Oct 16 (NewsWire) – Sri Lanka has been ranked among the top 13 safest countries to travel in the Word as per the popular online travel community platform WorldPackers.com.
Out of top 13 countries, Sri Lanka is ranked 12th while Iceland is ranked the safest country to travel as per the latest WorldPackers.com article.
Speaking to NewsWire on this development, Minister of Tourism Harin Fernando said that it is a great achievement for the island nation to be ranked among the top safest 13 counties to travel in the world, especially amidst all the issues the country is going thorough currently.
Tourism arrivals are showing a positive trend. IMF officials briefed the cabinet via zoom and expressed their confidence about signing the final agreement by end of December and bridging funding is expected to be received by January – February next year” he said
Also, bilateral funding is expected to be received by March. I believe by April /May next year, the rupee can be stabilized and the country would come to a much better position” he further added.
He said that once the country is stabilized, then all relevant can work for any political transformation if needed by going for an election after six months.
In the midst of the annual US World Bank & IMF financial frolic in Washington…With all their suited & tied mannequins-of-color in attendance…The Governor of the Central Bank declares out loud: Sri Lanka will not take part in alternate international payment systems: Central Bank declines to accept Russian Mir Payment System…Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghehas declined to approve it on 2 occasions. (see ee Sovereignty, Mir)
The first story makes it appear this is a sole decision by a vertical vertebrate. It takes another whole day, before the gelatinous chain-of-command is clarified:
‘Due to the US sanctions on the MIR payment system,as confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Sri Lanka,the Central Bank of Sri Lanka is not in a positionto consider favorably, at the current juncture,the request to operate MIR card schemewithin the banking system,’ the CBSL said in tweet.
It is tweet, tweet, indeed. Or is it chirp? Or squawk? If we believe the English media, the IMF & World Bank are all earnestness & lament for the ‘global economy’. Much like the real assassins attending a Mafia funeral, they are the first to rise to eulogize the corpse. The news keep up its squawking stenography: ‘The IMF expects’to conclude an agreement with Sri Lanka. They then keep insisting they need further proof that the imported medicines prescribed, will be forced down throats. The IMF guarantees for the 17th time, these panaceas will revive the unliving!
Meanwhile the CB raising interest rates, will profit the moneylenders, and further discourage investment in modern industry. The holy spirit, the GDP, will duly rise, even as it merely indicates growth in bank services, etc.
The Central Bank, right from its inception in 1950 under a US governor, has opposed the independence, let alone the industrialization, of the country, recalled SBD de Silva. One of the features of the 1948 Soulbury Constitutions was its attempt to stifle our international relations. This continues to this very day (see ee 10 August 2019 – Central Bank Special).
President Ranil Wickremesinghe stated that he had recently discussed Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring with the Chinese Finance Minister and he is optimistic that the discussions in this regard would be concluded successfully.
The President further mentioned that the delegation headed by the State Minister of Finance, who is currently in Washington, held initial discussions yesterday (15) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the three main creditor nations, China, India and Japan.
He said that the government is giving priority to immediately solve the problem of the country’s bankruptcy and to ensure food security.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe made these remarks following an observation tour of the cultivated lands in Rathumada-Weerakandawala area in Siyambalanduwa Divisional Secretariat this morning (16), the President’s Media Division said.
The President also discussed the progress of the implementation of the food security program in Monaragala district with government officials.
He said that there is no problem with having debates and also recalled the statements made by some people that they would come forward and shed blood and said that one should live before shedding blood.
The President mentioned that if a proper program is not implemented to provide food to the people, they will not have to shed blood but will starve to death. The President also stressed that politics should be discussed only in Parliament and that everyone should unite in the program to fulfil the needs of the people.
While visiting the cultivated lands in Rathumada-Weerakandawala area in Siambalanduwa Divisional Secretariat, the President also engaged in open discussions with the farmers.
