The government reversed the Electricity Act, approved in June this year under then-president Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government
The new National People’s Power (NPP) government in Sri Lanka on Tuesday announced its first reversal of a key element in the ongoing IMF bailout programme concerning the loss-making state-owned enterprises.
The government reversed the Electricity Act, approved in June this year under then-president Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government, introducing major reforms to the state power entity Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB).
The Marxist NPP trade unions had then agitated against the bill.
A CEB trade union leader who led the agitation is an NPP candidate in the parliamentary election scheduled for November 14.
A CEB statement on Monday said the entity’s privatisation programme would be scrapped and vowed to amend the CEB Reforms Act of 2024.
It said there would be no privatisation of state-owned power plants, transmission and distribution processes.
The CEB Reforms Act of 2024 paved the way for private sector competition in power generation. The move was aimed at easing the burden on public finances and increasing the share of renewable energy to 70 per cent by 2030.
The CEB reforms aimed at minimising losses to the treasury was a key commitment made by Sri Lanka to the IMF in the near USD 3 billion bailout sealed in 2023.
The news on the CEB Act comes as the IMF had been delaying its third review until the conclusion of elections on the island.
The fourth tranche of the facility would not be released until the completion of the third review.
The government of NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who won the September presidential election narrowly with just 42 per cent of the vote, claims the CEB privatisation was against the mandate of the new president.
This was the second reform policy reversal indicated by the NPP government following the announcement not to privatise the national carrier Sri Lankan Airlines.
Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.
Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security, retired SDIG Ravi Seneviratne, had transferred a senior police officer who was conducting a probe into his alleged failure to act on an intelligence warning to prevent the Easter Sunday carnage (2019), former MP Udaya Gammanpila, said yesterday.
Addressing a media conference, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya Leader Gammanpila said former DIG Palitha Siriwardena had complained to the then IGP C. D. Wickramaratne that the Easter Sunday attacks had resulted from the dereliction of duty on the part of SDIG Seneviratne, and called for legal action against him (Seneviratne).
IGP Wickramaratne had assigned Chief Inspector (CI) Induka de Silva to investigate the complaint against Seneviratne, Gammanpila added.
Gammanpila said: In March 2022, Seneviratne submitted a petition seeking a court order to prevent the CID from arresting him. In his statement, he claimed that on 10 Feb. 2022, he had become aware that Chief Inspector Lalitha Dissanayake had filed a ‘B’ report, alleging that ‘serious omissions by Seneviratne and former CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekara had led to the Easter Sunday attacks’. Seneviratne claimed that respondents were attempting to falsely implicate him by initiating a biased, unlawful, and unreasonable investigation, based on an anonymous petition that accused him of neglecting his duties in respect of investigations into the National Thowheed Jama’ath.”
Regardless of the ongoing investigation and legal issue, the JVP/NPP government had appointed Seneviratne the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security, said Gammanpila. CI Induka de Silva continued his investigation and Seneviratne transferred him to the police HQ,” Gammanpila said, noting that Seneviratne was now in a position to suppress the probe against him.
Gammanpila challenged Minister Vijitha Herath to a debate on national security and public debt.
Our attempts to contact Seneviratne for comment yesterday were in vain as he did not answer his telephone.
Colombo, November 05 (Daily Mirror) – A tense situation arose between the security officers of Pastor Jerome Fernando and villagers of Nawalapitiya when Jerome arrived in the area to oversee the construction of a rehabilitation centre for children.
Villagers claimed that he was planning to build a religious facility instead.
The police had to intervene to bring the situation under control. Amid massive protests, Pastor Jerome left the scene.
Sri Lanka’s development policy included state-sponsored colonization schemes which transferred people from the densely populated wet zone to the sparsely populated areas of the dry zone. The places best suited to such colonization schemes were located in the north and east of the island. These provinces were the least populated, the land was suitable for agriculture and there were rivers than could be dammed.
These colonization schemes had a dual purpose. They helped ease the acute land hunger of an expanding population, now well beyond the carriage rate for the island. They also opened up vacant land for agriculture. The first colonization schemes concentrated exclusively on paddy cultivation, but the later schemes included agro industries .The reservoirs were used to generate hydro-electricity as well as provide water for irrigation.
Sri Lanka was very proud of itsstate-sponsored colonization schemes. They were intended for national development. The first colonization scheme was at Kantale in 1948 (Trincomalee district), then Gal Oya in 1949 ( Batticaloa ) Allai 1953 ( Trincomalee ) Padaviya 1958, ( Anuradhapura ) Morawewa 1960( Trincomalee ), Weli Oya 1984 ( Mullaitivu ) and Yan Oya2012 in progress ( Trincomalee).
Tamil Separatist Movement vehemently objected to state aided colonization schemes. Tamil settlers considered the north and east to be exclusively theirs. They feared the arrival of the Sinhalese and saw these colonization schemes as a threat to Settler Colonization.
The main strategy of Settler colonialism is to somehow get exclusive possession of sovereign territory, usually by chasing away its original occupants, then sit down on that land and refuse to budge. State aided colonization schemes were a threat to this strategy.Settler colonialism is not interested in national development, only in consolidating its own position.
The Tamil separatist movement has opposed the Sinhala colonization of ‘Tamil lands’ at every opportunity. At the 4th annual convention, 1956, the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) resolved that “colonization, policies pursued by successive governments since 1947 of planting Sinhalese population in the traditional homeland of the Tamil speaking people is calculated to overwhelm and crush the Tamil speaking people in their own national areas.’
The Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact of 1957 had a specific Clause that the Regional Councils shall have the power to select allottees for colonization schemes in the Region. And the Resolution passed at the 5th National Convention of the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi, in 1957 declared: State aided Sinhalese colonization of the Northern and Eastern provinces will be effectively stopped forthwith.”
TULF Manifesto, 1977, stated that the territory from Chilaw through Puttalam to Mannar, up to the Jaffna Peninsula and then past Trincomalee and Batticaloa down to Kumana, and the Kumbukkan Oya, were ‘firmly established as the exclusive homeland of the Tamils. This is the territory of Tamil Eelam.”
Tamil Separatist Movement knows that its position in Sri Lanka is very shaky. The Tamil settlers do not have their own declared state in Sri Lanka. Nor do they have a long history of settler residence in Sri Lanka .They only came in the late 19th century and they are settled in two artificial provinces created by the British, the Northern and Eastern provinces, with arbitrary boundaries.
The homeland” assertion of the Tamil Separatist Movement has been laughed at and dismissed.Critics wanted to know whether any other ethnic group has two homelands, one in India and another in Sri Lanka. KM de Silva in his ‘Traditional homelands of the Tamils’ has squashed the historical claims of the Tamils. G. H. Peiris has demolished the demographical claims.
The government took no notice of the Tamil protests. It continued with its colonization schemes. It is the duty of a government to utilize the resources of a country, including land, in the greater interest of the total population, the government said. The government also said that does not recognize the division of land on an ethnic basis and there can be no restrictions on internal migration in a democratic society.
The UN supports this view. UN repeatedly affirms the right to freedom of movement and residence within the border of the state. Article 13 of the UN Declaration of Human rights, (1948) says everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
UN resolution 1803(XVII) of 14.12.1962, to which Sri Lanka is a signatory states that the ‘right of peoples and nations to permanent sovereignty over their natural wealth and resources must be exercised in the interest of their national development”
Article 12 of the International covenant on Civil and Political rights (1966) says Everyone lawfully within the territory of a State shall, within that territory, have the liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence. .
Article 5d (i) of the International convention on the Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (1969) said signatories undertake to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to ethnic origin, the right to freedom of movement and residence within the border of the State.
Population density also had to be considered when selecting lands for Colonisation schemes. The government found that the Northern Province had the most space. It was the least populated. Census 2012 showed that Mullaitivu, Mannar, Killinochchi, Vavuniya, had low populations. The population density of 38 persons per square kilometer in Mullaitivu is the lowest density recorded in 2012. Populating density in Eastern Province was also low, 60 persons per square kilometer. Therefore the colonization schemes were located in the north and east.
Census of Sri Lanka 2012 showed that 5% (1,061,315) of the total population of Sri Lanka live in the Northern Province. Vavuniya had a total population of 171,511, of which 82% were Tamil, 10.2% were Sinhala. Kilinochchi had total population of 113,510 of which 97% Tamil, 0.85 Sinhala. Mullaitivu had had total population of 91,947 of which 86% Tamil, 9.63% Sinhala.
The outrageous notion of an ‘ethnic compact’ was invoked on behalf of the Tamil settlers. It was suggested that land settlement should not disturb the existing ethnic ratio. A Marga Institute study, Inter racial equity and national unity” (Marga 1985) suggested that ‘settlement policies should take into account the ethnic balance of the region in which settlements are taking place. New settlements should not significantly alter the ethnic balance in that district. There should be agreement on the ‘tolerance limits’ of any changes in ethnic balance.[1]
Critics responded. There is no such thing as an ethnic compact regarding land, they said. Land is a national resource. The request is outrageous. It should not be entertained. Agreeing to ethnic quotas would mean accepting that ethnic priorities mustbe respected in all land settlement projects.
