, because of an economic system based on dominance  that has been cunningly devised by and for the rich nations.

We export our inflation and pollution  and take advantage of cheap Asian labour.

The Multinationals transfer to the poor countries  technologies that have already been written off  in the rich countries

Because the European countries have largely exhausted their own sources of raw materials they feel the need to appropriate  new sources, by force of arms if needs be, though preferably by recourse to the standard economic ploys.

 The Role of the IMF in its Structural Adjustment Programme

Rene Dumont wrote before the days of the Structural Adjustment Programme of the IMF. British Financial Secretary to the Treasury Steph en Timms said this month  that Sri Lanka  suffered from a damaging balance of payments crises. Let me put him right by stating that the balance of payments crisis that holds all the Third World countries in a stranglehold today was brought about by no other than the International Monetary Fund itself in the early Seventies when they came up with the Structural Adjustment Programme and forced the Third World countries to relax the spending of foreign exchange and provided easy credit to bridge the gap. It was this relaxation of terms of loans- by allowing loans for consumption purposes that led to the present deficit budgeting that is a crisis today. The IMF told the countries to spend as much foreign exchange as they liked because then it helped the Western Superpowers to sell their goods to the Third World and also enabled the rich in the Third World countries to spend for luxury travel, luxury education for their children- all money went to the countries of the Superpowers.  In comes John Perkins in his book:Confessions of an Economic Hitman,  where he admits that as a chief executive of a multinational he had to fabricate reports to countries giving them funds, in a manner that the funds found their way back to the donor countries  for services provided, with profits.  This is how the Third World was made indebted.

As I have pointed out in my book:How the IMF  Ruined Sri Lanka & Alternative Programmes of Success,(Godages, Colombo,2006)  the World Bank and the IMF instituted market reforms are beneficial to the rich and the affluent of the world  in  the place of development planning for the benefit of the people of the particular country. It is even documented that the  World Bank and the IMF gave the countries the wrong  advice leading to their present predicament of demise and downfall

The net result of all these machinations by the World Bank and the IMF has been to bring poverty  and destitution to the entire world.

Let me support these ideas with statements from world authorities. Professor Joseph Stigtitz , noble laureate states the World Bank and the IMF chose the models that led to wrong predictions, wrong policies and really negative consequences.(The Hospital that makes you sicker, New Internationalist, March 2003) 

 Professor Jeffery Sachs,  has made a scathing attack in his book:The End of Poverty. Western Governments enforced draconian budget policies in Africa during the 1980s and 1990s. The IMF and the World Bank virtually ran the economic policies  of the debt written continent recommending regimens of budgetary belt tightening known technically as Structural Adjustment Programms. Thse Programs  had little scientific merit and produced even fewer results. By the start of the 21 st century Africa was poorer than in the late 1960s when the IMF had first arrived on the scene.

It must be pointed out that the Structural Adjustment Programme which holds the entire Third World today in a firm stranglehold, with teeming poverty and debt is also the result of the Superpowers machinations to rule the world through neo colonialism..

It is up to the enlightened leadership of President Obama to reform the  IMF, to bring an end to the poverty suffered by the American Indians and the poor in the United States of America. I plead of him to force  IMF to come up with a strategy for growth, instead of its present strategy that causes debt, poverty and  destitution in the Third World and also send wealth from the Third World to the First World Superpowers.   

 Is it not strange that  I, an outsider fro m the Third World,  though a product of Michigan State University, should be arguing the case for  Human Rights to the Native American Indians of the USA. 

  We have seen President Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka  in action defeating the military might of the ruthless LTTE which was said by some Superpowers to be invincible. It will not be long  for the world to  also  see  him in action again to get rid of poverty and deprivation in Sri Lanka. There are indications that this is on track. That will be a beacon to the world. 

 Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D.Michigan State University,29 th July 2009 

By Garvin Karunaratne, formerly of the Administrative Service of Sri Lanka

It is reported today that Britain is taking up the position at the IMF Board Meeting that  Sri Lanka should not be given the loan of US $ 1.9 billion on the grounds that Sri Lanka has violated Human Rights  in holding close upon 300,000 people- Tamils in Camps in the Northern Province. 

This mass of people were with the LTTE and were actually liberated from the grip of that terrorist organization. The Sri Lankan Government has undertaken to re-settle these people once investigations have been concluded re the complicity of these people as terrorists and also once the land belonging to them has been de-mined and declared safe. 

If the people are re-settled before safety precautaions are taken then the Government will be accused of leading them to the slaughter house!. Perhaps that is what Britain wants to do because then they can accuse Sri Lanka of  murdering them. Then Britain can take Sri Lanka to the International Court of Justice!

It is strange that Britain has forgotten its own past record. Mahinda Rajapaksa , the President of Sri Lanka has recently had the nerve to be bold enough to lay the record of Britain in its colonial past right by stating that in the 1818 Rebellion  the British ordered that every male above the age of 12 should be hunted down and killed. They also ordered that every fruit bearing tree should be cut down and every reservoir should be destroyed. This was done by th e British Army. That was in 1818.

 Let us for a moment look into what Britain is doing to the  Chago islanders, from whom their island was wrested to enable the United States of America to open up a military base. That was how  Diego Garcia was established.

Britain has failed to realize that their own media, in “Islanders Denied Justice” in The Telegraph of the UK,  22 nd October 2008 and “Chago Islanders Lose Battle to return” in The Guardian UK of 22 nd October 2008 exposed of the double standards of the UK on Human Rights.

 The Chago islanders were physically thrown out by force  in the 1970s by interpreting an immigration ordinance  to justify their eviction.  The British Government handed over the islands to the US Government to establish the Diego Garcia Military Base.

 As stated in The Guardian,   the islanders had previously won the right to return to all islands except Diego Garcia, the main island where there is a US military base. The 3-2 ruling today by the lawlords  overturns the islanders’ victory”.  Earlier  the Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal  had ruled that the Chagossians who were thrown out,  could return to the outer islands. The Foreign Office instead of abiding by the decision of the Court of Appeal,  appealed against the judgement to the House of Lords. 

The Chagos Islanders’ lawyer argued that  the British Government did not have the power to remove their right of abode, but this was dismissed by the House of Lords and  the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband welcomed the judgement denying the rights of the Chagossian islanders.

So goes out of the window, the Human Rights record which  the UK, a democratic government should uphold.  Lord Bingham dissenting to the ruling said  that Parliament should have been consulted and  said that  usurping the authority of Parliament  to legislate  was an anachronism and  Parliament should have been consulted.

History  never lies. History reveals people and countries  in their true colours. Britain and the Western Superpowers today try to stand up for human rights when their actions over the past centuries reveal their true nature.

 The entire Third World today is held in a firm stranglehold by the IMF. It is by following the policies laid down by the IMF in its Structural Adjustment Programme since 1977 that  Sri Lanka has become  an indebted country. Before 1977 the IMF did not part with a single dollar for consumption purposes to any country. It was always on projects where the implementation of the project would bring back an income sufficient to service the loan. The IMF liberalised loans and led the countries up the garden path to de regulate the use of hard earned foreign exchange. The result was devastating.

 In my own words:Every country that has meticulously followed the Structural Adjustment programme  has ended in disaster. Take Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Ghana and Sri Lanka all countries that followed the Structural adjustment Programme  and were at one time the showpieces  of the IMF. All these countries  have totally devastated economies and rampant poverty today(From How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternate Programmes of Success, Godages, Colombo)

 It is time that Britain and the United States of America grew to become  real Superpowers- that understand what nefarious activities they did in their colonial past and take remedial action to uphold the sovereignty of nations.  Britain should really be ashamed of its past as well as its present record. It should instead be helping Sri Lanka to get on its feet.

Garvin Karunaratne Fromer SLAS (Government Agent, Matara District)June 24 th 2009