The farmers had the opportunity to discuss the issues they were facing directly with the President and he was also informed by the farmers about the lack of fertilizer, insecticides and pesticides as well as land problems, water problems and the threat of wild elephants in the area.
The President immediately called the relevant officials to the agriculture lands and directed them to take steps to provide immediate solutions to the problems faced by these farmers. While thanking the President for visiting them and looking into their problems, the farmers mentioned that this is the first time that a President had visited their areas, the PMD reported.
The President noted all the issues presented here by the farmers through an officer of the President’s Office and stated that he will appoint a separate Additional Secretary in the President’s Office and take measures to provide immediate solutions to all these problems in coordination with the District political authority and District Government officials.
Also, many problems of the people of the area were presented to the President and among them were the problems of education, roads and housing.
The President, who listened to all those problems, said that he will provide the necessary facilities to ensure that the children of the area who are engaged in education activities in the midst of many difficulties are given the opportunity to receive university education.
Governor of the Uva Province A.J.M. Muzammil, State Ministers Shasheendra Rajapakse, Vijitha Berugoda, Jagath Pushpakumara, Member of Parliament Dr. Gayashan Navanandana, President’s Senior Adviser on National Security and President’s Chief of Staff Sagala Ratnayake, former Member of Parliament Sumedha G. Jayasena, Former Deputy Speaker Ananda Kumarasiri, Secretary to the President Saman Ekanayake, Adviser to the President on National Food Security Dr. Suren Batagoda, Monaragala District Secretary Gunadasa Samarasinghe, Siambalanduwa Provincial Secretary Asanka Dayaratne and a group of District and Local Government officials participated at this occasion.
Ceylon Electricity Board and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation are expected to be restructured after obtaining approval for the final report on submission to the President and the Cabinet according to Minister Kanchana Wijesekera
The two-fold objective of a devaluation exercise is to stimulate exports and reduce imports. For exports to increase it depends on elasticity of supply and demand. At the time of devaluation in 1977 our exports were mainly Tea, rubber and coconut products which made up of around 70 percent of the export value. There was hardly elasticity of supply in these plantation commodities. On the other hand, there was a pent-up demand for imports. Critics of the IMF claim that the mandate of the IMF is to make imports from the developing countries cheaper to Western buyers and make poor countries to pay more for their imports.
Sri Lanka has had a series of devaluations and IMF interventions from 1948 onwards, which has been a futile exercise. When at the time of independence in 1948, the US dollar was only 3 rupees and now it is over 360 rupees. We continue to chase the dollar without focusing on the real problem of poor export performance.
The direct beneficiaries of devaluation are the exporters but for some exports like apparel the local value addition is limited to labour. Where the value of imported raw materials are high the the devaluation gain is offset by the increase in the cost of imported raw mterials.
Total value of exports even today is around US$ 20 billion whereas the GDP is US$ 80 billion, which is four times the value of exports. Therefore, rupee depreciation will benefit only a small section of the country. The exporter deserves encouragement, but it is better given on increased investment and exports and not for doing nothing.
Devaluation is in one sense is robbing the fixed income earner and the saver and offer the benefit to the trader and the exporter. The recent devaluation has devalued the very existence of the fixed income earner. His hard-earned savings are worth only half the original value. He is not able to cope with the galloping cost of living. Poverty has increased and child malnutrition is rising. On the other hand, the trader is making unconscionable profits. Some time back the Minister of Health announced in Parliament that the pharmaceutical trade was holding four months stock of drugs. Within a few days the industry was allowed a 27 % increase in drugs. The traders increased their prices to over 200% with immediate effect and now there is no price control at all.
From March this year up to May the LRK has depreciated by 44 %. http://bizenglish.adaderana.lk/sri-lankan-rupee…/. Even with CBSL interventions and tight import control there is no light visible at the end of the tunnel.
Rather than export led development and aim at a healthy balance of trade and payments and provide productive employment, all governments resorted to devaluation and prolific borrowing as the remedy.
