US Congressman Dr. Ron Paul of R-Texas, 14th District Vitoria, Freeport in his speech said Israel helped create Hamas to destabilise Arafat who was very powerful at the time. Ron Paul explained the hypocritical approach of the US and Israel regarding the support of Hamas, much like they did for ISIS.
But there is something bitterly ironic in Israel’s support for Fatah against Hamas and it should be a lesson to everywhere that meddles in other States’ affairs. In the past, Israel supported Hamas against Fatah. Indeed, in the 1970s and 80s, Israel played a not insignificant role in encouraging Hamas emergence in the belief that such an Islamist group might help rupture support for the mass nationalist movement of Fatah. Twenty years later, Israel has switched sides, hoping that it can encourage Fatah to see off Hamas. It wants moderate” Palestinians to take on the extremist” Palestinians it helped create. Like America and Britain before it, both of whom have supported and armed Islamist movements in the Middle East in attempts to undermine secular nationalist parties—Israel is learning the hard way that it is one thing to let radical Islamists off the leash but quite another thing to rein them back in again. If you make monsters, you shouldn’t be surprised if they come back to bite you.”
Hamas is a Creation of Mossad”
Hassane Zerouky, reported in on 23 March 2004; Thanks to Mossad, Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks”, Hamas was allowed to reinforce its presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Arafat’s Fatah Movement for National Liberation as well as the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression and intimidation.
Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)”.
Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Islamist movement in Palestine, returning from Cairo in the seventies, established an Islamic Charity Association. Prime Minister Golda Meir, saw this as an opportunity to counterbalance the rise of Arafat’s Fatah movement.
The Islamic Associations and the University: Supported and encouraged by the Israeli Military Authority”
According to the Israeli weekly Koteret Rashit (October 1987), The Islamic associations as well as the university had been supported and encouraged by the Israeli military authority” in charge of the (civilian) administration of the West Bank and Gaza. They [the Islamic associations and the university] were authorised to receive money payments from abroad.”
The Islamists set up orphanages and health clinics, as well as a network of schools, and workshops which created employment for women as well as a system of financial aid to the poor. And in 1978, they created an Islamic University” in Gaza. The military authority was convinced that these activities would weaken both the PLO and the leftist organisations in Gaza.” At the end of 1992, there were six hundred mosques in Gaza. Thanks to Israel’s Intelligence Agency Mossad (Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks), the Islamists were allowed to reinforce their presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, the members of Fatah (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine) and the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression.
In 1984, Ahmed Yassin was arrested and condemned to twelve years in prison, after the discovery of a hidden arms cache. But one year later, he was set free and resumed his activities. And when the Intifada (‘Uprising’) began, in October 1987, which took the Islamists by surprise, Sheik Yassin responded by creating Hamas (The Islamic Resistance Movement): God is our beginning, the Prophet our model, the Koran our Constitution”, proclaims article 7 of the Charter of the Organisation.
Ahmed Yassin was in prison when the Oslo Accords (Declaration of Principles on Interim Self) were signed in September 1993. The Hamas had rejected Oslo outright. But at that time, 70% of Palestinians had condemned the attacks on Israeli civilians. Yassin did everything in his power to undermine the Oslo Accords. Even prior to Prime Minister Rabin’s death, he had the support of the Israeli. The latter was very reluctant to implement the ‘Peace Agreement’.
The Hamas then launched a carefully timed campaign of attacks against civilians, one day before the meeting between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators, regarding the formal recognition of Israel by the National Palestinian Council. These events were largely instrumental in the formation of a Right-wing Israel following the May 1996 Elections.
Quite unexpectedly, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered Sheik Ahmed Yassin to be released from prison (on humanitarian grounds”) where he was serving a life sentence. Meanwhile, Netanyahu, together with President Bill Clinton, was putting pressure on Arafat to control the Hamas. In fact, Netanyahu knew that he could rely, once more, on the Islamists to sabotage the Oslo Accords. Worse still: after having expelled Yassin to Jordan, Prime Minister Netanyahu allowed him to return to Gaza, where he was welcomed triumphantly as a hero in October 1997.
Arafat was helpless in the face of these events. Moreover, because he had supported Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War (while the Hamas had cautiously abstained from taking sides), the Gulf States decided to cut off their financing of the Palestinian Authority. Meanwhile, between February and April 1998, Sheik Ahmad Yassin was able to raise several hundred million dollars, from those same countries. The Budget of Hamas was said to be greater than that of the Palestinian Authority. These new sources of funding enabled the Islamists to effectively pursue their various charitable activities. It is estimated that one Palestinian out of three is the recipient of financial aid from the Hamas. And in this regard, Israel has done nothing to curb the inflow of money into the occupied territories.
The Hamas had built its strength through its various acts of sabotage of the peace process, in a way which was compatible with the interests of the Israeli. In turn, the latter sought in a number of ways, to prevent the application of the Oslo Accords. In other words, Hamas was fulfilling the functions for which it was originally created: to prevent the creation of a Palestinian State. And in this regard, Hamas and Ariel Sharon, see eye to eye; they are exactly on the same wavelength.
How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam”
According to Robert Dreyfuss, author of the enlightening and exhaustive book Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam”, political Islamism grew exponentially as Israel took control of the Palestinian territories: Starting in 1967, the Israelis began to encourage or allow the Islamists in the Gaza and West Bank areas, among the Palestinian exiled population, to flourish.
The statistics are really quite staggering. In Gaza, for instance, between 1967 and 1987, when Hamas was founded, the number of mosques tripled from 200 to 600. And a lot of that comes with money flowing from outside Gaza, from wealthy conservative Islamists in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. But, of course, none of this could have happened without the Israelis casting an approving eye upon it.
It is from these Islamist roots that Hamas emerged in 1987. Dreyfuss continues; There’s plenty of evidence that the Israeli intelligence services, especially Shin Bet and the military occupation authorities, encouraged the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood and the founding of Hamas [in Palestinian territories].
Internal Security Service – knowingly created Hamas”
Indeed, according to former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman, Shin Bet—the Israeli counter-intelligence and Internal Security Service—knowingly created Hamas: Israel started Hamas. It was a project of Shin Bet, which had a feeling that they could use it to ‘hem’ the PLO.”
Dirty Little Secret”
Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine were under the approving eye” of Israel from the late 1960s to the 1980s, it eventually mutated into Hamas. Following Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise to power in 1954, both the British and Americans viewed the Brotherhood as a useful weapon against secular nationalism and communism. In his Book Sleeping With the Devil, former CIA Officer Robert Baer describes the Dirty Little Secret” in Washington in the early 1950s, namely that the White House looked on the ‘Brothers’ as a silent ally, a secret weapon against—what else? —Communism.”
Conclusion
Facts are stubborn that Israel created Hamas or that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported Hamas are circulating in social media, were published in news reports and spoken widely over a period of time. It is the responsibility of Israel to address constructively the truth. Further why Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October if they were created by Israel and why are they hiding in underground tunnels now, instead of defending Palestinian innocent civilians? But, looking at various substantial evidence may otherwise prove, it was Israel who created Hamas. High time for the UN to intervene and play its role in penalising for aiding and abetting Terrorism, if Hamas is considered a Terrorist Organisation. After all, the UN was established to prevent atrocities. Has the UN done justice to innocent civilians?
About the Author:
By Prof. Rasheen Bappu, Anthropologist (Defence) and Intelligence Data Scientist
rasheen_bappu@aol.com
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Ceylon Today)
The Committee of Public Finance (COPF) has approved the orders made under the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Act No. 11 of 2021.
The decision was made following a lengthy discussion held on 24 October regarding the 10 business companies active in the Colombo Port City and attention was paid to the problematic situations regarding the signing of contracts by these companies.
It was disclosed that these companies had entered into contracts prior to, during and after the preparation of the Port City, following which the COPF highlighted that the relevant agreements had not been made according to one system with any legal basis.
As a result, it was recommended that the opinion of the Attorney General be sought within four weeks and that the Committee be informed about it.
COPF Chairman subsequently pointed out that it is important to check the constructions carried out by these companies in this area.
Moreover, it was also revealed that the Port City Commission had given permission to run two cryptocurrency exchanges. Thus, COPF recommended that the matter be inquired, and that the stance of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) on the matter also be obtained.
State Minister (Dr.) Suren Raghavan, Members of Parliament Chandima Weerakkody, Nimal Lanza, Patali Champika Ranawaka, Duminda Dissanayake, U. K. Sumith Udukumbura were present at the Committee meeting held.
I was saddened by the unexpectedly rude sarcasm of the apparently perfunctory memorial feature The Jackson of all trades: A tribute to Jackson Anthony” (The Island/October 20, 2023) penned by Uditha Devapriya about the recently deceased celebrity. In my opinion, the article is hardly worthy of the dead icon, or of the tribute payer, for that matter. The ill chosen satirical tone rings discordant with the reasonably authentic contents of what fair minded readers would have expected to be an engaging eulogy of a generous human being with his trademark eternal smile on his face who died before his time in tragic circumstances. How can a seemingly backhanded compliment like that be called a tribute to one who is no more who had done nothing in his life to deserve even a faint suggestion of disrespect, disregard or ingratitude?
The first part of the title (‘The Jackson of all trades’) is an improper parody of the figurative expression ‘jack of all trades, master of none’, usually applied to someone who can do many different things, but none of them so well. It strikes me as having insulting implications. Strangely, I myself used this familiar idiomatic phrase (‘jack of all trades, master of none’) to invoke adulation for Jackson Anthony in the concluding paragraph of an informal appreciatory review of his first mega movie Aba” (2008), which was published as a SATmag feature under the title Aba – the mega Sinhala movie” in The Island newspaper of September 6, 2008. I had it posted again under the title ‘In memory of Jackson Anthony’ on Lankaweb on October 17, 2023. Following is the final paragraph of that newspaper review first written and published fifteen years ago:
I wish to reserve special praise for Jackson Anthony for his rare creativity and unmatched versatility. The common English idiom ‘Jack of all trades (master of none)’ usually applied to a person who can do many different jobs, but none of them so well, could be given an absolutely positive twist in the case of our Jackson Anthony thus: ‘A Jack of all trades, and master of many’. He is an actor, a director, a singer, a scholar, a scriptwriter, a novelist, a lyricist, an explorer, a traveller, and a communicator par excellence.”
My (perhaps, apology for a) review was based on some limited familiarity with Jackson Anthony’s work and was written, as can be seen, before he lost favour with a section of the public for his apparent sympathy for the popular nationalist trend in the Sri Lankan political landscape that had emerged, devoid of communal divisions, with the long awaited end of the civil war that had brought death and destruction to every community in sight. It’s not that my critical judgement would have been affected even if his perceived political sympathies or affiliations had been the reverse of what they were. I remember that his appropriation of Christian mythological imagery in the film Aba was subjected to critical disapproval, which I found absurd. I totally approve of Jackson Anthony’s practical eclecticism in his cinematic and literary creations. His interest in the country’s history was genuine, and was not driven by mere love of storytelling, in which he excelled. But I believe that his storytelling was more a means than an end. His end was communicating ideas. He was a great communicator of great ideas.
Something that I cannot understand is why only Jackson Anthony was censured for his devoted allegiance towards the iconic leader (whose clay feet were yet to be exposed) who was universally adored for ridding the country of the scourge of mindless violence associated with the civil strife, when almost all his fellow professionals including the senior most in his field had shared the same nationalist fervour, political preferences and loyalties.Those who actually registered an inexplicable aversion towards Jackson Anthony were far less generous than Devapriya, of course. Antipathy towards Jackson Anthony could have been due to personal as well as professional jealousy.
People engaged in the entertainment and creative art industries also must enjoy the freedom of holding political views and acting on them. Of course, Devapriya does not condemn Jackson Anthony on this account. He only writes: As for his politics, which we did encounter, what can we say, other than the fact that actors can never free themselves of such affiliations?” Yes, that is my own experience, too. But am I wrong to read some functional ambiguity into his words? The ability to dissemble is an essential skill for a professional actor (nothing wrong with that), but a necessary evil for a pragmatic politician (something open to question). But I cannot bring myself to even imagine that highly cultured Jackson Anthony’s alleged political affiliations were motivated by any personal cupidity or desire for self-aggrandisement.
Unlike Sri Lanka, Switzerland is an excellent and clean country with no muddy patches or heaps of rubbish dumps in various parts of the country. Residents usually do not come in cars like in Sri Lanka and dump their domestic rubbish in bags in multiple places. Switzerland has been named the best country in the world by Indiantimes.com. It says, “One of the most beautiful nations on the planet dotted with lakes, valleys, and the Alps.” In Switzerland, outside the town area, the scenery will be a lot of mountains and rocks.
Mount Riggie could be seen from my son’s sitting room when clouds do not interfere with the mountain. Concerning some domestic garbage, electronic systems are installed for domestic waste bins. so no outsider is able abo to dump in other’s waste. Electronic systems are installed for domestic waste bins. So, no outsider could place their rubbish in different containers, and the main thing is that trash is weighed, and each household has to pay for their litter.
In front of my son’s block is a self-displayed shop called “Burgrain“, where no one can be seen. An automatic door can be opened with a combination of numbers. Small children always come to this shop with their parents’ credit cards to buy ice creams. In Switzerland, every child is disciplined from the nursery.
Generally, trains also run efficiently on electricity. Specially designed coaches and tanks are attached to the train for numerous products, such as cement and metal, for railway lines. Also, there are cylindrical containers of various firms linked to the train.
The pavements.
Pedestrians at Zebra crossings need to stop according to the motor law. It is the standard practice, not only on roads but even in every car park motorists have to stop
The fundamental difference from Sri Lanka is that every motorist is disciplined, and every car stops until people cross the road or even in car parks. It is not restricted to main roads; motorists must stop cars wherever people cross. Disciplined motorists are a significant feature in Switzerland.