It is reported, from a Tamil source, not an official one, that the Mahaweli Development Scheme used the national ethnic ratio. Mahaweli land, it said is distributed according to the all island ethnic ratio. The Provincial Councils have no say and 96% of the beneficiaries have been Sinhalese, moaned Tamilnet. [2]
However, in the 1980s, the Mahadiulwewa colonisation scheme, Morawewa recognised the ethnic ratio of the district. The Mahadiulwewa project was historic because it was decided that for a medium scale project, settlement should reflect the ethnic ratio in the district in which the project was located. This was the first time such a policy had been enunciated, said Jayatissa Bandaragoda. A land Kachcheri was held, the selection made and the selected allottees informed. Most were landless chena cultivators, who had been living in the project area for a long time. [3](Continued)
[1] ‘Inter-racial equity and national unity in Sri Lanka’ p 14, 41
Tamil Separatist Movement was highly critical of the state colonization schemes of the 1950s. They were not in the least interested in the development aspect of the schemes, only on the impact of Sinhala settlements on their precious Eelam.
Tamil Separatist Movement charged that the colonization schemes, from the very beginning, were intended to Sinhalise the north and east, not develop the country. Ever since independence it has been the policy of both the UNP and the SLFP to undertake state aided Sinhala colonization schemes with the sole aim of altering the demographic profile of Northeast, said V. Thangavelu. [1]
Irrigation schemes such as Allai, Kantale and others in 1950s and 60s saw old tanks restored, new tanks constructed, and forests cleared to give land to landless peasants. These became instruments used for Sinhalisation of the district, said Oakland Institute, repeating what it was told.[2]
The objective of the government is to break the continuity between the Northern and Eastern Provinces. . That is why the Padaviya and Allai schemes were started on the northern and southern sides of their districts observed UTHR.[3]
There was a substantial increase of Sinhalese population in Tamil districts, especially in the Eastern Province, due to the aggressive policy of settling thousands of Sinhalese in Tamil districts by the government, said C. Manogaran.[4]
It is estimated that almost a quarter of the island’s population was moved from the Wet Zone to the Dry Zone between 1946 and 1971, under peasant colonization schemes. These colonization schemes drastically altered the ethnic composition of Tamil provinces, Manogaran continued.
Comparison of the ethnic composition of the administrative districts for the census years 1881 and 1981 indicates that, Sinhalese population had increased substantially in the Ampara, Trincomalee, and Vavuniya districts. In the Amparai District, Sinhalese population increased from 7.0% to 38%, while the Tamil population declined from 37.0% to 20.0% between 1911 and 1981, said Manogaran
The rise in Sinhalese population between 1953 & 1963 was due mainly to the Allai and Kantale schemes and from 1963-1971 to Morawewa scheme. Padavi Siripura brought in a further 14, OOO in 1981.
The Kantale and Morawewa schemes become dangerous during periods of ethnic tension. They are located on the Trincomalee – Vavuniya and Trincomalee -Kandy roads. The Allai and the Padaviya schemes cause problems on the Trincomalee-Batticaloa and Trincomalee – Mullaitivu roads said UTHR.
Kantale was a Village Headman’s division in Thampalakamam AGA’s division, in the early 190O’s. The Kantale tank irrigated the paddy fields belonging to the Thampalakamam and Kinniya farmers, said UTHR. Farmers who had worked the land for more than 30 years and cultivated about 4,000 acres of paddy were chased away without compensation, and their lands were awarded to the Sinhalese in 1954, said Oakland institute.
It is estimated that about 40,000 of the present Sinhalese population of 86,000 in the district came in as a result of the Kantale colonization scheme. The intake was 77% Sinhalese and 23% Thamil speaking. After colonization, Kantale became a separate AGA’s division with 23 Grama Sevaka divisions, said UTHR.
The Allai Scheme began by constructing an amicus across the Verugal river, a tributary of the Mahaweli Ganga. Under Allai colonization scheme 65% of the allotments were given to Sinhalese, 35% to Muslims and Thamils none, said V Thangavelu. Thangavelu was working in Trincomalee Kachcheri (1957-59) during this time.
The Koddiyar AGAs division to which Allai belonged was replaced by three divisions, Muthur, Seruvila, and a Verugal AGA’s division. Seruvila was created in the late 196O‘s and Verugal division centered on Ichchilampattai was created in the mid 198O’s.
Names were changed. Serunuvara was originally Arippu. Kallar is Somapura today. Neelapalai is now Neelapola. A part of Poonagar is called Mahindapura and Thirumangalai is now Srimangalagama.
Seruvila AGA division contained new Sinhala villages such as Dehiwatte, Lankapatuna and Pulasthigama. This division has a population of 20,187 with 17 Grama Sevaka officers divisions. 99% of the 11,665 Sinhalese living in this division were brought from the south by the government, said Thangavelu.
The restoration of Padaviya tank led to the creation of Padaviya, Padavi Parakramapura and Padavi Sripura colonization schemes. Padavi SIripura, located in Trincomalee district had a population of 11,804, almost all of them Sinhalese said UTHR in 1993.
Padaviya colonization scheme extended into Trincomalee but was administered by Anuradhapura. Land which came under Trincomalee districts was also given to the Sinhalese said Oakland Institute .
Padaviya scheme played a key role in the 1958 riots and the activities of the Land Development Department employees during the riots has been vividly described in the book Emergency ‘58 by Tarzie Vittachi.
Morawewa is the Sinhalese translation of the Tamil word Mudalikulam, said UTHR. Morawewa tank was earlier under Katukulampattu East, which included the present Kuchaveli division. In 1961 a colonization scheme was started at Morawewa tank, 24 km west of the Trincomalee town. This scheme included Tamils as beneficiaries, said UTHR. Allotments were made on a proportionate basis, confirmed Thangavelu, but subsequent violence directed against Thamil settlers on a regular basis by Sinhalese forced many Thamils to evacuate.
A new AGA’s division was created in the early 1970s for Morawewa. Morawewa AGA’s Division has a population of 9271 and 10 Grama Sevaka officers divisions. The Sinhalese constitute 56% of the total population while the Tamils constitute 37%. A considerable percentage of the present population of 5101 Sinhalese in the Morawewa are outsiders, said UTHR in 1992.
In the late 60s the government started an Air Force farm near the headworks at Morawewa. Tamils became subject to small scale attacks by air force men and Sinhalese hooligans. The largest number of killings of Tamils took place along the Anuradhapura Road and the matter was raised in Parliament. This was the first instance in the island of the forces being stationed permanently in the middle of an agricultural scheme. The proportion of Tamils kept falling, said UTHR. With the violence of the 8Os the gradual displacement of Thamils became a total retreat said Thangavelu.
In the 1980s, the Mahadiulwewa colonisation scheme was begun in the Morawewa AGA’s Division. More Sinhalese were brought in under this scheme and their proportion rose to 56%, said UTHR.
The Mahadiulwewa project was historic because it was decided that settlement should reflect the ethnic ratio in the district where the project was located. [5] This was the first time such a policy had been enunciated. A land Kachcheri was held, the selection made and the selected allottees informed. Most were landless chena cultivators, who had been living in the project area for a long time.
Then an objection was raised by MP for Trincomalee that persons from Trincomalee should also have been selected. However, the selection already made could not be altered for legal reasons. It was suggested that the blocking out plan could be redrawn to increase the number of allotments by reducing the area allocated to an allotment.
Gamini Dissanayake, Minster for Mahaweli, accompanied by NGP Panditeratne and Gamini Iriyagolle, came to investigate. Amirthalingam and Sampanthan were present. I also participated at this unprecedented meeting, said Jayatissa Bandaragoda. It was agreed that applicants from Trincomalee should also be interviewed and selected and the final list should reflect the district’s ethnic ratio. The plan would be redrawn to include more allotments by reducing the extent of land per allotment (Continued)
On Sunday, August 4, 2024, H.E. Mr. Nadhavathna Krishnamra, Ambassador of Thailand, along with his spouse, Ms.Viphawan Benniman, Minister and embassy officials, participated in the International Buddhist Conference Academic to make the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of Das Buddhistische Haus, the first Buddhist House in Europe, at the Zehlendorf Community Hall, Berlin. The event was organized by the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Germany and the German Dharmaduta Society with the participation of by ambassadors and representatives from embassies of countries practicing Buddhism, including Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand, as well as over 40 Buddhist monks from various countries, including Thailand and 50 participants from relevant academia and general public.
The Conference involved presentations and discussions on a wide range of topics, including the profound contributions of Buddhism to global peace and unity, the motivations that led Dr. Paul Dahlke to establish Das Buddhistische Haus and his tireless efforts to spread the teachings of Buddhism in Europe, and the relevance and application of Buddhist teachings in the modern world. The Royal Thai Embassy also supported the activity with a Thai traditional dance performed by Members of the Thai community in Berlin.