The outcome of many devaluations and IMF prescriptions has been negative as far as the trade balance is concerned. The LKR which was 8.83 in 1976 declined 15.56 to a US dollar after the 1977 devaluation and slumped to 100 per $ in 2005 and was 135 to a $ in 2015 and today it is frozen at 365 per one USD.
What have we done to stimulate exports? Have we diversified our supply base other than in low technology apparel industry which came to us to take advantage of the US garment quotas? Have we introduced new technology? Have we made full use of our human resources and physical resources .
The top half of Figure 1 shows the annual effective LKR devaluation rates since 1950. The bottom half shows the variation in imports, exports and current account balance, taken as percentages of GDP of the respective year, to maintain uniformity. Please see the highlighted five years periods after three significant devaluations. No significant improvement is seen in exports or current account balances.
Were our policy makers idiots or criminals or both.
By Luxman Siriwardena and Chanuka Wattegama Courtesy The Sunday Times (LK)
Published on 17th April 2011
The main opposition party has recently demanded a devaluation of the Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR) to ‘increase exports’ and ‘boost the economy’. This process, claims our ‘government-in-waiting’, is the assured remedy to increase the share of exports in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which, according to them has fallen to ‘miserable levels’.
As almost all policy decisions, a currency devaluation too has a positive and a negative impact. This is an attempt to present a balanced view. To begin with, there is nothing new in this call. For many decades local currency devaluation has been prescribed as a panacea to most economic ills of developing nations by the IMF and neo classical text book economic pundits. Of course, exporters love a weaker LKR. It improves their short term competitiveness as well rupee gains. Just like a peasant in hard times anticipates the government to subside his fertilizer costs, which will in turn lower his vegetable prices in a competitive market, the exporters too eternally look for a helping hand from the government.
The opposition becomes their typical messenger. The advantage of sitting across the floor is that one can take the credit for a policy intervention by the beneficiaries without risking the wrath of the losers. That could well be the raison d’être behind this proposition. It would be too naïve to assume sincerity. After all, oppositions love to see governments losing popularity, not gaining.
LKR devaluation was not a high priority of the short-lived government of the current opposition from 2001-2004. For this period LKR only fell from not more than one tenth of a US cent, which can hardly be called devaluing. Regaining Sri Lanka, the policy document of the times (still downloadable from multiple sites including that of the External Resources Department) neither mentions the terms ‘devaluation’ or even ‘Rupee’ if it were not to denote a figure, though it emphasizes the importance of increasing exports and expanding access to overseas markets to reach the planned 10 percent growth rate. Why preach policy changes one does not practice oneself?
The opposition, like anyone with the basic commonsense, knows the government has no compulsion to devalue LKR at this juncture. The probability of a major devaluation of 25% is almost nil. The immediate focus of the government is growth. Sri Lanka is enjoying a healthy and consistent growth in its economy. Per Capita GDP (real) of $1,000 in 2005 has more than doubled to $2,400 in 2010, with an unprecedented growth rate in the post-independence period.The aim is $4,000 by the year 2016. This is no reason for complacence; we will still be below Thailand and Tunisia, but fourfold increase within a mere 10 years will be no small achievement. Sri Lanka, except the micro state Maldives, will be the first South Asian nation to reach this milestone. Every cog, nut and bolt in the system is tuned to achieve this growth. The government certainly will not welcome any deviation from its blueprint.