A vast change from arriving from Sri Lanka is that there are on motorways, there won’t be any overking of heavy goods vehicles
No change in lanes change is allowed to overtake. Pedestrians are marked to walk and are kept on footprints. There are many tunnels in Switzerland, and there are road markings to indicate before a tunnel which says No overtaking”.
In Switzerland, all cars are newly built, such as Porche, BMW, and Volkswagen. Ford, a new version of Skoda, and three versions of Audi can be seen on roads. There are electric cars too.
The Swiss airport is one of the best in the world. International passengers must take a monorail to arrive before they arrive at the passport control. All over the airport, there are markings in German and English. Everywhere there is parking, which is charged hourly, but there is also free parking in certain areas in the middle of the town centre.
Supermarkets are called Malls. Switzerland has no food shortage; various kinds of cheese and food products are displayed in the malls. Toilets are indicated on appropriate floors. Toilets are spotlessly clean in washrooms.
Motoring in Switzerland, one has to be careful. The slightest mistake by a motorist can bring a police letter to the vehicle’s registered address with a huge fine. It is the cause of road traffic in Sri Lanka. Many deaths occur, people get injured, and fatalities and several wounded are injured and die at zebra crossings. The problem is that in Sri Lanka, motorists are fearless of police, unlike in Switzerland, because of the corrupt police officers who could be convinced with Rs.500.00. If one attempts to bribe the police in Switzerland, motorists will end up in jail!
More than One Vehicle
It is the same with one who owns more than a single car. The Department of Transport (equivalent to the same) allows folks to use a single number plate for multiple vehicles they own, which can be switched from car to car when they travel on the road. However, the number plate can only be used on one car.
All vehicles will be insured according to their value. Usually, for instance, cars are registered under the Canton in which one lives (e.g., one who lives in Zug carries a number plate with ZG, whereas someone who lives in Luzern registers a vehicle number plate beginning with LU Also, on Insurance, age and experience are taken into account like everywhere else, but here, it also depends on the ethnicity. It means some nationalities have to pay more! Unlike in Sri Lanka, the car’s age cannot be assessed from a number plate.
My daughter was with me from Devon in the UK and spent two weeks with me, and she has left for London on her way to Devon. To live in Switzerland is too expensive. Although there are what one requires, Sri Lankan rupees can be a problem. To live in Switzerland is too expensive unless one earns there. Although there are what one needs, Sri Lankan rupees can be very expensive. For instance, a haircut without a tip is about 40 francs, and a sandwich costs 2-3 franks.
Chocolates
Switzerland is famous for chocolates. There is a chocolate factory called Laedrah. There, one could decorate as one wishes chocolates in any form. My son decorated it for a little girl’s birthday, which was beautiful, and it came through a machine in the factory. It has a restaurant too.
chocolates are very expensive, and assorted chocolates are one could buy a kilo of chocolates in square pieces for cheap.
China Foundation for Rural Development to assist Sri Lanka
Vice President of China Foundation for Rural Development Liu Wenkui said his Foundation would assist Sri Lanka’s poverty alleviation programme. He gave this assurance when he called on Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena at the Prime Minister’s Office in Colombo today (October 25).
The Prime Minister said China’s success in eradication of poverty, rural upliftment and ensuring food security has been exemplary. I thank China for magnanimous contributions to the efforts of my country as well as other developing nations towards achieving food security,” he said.
He expressed appreciation to President Xi Jinping for the offer of continuous support to Sri Lanka during President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit to Beijing last week.
Mr Liu Wenkui said his Foundation has expertise in rural development and it could assist Sri Lanka in its drive to increase rural productivity for the multiple goals of self-sufficiency, upliftment of rural low income families and increase exports.
He said that China Foundation for Rural Development will distribute dry ration packs for primary school children in rural schools in several districts this week.
State Ministers Janaka Wakkumbura, Ahoka Priyantha, Chinese Ambassador, Qi Zhenhong, Secretary to the Prime Minister, Anura Dissanayake and Director of China Foundation, Zou Zhiqiang were present on this occasion
The British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka H.E. Andrew Patrick made a call on the State Minister of Defence Hon. Premitha Bandara Tennakoon at his office in Colombo on Tuesday (Oct. 24).
Minister Tennakoon held a cordial discussion with the British High Commissioner after extending a warm reception when he arrived at his office in Colombo in the evening.
Matters of bilateral importance and mutual relevance were discussed during the friendly meeting.
Defence Attaché at the British High Commission in Colombo Colonel Darren Woods was also present at the occasion.
After 20 years of research, the Sugarcane Research Institute (SRI) of Sri Lanka has introduced four new varieties with improved sugar recovery percentages, cane yield and disease resistance.
An interactive mobile app called Uksaviya has been introduced to assist sugar cane farmers in disease identification, cultivation advice and access to the latest knowledge.
An institutional business framework too has been developed linking researchers and industry to improve collaboration, precision, and commercialization of cutting-edge research.
With Sri Lanka’s agriculture hit by multiple issues, SRI’s efforts offer some hope.
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka is a nation where agriculture is a pivotal factor of the country’s economy. However, the past two years were bleak for the agriculture sector following the government’s agrochemical importation ban in April 2021, triggering a severe economic and food crisis. Although the financial nosedive also impacted scientific research and development, Sri Lankan agronomists have been working to improve the situation and restore agriculture.
Bringing such efforts to fruition, agronomists at the Sri Lanka Sugarcane Research Institute (SRI) presented a sweet treat to the nation in July 2023. They introduced four new improved cultivars of sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum) along with some technological and policy innovations linking researchers, farmers, and industry. Working in a highly challenging environment, researchers at SRI developed these new sugar cane varieties that promise increased productivity, offering some hope. The new varieties were created through crossbreeding in field experiments.
Sweetening the pot for farmers, they also developed an app called Uksaviya (translating to strength of sugar cane”). The first of its kind to be introduced by an agricultural research institute in Sri Lanka, the app can help farmers identify diseases and apply effective cultivation methods and find relevant current study results. The institute has been catering to technological and technical requirements of the industry since 1981.
Established as a commercial cultivation in the late 1950s, sugar cane is a multipurpose crop, mainly used for sugar, ethanol, and biofuel production in Sri Lanka. However, only 15% of the national sugar requirement is fulfilled by local production, compelling the country to import sugar at a high cost. SRI’s crop physiology experts and sugar manufacturers say that a major hurdle is the sugar recovery percentage of the sugar cane variety routinely grown in Sri Lanka being as low as 6-8%, according to SRI data. Comparatively, varieties grown in top sugar cane-growing countries have a sugar recovery percentage as high as 15%.
Farmers prepare sugarcane plants for breeding. Image courtesy of the Sugarcane Research Institute, Sri Lanka.
Low recovery percentage
Narrowing this gap, the four newly introduced varieties have an improved sugar recovery percentage of about 10-13%, according to SRI data.
Gamini Ratnayake, chief executive officer of Ethimale Plantation Private Ltd., a leading sugar factory in the country, told Mongabay that improved sugar recovery percentage is a major achievement the industry has been seeking in cultivars. As farmers get paid for the weight of cane harvested, they mostly prefer varieties that give a higher cane yield.
However, the low sugar recovery percentage of currently grown varieties makes it less profitable for the factories. Ratnayake says the new varieties having improved sugar recovery with high cane yield is a step toward a win-win for both sugar cane growers and sugar manufacturers.
An aerial view of a sugarcane field in Sri Lanka. Image courtesy of the Sugarcane Research Institute, Sri Lanka.
These new varieties increase the productivity of the country’s sugar cane cultivation on several levels,” said Janendra De Costa, crop physiologist and a professor of crop science at the University of Peradeniya, who was not involved in the research. The new varieties have better ratoonability, the agricultural practice of having two harvests during one cropping season, allowing farmers to re-grow crops from the stubble remaining after harvesting the first.
Three out of the four varieties have high productivity under rainfed conditions, suggesting their improved drought tolerance. These are features that would improve cost efficiency for farmers in terms of replanting and irrigation, Costa told Mongabay.
A sugarcane farmer keeping records. Image courtesy of the Sugarcane Research Institute, Sri Lanka.
Bringing these improved varieties into light was a lengthy process. Malika Perera, head of the crop improvements section at SRI, said it usually takes more than 15 years to introduce a new sugar cane variety to the market, given the long life cycle of sugar cane and the rigorous testing procedures done in their field and on factory performance for disease resistance. The four new varieties are the result of experiments since 2003.
Perera, a senior scientist in Udawalawa, in Sri Lanka’s deep south, told Mongabay: The onset of COVID-19 and the economic crisis that followed presented challenges with industry testing, travel restrictions and manpower shortages. Nevertheless, with the resources and expertise available to us, we are continuing our research on testing new cultivars, with more varieties lined up to be introduced soon, which we hope to recommend to other sugar cane-growing countries in the region as well.”
A key product made from sugarcane is jaggery, locally known as hakuru”. Image courtesy of the Sugarcane Research Institute, Sri Lanka.
High level of disease resistance
These varieties also promise resistance to sugar cane smut disease and leaf scald disease and tolerance to white leaf disease, experts say. Sumedha Thushari, a pathologist at SRI’s division of crop protection said: It is a tricky procedure to isolate varieties which are both disease tolerant and high yielding. Introducing varieties in that sweet spot is a collaborative effort of all research divisions and the industry.”
Thushari, who is currently working on a Ph.D. in sugar cane pathology, said that according to ongoing research, there is a possibility of introducing resistant varieties in the future by selectively breeding from resistant parental varieties.
Sumedha Thushari, a pathologist with the crop protection unit working in the field with farmers on disease identification and management. Image courtesy of the Sugarcane Research Institute, Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, the new app, Uksaviya, was designed to aid farmers in identification and management of common diseases. Its creator, Lahiru Kumarasiri, is a young scientist, enthusiastic about amalgamating agriculture with the latest trends in information technology, and Uksaviya is the outcome of the work-from-home period of 2021.
This mobile app involves the development of an expert system for disease and nutrient deficiency detection based on expert knowledge of experienced farmers as well as subject specialists,” Kumarasiri told Mongabay. That expert system is integrated into a software, which can reason and diagnose diseases and nutrient deficiencies. This way, the knowledge and reasoning ability limited to only a few becomes available to a wider audience at their fingertips,” he said.
Uksaviya also includes advice on land preparation, cultivation methods, fertilization, and sugar cane-based products, as well as the latest research findings. Lahiru said Uksaviya mainly targets the young generation of farmers. He said he believes that at a time when most young farmers are abandoning sugar cane cultivation and seeking other professions, integrating these kinds of modern technologies into their farming culture would encourage them to remain in the industry and reap the benefits of the latest findings through efficient knowledge exchange.
It’s combined work when SRI officers work closely with farmers. Image courtesy of the Sugarcane Research Institute, Sri Lanka.
Applying new methods
Thilanka Ariyawansha, a member of the research team, is keen to apply new methods to achieve maximum benefits out of the research effort. Having recently completed his Ph.D. at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, Ariyawansha was inspired to adapt the research policies he absorbed while in Japan.
He got an ideal opportunity to execute that vision when the National Innovation Agency (NIA) collaborated with SRI to restructure its research policy.
Ariyawansha told Mongabay: We created a business link with a framework where the sugar cane industry can request research that they find necessary. Institutional researchers can combine their ideas and expertise with those requests and carry out precise research that solves existing problems.”
Ariyawansha said this facilitates institutional researchers to propose their research ideas to the industry and assess its commercial relevance. This improves precision of research while ensuring the proper distribution of benefits among all parties involved in the research and the protection of intellectual property rights. Further, resources could be allocated for research with pressing industrial needs while researchers also get commercial benefits for their work.
A farmer brings his harvest home. Image courtesy of the Sugarcane Research Institute, Sri Lanka.
Vindya Wijesinghe, a senior innovations officer for tech transfer at the NIA said, Implementing frameworks of this sort completes the triple helix of technology transfer in Sri Lanka — universities, research institutes and industry. Through this, research and technology generated in universities and research institutes is seamlessly transferred to the industry.”
We have a strong team of researchers, who are enthusiastic and committed to make a change in Sri Lankan agriculture, despite the limited resources and being based in remote Udawalawa” said M.S. Perera, the director at SRI.
Banner image: A farmer holding freshly harvested sugarcane in his hands. Image courtesy of the Sugarcane Research Institute, Sri Lanka.
Author Manasee Weerathunga is a Sri Lankan freelance science journalist, currently pursuing her Ph.D. in the Department of Biology, University of Florida. Manasee is enthusiastic about topics related to diversity, inclusivity, equity and accessibility in science and research in the Global South.
Citations:
Cursi, D.E., Hoffmann, H.P., Barbosa, G.V.S. et al. History and Current Status of Sugarcane Breeding, Germplasm Development and Molecular Genetics in Brazil. SugarTech 24, 112–133 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12355-021-00951-1
C.S. Weeraratna and P.A. Weerasinghe (2011). Agriculture of Sri Lanka. Dehiwala: C.S. Weeraratna. pp. 9–10
Deegala, D.M.B.M., Abeysingha, N.S., Muthuwatta, L.P. et al. Sustainable Growing Areas for Sugarcane in Sri Lanka Under a Changing Climate. SugarTech 24, 1801–1813 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12355-022-01155-x
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, addressing the 117th Anniversary of the Institution of Engineers, has outlined plans for modernizing the Agriculture Ministry.
The Head of State expressed his intention to seek external assistance to design a new Agricultural Ministry by studying how similar ministries function in countries like Thailand and Malaysia, the President’s Media Division (PMD) said. He has emphasized the need for a well-defined ministerial structure for progress.