Das Buddhistische Haus was established in 1924 by Dr. Paul Dahlke, a German physician who purchased land in Berlin-Frohnau to establish the “Buddhist House” to spread Buddhist teachings and purify the mind. It combined the Buddhist way of life within a Western environment. Later, Mr. Asoka Weeraratna, the founder of the Lanka Dhammaduta Society (now known as the German Dharmaduta Society), purchased the property from the heirs of Dr. Paul Dahlke in 1957. He transformed it into a Buddhist vihara with monks from Sri Lanka and other countries, including Thailand.
Education Minister Anders Adlercreutz (SPP) told Yle News he wants to take that step. If his legislation is approved by parliament, high schools would be in a position to begin offering a curriculum in English by the autumn of 2026
Education minister “confident” Finland will introduce English-language matriculation exam by 2028
The upper secondary exam is currently only available in Finnish or Swedish, but there has been growing demand to offer some high school students the option of taking it in English.
The matriculation exam, which high school students take at the end of their studies, is currently only available in Finnish or Swedish. Image: Henrietta Hassinen / Yle
Ronan Browne
4.11. 6:02
Could some high school seniors don their white graduation caps in the future after taking the matriculation exam in English?
If it comes to fruition, a proposal now going through parliament could see an expansion in English-language high school provision by 2026 in some cities.
That would resolve a key issue in the education of kids from mixed or foreign backgrounds, who can go through the Finnish schooling system in English up until the age of 16 — but face drastically reduced options at that stage.
The first step in expanding that range of options is making sure they will be allowed to take the matriculation exam from Upper Secondary school in English.
Education Minister Anders Adlercreutz (SPP) told Yle News he wants to take that step. If his legislation is approved by parliament, high schools would be in a position to begin offering a curriculum in English by the autumn of 2026, and the first-ever matriculation exam in English would be available two years later — by the autumn of 2028.
Express Your Opinion – Read What Others Say! The Independent Interactive Voice of Sri Lanka on the Internet.
India’s central bank – the RBI – has announced that it secretly repatriated around 102 tonnes of gold stored in the Bank of England vaults. The gold, which is part of the RBI’s reserves, had been pledged in London during the 1990s financial crisis. Why did the RBI decide to bring it back? Palki Sharma tells you.
When I wrote Will SL govt. do better than the UK Labour administration?” (The Island, 18 October), I never imagined that there would be the need for a follow-up anytime soon but, as it happens, a downward spiral seems to have started already and cracks are appearing in the new administration of Sri Lanka. On top of the fracas about the Easter Sunday bomb attack probes, the pretty mask of the NPP, which won votes from even those sceptical about the JVP, seems to be coming off revealing the real JVP underneath.
Many who supported Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) to win the presidency, in the belief that he was a true democrat committed to changing the political culture of Sri Lanka, would have been surprised and felt let down when AKD said at a public rally that there was no need for an Opposition and Parliament should be filled with only NPP members. For sceptics, that call came as no surprise at all, as the JVP is showing its true colours as a Marxist party. Afterall, they believe in the dictatorship of the proletariat!
Worse still is the fracas about the two committees set up by the then President Ranil Wickremesinghe to investigate two aspects of the Easter Sunday bomb attacks. The reports have cast doubts about the judgement of the president and his two ministers responsible for appointing to high positions two retired senior police officers, who are found to have neglected their duties by one of the committees. These two police officers—one arrested last October after crashing his jeep on to a tourist bus and a car, presumably due to inebriation and the other exposed by Ranjan Ramanayake’s audio recordings of telephone conversations—actively campaigned for the NPP.
We do not know what motivated them to play such a prominent role in the AKD presidential campaign; maybe it was because they were convinced by the policies of AKD or maybe they joined the winning side to get into positions of power or may be even avoid being charged with dereliction of duty while they were in the CID. Whatever it is, they got more than adequately rewarded and seem well protected as Minister Vijitha Herath has declared that they would not be removed under any circumstances. His skewed logic is well exposed and heavily criticized in the editorial Probe reports, skewed logic and emerging threats” (The Island, 24 October)
Salvos fired by the veteran politician, Udaya Gammanpila, and the awkward responses, not only from the government but also from the Catholic Church are well analysed in two previous Island editorials; ‘Mastermind at large; Udaya in crosshairs’ on 21st October and ‘Of that damning report’ on 22nd October. Gammanpila claimed that he was in possession of two reports; one headed by former Justice S. A. Imam, who was tasked with probing some allegations UK Channel-4 levelled against Sri Lanka’s military intelligence in respect of the Easter Sunday carnage and the other, chaired by former judge A. N. J. de Alwis, whose purview was to inquire into intelligence coordination and investigative processes related to the Easter Sunday bombings. Gammanpila challenged the government to release these reports and Minister Herath threw a counter-challenge and issued a veiled threat of legal action.
When Gammanpila released the Alwis committee report, as he said he would, on 21 October, Minister Herath’s response was that they rejected the report, which is puzzling. What one would have expected a government that came to power on the promises of transparency and elimination of corruption to publish the report in keeping with their demand whilst being in the Opposition. Interestingly, initially it was the spokesman of the Catholic church, Father C G Fernando, who gave the reason: that Justice Alwis had conflict of interest as her brother had been disciplined by the two police officers concerned and, subsequently Minister Herath carried out a personal attack on her. Why weren’t those objections raised, if valid, when she was appointed? And, why did her critics wait until they found the committee report was critical of their two favourite ex-cops! Is this good governance that was promised?
Gammanpila released the Imam report 28 October, and one wonders what Father Fernando, who lamented about the loss of that report at a book launch on 01 October, has got to say? Meanwhile, JVP supporters have mounted a massive social media campaign ridiculing Gammanpila. Perhaps, it is the shape of things to come!
Interestingly, at a ceremony held at one of the affected sites, St. Sebastian’s church in Katuwapitiya, conducted by Cardinal Ranjith, President AKD was questioned emotionally by a bereaved mother/wife what action the government was planning to take. His response was that as he was not a judicial officer, he would leave it to the judiciary to take action. As there is an element of doubt, for the sake of the promised transparency and eradication of corruption, he should get the Attorney General to file action against these two officers, as recommended in the Alwis report. If they are cleared by the judiciary, then they can resume their jobs. This would help prevent embarrassment for the government. It looks as if the new government is unaware of the dictum Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done”.
Then came the sudden issue of the US travel advisory. The government’s response that it had been aware of the threat and had already taken action, seemed an excuse. Had the government liaised with the foreign diplomats, a less damaging advisory could have been issued as the way they had been issued is likely to damage the tourist sector which is reviving. Of course, it is quite possible that this was done purposely, as it was issued the day after the government announced that it had signed the resolution, spearheaded by Chile, supporting the UN Secretary General who had been declared a persona non grata by Israel. If so, the government is heading for a very turbulent period engineered by foreign viceroys!
The credibility of the government is falling fast as they seem to be doing just the opposite of what its leaders preached while they were in the opposition.
The Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) yesterday (03) dismissed Sarvajana Balaya claim that it had reached a post-general election understanding with the NPP government on the setting up of a federal structure in the Northern and Eastern Provinces and the inclusion of ITAK frontliner M. A. Sumanthiran, PC, in President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s cabinet as the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
A senior party spokesperson said so when The Island sought the ITAK response to Sarvajana Balaya Colombo District candidate Udaya Gammanpila’s recent accusations regarding a clandestine agreement between the two parties. We wouldn’t have responded to Gammanpila’s baseless claim on our own,” the official said, alleging that this was nothing but the former Minister’s figment of imagination.
Sumanthiran is contesting Jaffna on the ITAK list under the ‘House’ symbol.
Attorney-at-law Gammanpila also alleged that the government had reinstated SSP Shani Abeysekera and brought in retired Senior DIG Ravi Seneviratne as Secretary to the Public Security Ministry to kick-start investigations in terms of the Geneva accountability resolution adopted in 2015.
Another ITAK source pointed out that they had not accepted ministerial portfolios during the Yahapalanaya administration (2015-2019) though it backed the government. Obviously, a blatant lie was being propagated ahead of the General Election scheduled to be held in less than two weeks,”
he said. In fact, at every national election since the end of the war in May 2009, various interested parties alleged secret agreements between the ITAK and the party in power, the ITAK source said.ITAK is contesting on its own in Jaffna, Vanni, Batticaloa and Digamadulla districts whereas ITAK and Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA) fielded a joint team in Trincomalee. The DTNA consists of former ITAK-led TNA members EPRLF, TELO and PLOTE. DTNA is in the fray under the Conch’ symbol.
ITAK sources said such unsubstantiated allegations wouldn’t have a negative impact on their election
Parliament consists of 196 elected and 29 appointed members. ITAK sources said they were confident of securing the majority of seats from the five northern and eastern electoral districts. Of the 29 elected from Jaffna (07), Vanni (06), Batticaloa (5), Digamadulla (07) and Trincomalee (04), we would definitely have the majority, they said.
In the last Parliament, five Tamil political parties shared 16 seats, including National List slots with the ITAK-led TNA having 10 seats.
Gammanpila accused the NPP of having reached a secret understanding with the ITAK in the wake of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake meeting S. Sritharan of the ITAK and EPDP’s Douglas Devananda.
President Dissanayake is on record as having said that after the NPP’s triumph in the presidential election Tamil political parties were under pressure from voters to work with the government.
