e-Con e-News

Posted byee ink.April 11, 2026Posted inUncategorizedTags:China, Cuba, history, imperialism, news, politics

blog: https://eesrilanka.wordpress.com

‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’

e-Con e-News 05-11 April 2026

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‘Sri Lanka is also under a blockade like Cuba. You, me, we are all under

a blockade. When the IMF – or any multilateral institution where

the US Treasury is the main shareholder – imposes conditions on

any government, or on our government, that’s… a different

kind of blockade. Even if it works within international law & rules

& norms, etc, it is still a blockade. When the IMF imposes a new

Central Bank Act, and they take monetary policy away from

democratically elected officials, that’s a blockade on our monetary

sovereignty. When they impose the Public Finance Management Act

& they say you cannot spend on certain priorities;

that the government has to have ‘fiscal discipline’, & can’t

respond to a crisis, that is also blockade on our fiscal capacity. These

institutions are blockading our development. Their intent, their goal

is identical to what is being done to Cuba. The severity, the medium

may be quite different, but is it still the same. Everyone is now

painfully aware we are in an energy crisis. It is interesting to think

back to immediately after the Cuban revolution, which

inspired so many, including young people back in the 1960s,

Sri Lanka nationalized oil, & the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation

was founded in 1961; of course, we were punished for it. The

Hickenlooper Amendment, to amend US foreign aid law, was designed in response

to Cuba’s nationalization of their own resources. It was 1^st used against SL,

for nationalizing what was crucial to our own development at that time.

These weapons need not be bombs, planes, aircraft, they can be tools

like the Hickenlooper Amendment, just like blockades & sanctions.

The weapons used against Cuba today, used against Palestine, Iran, etc,

will someday be used on us. It has happened before, & it is a matter

of time, before it happens again, especially if & when we have a

situation in this country where the majority rise up & say no, we do

not wish to capitulate, & surrender control over our resources;

we want to live in dignity, like Cuba…

Cuba remains our lodestar, our torch in the darkness…

– Shiran Illanperuma, They Hate Not Only Cuba

But Hate the Idea of Cuba (ee Random Notes)

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The siege of Sri Lanka, could be seen as more profound than in Cuba, for it involves a mental blockade as well. Unlike Cuba, we are not allowed to even think, let alone discuss, how an alternative economic system would enable us to escape from & heal over 500 years of destruction. The media, run by the soaps & suds of England’s Unilever Corp etc, whose extensive advertising & marketing networks, PR agencies that promote & bloat politicians, prevent an authentic national conversation. Such a long-needed discourse would thresh & thrash out what a self-sufficient economy, which requires a modern industrial economic, political & military strategy, truly involves. Meanwhile, we are expected to prepare for an Indo-US invasion of Sri Lanka, and play the role of a ‘rear base’ for imperialism (like during their WWII), in preparation for their planned invasion of China (see ee Random Notes).

     The US Treasury’s main instruments, the World Bank, the IMF, the ADB, their ratings agencies, all have one goal: to prevent any such debate, & any such modern (machine-making) industrial renaissance, and they are clearly willing to cause chaos if they cannot get their way. They are forcing the rest of the world to consider even nuclear weapons that can reach the premier fortresses of imperialism in the US & Europe, so as to attain commanding heights of economy, war & political life. The decision, this week, to turn down Russia’s offer to build a nuclear plant here, is therefore truly symbolic of how far we have to go to truly plumb the depths of our real needs towards self-sufficiency (see ee Industry).

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‘At the turn to the 20^th century, a newspaper as ‘respectable’ as the

New York Times could editorially threaten that those peoples who

opposed the new world capitalist order would ‘be extinguished

like the North American Indian’.’ (10 May 1898) – quoted in

J Sakai, Settlers, the Mythology of the White Proletariat

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Cause slavery to disappear & you will

have wiped America off the map of nations.

– Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847

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‘Blowing up infrastructural facilities together

With 1,000s of unarmed civilians is something

that no leader, other than someone like Hitler,

can bring himself to do.’ – Island Editorial,

Interval in Hell (see ee Sovereignty)

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Perseus wore a magic cap down over his eyes &

ears as a make-believe that there are no monsters

– Marx, Capital, 1867

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The inaccuracy, misunderstanding, vapidity & sheer confusion exhibited by our puppet media & their foreign affairs experts is more than sad – it is criminal. The US-led white war on Korea saw them blowing up dams and other civilian structures. To this day, our news about the DPRK (North Korea) is a pure caricature brought to us by the BBC! We therefore get history upside-down. Hitler, Nazism, fascism are the younger siblings of settler colonialism. The Nazis looked up to the USA’s & Canada’s white settlers as their ‘older brothers’. Nazi Gestapo leader Herman Goering’s father was Imperial Commissioner in SW Africa (Namibia) and directed the 20^th century’s first genocide, of the Nama & Herero, 1904-8.

     Yet we do not even need to go abroad. The destruction of irrigation was a classic tactic during the invasion of Lanka, especially once they realized that traditional irrigation was the basis of the solidarity among the Sinhala – the reconstruction of such crucial infrastructure, the ensuing ruling puppets seem to have happily ignored. The current US war on Iran (nay, on the world) manifests this studied ignorance even more. The Strait of Hormuz was ‘effectively’ closed first by the European shipping insurance companies who refused coverage once the US war was begun, to impoverish Iran! So, it is the USA that brought it about. And, once again we repeat, it is not an ‘Iran war’, nor a ‘Middle East Conflict’ etc, but another US war! Neither is it an ‘US-Israeli war’; Israel is only a settler catspaw of US & European imperialism.

     Again, we look (forward) to history, and recommend such classics as WEB Dubois’ Black Reconstruction, Eric Williams’ Capitalism & Slavery, and J Sakai’s Settlers, Mythology of the White Proletariat. Williams’ classic (which he banned on becoming Trinidad’s PM!) details the role played by the powerful ‘West India Interest’, whose plutocratic slave sugar & cotton & tobacco plantation owners became a powerful lobby within England’s parliament & ruling class. Yet their power was soon superseded by the even more powerful ‘East India Interests’, who set up ‘indentured’ slavery in the East (including the Pacific). The East India Company directors included many ‘saints’ & ‘abolitionists’, who inveigled themselves into the resistance to the chattel-slavery of Africans! The ‘Honourable’ East India Company too was soon superseded by the ‘Private English’ companies (especially to push opium on China), many of which are now major conglomerates in Asia & Africa (from William-Jardine, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Unilever, Anglo American, Tata, etc). And it is these banks & corporations that operate behind the IMF’s & World Bank’s dictates, demanding we privatize national resources, enfeeble organized labour, and avoid investment in modern industrial production.  Readers can decipher their demands to block investment in modern industry, and they even falsely claim to wish to promote industry (see ee Quotes).

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‘Village tanks & pasture reserves had been sold to estates,

paddy fields & irrigation channels were silted up by the

cutting of estate roads, & straying cattle were shot on estates.’

The startling features of the enslavement of the ‘workers’ within Sri Lanka’s plantation system, the ‘human resource’ practices imported from the settler Americas, is detailed in SBD de Silva’s classic, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment. As ee Focus continues Chapter 9, we learn how this enslavement has had a devastating effect on all workers in Sri Lanka, Sinhala & Tamil. de Silva’s detailing of an unfree labour market is significant, contradicting the much-promoted model of the Caribbean-born ‘Economics Nobel Prize’ winner ‘Sir’ WA Lewis, whose prescriptions were utilized by the powers that be to justify the status quo. Lewis claimed the plantations were ‘modern’& would draw people out of the subsistence peasant sector. Instead, de Silva pointed out, plantation labour had to be extracted in from the colonial disaster-prone South Indian economy, through deception & violence. Any simple comparisons between the Sinhala peasant, also dispossessed and exploited through colonial deception, and the migrant Tamil worker, have also remained highly fraught. And the colonial government eagerly sought to play one against the other, such tactics continuing to this very day.

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Q. Who are you?