Wickremesinghe also discussed the next stage of modernizing agriculture, including the utilization of previously unused land, particularly in the Mahaweli area and plantations, covering approximately 700,000 to a million acres.
Additionally, he pointed out the importance of incorporating various Agriculture Research Institutes into a single institution called the University for Agricultural Technology and engaging the private sector. This holistic approach aims to modernize agriculture, with a focus not only on education in agriculture but also in engineering, the PMD explained.
Additionally, the President made a significant announcement about the amalgamation of the plantation industries and agriculture sectors, which were separated since 1970. He discussed the historical context of this separation and the need to modernize the agricultural sector.
Wickremesinghe encouraged collaboration and input from the Institution of Engineers and left the door open for on-going consultation as these plans develop and progress.
The President also highlighted the pivotal role of engineering in Sri Lanka’s future development. He emphasized the significant contributions of engineers to the nation, both historically and in the present, mentioning milestones such as the construction of the Kandy Road and the Mahaweli program, which was completed in a remarkably short time frame.
Wickremesinghe underscored the need for a forward-looking approach, especially in the context of debt restructuring and the pursuit of a new, sustainable economy. He identified three key areas where engineers would play a crucial role: competitiveness, digital transformation and the green economy.
Regarding competitiveness, he stressed that engineering skills are essential for Sri Lanka to become highly competitive in various fields. He highlighted the importance of engineers in building the digital economy, predicting a gradual transformation over the next decade.
Furthermore, the President discussed the potential for green hydrogen exports, which could be a unique opportunity for Sri Lanka, further emphasizing the role of engineers in this endeavour.
The President acknowledged the need for engineering technology in all these areas, noting that without it, progress would be challenging. He encouraged the growth of engineering talent to meet these future demands, suggesting that the country should double its estimates to account for engineers going abroad.
Wickremesinghe also emphasized the importance of technical education and vocational engineering skills in addressing the shortage of human resources needed for these technological advancements. He indicated that the government would propose innovative solutions in this regard during the budget report.
In conclusion, the Head of State called on the Institution of Engineers to actively participate in these initiatives to propel Sri Lanka towards a new economy, marked by technological innovation and agricultural modernization.
Empire Day (date of Queen Victoria’s birthday), Accession Day (anniversary of the date the Monarch took office), Jubilees, King’s Coronation, King’s Birthday, Victory Day and other public occasions were celebrated throughout the Island, Native Chiefs taking the lead in ceremonies organized in the regions. Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and Diamond Jubilee were celebrated in June 1887 and June 1897 respectively. In Kandyan areas celebrations were held in every town with the participation of school children, all organized by the Rate Mahattayas, to remind school children that they formed part of the British Empire, saluting the Union Jack and singing God Save the King/Queen”. Each government school was supplied with a Union Jack flag which was to be hoisted on specified days. Wace the Government Agent of Central Province in 1905 had asked to secure a translation in Sinhala and Tamil of God Save the King” to familiarize children throughout the Island with the Imperial instinct and arouse of loyalty to the Crown”.
In 1887 Queen’s Jubilee and Coronation Day was celebrated on June 28 at Paththiruppuwa.
On account of the Coronation of King Edward VII (and Queen Alexandra), eldest son of Queen Victoria on August 9, 1902 celebrations were organized throughout the districts. Celebrations originally scheduled for 26, June were postponed as the government received a telegram informing King’s sudden illness. In North Western Province coronation was celebrated with peraheras of Chiefs and elephants. In Sabaragamuwa coronation celebrations were held in Balangoda, Maduwanwela and Ratnapura with illuminations, fireworks and demonstrating loyalty” to the Crown. Assistant Government Agent of Kegalle, C. S. Vaughn wrote festivities were observed on a less elaborate scale than had been intended”.
Empire Day was celebrated on May 12 1908 at Kandy. A large number of school children was brought to Bogambara Grounds. In 1910 on the occasion of Empire Day, school treats” were organized by Rate Mahattayas. Empire Hotel, Empire Stores & Dye Works are a few relics in Kandy that reminiscence Empire Day.
On the occasion of King’s birthday Kandyan chiefs were conferred with higher ranks (LankaWeb of 11 August 2023). In 1909 on the King’s birthday 3 cases of conferring of ranks in Central Province took place: the rank of Dissava on Monaravila Keppetipola LokuBanda retired Rate Mahattaya of Matale South, rank of Rate Adikaram on Weerasekera Mudiyanselage Kalu Banda Korala of Uda Dumbara and the rank of Dissave Lekam on Samarasinghe Mudiyanselage Punchi RalaKorala of Gangawata Korale in Yatinuwara. J.P. Lewis, the Government Agent of Central Province wrote: The last two were the first cases of which these ranks were conferred during British rule so far I am aware’.
Death of King Edward VII was mourned in May 1910.
Coronation of King George V was celebrated on June 22 in 1911 with grand peraheras organized by Rate Mahattayas. Religious ceremonies were held at Buddhist Viharas under the direction of Rate Mahattayas and Presidents of Village Tribunals. A parade, a Royal gun salute and feeding poor people attracted ordinary people; in the evening illuminations, a perahera and fireworks were held in Kandy.
In Nuwara Eliya services were held at Buddhist temples; a perahera starting from Mawela visited all temples in the Division of Kotmale. In Walapone two centres were selected for celebrations, Nlidandahinna under the direction of Rate Mahattaya and at Kumbalgamuwa under the direction of President of Village Tribunal respectively. The President rose to the occasion by firing a royal salute”. In the North Western Province each Rate Mahattaya and Presidents organized local celebrations and the major one was held at Kurunegala. A perahera was held at Anuradhapura. An Address bearing pictures of main ruins and irrigation works, ornamented with the British royal arms and ancient flags of Nuwara Kalaviya and Tamankaduwa was signed by the leading men in the North Central Province and sent to the Government to be submitted to Their Majesties. Local celebrations were held in Uva. At the main celebrations held in Colombo Uva Province was represented by a Rate Mahattaya and a retired Rate Mahattaya.
News of signing of the Peace Treaty (Armistice) by Germany in 1919 was hailed all over the districts and celebrated on June 29, 1919. Peace Day was celebrated on July 19 in Kandy on a grand scale; in the morning there was a parade by Cadets and Boys Scouts at Victoria esplanade. School children numbering 4500 all brought by the native chiefs marched to Victoria esplanade and sang the Marseilles and British National Anthem. In the afternoon main celebrations were held at Bogambara. Commemoration shields were presented to each school. Commemoration trees were planted at various schools in Kandy, Teldeniya and Wattegama. A perahera and fireworks were held in the evening. Signing of peace treaty was also celebrated in Matale too.
A Victory Dinner was held at the Queen’s Hotel, Kandy, attended by British administrators, military personnel, plantation community and Kandyan chiefs.
From then onwards the Armistice was celebrated annually. Rate Mahattayas were in-charge of all arrangements. Armistice was celebrated by cessation of work and observing silence, stopping all vehicles and pedestrians for 2 minutes.
It should be noted that Piyadasa Sirisena, the pioneer Sinhala novelist, national and Buddhist revivalist, on 16.7.1919 wrote a poem on Armistice titled Samadana Preethiya” (Joys of Armistice). He invites all Lankans to celebrate the Armistice in a carnival atmosphere (the victory of the ‘allies’ in a war between two imperialist camps) and hails our great king with loads of tributes”. This shows the dual nature of national revivalists of the time. This writer has given a detailed account of Piyadasa Sirisena’s poetry in his book titled Nidahas Aragalaya Saha Sahithyaya” (2019).
In 1920 Armistice was observed throughout the Nuwara Eliya District, Rate Mahattayas making arrangements. Guns at headmen’s houses were fired and services were held in Buddhist temples.
Silver Jubilee of King was celebrated in 1936 in Kandy and Matale. In Kandy a parade and a perahera were held; a levee with the Governor was held on June 3.
Occupation of other landswere also celebrated; in 1900 occupation of Pretoria by the British Navy under Lord Roberts was celebrated in Kandy on 20 June with a thanksgiving service, parade of troops and volunteers. A perahera with 38 elephants was organized by the Chiefs. Fireworks and illuminations in the night with a Ball at Town Hall followed. This was the first occasion in which electric lights were used in Kandy for illuminations of the Temple and other buildings.
2. Durbars/Levees
The Governors held Durbars (levees), a reception to native chieftains at the Queens’ House. Native headmen attended durbars in their traditional attire. Dullewa Adigar in his Diary mentions about Durbars he had attended in Colombo. In May 1892 he was introduced to the Governor by Fisher, Government Agent of Uva. Dullewa writes that in May 1894 Paranagama Rate Mahattaya was promoted to the rank of Dissava by the Governor. The levees were followed by a Ball in the evening at the Queens’ House. (When Paranagama Dissava, the chief interpreter at the kachcheri died in 1895 the Governor and the Government Agent paid their last respects).
All Kandyan chiefs attended durbars held at Kandy; provincial heads attended durbars held in other provincial capitals. These were the occasions Rate Mahattayas discussed matters related to the province/district presided over by the Governor or Government Agent.
Dullewa Adigar in his Diary mentions about a Durbar he had attended in Kandy kachcheri with the Governor and Government Agent in January 1894. Governor had asked the native chiefs whether the natives also had taken up” cocoa planting and whether cocoa stealing prevailed in the districts. The chiefs were asked to suggest means to prevent cocoa stealing. They were not prepared with a ready reply.
In 1903 Governor Ridgeway paid a farewell visit to Kurunegala and held a durbar. He received addresses of farewell from the Chiefs. At Anuradhapura Ridgeway at his farewell visit was escorted to the town in a perahera with elephants, tom-tom beaters and Chiefs and Headmen. Next day he held a levee; it was followed by the levee in Colombo on the occasion of the birthday of the King.
A Durbar/conference of Chief Headmen of the five Kandyan Provinces (Central Province, Uva, North Central Province, North Western Province and Sabaragamuwa) presided over by the Governor with the attendance of Colonial Secretary, Controller of Revenue and five Government Agents was held for the first time in the history of the Colony at the Pavilion Kandy in May , 1908 – a new departure in the form of a Durbar of Kandyan chiefs. Among the subjects discussed were Sinhalese labour in estates and Kandyan ranks.
The second durbar of Kandyan Chief Headmen was held in 1909. In 1910 July at the Durbar of Kandyan chiefs elephant kraals and how can Kandyan girls be encouraged to take to the profession of school mistresses were among the subjects discussed. This was the day J. P. Lewis the Government Agent of Central Province retired from civil service. Kandyan Chiefs escorted Lewis in a perahera to Kandy railway station.
When Royal dignitaries visited various districts/provinces of the Island Durbars were held, all Kandyan chieftains attending in full dress”. On the occasion of the visit of Prince of Wales to Kandy on March 23, 1922 in the evening a durbar of Kandyan chiefs was held at 9.30 p.m. followed by a Raja Perahera.
3. Hunting by Royal Dignitaries
When Royal dignitaries visited Kandyan provinces, Kandyan Headmen had to facilitate their hunting expeditions. This facility was provided to Government Agents and Assistant Government Agents too who were on circuit”. Dullewa had to provide gaming facilities to His imperial and Royal Highness the Arch Duke of Austria at Kalawewa in 1891. In addition, he had to send an elephant tracker.
When Duke Edinburgh visited Central Province in !870 he was taken on an elk hunt at Bopaththalawa. Men worked for 5 weeks cutting roads and erecting embankments for the hunting party under the supervision of Rate Mahattayas of Nuwara Eliya district.
In 1893 Nuwara Eliya chiefs had to facilitate sambhur hunting in Elk Plains with hounds for another dignitary. An elk hunt was organised in 1921 for Crown Prince and Princes of Germany at Kantalai and teal hunting in Kantalai for another in 1931.
4. Disenfranchisement of Kandyans in North Central Province and Election of Low-countrymen” to Kandyan Provinces
For the first election held for the Reformed (new) Legislative Council in April 1921 the majority of the male adults in the North Central Province was disenfranchised as being Kandyans and the electoral roll being confined to the low-country” Sinhalese, Tamils and Moors, numbering 139. Polling stations were at Anuradhapura, Kekirawa, Medawachchiya,Kahatagasdigiliya and Polonnaruwa. There were two candidates, a low country” Sinhalese E.R.Krishnaratne and a Tamil Navaratnaraja. Although the latter withdrew, the ballot was held and the former was elected. This was reported by R. W. Seymore, Government Agent of North Central Province.
No historian, political scientist or any other had observed this discrimination except disenfranchisement of Indian plantation workers by the UNP Government of D. S. Senanyake.
In a poll held in April 1921 to represent Central Province A. G. G. Wijekone (later Sir Gerald Wijekone) was elected by a majority of 23 votes. Number of voters who had voted in his favour was 661. In Sabaragamuwa J.W.E. Boteju, a Christian clergyman was returned as the Member of the Province. Uva Province was represented by D.H. Kotelawala (Sir Don Henry). In 1926 Central Province was represented by George E. de Silva (Ape George”), a migrant from the coastal belt.
5. Dullewa Adigar’s Servility
Dullewa Adigar functioned as a member of the Provincial /District Committee appointed under Buddhist Temporalities Ordinance of 1889, making inventories of moveable property and lists of land owned by Buddhist viharas and devalayas interms of clause 14 of the said Ordinance.
His aim was to implement the Buddhist Temporalities Ordinance to the letter acting against custodians of some Buddhist viharas and devalayas. He had disagreements with Mahanayaka of Malwatta Viharaya, Diyawadana Nilame of Dalada Maligawa and Basnayake Nilames of certain devalayas. He had instituted legal action against the Nayaka Unnanse of Dambulla Viharaya. His Diary notes that his work associated with Buddhist Temporalities Ordinance was not appreciated at all by Buddhist priests.