What can devaluation possibly achieve? What were our past experiences? First, a word about the choice of terms. Though incorrectly used synonymously to denote a drop in currency value with respect to other currencies, ‘devaluation’ and ‘depreciation’ have different implications. ‘Devaluation’ means official lowering of the value of a country’s currency within a fixed exchange rate system, by which the monetary authority formally sets a new fixed rate with respect to a foreign reference currency. In contrast, depreciation is used for the unofficial decrease in the exchange rate in a floating exchange rate system. Under the second system central banks maintain the rates up or down by buying or selling foreign currency, usually USD.Under its previous fixed value system, LKR has undergone two major devaluations. First was in 1965, under the Dudley Senanayake government. The immediate reaction of the then opposition was to coin a new term ‘rupiyala baaldu karanavaa’ underlining the negative bearing of the move. It was further devalued in 1977, when the newly elected, market oriented government under the leadership of President J. R. Jayawardena found no other way to bridge the huge gap between the nominal and real exchange rates.India’s experience is not too different. India had first devalued the Indian Rupee (INR) in 1966. The continued trade deficits of increasing effects, since 1950s, have made foreign borrowings impossible. The situation was further deteriorated by the massive defence spending of the Indo-Pak war of 1965. India has also lost some of its financially important foreign allies who backed Pakistan. The nationwide drought was the last straw that forced the devaluation. In 1991, on the second time, it wasn’t a war but the balance of payment issues that forced the INR devaluation.The exchange reserves had dried up to the point that India could barely finance three weeks’ worth of imports. Dr. Manmohan Singh, as the finance minister in Narasimha Rao’s government saw no other alternative than a significant devaluation of INR. None of these devaluations was pre-planned. They were extreme measures forced by the conditions. The objectives too were not to improve the exports, but to ease the immediate tensions in the economy. They wouldn’t have simply happened under normal circumstances.Pro-devaluation economists are correct in saying a lower LKR improves our competitiveness in the short run. We fully agree. It is basic economics. That is why China pegs Yuan (CNY) to USD, despite the pressure not to. The problem is devaluation is no free lunch; it comes with a massive price tag. To take the most straightforward example, devaluation will immediately skyrocket all loans in foreign currency, further burdening a debt ridden nation. So the question is not whether devaluation improves exports, but whether it does so to a level that justifies the price tag.Let us take this simple illustration. The on-going market price of a lunch packet near Sethsiripaya, Battaramulla is LKR 100. At LKR 110, one will sell a less number of packets, and at LKR 200, may be none. Anything below LKR 100 makes the product competitive and increases the sales. This does not mean a vendor can price tag a lunch packet at LKR 50. It will be below the production costs and irrespective of the sales, there will be no gain. The more he sells the more he loses. This is the age of policy based on evidence, not just on theory. Does the past evidence support the hypothesis of LKR devaluation improves the exports? The top half of Figure 1 shows the annual effective LKR devaluation rates since 1950. The bottom half shows the variation in imports, exports and current account balance, taken as percentages of GDP of the respective year, to maintain uniformity. Please see the highlighted five years periods after three significant devaluations. Do we see an improvement in exports or current account balances?Then to gradual devaluation. In 1990 one USD was LKR 40. This rate has nearly trebled to 115 by 2010. Do we see a related growth either in exports or balance of payments during this period? There can be multiple explanations why previous LKR devaluations didn’t work. We give four below. There can be others.For some export commodities the local value addition is limited to labour. When we import raw material just to be processed here, the devaluation of LKR is of little use as the competitive gain gets partially offset by the increase in the cost of raw mterials.The price elasticity of the demand of some of our export products is low. Two good examples are cinnamon for which we have a significant global market share and high-end apparel products. Price variations will have little impact on the sales of these products.The positive outcome of devaluation depends largely on the significant reduction in budget deficit, maintaining prudent macroeconomic policies and stabilised wages. These are killer assumptions to make, not just in a developing country, but sometimes developed as well.The devaluation of LKR naturally increases the cost of living. Any devaluation is associated with an immediate rise in imported food, fuel and other input prices. As we know by experience this puts immediate pressures not only on households but even local industries. It eventually forces the government, goods and services producers for both local and export markets to increase wages of labour, offsetting the gains.The last one can mean far reaching negative impact. The inflation that will certainly follow the devaluation will lead to the increase of prices, wages and inflation. This is what the economists call a ‘devaluation/inflation spiral’. This ‘wages chase prices and prices chase wages’ situation will have the opposite impact on the industry to the intended.Going back to the previous example, we hope exporters and neo classical economists come out of the mentality of dry zone peasants who expect the government to subsidize their fertilizer. The exports are important, no doubt, in the economic growth of a country but we reach nowhere by perennially waiting for a weaker LKR.A more rational approach is to increase productivity and product quality. Unless we improve product quality and introduce product diversification devaluation will not help exporters in the long run. It might perhaps help the opposition in the next elections, though.(Mr Siriwardena, holds an MA in Economics from Vanderbilt University and Mr Wattegama an MBA from the University of Colombo. They are independent policy researchers and can be contacted at lankaecon@gmail.com).