A. We are people of Walapane.

Q. Why have you left your village?

A. Because we have lost all our property.

Q. How did it happen?

A. We were allowed to run into arrears with

our paddy tax for 2 or 4 years. It was then called

up all of a sudden. No mercy was shown to us

& all our property was sold…’

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Yet, de Silva, also showed how Sinhala workers were drawn into working on to the rubber ‘estates,’ and railways. He also detailed the many factors that deterred them from employment on tea plantations. Their conditions differed from the Indian workers, who were controlled both socially & politically (to this day!) by a kangany class fraction. de Silva intricately examined the different wages paid, and food consumed, the stealing of wages by labor contractors, and the disturbances arising from the unfair price increases by merchants, including the bribery of colonial police officers. All this is vital due to the saturated propaganda by the merchant media, which claims ‘corruption’ to somehow be a ‘postcolonial’ disease spread by the nasty thieving natives, yet having to live in country of petty ‘commissions’, with their endless meetings & endless awards, where the top white Englishman is still called, ‘The High Commissioner’.

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‘Parliament rocked by LKR13.2bn NDB fraud:

Systemic failure or regulatory lapse?’

– The Island

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• Bankers on Trial – ‘1) The Central Bank of (CB)SL:

The Banking Supervision Unit is the 1^st line of defense for the public.

We must formally query: How did existing supervision protocols fail

to detect these irregularities? What specific, updated regulatory frameworks

have been implemented to ensure this does not recur across the sector?

2) The External Auditors (Ernst & Young): Audit firms are paid to be the

watchdogs of corporate integrity. Public Disclosure: We demand a clear

explanation of how these discrepancies bypassed the audit process.

New Methodologies: Transparency is required regarding what new forensic

auditing standards are being adopted to regain investor trust.’ – ee Finance,

The NDB Fraud: Why Retail Investors Must Demand Accountability Today

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‘NDB reports all-time high earnings last year –

‘This achievement is not the end result of one-off gains

but purely the outcome of focused execution in our

fundamental banking businesses, disciplined credit

growth, prudent risk management, a strong deposit franchise,

sustained net interest margins, & the continuing efforts to

improve our overall operating efficiencies on a consistent basis’.’

– Director/CEO Kelum Edirisinghe, Sunday Times, 1 March 2026

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‘Fitch assigns SL NDB’s GSS bond ‘BBB+(lka)’ rating’

– EconomyNext, 18 Feb 2026

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IFC injects $166mn to boost Sri Lankan SMEs through major banks:

‘International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank

Group’s financing, will be channeled through 3 leading private commercial

banks: Nations Trust Bank, Commercial Bank of Ceylon,

& National Development Bank (NDB). A core objective of the program

is to promote inclusive growth by specifically prioritising lending to

women-owned businesses & agribusinesses…’

– Island, 2026/02/2

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NDB strengthens long-term strategic tie up with IFC

‘Allen Forlemu, IFC Regional Director, Financial Institutions Group, Asia &

the Pacific added: ‘When SMEs thrive, entire economies move forward. Access

to capital remains a critical priority for Sri Lankan entrepreneurs, & our

partnership with the NDB is designed to address this by helping

SMEs access the financing & the knowhow needed to scale & grow’.’

–  Sunday Times, 2026/02/01

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Way forward with cryptocurrencies

‘NDB Bank, a co-sponsor of Sunday Times Business Club

organised a discussion on ‘Bitcoins & Cryptocurrency – stable or risky?’

with Subhani Keerthiratne, Director/Financial Intelligence Unit, CBSL

& Savan Wijewardene, entrepreneur & co-founder of Redhill,

Singapore’s largest local public relations firm’

–  Sunday Times, 2026/02/01

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‘CBSL has also indicated that the issue is contained

at the institutional level, rather than becoming systemic.

Now, it’s actually within NDB. So, we are watching the

situation carefully, & we are talking to the central bank.’