The purport of the Buddhist Temporalities Ordinance was to vest the property belonging to the Buddhist temples in trustees appointed by and acting under the control of district committees; the object being to ensure that the revenues of the temples were applied to proper uses”. Since there are hundreds of publications regarding Buddhist Ecclestical Law it is not our intention to delve into this matter any further. Temple property and the rights of Viharadhipathis have been regulated by successive Buddhist Temporalities Ordinances and their amendments.
British Government wanted to transfer the custody of Vihara property from Viharadipathis to trustees consisting of lay persons, inventorise land and movable property through district committees appointed under the Ordinance. The commissioners of the Buddhist Temporalities Commission were of the opinion that the incumbent priests relish on the property of viharas unashamedly. But the Buddhist prelates argued otherwise, that the report of the Commission was going against the Buddhist values and ethics, ancient edicts of the kings, ancient customs and beliefs of the people and above all else against the English Law.
Buddhists argued that it was wrong to state that there was a law in Buddhism that the property belonged to Sanga and Viharas can be partitioned and sold. The Commissioners wanted to sell the property of Viharayas and utilize the proceeds to spend on colleges and schools. The commissioners had cited Rajawaliya” which was not a book written on Buddha Dhamma. It was a mockery learning principle of Buddhism from Rajawaliya”, the Buddhists argued in their petitions against the Ordinance. They argued that what was offered to one viharaya in the ancient times, whether land or any other moveable offering cannot be transferred to any other viharaya at the behest of the incumbent priest. Even sacred dhatus belonging to one viharaya, although they are of Lord Buddha cannot be shared with other viharayas or chaittyayas.
It was against the law of ancient kings transferring custody of viharayas to lay persons from priests. They were clearly stated in ancient sannases and thudapaths that bestowed offerings to viharayas. It was against Buddhist beliefs and views and prohibited by kings even plucking flowers and fruits from trees belonging to viharayas without obtaining prior permission from the incumbent priest. If the government uses the income belonging to viharayas it was a breach of 1815 Kandyan Convention they argued. Acquiring land belonging to viharayas by the government and paying a nominal fee according to the Commission report is against the English Law as it was illegal to acquire property belonging to someone else without his consent and agreement. It should be noted that many of the words and phrases contain in these petitions this writer had perused are untranslatable.
The Buddhists opposed the proposal of appointment of Mahanayakas and Anunayakas of Malwatta and Asgiriya chapters respectively and other provincial chief priests by a central board.
Mahanayakas of Malwatta and Asgiriya chapters also sent a petition to Queen Victoria citing reasons how the recommendations of the Commission were detrimental to Buddha Sasana with no avail.
In 1891, Dullewa went to Dalada Maligawa to inventorise its moveable property. When the priests of Malwatta and Asgiriya had objected that the Committee or anybody should not interfere with the Maligawa or anything connected with it he and other Rate Mahattayas represented that matter to the Government Agent. The Government Agent was wise enough to say that he could not openly interfere”.
Following day, the Committee held a meeting and resolved a deputation including Dullewa and the Presidents of the two Committees to meet the Governor and submit the difficulties the committee encountering in carrying out their work under the Ordinance. The delegation boarded the afternoon train from Kandy and stayed the night at British India Hotel. Following day at the Queens’ House the Governor received the delegation, listened to their oral submissions and accepted their written submissions.
The delegation went to see Wellawatta Spinning and Weaving Mills and came to Fort railway station to board the evening train to Kandy. But they were late by a few minutes. Utterly disappointed Dullewa and Nugawela, Rate Mahattaya of Udunuwara went to Kelaniya temple. The whole night wasspent in conversation with Dompe Nayaka Unnanse and his pupil on the working and objects of the Ordinance and other religious topics”. Dullewa makes a comparison between Dompe Unnanse and Kandyan priests. This Unnanse is a very intelligent man. If the priests of Malwatta and Asgiriya are possessed of half the intelligence of this venerable man the wise intention of the Buddhist Temporalities Ordinance would have been satisfactorily brought up to work upon this time.”
We discussed Dullewa’s trip to Colombo in detail to rack brains of present day pseudo theorists, who jump into conclusions at a drop of a hat and to warn them not to theorise: (1) that Dullewa was a modern” man ahead of his times, who worked against feudalistic economic relations and land ownership patterns, who wanted to free Buddhism from all forms of feudal and un- Buddhistic practices (land ownership of Viharayas) and preserve its pristine glory; (2) that Dullewa was pro-industry visiting Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills; (Dullewa does not write his impressions of what he observed at Weaving Mills or that Central Province needs at least some cottage industries or the revival of textile weaving in Talagune in Uda Dumbara and weaving carried out by drummers (viyannala) in other villages; it should be reminded that as his diary, Dullewa was not using a pocket diary; all diary entries were made in a big book made of foolscap folio by a clerk, not an onsite activity). (3) that he was intelligent enough to make a comparison between low-country” Buddhist priests who acknowledged changes and Kandyan Buddhist priests who were subscribing to archaic, feudalistic viewpoints resenting change.
He used his position to claim more and more land from British Government not only for himself but also for his brother.
In March 1893, Dullewa visited Embili Viharaya in Purijjala, Matale with Rate Mahattaya of Matale East, Padiwita Walauwe Tikiri Banda, member of Matale Committee, to make a list of moveable property belonging to the Viharaya. The priest very willingly showed all the property of the Viharaya and got all his personal belongings entered in the inventory saying that it was his intention to offer them to the Viharaya. Dullewa without understanding the subtle opposition of the priest writes in appreciation that this is a very intelligent priest who had read the Ordinance” and deplores the opposition of other priests.
Dullewa in June 1893 met the Trustee of Dambulla Viharaya and gave instructions to one Mr. Bevan to institute a case against the Nayaka Unnanse to recover possession of the offering he had forcibly taken and obtain an injunction to prevent him from molesting the Trustee.” He stood himself” as security for Rs. 1000/=. He again instituted a case against Nayaka Unnanse for the recovery of the value of paddy alleged to have taken forcibly by Nayaka Unnanse’s people from a paddy field.
Hearing of Maligawa case” was resumed in July 1894. Diyawadana Nilame denied that he accepted office as Trustee under the District Committee and that the Maligawa as a temple. To prove the latter statement among the other witnesses he called Thibbotuwawe Mahanayaka of Malwatte. Dullewa writes in his Diary: This venerable gentleman in open court stated that the Maligawa is not a temple as defined in the Ordinance to the surprise of those understood the meaning of the word Viharaya.”
At Galewela with the Assistant Agent of Matale he brought control of temple tanks under irrigation rules.
He had a peculiar way of resolving conflicts among villagers, threatening them that he was not prepared to give them his paddy fields and chenas to cultivate. This had some salutary effect on them. The leaders of the two factions promised to settle it among themselves”.
Dullewa’s Diary ends on 19, August 1895.
6. Abolition of the Posts of Chief Headmen in 1939
A Headmen’s Commission was appointed by the British Government in 1920. But its recommendations were not implemented. A second commission was appointed in 1934. To replace the existing Chief Headmen, Divisional Revenue Officers (DROs) were appointed. In 1939 April Probationary DROs were appointed. On December 1, 10 of the 37 posts of Koralas in Kandy District were suppressed.
DROs were recruited to (i) Kandyan Areas (ii) Maritime Areas, and (iii) Tamil Speaking Areas. To Kandyan Areas only Kandyan Sinhalayas (any son of a Kandyan father; any son of a Kandyan mother) were appointed. It should be noted that of the DROs appointed in 1939, M.D. Banda (from Maturata in 1947, 1952, 1956, from Hanguranketha in 1960 and from Polgahawela in 1965- Cabinet Minister), D. B. Welagedera (from Kurunegala in 1952 and 1977 – Deputy Minister) and George Abeygoonesekara (from Hanguranketha in 1965 and 1977) entered Parliament. M.D. Banda began his political career as a member of the State Council representing Nuwara Eliya. Piyasena Tennakone (1940 intake – from Kandy in 1956 and from Heavaheta in 1970 –Deputy Speaker), X. M. Sellathambu (1942 intake – from Mullaitivu in 1977) E. L. B. Hurulla ( 1943 intake – from Horowpotana in 1956, 1960, 1965, 1970 and 1977- Cabinet Minister) and U. B. Wijekone (1960 intake- from Dambadeniya in 1977 – Cabinet Minister) followed suit. Piyasena Tennakone was the only MP elected from SLFP.
Many former Dissavas and Rate Mahattayas were appointed as members of the Legislative Council, State Council and later Parliament. Some became Cabinet Ministers; some of them were conferred with Knighthoods.
It is the State with the lowest gravity in the world. There is a special area in that country that belongs to the rotation speed of the earth and the mysterious constant of the universe. Is it just a coincidence that the historic Sri Dalada Maligawa is located in that special area? This Research Report reveals to the world for the first time about such wonders that exist only in Sri Lanka.
Most of the unique monuments around the world that belong to past ages of the earth have been built for common spiritual purposes. But most of the modern constructions are maintained for private and commercial purposes only. For the present world, trapped in such narrow goals, to become a better world in the future, those past ages must be grasped with the scientific eye. In that process, essentially, alternative scientific theories have to be introduced. This is another important step in the global mission for that.
A majority of the Sri Lankans strongly believe in the legend of Ravana. Are there mysterious cosmic codes for certain places in the Ravana legend and ancient Buddhist temples? Is there any mysterious connection between Sri Lanka and the physical constants that govern our universe? If such a connection exists, Sri Lanka’s position on our planet is unique compared to any other land. Here is a table containing the basic physical constants of our universe. The constants in the table are given in scientific notation using SI units. Latitudes, numerically equal to the coefficients of those constants are called universal latitudes (universal lines).
NASA’s GRACE mission revealed that Sri Lanka is the country with the lowest gravity in the world. Two ancient monuments have been erected on either side of the line of latitude which numerically represents the mass of the earth across the Southern part of Sri Lanka. Those two monuments symbolise the world’s lowest gravity in Southern Sri Lanka, discovered by NASA’s GRACE mission. We will bring you more information about that in the next research report.
The main factors that determine the ‘felt’ gravity relative to the Earth’s surface are the distribution of the Earth’s mass and its angular velocity around the Earth’s axis. It can be considered that both these values do not change with time. Therefore, a UL-type physical quantity can be defined also from these two constants. Earth’s mass is 5.972×10^24 kg and its angular velocity is 7.292×10^-5 radians/second. Accordingly, latitudes numerically equal to the coefficients of each of the above constants are called special latitudes (special lines), SL. Accordingly, the four special lines of latitude of the Earth’s angular velocity (Earth’s angular velocity lines) are 7.292, -7.292, 72.92, -72.92 and the four special lines of latitude of the Earth’s mass (Earth’s mass lines) are 5.972, -5.972, 59.72, -59.72. Accordingly, the maximum number of lines of latitude obtained by one global constant or one universal constant is four. Sri Lanka is the country with the lowest gravity in the world and many other reasons make the land of Sri Lanka more unique. Due to its influence, the 5.972 line, the special line of latitude of the Earth’s mass across Sri Lanka, is more special than the other three special mass lines of latitude. Also, the part of that 5.972 latitude line on Sri Lanka is more important. Latitudes representing the masses of the Sun and Moon numerically can also be used for these Special Latitudes (SLs).
Among the four lines of universal latitude with the numerical value of the constant speed of light and gravitational waves in vacuum, as shown in the table, northern latitude 29.979 goes through the centre of the Earth’s land mass. The Great Pyramid of Egypt was built at this point with the centre of the earth’s land. Accordingly, the universal line of northern latitude 29.979, representing the speed of light and speed of gravitational waves, passes exactly through the Great Pyramid.
According to the above theory, the ‘Google Maps’ application is used to search the nature of Sri Lanka by universal codes (or special codes) or universal latitudes (or special latitudes) in Sri Lanka. Now let’s use only a few of those codes to identify the nature of a limited number of places in Sri Lanka.
In the table of constants, the value of the fine-structure constant is 7.297×10^-3.
This constant, widely enforced in quantum physics, governs one of the most fundamental interactions in the universe. Without this super-extraordinary constant, even life as we know it would not exist. There is a simple numerical relationship between this ‘unsolved’ mystery constant, which has no unit or dimension, and the Earth’s angular velocity of 7.292×10^-5 radians/second. That is, the first three digits of the fine-structure constant, and the first three digits of the numerical value of the Earth’s angular velocity are exactly the same. Those same initial digits are shown in the figures. Accordingly, the respective universal latitude and the special latitude are very close to each other. Accordingly, something very special on Earth must have happened or existed, at least, in relation to the 7.29 latitude segment on Ceylon. So let’s first check code 7.29 by Google Maps. Accordingly, there are the following ancient constructions on and close to the latitude 7.29 of Sri Lanka.
Sri Dalada Maligawa: latitude 7.293
Bambaragala Rajamaha Viharaya: latitude 7.29
Pettigala Kandy: latitude 7.288
Indrasala Cave: latitude 7.287
Mahiyangana Raja Maha Viharaya: latitude 7.320
Deeghawapi Raja Maha Viharaya: latitude 7.28
The latitude 7.34 related to the mass of the Moon is also close to the above positions.
Now let’s examine some of the ancient constructions outside of or between that pair of lines, since the latitudes belonging to the universal codes 6.674 and 6.626 given by the constants in the table are very close.