Source: Author calculations based on data from Central Bank of Sri Lanka |
Engineering the ouster of the Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and satisfied with the ascension of a person of their preference, Western power block headed by the US and INGOs now have moved their operations once again to Teheran, Iran.
Iran, known as Persia until 1935, founded by Cyrus the Great has one of the oldest and greatest civilisations in the world. It has a long history which goes far back to several centuries before the birth of Christ.
Western powers have an axe to grind with the Iranians. Democratically elected progressive Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh nationalised the British owned Anglo-Iranian OilCompany which enjoyed monopoly over extraction and sale of Iranian oil. In 1953 Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi was installed by the Americans in a coup d’état. With the blessings of the Americans Shah ruled Iran with an iron fist until he was ousted by the Iranian Revolution in 1978-1979. But the US imperialists and their Western allies never allowed Iran rulers to govern their country as they wanted. They attempted to arouse Iranian Kurdish minority many times after 1979.
In the North West of Iran approximately ten million Kurds live. Kurds consist of 10% of the Iranian population. They are mainly Sunni Muslims as against Shi’ite Muslim majority. Human Rights” groups, as usually the NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch say Kurds are being long oppressed. Dissident groups, political parties and armed militant groups had emerged fighting for Kurdistan independence, separation and autonomy backed by Western powers. In 1946 Kurdish Republic of Mahabad (name of a city) declared independence when the allied forces were occupying Iran, but within a few months it was conquered by Iran. In 1979, 1996 and 2005 armed conflicts broke out between Kurd militant factions and Iranian armed forces. Because of cross-border alliances as there are millions of Kurds in the adjoining countries it has become easy for foreign powers to destabilise Iran.
Jina (Mahsa) Amini who died on 14 September while in police custody was a Kurdish woman. Recent protests had erupted especially in Kurdistan.
As in Sri Lanka, there are some powerful NGOs operating in Iran and among Kurds. Some of these NGOs are based either in England, France or Geneva. Kurdish Human Rights Project(KHRP), Kurdistan Human Rights Network(KHRN), Kurdistan Human Rights Association, Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights are some examples. Promoting democracy and human rights, defending rights of ethnic and religious minorities, challenging all forms of discrimination, promoting women’s rights, raising awareness about human rights situation are main aims of these NGOs. Further evidence is not necessary to elaborate that the present turmoil in Iran has become a vehicle in the realisation of these aims and objectives.
No wonder, US Government funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED)” which commenced various progarmmes since 2005 in Iran, with its affiliates such as Centre forInternational Private Enterprise (CIPE)”, NationalDemocratic Institute for InternationalAffairs (NDI)”, Rights of Marginalized Populations”, Rule of Law” is fully operational in Iran. CIPE focuses on developing leadership capacity of a women-focused civil society and empowering a women-focused civil society; NDI aims at strengthening the capacity of Iranian activists; to raise awareness about human rights and strengthen capacity are the main aims of Rights of Marginalized Populations”. All these objectives are interwoven with the present turmoil.
Some of the fierce unrest was reported from areas home to ethnic minorities including Kurds in the North West and Baluchi in the South East. Baluchi militants had attacked Iranian forces.