–Evan Papageorgiou, IMF Mission Chief (ee Finance)

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A massive ‘fraud’ within the National Development Bank (NDB) was uncovered & reported this week (supposedly), and while it did not receive the same coverage as the coal fraud, and ongoing corruption of ‘politicians’, it is far more indicative of the actual ‘corruption‘ that really matters – the prevention & sabotage of investment in modern industry by a multinational corporation-enabled merchant & moneylender oligarchy, which promotes the colonial import-export plantation economy.  No doubt some low or mid-level thieves & clerks will be nailed & jailed. But the owners, & regulatory bodies (CBSL, CES, SEC) & the enablers (ratings agency Fitch, invited into Sri Lanka by World Bank, also recently rated it) will go scot-free. The NDB, now owned by a Norwegian development (see ee Who’s Who!) was created under Act No 2 of 1979 ‘to provide medium- & long-term finance for industry, agriculture, & infrastructure’. 

     However, it was funded through the World Bank & the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which ensured it would never advance towards ‘supporting development finance’.  In 1993, the NDB (& sibling DFCC) was privatised & ‘expanded into commercial banking activities’; & by 2005 it ‘had completely lost its development mandate’. ‘Both the DFCC & NDB were once key pillars of Sri Lanka’s developmental state model, which prioritised production, industrialization & employment creation.’ This push of ‘development’ banks towards commercialization (& eventual fraud) ‘was not accidental’. It was part of the structural adjustment reforms introduced under IMF & World Bank programs from the late 1970-80s onwards. ‘Development banks around the world were required to become more market-oriented’, for ‘capital markets and private commercial banks’ would supposedly allocate credit more ‘efficiently’ than state-led development financial institutions. Such market fundamentalism then dismantled many state institutions that once supported development projects. This critical gap continues to hinder employment expansion, industrial recovery & rural development. As ee keeps emphasizing, the word ‘development’ was an ‘innovative’ euphemism for ‘colonial’ in the 1950s (a word deemed offensive then) coined by the PR mavens of the Unilever Corporation. And see how our ministries & their NGOs have been paid to love the word and eagerly add them to their names.

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• The Island published an article 29 March 2026 attacking Cuba, by Milinda Moragoda, who describes himself as a former cabinet minister & diplomat & Founder of the Pathfinder Foundation, a strategic-affairs think tank.”  Moragoda’s article – meant to be an imminent yet premature obituary – was headlined, ‘Cuba & the end of an era‘ & faithfully echoed the US government’s recent threats to ‘take‘ Cuba.  In this ee Focus, Shiran Illanperuma responds eloquently to Moragoda’s ‘gaps, omissions & obfuscations’ about Cuba’s purported ‘structural weaknesses’. Illanperuma points to the 65 years of an unrelenting siege led by the USA, even as the UN General Assembly has for 32 consecutive years ‘condemned the embargo against Cuba’.

     Earlier this year after the kidnapping of Venezuela’s leader (& his spouse), the USA declared a blockade on oil to Cuba, causing immense unparalleled hardship. Moragoda also suggests Cuba and Venezuela could have been better off if they allied with the USA! Illanperuma instead points to the fate of those countries, such as Honduras & Puerto Rico, that have allied with the USA. There are even more innumerable examples of such fatal engagements.

     Haiti, has been under white siege for the last 225 years at least, and now only worsening under the USA. Haiti had dared to chase out 3 European armies (with the English suffering their worst military defeats there, sending them scurrying to invade Sri Lanka in 1796). Haiti’s leaders have long been kidnapped – the latest kidnapping by the USA, Canada & France, taking place in 2004. Indeed, Haiti – then Hispaniola – was the first country in the Americas to be invaded by Europe (Columbus), and their long heroic resistance has been compared to Sri Lanka, by Philip Gunawardena‘s biographer Ananda Meegama. Sri Lanka was invaded by Portugal in 1505. It is an irony that this week, we have once again agreed to send ‘peacekeeping’ troops to Haiti, when our past experiences with ‘peacekeepers’ here and there have already told us that imperialism has no such need for ‘peace’, here or there.     

     Indeed, all one needs to do is investigate a little more of the history of the Americas (read Eduardo Galliano’s Open Veins of Latin America). This ee Focus therefore also includes Ma Guihua‘s most intriguing history of Cuba and the role Chinese workers have played in its liberation struggles, as well as their role in building the USA (railroads, California farming, etc). ee’s focus on Cuba is also timely, for we expect the USA, after their recent defeat in West Asia, to renew their attack on Cuba, as part of their aim to exclude non-Europeans from the Western Hemisphere (Africa says, good luck to that!) if they cannot repress our vitality.