Kuragala Ancient Buddhist Monastery: latitude 6.626
Kuragala Purana Rajamaha Viharaya: latitud 6.623
BuduGala Archaeological site, Kusinarawa: latitude 6.634
Budugala Purana Rajamaha Viharaya: latitude 6.634
Budugala Purana Rajamaha Wiharaya: latitude 6.63
Buduruwagala Rock Carvings: latitude 6.6
Kudumbigala Monastery Complex: latitude 6.672
Budulena Rajamaha Viharaya: latitude 6.664
Budulen Rajamaha Viharaya: latitude 6.66
Maligawila Buddha Statue: latitude 6.728
Yudaganava Rajamaha Viharaya: latitude 6.773
The Kurundi Ancient Buddhist Temple is located at latitude 9.11, very close to the UL 9.109 corresponding to the mass of the electron (9.109×10^-31kg). The UL 9, which represents the Coulomb constant (9×10^9 Nmm) in physics, is also close to the Kurundi temple, making the temple site more unique.
Lines of latitudes with numerical values of fundamental constants in mathematics can also be considered universal latitudes. For example, the line of latitude 31.4 corresponding to a fundamental constant of mathematics 3.14 is about 170 km from the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The longitude of the Great Pyramid is also 31.13.
We exactly know that all the above-mentioned places are historical places. I have confirmed the uniqueness of those places in a special scientific form using the universal and special codes shown above. As a result, there has been a scientific confirmation of the peculiarities of sacred sites such as the Sri Dalada Maligawa among those confirmed places. But according to traditional history, places such as ‘Lumbini where Prince Gautama Siddhartha Bosath was born’ do not exist on the territory of Sri Lanka. If the two names Gotama and Gautama are considered identical, it is a surprising fact that most of the lines of latitudes belonging to these cosmic codes do not pass not only through the places where those monuments according to traditional history are located but also through the countries where those places are located. Here I have not been loyal to any country or any party and there is no possibility of being loyal in theoretical research. In Sri Lanka, it can be clearly concluded that the historical monuments that are properly established along the lines of latitude belonging to these universal codes belong to past eras with high technological development. The UL +7.29, one of the most valuable lines of latitude in the world, passes through Victoria Reservoir. Since there are important historical places in the area where the reservoir is located, it is possible that during the construction of the reservoir, historical places with such important values were buried under the reservoir. We will consider many other special shrines like Ruwanweli Maha Seya in the next article.
These codes can also be used to identify or confirm a particular archaeological site. Finally, it should be emphasised that all these disclosures are made in accordance with the laws of nature, or the laws of the universe, and not for personal interests.
About the Author:
M. Udita Sandaruwan, is an Innovator, Independent Researcher and Author
The government has decided to accept the medical degrees awarded by internationally recognized universities as recognized medical degrees in Sri Lanka.
Approval was granted at the Cabinet meeting held on May 2, 2023.
Accordingly, approval was granted to appoint a committee headed by the Secretary to the Prime Minister to prepare a national policy that includes the standards and criteria based on the recognition of medical degree courses offered by internationally recognized universities.
It was also requested to make appropriate recommendations to amend the provisions of the Medical Ordinance to suit the current needs.
However, based on the report with the recommendations of this committee, the President and the Health Minister presented a combined proposal to take the necessary steps to enact the necessary legal provisions.
Hence, medical degrees awarded by foreign universities within the No. 1 to 1000 international rankings will be accepted in Sri Lanka. (Chaturanga Pradeep Samarawickrama)
Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has approved visa-free entry for visitors from seven countries including India, China and Russia as a pilot project until 31 March 2024, Tourism Minister Harin Fernando said.
In a tweet, he said the Cabinet has approved visa-free entry to visitors from India, China, Russia, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand with immediate effect.
Last week, the Ministry of Tourism announced that a cabinet paper had been presented in the previous Cabinet meeting to issue free tourist visas for foreigners from five countries who come to Sri Lanka as tourists.
The cabinet paper in this regard was presented as a joint cabinet paper by Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, Tourism and Lands Minister Harin Fernando, Minister of Public Security Tiran Alles and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Sabry.
The ministry had said that it was expected to get approval in the upcoming cabinet meeting and that accordingly, it was proposed that tourists from China, Russia, India, Thailand and Indonesia be entitled for free visa.
The purpose of exempting tourists from many countries from visas is to attract more tourists to Sri Lanka. Accordingly, it is expected to increase tourist arrivals to five million over the coming years,” the Tourism Ministry had said.
Sri Lanka is also within the 20 countries that China has announced for travel by Chinese tourists, it said.
This proposed program will save money and time spent on obtaining visas and it is expected that the tendency of foreign tourists to visit Sri Lanka will increase, the statement had said.
It is also proposed to introduce an e-ticketing system for most of the tourist sites in the country in the near future, according to the ministry.
After reading Mr. P. K. Balachandran’s (PKB) essay, Roots of ethnic contestation in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province,” (Daily Mirror on October 10th, 2023), I tried to understand why he wrote it and what was his purpose. Did he find any new roots of his own helping people to understand it better? Against a vast body of research on the topic of a mythical Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka, PKB takes the readers along his confused and delusional Eelam path. After his essay, the outbursts of the TNA boy Rasamanikkam in the parliament, culminating in a secret removal in the night of a Buddha statute at an old Sinhala village, Divulapathaana (Batticaloa), creates a suspicion that PKB was engaged in most probably, a contract job to please the Eelam lobby, local and foreign.
An ethnic group based on language or religion is supposed to have only one organic homeland and not two or three. But PKB supplies 3 homelands for his Tamil masters: the real one in Tamilnad, another in Jaffna and a third in the Eastern Province (EP). He forgets that the EP is an artificial demarcation. When Tamils in the Fiji Islands tried to claim a homeland there, they were chased out. Same happened in Malaysia and in Singapore.
A senior reporter like him ought to take a holistic approach in understanding phenomena we see around us, on land and sea. One must see the trees as well as the forest. Justice cannot be done to the geography of (and history is past geography) the issue of adding the Eastern Province to the Eelam Northern Province by words and sentences written in an arbitrary, biased, and unreasonable manner. Whether PKB is a Hindu or a Christian, it is a sin to mislead his readership with falsehood and half-truths. As the then Sunday Leader newspaper editor Fredericka Janz, now exiled in the USA once said, a newspaper printing such delusional verbiage is good only for wrapping fish at the market.
Malaria mosquito and PKB
The best way to handle his confusing hidden agenda is to expose him to facts so that he cannot try to play a game of ‘taking fire under water.’ Decades ago, historian K. M.de Silva and geographer G. H. Peiris explained with data why Chelvanayagam’s artificial homeland theory and his complaint of Sinhalization of the dry zone with irrigation projects had no roots at all. Since the days of the Dutch rule, white masters tried to populate the Wanni region with Tamils from South India, but the malaria mosquito prevented it. On the other hand, reports of the English administrative officers confirm that Sinhala villagers lived in these regions continuously. No Tamil was displaced by the peasant colonization schemes started in the 1940s. With the confiscation of their lands by the white rulers for tea plantations, Kandyan peasants became prisoners in their own ancestral lands, and after 1931 an attempt was made to give them land where land was available, in the dry zone.
*1. The Tamil ethnic formula is not as simple as PKB thinks. There are Vellala Tamils, low caste Tamils and Batticaloa Tamils. At the beginning, Muslim leaders stood behind Prabakaran, until the Muslims in the North were chased out by him. There was no dominance issue between Tamils and Muslims.
The package deals of Mrs. CBK (and Neelan-GL) during 1995-2000 recognized a Muslim region in the Eastern Province, while allowing room for Neelan Thiruchevam’s dream for a mono Tamil region in NP+EP with provisions for a merger.
Nobody speaks about the Sinhala residents displaced by Prabakaran. There is also a story that the low caste Tamils happened to be the original Sinhala people subjugated by the Vellalas who came from Tamilnad during colonial times. Surnames of these Tamils and Tamilized village names support this thinking.
Until 1911, Ceylon had Malabar inhabitants, not Tamils. It was Ponnambalam Arunachalam who got the designation changed as Ceylon Tamils.
*2. PKB ignores the fact that the separatist politics by TNA, Wigneswaran and Ponnambalam etc. are facing a crisis with a rapidly diminishing voter base. Tamil people are not in support of a Tamil Eelam or a 13-A plus or minus. The low caste Tamils have realized that in an Eelam they will be suppressed by the Vellala ruling class. They found the Sinhala army as their friend while the Indian RAW is promoting Hindi language in Jaffna.
*3. PKB is silent about the Tamil Che Guvera, Arun Siddharth in Jaffna, who has developed political links with the southern Sinhala Buddhist leaders. Both Jaffna and Colombo-living Tamil separatist politicians consider Arun as a survival threat for them. They and the Indian government office in Jaffna hate Arun’s request for help in teaching Sinhala to low caste Tamils and Tamil to Sinhala officers etc. The former governor of the Eastern Province Anuradha Yahampath started programs to teach Tamil and Sinhala in schools and offices in that province.
*4. Another geographical factor that PKB hides is that there was no Hindu Tamil – Sinhala Buddhist clash in Sri Lanka. 15-20% of the sacred space of a Buddhist temple is devoted to Hindu gods and goddesses, and some Hindu Kovils are maintained by village temples. In fact, protest marches against ancient Buddhist temples in Jaffna, Trinco or Mulathive are led by Christian Tamil pastors and not by the Hindu priests! The new reality in Jaffna is that Non-Vellala Tamils are supporting the ancient Buddhist temples in Jaffna and the Eastern Province.
*5. The Eastern province is an arbitrary demarcation by the British. It was/is an organic, natural part of the Kandyan kingdom per Robert Knox’s book. Before that when the Portuguese began killing Muslims in the western coastal areas, the Sinhala king allowed them to migrate and settle down in the Eastern province (and the Muslim politicians demand an Oluvil country today thanks to this world’s first refugee settlement project!). Catholic villages in the Kandyan regions today are also a relict of the second refugee project when the Dutch Reformist church started killing Catholics in coastal areas.
*6. PKB’s superficial and bias HISTORICITY
PKB does not demonstrate he has any deep or critical knowledge of Sri Lankan or the Eastern Province history. He relies on one Fr. Rajan Rohaan of the Church Commission for Peace and Justice and Nirmala Chandrahassan respectively, for his Eelam pilgrimage. Nirmala is the daughter of EMV Naganathan and daughter-in-law of SJV Chelvanayagam, the two Christians who were behind the establishment of the Federal STATE Party disguised as Federal Party.
Who in the world disputed the existence of Buddhist ruins in India or in South India? Do we need PKB to tell this to the world. The question is that there is not a single Buddhist temple with an unbroken history of existence in South India today. Piggybacking on Sunil Ariyaratna’s book on ‘Tamil Buddhists,’ Wigneswaran tried to fool people saying that Tamil Buddhists in Jaffna were converted to Buddhism by Sinhala occupants and later these Tamil Buddhists became Shiva Hindus! He thought by this theory he could pump oxygen to Chellanayagam’s Tamil homeland myth.
During the Babri Masjid controversy in Ayodhya, when the mosque site was subjected to new excavation as ordered by the Indian supreme court, under the Hindu shrine (Rama’s temple), they found the ruins of a Buddhist temple! Similarly, in Polonnaruwa underneath the two Shiva kovils built by the Chola rulers, they found the ruins of Buddhist temples! Based on Buddhist religious literature, some scholars speculate that the famous stone at Mecca (Makkama-Makulolaramaya) Saudi Arabia, was part of a Buddhist temple. A simple excavation could reveal whether this is true or false.
*8. PKB is crazy to think that ancient Buddhist ruins in the Eastern Province were discovered after 2019 with the appointment of a committee by the president Gotabhaya. For example, Kurundi vihara was identified first by the British officers, and Ven. Ellawala Medhananda spent more than 35 years recording information about such archaeological sites.
*9. PKB needs to list the names of temples newly opened at locations without people. It is people who invites a temple and a monk not the other way around. He must be confused about the situation when ancient temple ruins were discovered a monk deciding to reside there to protect it from the enemies of archaeology!
*10. PKB is silent about the two types of invasions Sinhala Buddhists and Hindu Tamils face: Unethical religious conversions by the Christian evangelical/fundamentalist world movement and the Sharia-Wahabi Islam expansion into the cities and town all over the island. It has a weapon called war of wombs, promoted by Yasar Arfat and Gaddafi, baby making factories with a dozen or so women and one or two men in Arab-funded buildings!
*11. With clear evidence that it is Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe (RW) as president of the country who is creating problems between religious and ethnic groups by his unnecessary comments etc., PKB is feeding RW & Co. with false data. The anti-Sinhala Buddhist agitations by the Christian boy Rasamaikkam gets an automatic boost when RW downgrades ancient coastal temples as light houses built for the benefit of ships sailing around Sinhala Deepa!
PKB is deaf and blind when RW orders officers to stop private donations to restore and repair ancient temples while mesmerizing some monks about establishing a new international Buddhist university at Mahavihara. The truth is already there is one such university (Nalanda) in the Gampaha area. Instead of a duplicate new university RW could help this Nalanda International Buddhist university.
PKB cannot be ignorant of the fact that Buddhism is different from other God-based (Abrahamic) religions. There were no wars against other religions or forced religious conversions. It invites people to come and examine, not come and believe. Buddhism accommodates minor Hindu gods and goddesses, but Buddhists cannot accept the new western intrusion coming as the Interfaith Movement which promotes an idea that all religions preach the same message, because for Buddhists, each individual must find his/her salvation by his/her own actions, and no God can do this for him. This is what the likes of Rasamannikam cannot fathom. Both RW and PKB may be playing double games, but Rasamanikkam is determined to get what his grandfather and Chelvanayagam wanted in 1949, an Eelam of the Kosovo model.