2022 was not the first time that Iranian women instigated by foreigners protested against wearing the hijab. In 2014 an Iranian journalist and activist based in US and UK started a Face Book campaign called My Stealthy Freedom” against compulsory hijab law. Iranian women posted their photographs without the hijab. In 2017 women protested against mandatory hijab in Teheran and other cities. In 2019 a women’s rights activist entered a men-only football stadium disguised as a man. This incident led to widespread protests and thousands of women entered a soccer stadium to watch a World Cup qualifier match. In 2009 members of the so-called GreenMovement” took to the streets after a disputed Presidential election. So, it is very clear to comprehend that widespread protests in 2022 erupted after a long period of gestation.
Similarities and Dissimilarities Between Teheran and Galle Face
1. (A) Foreign media reported that the rebellion in Iran is the mounting wrath of a generation raised on the Internet. According to them they were born into cyberspace”. Most of these protesters were born after 1997. They are far removed from the history before 1997 Revolution. They grew up in a different historical time.
(B) Same applies to Galle Face Protesters. Majority of the Protesters were born under a corrupt system which has its roots to 1977, who do not know the history, politics and culture of this country. No wonder a self-appointed leader” of Protesters thinking of implementing similar policies of Thatcher and Reagan as his System Change”.
2. Leaderless nature of the Protest backed by the NGOs and demonstrators shouting different slogans.
3. (A) Iranian Protesters demanded regime change”, bringing human rights, minority rights and women’s rights into the forefront. Death to the dictator”.
(B) Galle Face Protesters demanded Go Gota” and System Change” which no one understood what system and change are.
4. (A) Iranian authorities have blocked WhatsApp, Instagram and other social media platforms and limited the access to Internet and introduced digital surveillance.
(B) In Sri Lanka although there was a blocking of social media platforms for a few hours after Mirihana Outrage” the government was forced to rescind it. Very soon Data Dansel” were opened by big businessmen.
5. (A) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed riots as scattered riots”; said that the riots are being instigated by the US and Israel Zionists. He further said that these scattered riots are the passive and clumsy designs of the enemy against the great developments and innovative movements of the Iranian people”. He compared the Iranian Republic to a mighty, unshakeable tree that cannot be uprooted.
The truth about Ali Khamenei’s words can be understood by studying the composition of United Against Nuclear Iran” (UANI) organisation. Its CEO is a former US Ambassador to UN. Of the 31 members of its Advisory Board we have selected seven members to support Ali Khamenei’s accusation. Former Head of the Political Military Bureau at Israel’s Ministry of Defense and former Director of Intelligence of the Mossad; former Director of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service; General Director of the Israeli Mossad; former Chief of Staff of UK Armed Forces; former Director of Special Forces and Commander of the British Field Army; former UK Minister for Security; and Jeb Bush former Governor of Florida and son of George Bush! (Mossad is the national intelligence agency of Israel.)
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi accused the US for conducting a failed policy of destabilisation targeting his nation. He dismissed the death of the woman in police custody as a purported Western plot without providing evidence.
(B) In Sri Lanka none of the government spokespersons said anything about the Galle Face Protest. They completely ignored the foreign hands behind the Protest.
6. (A) Western media reported a military crackdown in Iran, arrests and deaths due to shooting. Protesters had thrown rocks, hurled Molotov cocktails at security forces and set fire to buildings and statues. A number of security personnel had died in the commotions. Judges in Iran had ordered harsh sentences to rioters.
(B) In Sri Lanka Protesters were handled with kid gloves allowing them to storm and occupy public spaces. Security Forces floated like butterflies while the Protesters stung like hornets. Court orders, thanks to BASL were mostly in favour of the Protesters; that protesting is a human right enshrined in the Constitution.
7. (A) Protests were held by the Iranians living in major cities in Europe, US and Canada. Many of them are the people who fled Iran in the 1980s during and after the Iranian Revolution, self-exiled people. They were joined by their progeny born and raised in Western capitals with no Iranian roots. Many women cut off locks of their hair.