Colombo, November 04 (Daily Mirror)- NPP member Tilvin Silva refuted making any allegations of hidden money in Uganda, while saying that such claims were made by the SJBers.
He told a news conference that it was the NPP which said the so-called containers of US Dollars were printed here and taken to Uganda.
“We did not say any Uganda story. It was the SJBers who said that. We said those days that there could be hidden money in Uganda and other countries. We said the alleged containers full of dollars were printed here and taken to Uganda. Their policy is that they themselves utter lies and say those lies were uttered by us,” he said.
The Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing(Marketing Department)
My desk at Tripoli Market had three telephones. Tripoli Market was a very large hanger, perhaps the largest hanger fixed by the British Armed Forces during the Second World War, taken over by the Marketing Department where the headquarters of the vegetable and fruit marketing scheme was housed. This was in 1957 when there were no hand phones and it was even difficult to get a phone connection. It was rare for three telephones to sit on a single table, but so it was and they always rang- at times two or all three at the same time from all directions and often Divisional Marketing Officer Livera rushed in to help.
There were fifteen Assistant Commissioners in all parts of the island and around thirty five or more Marketing Officers purchasing vegetables at fairs all over the island every day. They were all active workers whose day on at least four days in the week started at around four in the morning. That was to be at the fairs that began early in the morning by five or six. The Marketing Officers, with a lorry or two, with weighing scales and a few Assistants were active in purchasing; they . were required to purchase in competition with the traders..
In charge of the Vegetable and Fruit Marketing Scheme at Tripoli Headquarters I had a senior Marketing Officer at the Wholesale Vegetable Market in Colombo. His task was to see what quantities came in and to find the prices at which the wholesalers sold their produce. This was actually a listening exercise, listening to people buying and the wholesalers quoting prices. These had to be kept in the head and reported to me on the phone. The Marketing Officers at the fairs would also report the prices at which the traders bought and me- my task was to fix the buying prices for all our units in the entire island- prices that had to be always above the prices at which traders bought the produce at the fairs. The idea was to enable the producers to get a high price. That was always a difficult exercise- however we got used to it. If the COPE were now to inquire about how I decided the purchasing prices- I would find it difficult to explain because the system had no rules to follow. It was based on hind sight, flash decisions based on information that poured in every minute, more kept in my head, never written down. There was no time to write it down as within a flash another telephone call came in or a problem occurred in one of the sections that accepted goods and I had to be eternally on the move..
The guideline of the Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing was firm and definite- offer a higher price to the producer, always higher than the prices offered by the traders and simultaneously fix selling prices as low as possible- keeping a margin of around fifteen to twenty percent to cover up wastage and handling. The aim was to get the traders who purchased goods at the Fairs to offer higher prices and simultaneously to offer the goods at cheap rates in some fifty or more small sales outlets all over the City of Colombo and in other main cities.. That compelled city traders too to offer goods at competitive rates. We were compelling all private shops sell at low rates
Tripoli Market was the hub that ran the country’s purchasing and selling of vegetables and fruits. Twenty or more rail wagons and the same number or more lorries would roll in every morning. Many producers in Colombo would also bring in some veg and fruits that were bought and put up for sale. Veg and fruit . were being unloaded, weighed, sifted and repacked and sent off in minutes to around fifty small sales shops of our own for sale- at rock bottom prices- generally fifteen percent over the buying price. At the sales units the good were whopped up by people. The rock bottom prices made the private retailers too to sell at low rates, otherwise there will be no buyers. That entirety was aimed at controlling inflation, caused by traders fixing high prices. This was a method I have never seen anywhere else in my world wide travels in the USA, UK, Europe, Canada, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico —etc.
It was all done under the strict eyes of the Commissioner BLW Fernando, a chartered accountant who had all eyes on every detail that did happened in the entire island. In my year at Tripoli he never turned up but knew every detail that did happen. All Assistant Commissioners were summoned for a conference in the first week of every month when the performance of every district and Tripoli Market was carefully looked into. For every unit a profit and loss had to be prepared and presented and if a loss was recorded or if the profit was over fifteen percent the Assistant Commissioner was held responsible. We got used to walking on this tight rope and on the second day of the conference all Assistant Commissioners were invited to dinner at the Commissioner’s residence.
It was always a hive of activity. The telephone will ring eternally.
It was once a call from the Marketing Officer who had gone to the Hanguranketa Fair. He was expected to buy around two thousand pounds of tomatoes- the amount that was essential for our shops.
There is an enormous amount of tomatoes. Traders will buy some and the rest will go waste.”
How many lorry loads?”
Around Four.”
Hold the line.” I said, dropped the phone on the table and grabbed the other telephone.
Fonseka, can you get me three lorries now.”
Fonseka the Transport Officer said yes. I could depend on Fonseka. He had some one hundred or more lorries in good order.
Get the three lorries to go to the Hanguranketa Fair straight away.”
Then back to the Marketing Officer at Hanguranketa,
Buy everything. Three lorries will leave in minutes . They will roll in some four hours. Do you have enough cash to pay.”
Hardly sufficient.”.
I dropped the phone again, grabbed another phone and dialled the Assistant Commissioner in Kandy.
Your Marketiing Officer at Hanguranketa Fair is purchasing all the tomatoes- three lorry loads- lorries are on their way from Colombo. The Marketing Officer needs cash send cash now.”
I spoke back to the officer at Hanguranketa, I phoned the AC at Kandy. He will send you cash which will get to you in around an hour.”
Then a call to our Canning Factory at Narahenpita.
Three lorry loads of tomatoes will come by day break. ”.
It was lucky to be tomatoes as the Canning Factory could make it into Tomatoe Sauce and Juice.
That was the end of an episode and similar episodes were many; before one had the time to write down the phones rang again. This time it was the Assistant Commissioner at Jaffna,
Instead of the normal five waggon loads of Red Onions, I am increasing it to ten waggon loads per day. This will go on for at least a month. I have to buy red onions-there is a bumper crop and I have to clear my stores. .”
OK done.” I dropped the phone, called Adhikari, another Marketing Officer.
We will be getting ten waggon loads of Red Onions from tomorrow morning. Increase the amount of red onions to each shop from now and get five lorries ready to do van sales of red onions. We will fix a rock bottom price tomorrow morning. Get Fonseka to have the lorries ready. Find the men. Tell them that they have to work selling till late at night till the entire stock is sold.”
In the meantime a known party- a mother and a daughter came in to purchase vegetables. I greeted them offered the mother a seat and offered my seat to the daughter. It was a revolving chair and she looked delighted. Revolving chairs were rear those days. I called one of the Assistant Managers and asked him to attend to their request-purchases. .A message came from one of the sections inside and I rushed out. Before I could reach that section an officer comes chasing behind me,
Sir, a call on your phone..” from London.
I rushed back, found Divisional Marketing Officer Livera and told him to go to that section to which I was going. Back in my room, I grabbed the phone.
It was Tikka, Oswald Tilekeratne the Assistant Commissioner who had gone to Europe- his task was to find buyers for our pineapples.
I have clinched a large order for pineapple pieces. Get the Factory to get going three shifts a day .We have to send off a thousand tins next week to London.” In Tikka’s absence I was also in charge of the Cannery.
I phoned Pathmaperuma, at the Cannery told of the order and instructed him to get three shifts- 24 hour working from the next day on pineapple pieces..
The phones would go on sounding for ever, and people would come buying, friends dropping in to buy and that was an unending story till I clocked off somewhere at around six though I should I had been away by five.
Two years later I was stationed at Ambalantota. Covering all activities in the Southern Province. It was the red onion season when waggon loads of red onions purchased from producers in Jaffna and would be loaded and despatched all over to Galle in the south, to Tripoli Market, to Kandy, to Badulla and everywhere where the Railways went. It was a task for the Assistant Commissioners to get sales done. I was stationed at Ambalantota and Galle was handled by a Divisional Marketing Officer.
One day I had been to our Shop and stores in Galle and they had cleared all the waggon loads of red onions in time and were actively selling at retail prices to the people and at wholesale prices to shops. I casually dropped in at some private shops and saw them too selling red onions. I was satisfied that red onions were available to people and drove back to Ambalantota and slept. That was my day’s task. The next morning as I sat at my desk, a telegram was delivered. All urgent messages were then telegraphed. The phone at my desk never worked. It took at least two hours to get a call. I had to wind it to the postmaster and I could get a connection in at times an hour or two. The telegram said; Member of Parliament for Galle Dahanayake complains to the Minister that there are no red onions for sale in Galle shops. Investigate and report”. I was angry. This was false. But I had to take action. I left for Galle at once racing along as fast as my Peugeot 203 would take me. I raided my shop and found them selling red onions and found the store full, like what I saw the earlier day. Then I went to many private shops to observe whether they had onions and they were selling onions briskly. I then went to meet the member of parliament that had complained, Mr Dahanayake. It was around six and I went to his residence. He was not in. I was offered a seat and I waited. It was a long wait. He came in at around ten and inquired why I was there,
‘Sir, you reported to the Minister that my shop did not have red onions and that there is a shortage in Galle and I got a telegram. I was in Galle yesterday and have been to shops mine and private shops and all have red onions for sale.”