Right at this moment the World has Reached a Critical
Crunch, mainly due to Human Greed & Fear!
The Russian Invasion of Ukraine is a Case-in-Point!
The Fear of Crimea falling into NATO hands drove Russia to move into forward gear to attack Ukraine.
It is said that USSR and now Russia, always Negotiated with Military Tanks!
The current recent events have shown that Ukraine for its size, is a serious challenge to Russian might and even prove that, the current David Might Beat Goliath!
Moving a few thousand kilometers to the East, Hamas made a dramatic example of Cruelty combined with Savage efficiency of annihilating innocent music lovers on Israeli soil.
In 1994 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands, under the auspices of President Bill Clinton.
In the recently held elections in Maldives, a pro-China candidate Mohamed Muizzu won the elections on the slogan India Out” of Maldives. The Indian Ocean islands have been a battleground between China and India. The area is 9000 square kilometres out of which 298 square kilometres is dry land. No island is larger than 8 Kilometres and only 200 Islands are inhabited. Malé is the capital and a third of the population lives here. The President elect Muhammad Muizzu of the People Nation Congress got 54 percent of votes against the sitting president Ibrahim Solih. Muizzu was supported by former president Abdullah Yamin, from 2013 to 2018. The present president won the elections in 2018 and his government’s foreign policy was based on India’s first approach and declared India as a big brother. Solih sent Abdullah Yamin behind bars who was subsequently jailed for money laundering and was disqualified. The most important factor in Muizzu’s victory was his campaign against Indian Influence and the presence of the Indian military in Maldives. The Maldivians also showed their concern about the continued Indian influence, the presence of an Indian military contingent and secret deals with India. Banners and posters were displayed across the island country India Out” scribbled on it. It was former president and opposition leader Abdullah Yamin wore a T-shirt with the words India Out”. He was the one who introduced the slogan India Out” from Maldives. In June 2022 Maldivians stormed the Indian Yoga Day celebrations organised by the Indian High Commission. When India Out” campaigns were at its peak before election the Ibrahim Solih Government, under Indian pressure, issued a decree that the India Out” campaign by the opposition was a threat to national security. The former president Abdullah Yamin curtailed Indian influence in the country and joined the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The election victory of Muhammad Muizzu, pro-China has disturbed India. The Chinese presence in the Maldives for India is a threat and a matter of concern. India is bullying and pressurising small neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and exerting pressure on countries like Seychelles and Mauritius. In 2018 the Seychelles opposition parties forced India to abandon its plan to develop infrastructure in the country. To pressurise Nepal against its constitutional amendments, imposed a blockade on Nepal. The blockade resulted in a shortage of fuel, medicine, and essential supplies. Another reason for the blockade was a visit to Nepal by a high-level Chinese delegation and a Nepali delegation visiting China. In 1988 India carried out Operation Cactus in Maldives when there was an attempted coup by landing its troops in Maldives. India undertook the action to demonstrate its power and flex its military muscles. India is propagating that the Chinese will trap Maldives in its debt trap to control small countries as they did in Sri Lanka. The Chinese got a 99-year lease of Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port. However, the actual reason is that they fear Chinese presence in their backyard and a real threat to India. Pakistan and Maldives enjoy excellent relations based on respect, common faith, and shared interest. Pakistan built the parliament building as a gift to Maldivians. Pakistan also provides training to Maldivian diplomats and offers seats in professional colleges and universities for Maldivian students.
COLOMBO, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s consumer price inflation rate eased to 0.8% year-on-year in September from 2.1% in August, the statistics department said on Monday.
The National Consumer Price Index (LKNCPI=ECI) captures broader retail price inflation and is released with a lag of 21 days every month.
Food prices fell 5.2% in September after declining 5.4% in August, from a year earlier, the Department of Census and Statistics said in a statement.
Prices for non-food items, however, climbed 5.9% in September after rising 9% year-on-year in August.
Sri Lanka experienced record high inflation after its economy was pummelled by the worst financial crisis in decades.
But since June, its inflation has come down sharply, partly due to the statistical base effect, but also helped by a stronger rupee currency, and improved harvests.
Sri Lanka raised power prices for households by 18% last week but the increase is unlikely to significantly push up inflation, analysts said.
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“We expect inflation to end the year at about 5%. A small increase is expected as the base effect is coming to an end from September but the impact from price adjustments is not expected to be severe,” said Dimantha Mathew, head of research at First Capital Research.
Sri Lanka secured a staff level agreement on the first review of its $2.9-billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last Friday but it still needs approval from the global lender’s Executive Board.
The island needs to finalise debt restructuring talks with main bilateral lenders including Japan and India as well as bondholders to get past the first review and secure a second tranche of about $330 million.
The battered economy is still expected to contract by 2% in 2023 after shrinking 7.8% last year.
Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe in Colombo and Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Robert Birsel
Oct 23 (CNN) – We don’t want any foreign military boots on Maldivian soil… I promised this to the people of the Maldives and I will live up to my promise from day one.”
Dr Mohamed Muizzu, who won the Maldives presidential election last month, is wasting no time in asking India to get its troops out of the country.
The president-elect, who is due to be sworn in later in November, told the BBC in an exclusive interview that he met the Indian ambassador a few days after his victory and told him very clearly that every single Indian military personnel here should be removed”.
The Maldives has long been under India’s sphere of influence and Mr Muizzu’s demand is likely to trigger diplomatic tensions between Malé and Delhi.
In fact, when Mr Muizzu won the Maldives presidential poll, that was seen as a setback for India – especially as his opponent, the incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih – had drawn his country closer to Delhi since taking over in 2018.
The alliance backing Mr Muizzu portrayed this relationship – strengthened by Mr Solih’s India-first policy – as a threat to the Maldives’ sovereignty and security.
Mr Muizzu’s alliance favours closer ties with China, which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the Maldives in the form of loans and grants for infrastructure and development projects.
But India, which wants a foothold in the strategically located islands to monitor a key part of the Indian Ocean, has also provided about $2bn in development assistance to the country.
If its troops are forced to leave, it will be a blow for Delhi.
But a furore over gifts” that Delhi gave the Maldives – two helicopters received in 2010 and 2013 and a small aircraft in 2020 – has given the India out” campaign a huge boost.
Delhi said the craft were to be used for search and rescue missions and medical evacuations.
But in 2021, the Maldivian defence force said about 75 Indian military personnel were based in the country to operate and maintain the Indian aircrafts. This fuelled suspicion and anger as many felt the reconnaissance aircraft were being used as an excuse to put Indian boots on the ground.
Mr Muizzu also says that the presence of these troops could put the Maldives at risk – especially as tensions between India and China escalate along their Himalayan border.
Maldives is too small to get entangled with this global power struggle. We will not get entangled into this,” he said.
Speaking to the BBC before the presidential poll, the outgoing president Mr Solih said fears about the presence of Indian troops were exaggerated.
There are no militarily active overseas personnel stationed in the Maldives. Indian personnel currently present in the country are under the operational command of the Maldives National Defence Force,” he said.
But it’s not just the aircrafts. Mr Muizzu said he wanted to review all the agreements the Maldives has signed with India in recent years.
We don’t know what’s in there. Even in Parliament, some of the MPs during the debates said that they didn’t know what’s in there. I am sure we will find it out,” he said.
Soon after his victory, observers noted that the Chinese ambassador in Malé was quick to congratulate Mr Muizzu.
Chinese President Xi Jinping also weighed in, saying he attached great importance to the development of bilateral relations and stands ready to work with President-elect Muizzu to carry forward the traditional friendship, deepen practical cooperation”.
Mr Muizzu has also spoken highly of Chinese infrastructure projects in the Maldives, saying the investments had transformed Malé city and brought benefits to its residents.
However, he has denied being a pro-China” candidate as opposed to the pro-India” Mr Solih.
I am a pro-Maldives person. For me, Maldives comes first, our independence comes first” he said. I am not pro or against any country.”
Despite this, however, his opposition alliance includes the party of former president Abdulla Yameen who was instrumental in moving the Maldives closer to China.
When India and Western lenders were not willing to offer loans to Yameen’s administration due to allegations of human rights violations, Yameen – who is currently serving a 11-year prison sentence for corruption – turned to Beijing who offered him the money without any conditions.
He then joined President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative – which aims to build road, rail and sea links between China and the rest of the world.
Mr Muizzu was seen as a proxy of Yameen – who was barred from contesting the election.
Soon after he won the election Mr Muizzu asked the current administration to move Yameen from a high-security prison to house arrest in the capital Male.
But given Yameen’s uneasy and tense relationship with Delhi, it could well be a struggle for Mr Muizzu’s new alliance to balance ties with India.
Mr Muizzu sounds keen to emerge out of the shadows of Yameen and is all set to charter a new path both domestically and in the country’s foreign affairs.
Given his decisive victory he may not face much resistance internally, at least in the initial stages.
He sounds determined to take the Maldives out of India’s orbit but convincing Delhi to withdraw its troops may be his first big challenge.
Colombo, October 23: It comes as no surprise that liberals, leftists and Muslims in America have been demonstrating against Israel’s bid to de-populate Gaza under the guise of hunting down Hamas. But what has come as a surprise is that a large section of the US Jewish community is coming out against Israel’s brutal response.
American Jewish protesters demand that President Joe Biden play the peace-maker rather than arm Israel to the teeth to help it carry out a war of annihilation thereby precipitating a regional and even a global catastrophe.
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In New York, which is a stronghold of American Jews being home to two million of them, a Jewish group calling itself Not in Our Name” has protested against the ‘dehumanisation’ of Palestinians.
A France 24 report from New York gives the case of protestor Jessica Murphy, a 27 year-old medical student who, though losing her father in the 9/11 attack, felt bad for both the Israelis and the Palestinians.
She was concerned that a false dichotomy was being created, whereby one either supported terrorism or supported the brutal State of Israel.
I was obviously a child when 9/11 happened, and it’s only many years after the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the torture and detention of many innocent people at Guantanamo Bay, that I learned about those horrors the US committed, ostensibly in the name of 9/11 victims like my dad,” she recalled.
Murphy condemned retaliatory violence and insisted that the US stick to strict standards of morality and the Rule of Law.
I feel that Israel is making a similar mistake that the United States did,” she adds, stressing that war crimes, however horrific, do not entitle countries to commit crimes of their own.
Obviously, the attacks by Hamas were a war crime. But that does not justify war crimes by the United States in Iraq or by Israel in Gaza,” Murphy said.
She was part of a group of about 1,000 protesters who gathered outside US Senator Chuck Schumer’s house on October 13, to make him and other politicians stop funding the Israeli military.
Jewish peace activist Tal Frieden was among those arrested for blocking entry to the street where Senator Schumer resides, chanting Not in Our Name” throughout the protest.
Frieden’s grandparents were Holocaust survivors from Hungary. He told France 24 that his family had taught him that never again” for the Jews should also be never again for anyone”.
Frieden, who is part of the anti-Zionist Voice for Peace” movement, viewed the Israeli bombing of Gaza as genocide”.
UN legal experts have said that Israeli actions in Gaza could amount to ethnic cleansing”. According to Palestinian officials more than 4,000 people were killed in Gaza since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people.
Frieden thought that the number of Jewish Americans joining the anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist movement was increasing.
The tides are changing, and we’re seeing more and more support for Palestinian liberation,” he said.
Laurie Rohrich, a Jewish entrepreneur eating Palestinian mezze at the Palestinian eatery Ayat told France 24: Hamas is a terrorist group but these people (civilians in Gaza) are just trying to live in 140 square miles. They have families, and they want the same things as the rest of us all want – just peace and safety, food, shelter.”
On October 19, Times of Israel reported that over 300 were arrested at a Washington rally demanding that Israel stop the war in Gaza.
The rally was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and IfNotNow, two Jewish groups that criticise Israel and accuse it of genocide and other human rights violations.
The rally, that drew 10,000 people both inside and outside Capitol, took place on the day President Biden visited Israel in a show of support to it, even as he was negotiating humanitarian aid for Gaza civilians.
We shut down Congress to draw mass attention to the U.S. complicity in Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians,” JVP posted on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Just as we demand an end to genocide in Gaza, we must put the same effort into dismantling the systems of Zionism, apartheid, and colonialism that brought us to this moment,” JVP said.
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,” shouted participants at a rally organized by IfNotNow, which was founded in 2014. Protesters wore prayer shawls and at least one brought a shofar (a ram’s-horn trumpet formerly used by Jews as an ancient battle signal and now used in Jewish religious ceremonies).
One speaker, leading a call-and-response with the crowd, recited a traditional Jewish message to mourners, using the Arabic term Al-Quds,” for Jerusalem rather than the Hebrew or English term.
American Jewish Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman argued in an article in New York Times on October 19, that escalation of the war through an invasion of Gaza would hurt all, Israel, the Palestinians and the US.
He quoted Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea as saying that the extremely radical Palestinian Islamic Jihad had achieved more by mistakenly bombing the Gaza hospital than it achieved in all of its successful missile launches.”
Friedman explains: After that rocket failed and fell on the Palestinian hospital in Gaza, killing scores of people, Hamas and Islamic Jihad rushed out and claimed — with no evidence — that Israel had deliberately bombed the hospital, setting streets ablaze across the Arab world.”
When Israel and the United States offered compelling evidence a few hours later that Islamic Jihad accidentally hit the Gaza hospital with its own rocket, it was already too late. The Arab street was on fire, and a meeting of Arab leaders with Biden was cancelled.”
Friedman then said: If people cannot talk openly and honestly about a misfired rocket, imagine what will happen when the first major Israeli invasion of Gaza begins in our wired world, linked by social networks!”