     Their possible threat to invade Cuba at this hour, recalls the USA’s invasion of Grenada in 1983, which they did after suffering a major defeat in Lebanon, where 300 Marines were blown up in a single attack in Beirut. Grenada (population less than a 100,000) was also attacked because it was the 1^st English-speaking country to revolt in the Americas & declare its wish to be a socialist country. This was deemed ‘the threat of a good example‘. The USA then re-installed the English monarchy, and Charles III is now called, ‘The King of Grenada’!

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‘Appearing, unexpectedly, at the relaunch of the US-based

International Executive Services Corps, Minister Milinda

Moragoda offered an explanation for his presence. He was

there because the US ambassador had asked him to come.

‘But when the US ambassador asks you to come, you don’t

ask why. You just come,’ confessed Mr Moragoda unashamedly.’

– ee Sovereignty, One day in the future on our sunny isle

Returning to Milinda Moragoda‘s delusions, we find he has now taken to penning even more screeds on foreign policy, especially in The Island. Apparently, Pathfinder Foundation, the thinktank ‘founded’ by Moragoda, has been ‘increasingly projecting itself as Sri Lanka’s de facto foreign policy engine room’.  ‘The lines between diplomacy, private influence, and self-interest are blurring’, begging the question, ‘Who really runs Sri Lankan foreign policy?’, asked LankaEnews (no relation to ee) in July 2025 (‘The Diplomatic Delusion: How the Pathfinder Foundation is Acting Like SL’s Shadow Foreign Ministry‘, see ee Sovereignty). Moragoda, is not remembered as a guardian of public accountability.” His ‘business legacy includes one of the country’s most infamous financial disasters’: ‘the spectacular failure of Mercantile Credit Ltd’, that ‘defaulted after borrowing over Rs1bn from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Moragoda is described as ‘a one-time cabinet minister & political darling of Western diplomats. Mercantile’s failure devastated thousands of depositors and left Sri Lankan taxpayers footing the bill.’

     ‘Two decades later, Moragoda has resurfaced… as the head of a private think-tank that is now performing foreign policy’. ‘What began as a policy research institute has turned into something far more ambitious: an unaccountable power hub that wields outsize influence over Sri Lanka’s international posture, particularly in relation to India & the Indian Ocean region’.

     LankaEnews adds, ‘Established in 2006, the Pathfinder Foundation describes itself as ‘an independent, non-partisan think-tank providing policy insights’. But insiders and veteran diplomats tell a different story. Over the past few years, Pathfinder has quietly assumed the trappings of a parallel foreign ministry. Its officials attend high-level diplomatic events. They host closed-door roundtables with foreign ambassadors. They publish white papers that are circulated – and sometimes even cited – by foreign policy officials. More troublingly, Pathfinder representatives have reportedly claimed to diplomats in Colombo that they are the ‘real voice’ of Sri Lankan foreign policy. ‘It’s a classic case of a shadow state,’ says a retired ambassador with over 3 decades in the SL Foreign Service. ‘Pathfinder is trying to usurp institutional authority without any mandate, public scrutiny, or accountability. That’s dangerous’.’

     ‘Some Pathfinder events have been described as ‘alternative diplomatic briefings,’ where foreign envoys are encouraged to view the thinktank’s positions as semi-official Sri Lankan policy. Some diplomats within the Foreign Ministry, see Pathfinder as ‘actively undermining the state’s institutional integrity‘. In recent months, Pathfinder has taken an increasingly brazen approach to its ‘influence operations’. One high-level diplomat from a Western embassy, speaking off the record, said: ‘We were told by a Pathfinder official that they had a direct line to the President’s Office & all foreign policy was being routed through them. It was bizarre – & frankly, inappropriate.’