, Mr Dahanayake did not answer at once. He was rolling his eyes.
You should have informed me first if there is a shortage.” I added.
Yesterday one of my supporters came and said that there are no red onions for sale in the shops and to satisfy him I sent a telegram. I have to keep my supporters happy as I face an election next year and I need them. ”
But my boss will have a poor opinion of my work. It will be a black mark. There is never a shortage. I am here every week checking the situation and there never was a shortage.”
What you say is true. I will inform the Minister of the circumstances why I sent that telegram. You need not worry.”
That was all. I drove back to Ambalantota by night reaching there by about four in the morning.
I was late to get to my office. I never heard from Head Office again about this complaint. Mr Dahanayakae had kept his word to contact the Minister. That episode ended.
We Assistant Commissioners were on pins. We had vast areas to cover and had to be everywhere to ensure that marketing officers were purchasing properly and despatching vegetables and fruits.
An important task was to meet main producers and advising them about what varieties to grow.
Another aspect was our fifty or more small shops in Colombo that were stocked with vegetables and fruits several times a day. In addition the shops were full of essentials- sugar, flour, dhall, red chillies had to be there- that was the method to ensure that the traders did not sell at increased prices. This was a shrewd method of making all the private shops sell at reasonable prices. If they sold at high prices people will come to our shops and buy and the traders would not have any sales. There were no hordes of inspectors prying whether the traders sold at high prices. No cases of prosecutions in courts. Our MD shops will full stocks was a deterrent- it ensured that the traders automatically fell in line, selling at reasonable prices.
That was in a nutshell the working of the Marketing Department, It began in the days of our founding father DS and continued to serve the producers by making traders buy from them at reasonable rates and also staved off high prices against inflation without resorting to prosecutions etc. The first Commissioner was an English member of the Civil Service R.H. Basset. It was perhaps the idea of Basset, varied by our founding father DS, whose imprint is there on the sands of time.
This Marketing Scheme was lost as the IMF axed the Marketing Department with the rule that the Government was not to attend to any commercial activities. That was the Structural Adjustment Programme forced upon us when President Jayawardena sought financial assistance in 1977.
The ethos of the Marketing Department system was not to supplant the private sector, but to influence the private sector traders to offer higher prices to the producers and also influence the retailers in the cities to sell at low rates. It was a system built up in Sri lanka and found in Sri lanka only.
It was a great department which has to be brought back- with its Cannery that made Sri Lanka self sufficient an all jam and juice within the three years 1955 to 1958. Recently it was flashed that the farmers in Mahaweli had no sales for their crop of pumpkin. In the days of the Marketing Department lorries would have rolled and the Red Pumpkin would have become Golden Mellow Jam at the Cannery. It is important to note that the Cannery established in 1956 made Sri Lanka self sufficient in all fruit products- jam jelly and juice within three years 1956 to 1958,
The Marketing Department is a development system that needs to be brought back to serve our producers and consumers.
Over to our new leader, President Anura Dissanayake for kind consideration.
‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’
e-Con e-News 27 October – 02 November 2024
History is a joker who slaps us awake while its paid-up historians (anaesthetists, really) try to dope us asleep. Yet history is also recorded in our muscles & memories. More & more Sri Lankans are forced out of the country to seek more dollared work. The state keeps being obstructed from enabling skilled employment. We end up having to contend with the wage slavemasters of the world. And history, if we do not recognize it, wishes us to turn the other cheek, to give us another slap.
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One candidate for next week’s s/election for President in the USA – the most powerful imperialist state the world has ever known – turns out to be the child of parents both linked to the profiteers off England’s slave trading from Africa, and from India. Linking the 17th-21st centuries, chattel to indentured to wage slave, Atlantic to Indian Ocean – this ee awakens us to a future we can’t refuse.
Trafficking in labor, free and unfree, remains the most lucrative capitalist industry, more profitable than weapons & opium. Its roots pierce deep into our bodies. Our failure to track it, trips us. What they are deliberately showing us of Gaza, is also of their ‘settler success’ stories through genocide. Chattel slavery came next. Indenture, after that…
This ee examines the ‘coolie trade’ out of South India, and the great machinery that arose from it for the displacement & recruitment & exploitation of workers. We also look at the consequences of imposing a plantation system & ‘alien’ workforce on the peasants & workers of Sri Lanka.
One of the favorite top-of-the-pops songs of our economists is the laziness of Sinhala workers, and their riotous indiscipline. The English called the Tamil worker in India lazy too, but miraculous baptism in the cool waters of the Palk Strait scrubbed them diligent in Sri Lanka. Another favorite pop-song has been to play plantation workers against rural workers, whose lands were stolen for the plantations. Land acknowledgements are the latest fad in white settler countries. But no such acknowledgement is forthcoming here.
The plantation economy, like some crippling dye, corrodes and shrivels the rest of the body politic. The JVP was charged at one time of wishing to uproot and fling the tea bushes into the Arabian Sea. Indeed, if we really wish to root out so-called ‘corruption’, we could first haul up English multinationals Unilever and Ceylon Tobacco Co, and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI-CIC). We could invite the Congo to join in the trial (the biggest funder of the butcher Leopold was William Lever of Lever Bros fame) and maybe invite Zimbabwe to sue CTC. Let us examine, where their profits have gone, and into what?
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As this ee Focus recalls, indentured populations have helped colonial government to expand territory. The power of the multinationals to pay plantation workers the most minimum of wages has also operated as a brake on the rest of wages in the economy. Colombo’s rich do not have to venture far to encounter this phenomenon. Look at the terms & conditions under which supermarket workers are employed, by Keells & Cargills etc. See which villages these workers hail from? Foolish is the employer who does not play ex-plantation workers against urban worker, and vice-versa. Then again such is the nature of an economy dependent on exporting raw materials and low-level assembly of garments & electronics, plucking tea, serving tourists. As SBD de Silva (to whom this blog is dedicated) pointed out:
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The predominance of labour-intensive sectors of production, in which
any given wage increase has a substantial impact on production costs,
also makes employers more averse to granting wage increases…
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So why are we not permitted to perambulate beyond the ‘labor intensive’ to the ‘capital intensive’? Instead, we are destined to be relegated to the media’s fake ‘manufacturing’ and ‘assembly’ as ‘industry’. Meanwhile most of Sri Lanka’s so-called art ‘industry’ extols handicraft etc – acts amounting to quasi-necrophilia – fornicating with the half dead. The Sunday Times has an almost regular paean to such ancient acts, like this:
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‘Ruk Kala: Preserving traditional wood carving in a modern world’
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These features are usually accompanied by a photo of a long-bearded, bald, thickly bespectacled sarong-wearing shirtless hairy-chested denizen amidst ancient tools. Who made those tools? What happened to those makers of tools? Dripping with the melodrama of dubious despair, we are told, this ‘art’ is facing ‘growing pressure from mass production & modern manufacturing’. Oh really? Since when? So, what does the Sunday Times propose we do about it? Nothing. Weep and turn the page. Judging from their glossy 4-color ‘Education’ supplement – the weightiest of their news sections – we should all get the hell of out of town, posing as ‘foreign students’ to deliver almost-frozen burgers in the freezing subarctic (see ee Random Notes, Canada Restricts Brown Immigration?)
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• The white man never hands over ‘aid’ without the alms-getting beggar having to endure severe sermons. The US envoy, a brainwashed Korean mandu (dumpling), who apparently has to pay out a lot of dollars to keep her photo & name & dire wardrobe in the news, informed us once again this week that ‘transparency & governance reforms’ are ‘key to attracting manufacturers to Sri Lanka’. And who are these manufacturers? The Indiana-based Shield Co wishes to shift its seatbelt factory from China to Sri Lanka – ‘a testament to the growing interest of US investment in Sri Lanka’. Really? And why is this? What skills will they impart? No idea? Instead:
‘The USA is already the largest export market for Sri Lanka…
From boosting farmers’ crop yields to, expanding the school lunch
program to address the urban poor in Colombo, to strengthening
Sri Lanka’s maritime security, our collaboration is driven by a common vision.’
Really! And what, pray, is this vision? Will we make the machines that make seatbelts, or even a button? Will our vision keep being blinded by further largesse?
As a local ‘assembler’ of seatbelt-related accessories, Rohan Pallewatta pointed out about Toyota, there are certain operations modern industrialists will not outsource ‘to a labour-intensive countrysuch as Sri Lanka’. Any outsourcing needed the approval of the Automobile Association of Japan (see ee 16 Oct 2021).
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‘Sri Lanka’s Central Bank responds to reports of ‘money printing’.’
– AdaDerana
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‘Govt Denies Claims of New Loans & Money Printing’
– Financial Times, News1st, The Morning, The Island
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‘Sri Lanka prints Rs100billion through open market operations’
– Bellwether, EconomyNext
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Much of this week’s economic news headlines were dedicated to whether the government was secretly printing billions. The ease with which such accusations are made (rarely in a court of law), and the sheer amounts (who has seen a billion?) involved, are only meant to dish out cynicism and distrust in its wake. The JVP’s detractors argue: they are getting what they dished out. But the overall purpose is to keep preventing the government guiding investment in modern industrialization.