That is why I believe that Israel would be much better off framing any Gaza operation as ‘Operation Save Our Hostages’ — rather than ‘Operation End Hamas Once and for All’ — and carrying it out, if possible, with repeated surgical strikes and special forces operations that can still get the Hamas leadership, but also draw the brightest possible line between Gazan civilians and the Hamas dictatorship.”
But if Israel feels it must reoccupy Gaza to destroy Hamas and restore its deterrence and security — I repeat — it must pair that military operation with a new commitment to pursue a two-state solution with those Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza ready to make peace with Israel.”
But it may be too late, Friedman worries.
I have never written a column this urgent before because I have never been more worried about how this situation could spin out of control in ways that could damage Israel irreparably, damage U.S. interests irreparably, damage Palestinians irreparably, threaten Jews everywhere and destabilize the whole world.”
He concluded saying: I beg Biden to tell Israelis this immediately — for their sake, for America’s sake, for the sake of Palestinians, for the sake of the world.”
Even though there is an improvement in the situation with Hamas releasing two Israeli-American hostages, Israel is carrying out aggressive operations on the Lebanese border and also in the West Bank. It has not given up its preparation for a ground assault on Gaza.
A Cabinet reshuffle took place this morning (23 Oct.), during which the ministerial portfolios of several ministers including Mahinda Amaraweera and Keheliya Rambukwella were changed.
Accordingly, Minister Amaraweera, was sworn in as the Minister of Agriculture and Plantation Industries, while former Health Minister Rambukwella was sworn in as the new Minister of Environment.
Meanwhile, Dr. Ramesh Pathirana has been appointed as the Minister of Health, in addition to his current portfolio as Minister of Industries, while State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya was appointed as the Non-Cabinet Minister of Plantation Enterprises, in addition to his current post.
The new ministers were sworn in before the President at the Presidential Secretariat a short while ago, the President’s Media Division (PMD) reported.
Who says Sri Lanka is our Motherland, the country of our forefathers, the country of our birth, the country where we married, the country where our children were born and grew up, the country where our parents died and are buried, the country whose soil would one day lie comfortably over us, the country we lovingly call home?
We are proudly able to declare that we are Sri Lankans, because our records and archives – dutifully and painstakingly maintained in our Registries – tell us so and our rich history recorded in documents, books, and manuscripts, tell us so.
But what happens if we are ordered to destroy all physical documents of identification and retain only a cryptic dog-tag identification number that corresponds to some data-entry in a master-computer?
What happens if all lands in the country are mapped-out in outer-space by a satellite, and these lands are identified by cryptic grid-reference numbers which have corresponding entries in the master computer?
What happens if ownership to these lands -with cryptic grid-reference numbers provided by satellite – is identifiable only by cryptic dog-tag numbers?
If, ‘paper-documents’ pertaining to ownership of land and pedigree charts are destroyed, if access to the master computer is restricted, and if entries in the master-computer are unfathomable without possession of the keys to satellite grid reference-numbers and dog-tag numbers, we, the people of Sri Lanka, would be reduced to a position where the owners of the technology (viz the owners of the computer hardware, software, and the information therein) would be in total control of all lands in Sri Lanka.
In this scenario, we, the people of Sri Lanka, would not be privy to, any news about the sale and purchase of lands in the country (16% privately owned and 84% government owned), the identities and Nationalities of persons buying and selling our lands and, the values and terms of the land transactions.
And another question arises; who owns and controls the satellites which provide, in this ‘paperless’ environment, the only information that would be available on the satellite-mapped land of ours?
Satellites do not belong to us; satellites can be destroyed; satellite information systems can crash, be hacked, be manipulated and satellite information can be deliberately withheld from us by those who own or control the satellites.
Having documented information, previously held in public-accessible registries, solely in a ‘cloud’ based digital register, is suicidal for the country.
If we destroy our physical records and archives in the registries and do not retain our deeds of ownership, we would not be able to prove ownership to our lands if the information in the master-computer is lost, transmuted, or denied by, system and satellite insecurity, fraud, accident, or by deliberate enemy activity.
If therefore ‘someone’ were to order us to deliberately destroy our physical documents of land ownership and, to discard our practice of using Earth-based compass bearings to plot maps, we need to assess the motives of that ‘someone’ issuing such orders.
Could that someone be paving the way to rob us of our land and dispossess us of our country with the aid of renegades who invariably would be making a few corrupt millions with the sale of our lands?
In a document-less environment, a Nation leaves itself open for, money-laundering, fraud, and land-grabbing, especially by international players; in this environment the country could be sold-off to anyone – be he from Mars, the Moon, or the US – without the knowledge of the citizens.
In such a situation, Sri Lanka would soon cease to be the land of the Sri Lankans; Sri Lanka would be a country belonging to some aliens.
This situation poses a threat not only to our lands, it threatens the very life of our people if physical documents pertaining to identity are destroyed,
If every individual is reduced to a mere number in a computer, what would happen if, deliberately or otherwise, our dog-tag numbers are deleted from the computer?
We would cease to exist as human beings according to the computer; we would then not be able to access, food, medicines, education, housing, employment, property or any other service, the preserved right of a human being.
Selected segments of society, if deleted from the master-computer, would be compelled to literally live as slaves, begging for food and necessities, simply to live; their lives would be at the complete mercy of those who control the master-computer.
Our lives would be controlled by QR codes, a system that was successfully applied in Sri Lanka during the fuel crisis; it was a system that effectively restricted our movements. This QR code-system of control can be effectively applied to any area of human activity.
What happens if this master-computer is in the control of proclaimed eugenicists like Bill Gates who, like his father before him, believes that this world is overpopulated and needs to be reduced by about a billion?
Interestingly, during the recent Covid crisis, Gates as the largest donor to the WHO – in the absence of the US which had withdrawn its funding at that time – ran the WHO like a workshop in his backyard, taking very controversial steps. Millions died during this crisis.
If therefore we destroy our manual records, we are signing our death-warrants.
South Africa confronted with a similar situation, refused to destroy historical archives and other ‘paper-documents’ pertaining to land ownership; they opted to retain their Deed system (or document-based system) of land registration without relying solely on the digital register. Consequently, the public were able to retain access to the registries, know the identities, and nationalities of those purchasing and selling land and, the public were able to retain their right to challenge dubious land transactions in a court of law.
It is diabolic that the US, which desperately attempted and failed previously to destroy our archives and documents pertaining to land ownership – first through the Bim-Saviya and then through the deceptive MCC ploy – now attempts to force such a scheme via the IMF, while they themselves do not practice this ‘paperless’ scheme in their country.
It is understandable because the ‘paperless’ system of land ownership is an integral element of US strategy to take possession of the land of other countries in its declared aspiration to colonise the world.
Without ‘paper’ records, not only would the US be able to dispossess other nations of their lands, but they would also succeed in wiping out the history of those lands and their inhabitants.
Five centuries hence there would be no records available to prove that Sri Lankans owned this land; it would resonate what the Europeans did to the native Americans in the US and Canada, the Aboriginals in Australia, and the Maoris in New Zealand in the bygone centuries.
In 2022, Sri Lanka became one of the first countries to fall prey to the American trap laid at Bretton Woods in 1944, to colonise the entire world, disarmingly described as ‘one-world-one-government’.
At Bretton Woods, the yanks designed two money-lending institutions – the IMF, and the World Bank – which would serve as America’s primary weapons of offence in their long and ambitious assault on the world; they began firing those weapons almost immediately thereafter by hoisting Keynesian economics on the world (a country spending more money than it had) as the panacea to the world’s economic misfortunes.
The IMF and the World Bank were in business with all countries virtually compelled to borrow from them. By 1970, most countries, if not all, were heavily in debt to the US; the US with majority ‘shares’ control both these lending institutions.
In Sri Lanka, the realisation has yet to seep-in that we have been colonised by the US via the IMF.
The colonial government in Washington is ordering Sri Lanka to change over 140 policy stances, through their lackeys placed in the political saddle in the aftermath of the Yankee-sponsored coup, described as the Aragalaya.
Interestingly, there was an Aragalaya in the US too; those who participated, encouraged, or got involved in any way in the American Aragalaya are being prosecuted and sentenced to jail for seditious conspiracy.
Sri Lankans perforce shall liberate their country from Yankee rule. When a legitimate government re-takes control of the country, it would not honour any of the illegal acts committed by the Yankees or those acting on their behalf; their acts would be considered illegal and therefore null and void.
In the meantime, Sri Lankans are advised to not destroy their paper documents. Retain them. If the colonial government of the US destroy our registries, Sri Lankans at the village level, are urged to maintain documented records pertaining to land, births deaths etc. This is our country. We shall overcome.
‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’
e-Con e-News 15-21 October 2023
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Sri Lanka, Palestine & South Africa feature among the world’s
foremost struggles for majority rule in a unitary state…
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The USA is telling us to watch them engulf West Asia in blood in ‘real-time’. Again. They wish to tell the world: you can do nothing about it. Try if you must. (And if you fail, and you live, you can get a post-colonial PhD in Indiana!)
They wish more rope. Shall we give it to them, or sell it?
‘We’re the United States of America, for god’s sake!
The most powerful nation in the history of the world.’
– Joe Biden, CBS 60 Minutes, 15 October 2023
The USA is threatening naval blockades of both West Asia, starting with Palestine, and of East Asia, centring on the South China Sea, escalating their fuel, fertilizer and food wars. This must surely shake the confidence of our most unbending advocates of export-oriented industrialization.
The English, fearing an Imperial Japanese invasion from Singapore hooking up with Nazi Germany at the Suez via Sri Lanka in 1942, was forced by the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, to make concessions to cultivators and workers, and industry (see ee 15 February 2020, Indian Rhapsody). Would Sri Lanka’s present rulers, even dare?
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It was only the other day the SL President in New York took ‘centre stage’ (so said his family’s Financial Times of Colombo) at a US Carnegie Foundation Forum on ‘Ocean Nations’. (US Steel monopolist Andrew Carnegie, by the way, whose profits funded this Carnegie Foundation, was a Vice-President & funder of the US Anti-Imperialist League formed in 1898, during the US war on Spain’s colonies. The League was a battle waged by an older thief against a younger thief, who wanted to keep invading the world. The older thief is coy: we shouldn’t push it, we might go over the edge. Carnegie wished to protect his steel monopoly).
Over a century later, the SL President at that Carnegie no doubt heard Manhattan’s robot-dentures clacking for a ‘Free & Open Indo-Pacific’ and a ‘Rules-based Order.’ The President, at least in his previous avatara, has been a fervent advocate of such ‘Western liberal’ nostrums. And why not? Free. Open. Rules. Order.Whoa!
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‘You’ve just said ‘rule-based order’. Have you ever seen those rules?
No, you haven’t, because no one has agreed on them with anyone.
So how can one talk about order based on rules that no one has ever seen?
In terms of common sense, it’s nonsense. But it is beneficial to those who
promote this approach. Because if no one has seen the rules, it only means that
those who talk about them are making them up themselves
from time to time to their own advantage. That is the colonial approach…’
– V Putin, 16 October 2023
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• This week as the US & petit-poodle England’s warships blockade, and their caged pitbull Israel froths and gouges deep into the flesh of remnant Palestine, we hear that that the US Carnegie Foundation, which recently sponsored the President’s speech in New York, advocates ditching this US ‘rule of law’ policy business.
It’s an ‘abundant’ time. Palestine makes it abundantly clear, yet once more, white countries know nothing about real rule of law. Whiteness is lawlessness. The smell of blood thrills & flares their nostrils & nostrums – perfume to a lynch mob. Nothing like mass murder to unite them. Ah! The Concert of Europe: Malcolm X said, English may hate Irish, Protestant hate Catholic, Gentiles may hate Jews, but when they hear ‘Nigger’, they all run in the same direction.’ This week it’s the Palestinian – subset of that ‘ethnic’ category tagged in US penitentiaries as ‘Sand Niggers’.
So no surprise how all their media & economists have to suddenly fall quiet on this ‘rule of law’ business. Such military precision. Not a word about such matters anymore from US embassy lipstick like EconomyNext or Advocata. Rule of Law. Not a squeak. It can’t be from embarrassment. They lack that lajja. And the media is not allowed memory!
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• Ranil Feels for the East Wind – The SL President, who is mostly airborne, next went to Beijing this week for the 10th Anniversary of the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). Sri Lanka’s links with China are ancient, and new promises were agreed upon. The President could have asked about the role of industrial strategy midst siege. China is an expert. He should have. Maybe the President is just flirting to attract more white largesse. We are not privy to that privy.
And lo! After dragging their feet for months, the IMF suddenly announces on Friday that they have reached a ‘conditional’ ‘first staff-level agreement’ with Sri Lanka for ‘next review!’ First! Conditional! Talk about bureaucracy! Suddenly? The US wars in West and East Asia are about to reorient all the IMF forecasts! And we all know who decides. Here’s what was tugging at Morocco:
‘Failure to strike a deal would imperil the status of the central institution
of the global monetary system… Today, the US quota share is 17.43%,
and its voting share is 16.50%. Consequently, the US must agree
to all the IMF’s major decisions, including any changes in quotas.
In other words, whether we like it or not, any deal must satisfy the US Treasury.’
– Edwin Truman, advisor to Official Monetary & Financial Institutions Forum,
former director of US Federal Reserve’s International Finance Division
– ee Economists, Another stalemate on IMF quotas is not acceptable
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And the US Treasury is thirsty too it seems:
‘Sri Lanka is the only country in the world that will have drinking water
even if there is going to be a shortage of drinking water in the whole world.’