     Both the President & the Foreign Minister ‘have made no official link with the Pathfinder Foundation’. Pathfinder, however, ’employs several retired civil servants and former diplomats – many of whom are used as a ‘face’ to lend the organisation credibility. These individuals, while once respected public officials, now serve a private body whose ultimate accountability is to its founder & funders – not the Sri Lankan people. Critics say this is a deliberate strategy: to create a façade of authority by parading former bureaucrats in front of diplomats and foreign donors, while using their presence to suggest continuity with official Sri Lankan foreign policy… Pathfinder has also ‘aggressively courted Indian strategic thinkers & bureaucrats, hosting Indo-Lanka Track II dialogues and publishing glowing assessments of India’s Indo-Pacific strategy. At several bilateral events, Pathfinder officials have reportedly implied that they can broker messages directly to Sri Lanka’s leadership.’

     The Foreign Ministry disagrees. ‘India is being misled if it believes Pathfinder speaks for the Government of Sri Lanka,’ said one ministry official, ‘We have professional diplomats & formal channels. Pathfinder is not one of them.’ LankaEnews wonder if Moragoda is ‘cultivating India’s strategic community to build leverage back in Colombo?’ and asks: ‘Who funds Pathfinder, and how are those funds used? They are urging the Government, particularly President AK Dissanayake & Foreign Minister Herath, to: ‘Investigate Pathfinder’s financial records, including donor funding and how the money is spent. Publicly clarify the boundaries between official foreign policy & thinktank engagement. Conduct a review of all former civil servants employed by Pathfinder, and determine whether they are representing the state without legal basis. Task CIABOC (Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption) & the Central Bank to reopen inquiries into Moragoda’s role in the Mercantile Credit collapse. Introduce legislation to regulate foreign policy lobbying & ensure transparency in public-private partnerships in the diplomatic sphere’ & finally posits, ‘Who appointed Milinda Moragoda to speak for us? The answer: No one.’

     ee has often pondered this same question. Moragoda has been labeled, ‘a notorious CIA-funded US Contractor’ and Wikipedia claims ‘leaked US Embassy cables show Moragoda to be a long-time information source of the US Embassy in Colombo’ and the US Government’s ‘key partner in SL’. US Ambassador to SL Ashley Wills (in 2003) called Moragoda, ‘a perfect fit’, ‘married to a US citizen, with plenty of Washington connections, many from his days as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation & at Harvard’: A ‘big picture’ person, Moragoda is also highly aware that the USA is the most powerful country in the world, and he feels it is better that Sri Lanka recognize that fact and work within it.

     Much to national chagrin, ‘Moragoda was made a High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to India, from Aug 2021-3 Sept, under Presidents Gotabaya Rajapaksa & Ranil Wickremesinghe, and before that was made a Senior Adviser to President Mahinda Rajapaksa from 2011-15, and was his Minister of Justice & Law Reforms, 2009-10, from just after the terrorist war was ended. Even before that he was made Minister of Tourism, 2007-9; Deputy Minister of Policy Development and Implementation, and then Minister of Economic Reform, Science and Technology, from 2001-4, entering the scene when Chandrika Bandaranaike was made President, a presidency famous for the intrusions of the Billy Clinton Foundation and Clinton’s (& other presidents’) main sponsors, the Rockefeller Foundation, a front for the energy monopolists, Exxon – Standard Oil – Corporation.

     ee first encountered Moragoda when midst the general wasteland known as public TV, the program In Black & White starring MM himself, was broadcast from 1999-2004 on Capital Maharaja’s MTV, which like much of the media in Sri Lanka are imperialist lip-services. Moragoda’s talk-show was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation; the Rockefeller family is the fronting oligarchy of the Exxon Corporation. Moragoda is compared to other Exxon cut-outs like Russia’s Kirill Dmitriev, who wishes Russia will ally with Europe & the USA, and the anti-Russian Mohammed Javad Zarif, Iran’s Foreign Minister in 2021, who was removed as VP in 2025. In 2020 Moragoda drew up Sri Lanka’s National Security Doctrine, Foreign Policy Doctrine, & Post-Covid Economic Policy Doctrine. Pathfinder promotes the implementation of the MCC, advocated via its Post-Covid Economic Proposal. The MCC demands changes to the constitution and land policy & land laws prior to signing of the MCC agreement. The incessant, almost weekly, saturation of his name in the media, indeed suggests he’s being puppeteered by the dogs of war & profit…

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Contents:

The Military, Economic & Political Blockading of Sri Lanka & Cuba