This is why the Central Bank has been declared ‘independent’ of the need to invest in our real independence. The World Bank, their mentor, has also always diverted local policymakers from large-scale industry and promoted ‘peasant colonization, services, & micro-entrepreneurship’ (fake cutlis-making MSMEs) instead. Meanwhile, we hear that the World-Bank funded Commercial Bank’s Chairman met the Central Bank Governors of Bangladesh & Maldivesin Washington, to check on the private bank’s investments in those countries’ industries. The Commercial Bank is supposedly Sri Lanka’s largest so-called local private bank, which gets a lot of funds from so-called development (read: imperialist state) banks.
The pseudonymous Bellwether column (see above) invokes the word ‘print’ as in ‘printing money’ 14 times in his/her recent column! Now this word ‘printing’, is a trigger word, meant to invoke profligacy, inflation, devaluation! Colonized governments like the poor are to be always accused of living beyond their means. The idea is that the state must not invest and guide the economy, but rely only on the so-called private sector. What this covert printing of money by the new administration is for – industrial investment? – is not mentioned.
Bellwether goes on to blame the ‘malnutrition of children (which led to start the Thriposha program)’ in the 1970s on ‘import controls, import substitution & price controls which created blackmarkets & hit the food production base.’ Bellwether only loves his Miss Margaret: ‘Thatcher… kept tight monetary policy, cut direct taxes, boosting individual freedoms and raised VAT.’
Indeed, if we are to remain an import-export colonial appendage of the USA, maybe Bellwether’s prognoses are the way to go. A recipe for further colonization. Bellwether is the pseudonym behind which the main columnist of the US government’s Colombo newsmonger EconomyNext hides. Bellwether echoes all the shibboleths of the Advocata Institute, & Cato Institute, thinktanks set up by the Atlas Network, founded by Exxon’s Rockefeller-funded Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) (see ee 16 March 2024: Economists in SL Echo White Atlantic’s War on the World).
So how will our children (not to mention adults) learn about the need for modern machine production? The Ministry of Education bribed by the World Bank will not tell us. We did hear this week that a ‘shift from state- to donor-funded higher education (including the World Bank & Asian Development Bank) started in Sri Lanka in the late 1990s, specifically with the 1997 educational reforms’ under the earnest Tara de Mel (now Executive Director, Bandaranaike Academy for Leadership & Public Policy, BALPP).
We are indeed confused about all the brouhaha about travel advisories & tourism. We imagine intelligence services are constantly sending each other warnings. These particular warnings came in the run up to the 16th BRICS Sunmit, and a UN resolution against the USA’s favorite parked aircraft carrier, Zionist Israel, the IMF & World Bank Annual, and that gloriously misnamed Commonwealth meeting in Samoa, again signalling virtue about reparations by non-dollar apologies! Two of these meetings the USA would have liked us to desist from? And desist we kind of did.
But was the warning a fake alert to observe and chart the chain of command in the new government’s security apparatus? Also, is tourism, really ‘local’ and an ‘industry’? Most of the profits that accrue to this tourism business always stay outside the country. We make no airplanes or ships or cars or buses to transport tourists. Iron & steel and most hotel construction material & machinery, linen and cutlery are imported. It bends backs bent by lifting over half-a-millennia of colonialism, and bends them even further, as service workers often have to do, to do what they do best – serve.
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• For Sri Lankans, elections are the number one sport, with cricket a distant number 2. So, it is said. And bookies (the turf accountants & stock exchange mavericks) are involved in both. US & European elections provide the most elaborate performances of capitalist democracy that power & money can buy. In US elections, the identity of mega rich donors are hidden, while in Sri Lanka, the USA many envoys give us lectures on transparency.
The nominally Nikkei-owned Financial Times of London portrays the US election as a battle of billionaires. Billionaires appear now to be a dime a dozen, so 5 minutes ago, etc. They even appear on unpaid television channels as ‘celebrities’ & ‘entrepreneurs’ begging for our attention. As far as we can count, zillionaires are the new trillionaires.
Financial Times lists the names of some of these billionaire donors. The Mellon bankers of Pennsylvania, a so-called swing state, are listed among Mr Trump’s biggest donors. The Mellons financed the Duponts (who sell us paint for our walls). The Duponts were 19th century refugees from 2 revolutions: in France & in Haiti. Napoleon’s rainmaker & PM, and later architect of his employer’s downfall, Charles de Talleyrand gave the Duponts the contract to make dynamite for the French in Delaware (De la War!). Delaware is now the USA’s main inland corporate tax hideout, which their demented President Biden represented. Dupont is also linked to India’s polyester prince, DhirubhaiAmbani, whose war over DMT had certain ‘side-effects’ on Sri Lanka (see ee 11 Sept 2021: How to Buy a News Editor). Yet Mellon’s Pennsylvania is all about oil, and industry. And so it turns out that the billionaires (& bankers) on both sides of this battle, are satraps of Rockefeller’s Exxon. Recall that Exxon demanded Trump change laws promoting corporate bribery before they allowed their CEO Rex Tillerson to become US Secretary of State (see ee 28 Sept 2019 – Making Made-in-Sri-Lanka)
The Mellons financed the white-supremacist ‘Black Legion’, ‘an armed anti-labor terrorist group active in the 1930s, reputedly also financed by sections of the automotive industry’ – so recalls the George Jackson, one of the theoreticians of Black liberation in the USA. Jackson was assassinated by prison officials in San Quentin prison in 1971. ee publishes excerpts of his 1971 classic Blood in My Eye, which discuss the rise of industrialization in the USA, and how it helped bring white supremacism into sharp focus for Black workers. We should recall how Europe’s WWI caused a shortage of European migrants to the Americas. Also, European workers had built unions in industrial North America and the US state responded by bringing 500,000 rural Black workers from the south to the north where they encountered about 30,000 migrants from the Caribbean.
SBD de Silva observed the relationships between the employment of Black (& migrant) workers in ‘unproductive’ sectors where automation was yet to take place. Black industrial workers, who were a considerable section of the overall working class & trade union movement, formed the core of the US Black liberation movement, whose leadership was imprisoned and killed, midst the move to offshoring, de-industrialization, dis-unionization, biological (health) & chemical (drugs, food) warfare, and imprisonment.
Half of Asia, most of Africa, almost all of Europe & the rest of the Americas, remain colonized, now under the USA. The Americas includes the Caribbean. The soil and culture of resistance is rich. The situation is as much then as now. But the world keep changing… and surprises are always brewing…
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This ee concludes our recent look at the industrial path taken by the USSR, the first socialist country in the world. 20 years after independence, by 1937 the USSR’s industrial production was first in Europe and second in the world. By 1940, the share of means of production in gross output of all industry was over 60%. In 1928, on the eve of the first 5-Year Plan, the USSR imported one-third of all its machinery. By 1940, they not only ceased to import automobiles, tractors and other agricultural machinery from the capitalist countries, but exported them.
We understand why the US Treasury and its underlings, IMF et al, have been so concerned about any lessons we may still learn from the USSR. There were many even then, Soviets, who opposed the USSR Communist Party’s path to industrializing the country. They were accused of wishing to return the USSR into ‘an agrarian appendage of imperialist countries’ – just as has been done with Sri Lanka.
The Soviet Union had to mainly rely on itself to build socialism amidst capitalist invasion, and quickly develop all the basic branches of heavy industry. They learned: ‘A large-scale machine industry is the material basis of socialism’, and ‘heavy industry is of decisive importance for building socialism’.
Meanwhile, ‘the process of industrialization in each country taking this path depends on both internal & external conditions’, as China had to learn after 1949. China did not have much industry and its agriculture was underdeveloped, ‘at a low cultural and scientific level’. China set out to ‘learn all that is genuinely good in the political, economic, scientific & technological fields and in literature & art’ from other countries.
On the other hand, as ‘a colonial & semi-colonial country’, yet ‘not an imperialist power’, who ‘was always bullied by others’, there were still in China, ‘people who, having been slaves too long, feel inferior in everything and don’t stand up straight in the presence of foreigners’.
ee therefore also concludes our recent look at the lessons China learned from the USSR, on the need to seek criticism so as to learn, and to criticize people while being aware that people have 2 sides and can correct themselves. ‘How to deal with people who have made mistakes’…
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The world consists of contradictions.
Without contradictions the world would cease to exist.
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‘Since it is easier for those who have not erred to become cocky,
they are prone to make mistakes. Let us be careful, for those
Today is 3rd November when All Saints (1st Nov) & All Souls (2nd Nov) are Peacefully-in-Slumber in Heaven when the Results of USA Elections Tumbled them from Slumber!
The Two Options – Who Wins!
1: Donald Trump Wins!
*Democrats Accept Defeat and Walks away with their Tails between their Legs!
*Kamala Harris decides to open Mc Harris Potato Fries with Spicy Indian Fish Curry chain!
*Elon Musk becomes the Globally First Trillionaire!