(see ee Agriculture, SL at the Pinnacle of the World in its Water Supplies)
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With Sri Lanka’s drought/flood media ever at the ready to sensationalize disaster, another flood involved an overflow of stories diverting from the upcoming privatization of water. We hear from all the ‘concerned’ voices like the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), & World Food Program (WFP), who apparently need to remind us ‘Building water resilience… requires collective commitment’! Tell that to the Vel Vidane of yore!
Then there’s Asian Development Bank (ADB) & Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA), generously funding the digitalization of the Water Board in anticipation of the privatization (ee Random Notes, The Water Act).
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• US Advocata’s Digital Catatonic Tonics – Just as ee sonar detected not a hik squeak Gaza-wise from US thinktank Advocata, all of sudden there is an icy North Atlantic swoosh of their policy demands on Sri Lanka’s government. The most infamous Advocata-tonic this week ordered the President to ‘only use’ a ‘digital signature’ after 31 December 2023.
Apparently, the President’s pen is not his own, with many hands groping to hold his pen (perhaps forging his good name), and the IMF (with Julie Chung offering the helping hand) wishes to make sure Washington holds his pen. And tight.
‘The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.’
– Omar Khayyám
• The IMF seeks to ensure that no matter how much the blood & many tears shed, and no matter the curses & votes cast on the road to Jayawardenapura or Galle Face Green (without pausing at Kollupitiya Junction), the Executive President’s writ holds as long as the irrigation of his fountain pen is regulated by the US Treasury (aka ‘Freest Marketeer’). The rest of the country’s bodily fluids could all ooze into the Diyavanna and India’s oceanic cesspit for all they care.
Hence the IMF (& pipsqueak Advocata) demands Sri Lanka digitalize everything (IDs, Fuel, Health info, etc.), so a fund manager & their algorithm (off-Manhattan, for tax purposes) could determine the path of investment in Sri Lanka. All part of a ‘National Digital Strategy’, which the World Bank applauds for its focus on decentralizing SMEs! Now what does this mean, not just for national security, let alone industrial policy?
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• Carving up Sri Lanka’s national assets for the USA will be discussed at next month’s Sri Lanka Economic Summit with the Ceylon Tobacco Company and State-Owned Enterprises Restructuring Unit Director General Suresh Shah, World Bank IFC Country Manager Alejandro Alvarez de la Campa, (Unilever-front) Sunshine Holdings Group Managing Director Vish Govindasamy, Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera, and Advisor to the Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment Shan Yahampath, with US Advocata CEO Dhananath Fernando moderating… (see ee Economists, Imperative for SOE reforms in focus at Sri Lanka Economic Summit
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‘Is the IMF setting Sri Lanka up for a 2nd car crash?’
– Theo Maret, Financial Times of London
A rather provocative headline indeed, especially for those who think the USA’s IMF is a god, benevolent & concerned. Moneychanger Maret believes the IMF’s ‘unambitious targets’ are setting Sri Lanka up for another default. Someone should tell Maret, the applied mathematician, that he doth under-invoice: This is the IMF’s 17th impending car crash!
Maret (Market without the ‘k’!) spoke at a recent ‘Civil Society’ chat-up on Sri Lanka in perfumed Marrakech. Maret works for Global Sovereign Advisory (GSA), an ‘independent’ advisor of ‘governments & other sovereign entities on all their strategic, economic & financial issues.’
Ghana hired GSA as debt advisors in Dec 2022, along with Lazard, and Hogan Lovells. Holders of Ghana’s bonds tapped Rothschild & Co and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe as advisers. Sri Lanka hired Lazard and Clifford Chance in May 2022 to serve as ‘advisors on debt restructuring’ to appease the IMF.
ee has noted before the kuchi-kuchi between actors on both sides of this debt game, like the Rothschilds. June 2023 ee reported that 3 of France’s wealthiest dynasties were helping take ‘French bank’ Rothschild & Co private, or should we say, ‘more private.’ While protected by the biggest guns in the world, real ‘finance’ is the actual very small island, usually offshore, NFA (no fixed address), and OTB (off the books). Maret recalls, eg, that IMF targets ‘leaked into the market’ in Nov 2022, and ‘rallied’ Sri Lanka’s Eurobonds to double their value.
GSA’s Maret was a part of a closed-door ‘Civil Society’ chat-up, with Verite, a US-funded ‘SL thinktank’, and the US-World-Bank-linked Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL). Guess who these ‘doors’ were ‘closed to? This ‘Civil Society’ (‘a rich dialogue among various stakeholders, including professionals & high-ranking members of the Sri Lankan delegation’) provided ‘civil’ fog for the IMF & World Bank annual meeting in Morocco.
This ‘Civil Society’ chat drew attention to Sri Lanka’s allocation ‘of over 70% of its revenue to interest payments – the highest in the world!’ Which make any real ‘repayment’ not possible at all, especially when this ‘civil society’ of capitalists prevent Sri Lanka’s modern industrialization. This is the real corruption!
Verite’s de Mel’s & TISL’s Perera’s ringing denunciations of the ‘corruption’ of the Sri Lankan government surely echoed louder across the icing western Mediterranean and into the Iberian Peninsula. The groaning to rearm moral fervor may have recalled young 16th century Jesuits demanding the Pope send in the cannons to avenge some Sri Lankan King’s misdemeanor.
Global Sovereign Advisory’s ‘civil’ intervention was more precise: the issue is the IMF’s criteria, especially for ‘market access’ – in other words, to grab national resources. And as the recent EU-Mercosur Treaty reveals, the EU’s Green/WhiteWash aims to grab critical raw minerals, while dumping fossil fuel-based car models, combustion engines, and agricultural pesticides.’ Maret also demands US control over SL’s foreign reserves & exchange rates (see ee Random Notes). EU meanwhile warns that Sri Lanka needs major investment to cut down charging time for EV cars! Forget production? (see ee Industry)
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• Sri Lanka, Palestine & South Africa count among the world’s foremost struggles for majority rule in a unitary state. And Sri Lanka’s Mannar Basin, the eastern Mediterranean’s Gaza Marine & south Atlantic Guyana’s Stabroek Basin have much in common.
In 1948, the year the English were imposing Soulbury independence on Sri Lanka (with guarantees for ‘minorities’, including white & other merchants), the Zionists (many who’d collaborated with Nazi Germany) expelled half the population of Palestine in 9 months. Demolishing 500 out of 1,000 villages, Zionists depopulated 11 towns to create the state of Israel. The English had conveniently withdrawn their ‘mandate’ from Palestine just before – Nakba!
In 1948, a white South-African government, imposed English-style apartheid, setting up Bantustans, framed on the ‘reservations’ of Canada’s Indian Act. They divided peoples into races (Whites, Blacks, Indians & Coloureds).
The backdrop: In 1945, the US occupied Japan, and divided Korea & Germany. In 1947, the English divided India. In 1949, the US, after defeat in China, set up a quisling state in China’s province of Taiwan.
Just before the most recent upheaval, Palestine had agreed to work with both Egypt & Israel to develop the vast Gaza Marine Gas Field, 30km off the Gaza Strip. Palestine, like Lanka etc, has been made dependent on fuel imports.
Certain parallels are indicated by the seemingly surface activities of the agents of imperialism:
It’s not just the Australians so generously protecting the indigenous donkeys of Mannar, while mining ilmenite in Puttalam. Or that the pearls that once were bubbled to the shores, long a source of international dispute, have come & gone. Or that there are other do-gooding-doing-good NGOs doing godly work as it were in them northwest parts bordering this ‘frontier failed rift basin’ just off Sri Lanka.
In Sept 2021 ee noted , USAID & other funds were targeting ‘sensitive’ coastal communities (eg, Puttalam, Mannar, Trincomalee, Batticaloa) in Sri Lanka (& Myanmar) under various guises, to aid ‘peace-building’, ‘reconciliation’, ‘pluralism’, ‘women’s empowerment’, ‘religious diversity’, ‘conflict sensitivity’. One of the 1st acts of RW as the born-again PM in 2022 June was to hand out deeds to legally grant ‘ownership’ in coastal Puttalam, etc.
There is a ruddy school of thought that believes the wars of the last decades in Sri Lanka are also umbilically linked to the grab for the Mannar Basin, flush with other bubblies, oils, gases & other energies.
Some point to the grab of Guyana’s recently uncovered offshore gas fields by Exxon. Guyana was Cuba before Cuba, and the US & England set up ‘race wars’ to prevent it from becoming ‘another Cuba’. Guyana is expected to become Exxon’s top global oil producer. And even more, ‘Where the company ends and the government begins is increasingly unclear’ (see ee Random Notes)
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Palestine, like Sri Lanka, is heavily reliant on imports for energy. Yet the Gaza Marine Gas Field holds more than a trillion cubic feet of gas.
In September 2022, Palestinians rallied at Gaza City Seaport to demand their right to receive gas from eastern Mediterranean gas fields, and the lifting of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
In June 2023, Israel gave ‘preliminary approval’ to exploit the Gaza Marine field.
In September 2023, just before the recent slaughter, the Palestinian Authority again said it would sign an agreement to develop the offshore Gaza Marine natural gas field with Egypt and Israel.
(On 9 Oct, US Chevron said it shut down a natural gas field off the Israel coast at official behest. The Tamar field, 15 miles off Israel’s south coast, meets 70% of Israel’s energy needs for power generation. Jordan & Egypt import 7% & 4% of their total gas supply from the platform. ‘Goldman Sachs analysts think the Tamar shutdown has ‘contributed’ to the rally in European gas prices.’ Others claim: the price rise was due to ‘a temporary shutdown of a leaky gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea, and a planned strike by liquefied natural gas workers in Australia.’
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• Just as any bordello could set up a tent at the country fair as long as it increased the overall interests of the top merchant (who had first pickings among the fresh aubergines), the meaning of ‘civil society’ was furthered constricted or revealed by the ‘Sri Lankan Civil Society Initiative on Anti-Corruption Reform for Economic Recovery’, which set up ‘a closed-door event’ to whitewash the IMF Annual Meetings in Morocco.
Trying to figure why ‘closed-door’? Perhaps it is not just oxygen (which the World bank’s Transparency International otherwise preaches) they were excluding, but China against whom they are putting up a greater wall? It turns out this year’s annual IMF/World Bank meetings in Morocco has been ‘the most explicitly confrontational yet by US/NATO diplomacy toward China’.
‘At issue is not only what countries will be the major beneficiaries of future IMF & World Bank loan operations, but whether the world will back US unipolar dominance or start to move explicitly toward a multipolar philosophy of mutual support to increase living standards & prosperity instead of imposing anti-labor austerity in an attempt to maintain a trade & investment system that is now widely seen to be dysfunctional & financially predatory US demands to use these 2 organizations as arms of its New Cold War policy.’ (see ee Focus, Hudson)
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Instead of wailing about this good old colonial system, Transparency & Verite thundered about corruption! Their words could have surely pressed against the locked doors. Threatening to bust them up. But T&V are a salariat.
Civil Society?EconomyNext and The Wickremesinghe family’s Financial Times and has become an open toilet paper of the US thinktank Advocata et al. But they have all gone rather quiet about ‘rule of law’, which has gone bunker-deep in US-occupied Palestine.
Note a whiny tweet from Presidential Economic Advisor & Advocata chair Murtaza Jafferjee (this flush thintank is a complex corpocracy, with a CEO, & many many directors & fellows, many being women, beyond the requisite minority quotas, much like the ruling merchantry. Jafferjee is eagerly waiting for EC President Ursula Von Der Leyen to also condemn Israel’s denial of food, water & fuel to the Palestinians, as she did in the Ukraine. He laments such double standards are why the ‘Global South’ does not believe in their liberal platitudes. But other than that, all rather quiet in these openly lawless times. So what could it be?
It turns out the US is about to ditch this rule-of-law biz. ‘Carnegie Council explains how the global rift necessitates a change in western policies. It especially sees a need to ditch the so called ‘value-’ or ‘rules-based-order’ policies.’
Recall the President’s recent New York jaunt, included a roundtable on ‘Economic Opportunities in Sri Lanka’ was organized by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace & Sasakawa Foundation. Did they intimate to the SL Prez the new rules we must dance by? As articulate as anyone can be in English, is this why he put on that act of exasperation for viewers of Germany’s state TV’s English channel? Germans may not have watched.
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• ee continues to serialize Idirimagen Idiriyata, the Communist Party of Sri Lanka ‘s ‘Alternative Program’. This issue examines ‘the conceptual underpinnings, philosophy & ideologies of the alternative program’, where wealth would be equitably distributed, and national unity is the main condition for further development as a country.
The program calls for ‘production of real goods’ to comprise ‘the mainstay of the economy’, hence the need for a high level of industrialization & technological transformation, even in agriculture. This needs a National Planning Council, with public ownership over natural monopolies such as energy, transport and communications. The program reminds that SoEs are a mainstay of not just Communist societies but also industrial capitalist ones.
These CPSL proposals recognize the shift of economic power to Asia and the rise of a multipolar world order, calling for Sri Lanka’s own economic strategy, including trade & industrial policies, to be in tune with these geopolitical & geo-economic dynamics. (see ee Focus)
Indian pitches are designed for cheap commercial ventures like IPL. These are unsuitable for international tournaments. CWC 2023 has broken batting records for the sole reason that cricket pitches are for slog-cricket and not for professional cricket. Bowlers can’t get any real support from these slog pitches. Good cricketing pitches balance between support for both bowlers and batsmen.
Changing the team to suit slog pitches is unwise. Instead, Sri Lanka must stick to its long-term plan to develop a strong cricket team. More importantly, Sri Lankan cricket pitches must not be converted to slog-cricket which is a cheap and gloomy version of the game.
CWC 2023 will be won not by the best fifty over cricket team but the best slog team. A tournament in poor taste and a disappointment.