*Vladimir Putin Announces that he will Unilaterally Declare Cease Fire subject to Russia Keeps what Russia Won in Ukraine.
*Volodymir Zelensky retires to a Chalet in the Swiss Alps, with NATO granting him unlimited Swiss Cheese For Life!
*Israel releases one Nuclear Device to Iran, and flattens Beirut, and Gaza, and declares Peace!
2: Donald Trump Loses!
*The Red Hat Brigade MAGA declares Civil War in USA!
*President Kamala Harris is loaded into Air Force One surrounded by a Fleet of USAF and takes off to safer skies!
*Vladimir Putin releases a massive array of Drones to attack Ukraine, brings North Korean soldiers to the front, threatens NATO Members with Nuclear War in case NATO decided to venture forth.
*Volodymir Zelensky crippled without direct NATO support ,decides to capitulate, to save Ukraine and citizens.
*Iran responds directly to Israel Nuclear threat and releases its own devices on Israel with support from Houthis, Hamas & Hezbolla, creating a giant flame in the Middle East!
*His Holiness the Pope Francis Prays at the Vatican!
Express Your Opinion – Read What Others Say! The Independent Interactive Voice of Sri Lanka on the Internet.
(for Sri Lanka and Sovereignty amid Digital Hype?)
November 1, 2024
(Opinion) The Kenyan government’s recent decision to grant diplomatic immunity to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has sparked significant controversy and raised alarm bells about power, accountability, and the timing of this move.
This unprecedented decision shields the foundation and its staff from legal consequences for actions taken in their official capacity, a privilege typically reserved for diplomatic missions and international organizations.
The timing of this decision is particularly noteworthy, as Bill Gates faces mounting legal challenges worldwide. He is set to stand trial in the Netherlands over alleged COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
This coincidence has led critics to question whether Kenya is providing a convenient legal shield for Gates at a time when he needs it most.
The Gates Foundation’s agricultural programs in Africa, particularly through the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), have faced severe criticism.
AGRA, which received at least $872 million from Gates, has been accused of promoting industrial agriculture methods that benefit large corporations at the expense of local practices and ecosystems.
Reports indicate that these programs have increased food insecurity rather than alleviating it. Under the new status, the foundation and its staff are exempt from legal proceedings for actions taken in their official roles.
They are also exempt from taxes on their salaries and have the right to own property in Kenya. This level of immunity is unusual and has raised concerns about accountability and national sovereignty.
Critics argue that this decision sets a dangerous precedent, potentially encouraging other wealthy philanthropists to seek similar protections.
Concerns Over Agricultural Practices in Kenya
Daniel Maingi from the Kenya Food Rights Alliance warned that this immunity could turn Kenya into a testing ground for controversial agricultural practices. He cautioned that such developments could undermine the country’s food sovereignty and democratic processes.
The announcement comes just after farmer associations and religious leaders across Africa demanded reparations for damages. These damages were caused by the foundation’s Green Revolution” program.
The foundation’s practices have been criticized by human rights and environmental groups globally for prioritizing corporate interests over local needs.
Independent investigations have shown that AGRA-supported initiatives have failed and sometimes led to increased hunger.
The Gates Foundation‘s involvement in public health initiatives has also been contentious. Gates has been a major funder of vaccine programs, including those for polio, HPV, and COVID-19.
However, these programs have faced significant controversies. One notable issue is the use of a dangerous DPT vaccine in Africa, which had been banned in the United States.
Additionally, experimental HPV vaccine trials conducted in India resulted in severe side effects and even deaths among participants.
The foundation is advising Kenya on the introduction of a new digital ID system called Maisha Namba. This system aims to assign a digital ID to every newborn and will track them throughout their lives.
This initiative has raised additional concerns about privacy and the potential for misuse of personal data. In response to the criticism, the Gates Foundation stated that their agreement to operate in Kenya complies with the country’s Privileges and Immunities Act.
They also noted that they work within standard agreements for nonprofits in Kenya. However, this response seems ironic given that they now operate beyond the reach of Kenyan laws.
The decision to grant diplomatic immunity highlights the significant influence of wealthy philanthropists in developing countries.
As Tim Schwab, author of The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire,” noted, this move underscores the antidemocratic influence and power of Gates.
He can shape policy decisions affecting millions without any democratic mandate. This situation raises serious questions about accountability, transparency, and the role of private philanthropy in public policy.
The implications for national sovereignty and democratic processes are deeply concerning. It remains to be seen whether this will be remembered as a pivotal moment in Kenya’s development or as a cautionary tale of unchecked philanthropic power.
Colombo, November 3 (The Island): The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has urgently recalled 15 ambassadors and high commissioners appointed based on political affiliations to Sri Lanka. According to sources within the ministry, Secretary Aruni Wijewardena has issued this directive.
Among those recalled are Mohan Peiris, a former ambassador who served as the Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York; Rohitha Bogollagama, a former foreign minister appointed as the High Commissioner to the UK; Kshenuka Senewiratne, a former ambassador appointed as the High Commissioner to India; Chitrangani Wagishwara, appointed as the High Commissioner to Australia; and Rodney Perera, appointed as the ambassador to Japan.
Also recalled are Sumangala Dias, a former Air Force Chief appointed as the High Commissioner to Malaysia; Sudarshan Pathirana, a former Air Force Chief appointed as the ambassador to Nepal; Nishanth Ulugethenna, a former Navy Chief appointed as the ambassador to Cuba; Ravindra Wijegunarathna, a former Navy Chief appointed as the High Commissioner to Pakistan; Uday Indrarathna, appointed as the ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and V. Kanakanadan, appointed as the High Commissioner to Kenya.
A brother-in-law of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Shimal Wickramasinghe, appointed as the High Commissioner to Seychelles; and former Navu chief Admiral Jayanath Colombage, the Lankan Ambassador to Indonesia, along with Ranga Gunawardena, the Lankan High Commissioner to the Maldives, and Mohammad Shahid, appointed as the ambassador to Iran have also been recalled.
ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan has awarded 200 fully and partially funded scholarships to the 6th batch of Sri Lankan students under the Allama Muhammad Iqbal Scholarship Programme. Around 500 Sri Lankan students, apart from these awardees, are already pursuing their undergraduate, MS and PhD studies in leading universities in Pakistan.
According to a HEC statement issued on Sunday, HEC in collaboration with the Pakistan High Commission, Colombo held a ceremony for the newly selected students in Colombo. General Shavendra Silva, Chief of Defense Staff was the chief guest. High Commissioner of Pakistan to Sri Lanka Maj Gen Faheem Ul Aziz (retd) also graced the occasion.
Speaking on behalf of the Chairman HEC, the Project Director, Pakistan Sri Lanka Higher Education Cooperation Programme Jehanzeb Khan congratulated the Sri Lankan students and briefed the participants about various aspects of the scholarship programme. He highlighted the importance of education in bringing regional economic stability and enhancing collaboration between the two friendly countries.
In his remarks, the high commissioner said that awarding these scholarships to Sri Lankan students is yet another testament to the excellent brotherly relations between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He urged the students to embrace this opportunity with determination and resilience.
As you pursue your studies, remember that you are ambassadors of your country and culture. Engage with your peers, share your experiences, and be a bridge between our two nations.
The country will crash like the Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) bus which toppled along the Dunhinda-Badulla Road if you don’t elect experienced persons to Parliament, former President Ranil Wickremeisinghe said over the weekend.
Wickremesinghe, who was responding in lighter vein to a question during a forum held at the Arcade Independence Square, said the country will crash like the bus which toppled along the Dunhinda-Badulla Road if the people fail to elect experienced persons to Parliament.
Colombo, November 03 (Daily Mirror)- Former Presidents used to enjoy unlimited perks and privileges where they used to get organic vegetables that were grown in Nuwara Eliya every week for their consumption, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake revealed today.
Speaking at an election rally in Nuwara Eliya, the President said he instructed the officials at the Presidential Secretariat to use the vegetables received from Nuwara Eliya to prepare food for security officials.
“I learnt that organic vegetables had been grown in the land belonging to the President’s House in Nuwara Eliya for the consumption of the President. I noticed that two bags of vegetables weighing 60 Kgs were received by the Presidential Secretariat from Nuwara Eliya every Friday. Then, I got to know that the organic vegetables were sent from Nuwara Eliya every week. I asked them to use those vegetables for the food prepared for security officials,” he said.
The President said those leaders did not eat even vegetables grown for the common man adding that they even expect such perks and privileges even after losing the elections.
Paradox of Power: Militarily it is a unipolar world of U.S. hegemony; economically it is a multipolar world with U.S. leadership; but on many transnational issues – such as international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the migration of people, epidemic disease, drugs, and environmental degradation – we live in a world only a step or two short of chaos (https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/american-power-the-world)
The world awaits the decision of the voters of the USA on the 4th of November as to who will be their next President. Will it be Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? A question does arise as to why the world should await this decision. This is explored a bit more later in this article.
Undoubtedly, the USA wields immense power in the world, militarily, politically and economically. The executive powers assigned to the President of the USA are substantial although checks and balances are there to ensure, at least constitutionally, that such powers are exercised wisely and judiciously for the benefit of the people. The question though for the people of the world is whether the global power of the USA has been used wisely and productively for the greater prosperity of people globally, giving greater opportunities to usher in a better future for the current and future generations, whether there is peace in the world or more violence and discord, and displacement of millions of people from their lands, whether the environment has a sustainable future or whether it is on track to make the world inhabitable in the not too distant future. There are many more queries to be posed to the USA which claims to be the first in so many political, economic and military spheres.
The answer in a way has been provided by the Wilson Centre as cited above, on many transnational issues – such as international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the migration of people, epidemic disease, drugs, and environmental degradation – we live in a world only a step or two short of chaos”
The Wilson Center goes on to mention the necessity of American Leadership: America must lead- So, in today’s world, the U.S. is simply too big and too important to sit on the sidelines. It must lead. It really cannot do otherwise. If the U.S. does not step forward, nothing happens. The Wilson Centre document, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/ article/american-power-the-world) although written in 2003, presents some options as to how the US should exercise their power for the benefit of its own citizens and for the benefit of the world. Readers could refer to this document and make their own judgements as to whether the US has been successful in chartering a trajectory as suggested in the document.
However, considering the Wilson Centers own contention that we live in a world only a step or two short of chaos”, one could well ask whether the leader of the USA, its President, has led the country effectively and whether that person’s leadership has moved the world away from the chaos referred to by the Wilson Center.
Considering the turmoil in Isreal, Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and the impotency of the US in not being able to bring the warring parties to a negotiating table, the unsettled conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, in Yemen, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, in various parts of South America, and Africa, and in the light of ongoing environment disasters throughout the world, it does lead one to think that the President of the USA has not been able to display the leadership qualities to lead the world away from the chaos, no longer potential, but ever present and ongoing. While it is not the only measure, the fact that the estimate of United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), that there are over 31.6 million refugees under its mandate, and another 6 million Palestinian refugees. In total, the number of people forcibly displaced is estimated to be over 117.3 million, which is the first time in recorded history that this has happened, presents a picture of a world already in chaos.
One could argue that it is not fair to look only towards the US for this sad situation in the world. On the other hand, considering their own contention that they are in fact the major superpower of the world and the general acceptance by others that they in fact are, it does make it not just fair, but right, to ask this question of the US.
In the context of the Wilson centre’s own statement that we live in a world only a step or two short of chaos” , the following points mentioned by the Wilson Centre about American Power in the world is contradictory at best if one were to assess the situation in the world today using these points.
Alternatively, one could form a view that a world at large being in a chaotic situation or only a few steps away from such a situation, without directly harming or impacting on the US, has in fact been the real objective of some within the USA as chaos leads to profit.
It is the strongest military force the world has ever known. The U.S. defence budget is more than the next 15 nations spend combined. U.S. weapons technologies have opened a yawning gap between the American armed forces and other countries – precision guided missiles, supercarrier groups, overwhelming airpower, tremendous firepower, unmanned aircraft, military space dominance, and advanced satellite systems all allow enormous flexibility and awesome capability in military planning. We are projecting this power abroad as never before. We have military personnel in about 140 nations. The massive intervention in Iraq, basing in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and joint operations in countries like Colombia and the Philippines are just a part of our aggressive military posture in the wake of 9/11.
The American economy is as large as the next three – Japan, Germany and Britain – combined. With only 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for 43% of the world’s production, 40% of its technological production, and 50% of the world’s research and development. We also speak with the loudest voice in international monetary institutions like the WTO and IMF.
Cultural: American power includes the exportation of American culture. People from all over the world come to American schools and universities. Increased media and technology have spread American popular culture and the English language around the world – teenagers now listen to American pop music in Iran, go to American movies in China, drink Coca-Cola in Indonesia, and study the English language in Egypt.
Soft Power: American power includes soft power”. Likewise, our soft power – our capacity to get others to want what we want, without coercing them, because they admire our achievements and want to emulate us – is unparalleled. This is the power of example and of persuasion. People admire American prosperity, freedom and technology. We have ascended to our position of pre-eminence in part because nations do trust us to work for the values of democracy, the rule of law, market-economics, and human rights. These values are the moral cornerstones of American power; and they are widely admired and sought after, even by people who disagree with American policies.
Necessity of American Leadership: America must lead. So, in today’s world, the U.S. is simply too big and too important to sit on the sidelines. It must lead. It really cannot do otherwise. If the U.S. does not step forward, nothing happens. There is consensus in this nation that the U.S. should use its power vigorously to reshape the world.
While the turmoil and chaos in the world has been progressively increasing, the US and its prosperity has not been directly affected judging by its ongoing supremacy in military and economic power, giving rise to possible justification of the real interests of some within the USA who possibly are the real power centers in the US who in fact create the ground work for ensuing chaos, which in turn provides opportunities for profit. This gives rise to the question whether it matters to the world as to who become the President of the USA on the 4th of November.
While the noble ideals of the US constitution We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America” are still valid as they were in 1787, the political and economic state of affairs of people within the US itself and in the wider world, begs the question whether US Presidents in general have been able to deliver on these ideals. At times, the powers vested in the President and the checks and balances related to exercise of such powers, particularly on socio economic policies, has made President look like Emperors without clothes. There have been occasions where such checks and balances have been exercised in political partisan ways and not necessarily in the national interest. The difference however is the substantial, unchallenged executive authority given to the President when it comes to defence and foreign policy.
While it is unlikely that any well-meaning President would have exercised such powers indiscriminately and without good reason, the overall global situation today of a world near chaos, and the instances of US involvement in numerous countries and in conflicts and their failure to exercise their powers to prevent conflict or at least to minimise them and take the leadership in finding solutions through discussion and negotiation, have left open the question on the effectiveness of the US President when it comes to world affairs.
It also raises the question whether the President, with the executive powers assigned to the office of President, is effectively a rubber stamp that endorses real policy decisions taken by a behind the scenes establishment that creates and thrives on chaos in the world while leaving the US itself as the mighty superpower.
There is not a lot that countries, especially the less affluent could do to address these situations. The political, economic and military power of the US and the western world is so immense, and there is no other effective alternative to that power. Although China is touted as the alternative, it is in effect not, although it is stronger economically and militarily today than they were 10 years ago. However, they are dependent on the Western world for their economic growth and prosperity as the consumer base for what is produced in China is in the Western world. So, countries have to forge their political and economic policies and priorities within these overarching realities while pursuing historical and cultural sensitivities in their own countries. In the technologically and avarice driven world today, there are no bounds and there is no room for socialistic policies.
The World Bank says that (https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview#:~:text =Global%20poverty%20reduction%20has%20slowed,relevant%20for%20low%2Dincome%20countries) 8.5 percent of the global population – almost 700 million people – live today on less than $2.15 per day, the extreme poverty line relevant for low-income countries. Three-quarters of all people in extreme poverty live in Sub-Saharan Africa or in fragile and conflict-affected countries. 44 percent of the global population – around 3.5 billion people – live today on less than $6.85 per day, the poverty line relevant for upper-middle-income countries. The total number of people living under this poverty line has barely changed since 1990 due to population growth.
Around one-fifth of the world’s population lives in economies with high inequality, concentrated mostly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Only 7 percent of the global population lives in countries with low inequality.
Climate change poses a fundamental risk to poverty and inequality reduction. Nearly 1 in 5 people globally are likely to experience a severe weather shock in their lifetime from which they will struggle to recover. Climate change also threatens to increase global inequality, as poorer countries and people are likely to suffer more from the negative consequences.
Can the next President of the USA make even a dent towards addressing this disastrous situation that a majority of people in the world are facing today?
මැතිවරණ කොමිසමේත් කනෙන් රිංගා රාජකාරි අවශ්යතා මත යනුවෙන් සඳහන් කර සී අයිද්ධියේ ප්රධාන පොලිස් පරීක්ෂක ඉන්දුක ද සිල්වා මහතාව සීඅයිඩියෙන් පොලිස් මුලස්ථානයට මාරු කිරීමට රවි සෙනෙවිරත්න මහතා ක්රියාකළ බවත්, රාජකාරි අවශ්යතා මත යැයි පැවසූවද කිසිම රාජකාරියක් ඔහුට පවරා නැති බවත් සර්වජන බලය කොළඹ දිස්ත්රික් අපේක්ෂක සහ පිවිතුරු හෙළ උරුමය නායක නීතිඥ උදය ගම්මන්පිල මහතා පවසයි.
ආණ්ඩුවේ මාධ්ය ප්රකාශක විජිත හේරත් ඇමැතිවරයා ආණ්ඩුව ණය ගෙන නොමැති බව ප්රකාශ කළ ද ශ්රී ලංකා මහ බැංකුව මගින් තම වෙබ් අඩවියේ ආණ්ඩුව විසින් ණය ගත් බව පැහැදිලිව සඳහන් කර ඇති බව හිටපු පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්රී උදය ගම්මන්පිල මහතා පවසයි.
Colombo, November 03 (Daily Mirror)- Former Presidents used to enjoy unlimited perks and privileges where they used to get organic vegetables that were grown in Nuwara Eliya every week for their consumption, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake revealed today.