(B) Sri Lankans who protested in foreign capitals were not different. Some of them were those who left the country on government scholarships and defaulted the government. Many of those who protested in West European capitals were economic refugees. Some were smuggled out by human traffickers. Some gunmen in 1971 and 1988-1989 left the shores getting passports using dead men’s birth certificates and were escorted to Katunayake Airport either by Christian clergymen or officials of Western diplomatic missions.
8. (A) European women also demonstrated in support of Iranian women. Some including women legislators cut their hair in showing what they called Global solidarity”. Certain celebrities also joined the Protesters.
(B) No such solidarity” was shown to Sri Lankan Protesters, except those tuppenny” white men and women who shouted slogans at the Galle Face including that White woman who went missing aided and abetted by Black Coat Army”. Half a dozen of Protesters at Federation Square in Melbourne can be shown as a massive gathering as thousands of Melbournians gather there at any time of the day. For the Western world Sri Lanka was a small fry. They knew that things were moving unhindered as choreographed by them. Within four months they reaped a rich harvest. To destabilise Iran Western powers need a different approach. The protest mark one of the boldest challenges to clerical rule since 1979 Revolution, even if the unrest does not seem close to toppling the system”, wrote a Reuter correspondent. Western world is not clear about the outcome of the Iranian protests.
9. (A) Western powers have already begun Iran bashing showing their hidden agendas. US State Department spokesman Ned Price said, Right now our focus is on remarkable bravery and courage that Iranian people exhibiting. And our focus right now is on shinning a spotlight on what they are doing and supporting them in the ways we can”.
Biden had praised the Iranian women Protesters. Addressing a meeting in California he had stated that Mahsa Amini’s death has opened the floodgates for lasting change in the theocratic country”. 52 members of the Congress had written a letter to Biden to prevent Ibrahim Raisi entering the US. US blame Iranian rulers that they are held accountable for four decades of carnage, inequality”, totally forgetting the rule of Shah. They want a regime change in Iran. Ouster of their protégé Shah still haunts in their minds and souls.
Will they allow such protests in their backyard demanding regime change?
Britain had sanctioned some senior Iranian security officers.
Canada outsmarting the US imposed new sanctions on Iran. New sanctions include 03 entities and 17 people including Iranian Foreign Minister. Canadian Foreign Minister’s words echo what was said by Price: We stand in solidarity with the Iranian people who are courageously demanding a future”. Canadians should be reminded of the discovery of unmarked graves in 2021 with skeletal remains of 215 children in a former Residential School” in British Columbia. To cut a long story short, these schools were funded by the government and managed by Christian Churches to educate and assimilate indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture by removing them from their families and culture. Similarly, White supremacists in Australia took away Aborigine children, known as Stolen Generation” from their parents.
10. (A) Hackers interrupted Iranian State TV News Bulletin for a few seconds by the image of a mask followed by depicting Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei with flames around his head, the slogan Women, Life, Freedom” and a message to the viewers, join us and rise up”.
(B) Galle Face Protesters painted the Presidential Secretariat in flames. On July 09 some Protesters forcibly entered state TV institutions and suspended scheduled programmes and forced them to telecast the programmes of the Protesters.
How to Situate Teheran with Galle Face?
ONE: So far not a single Galle Face Protester had supported the Iranian women’s ‘Women, Life,Freedom” campaign. Why?
TWO: Muslim women who did murals and other art works at Galle Face, the so-called FearlessCommunity” and Sisterhood Initiative”, who were trained by their Indian Guru of AsianFearless Collective” had not gathered in support of Iranian women. Why?
THREE: Buddhist priests and Catholic priests who acted like shepherds to the Galle Face flock had not voiced their opinions about the protest of Iranian women. Why?
FOUR: SJB, Fonseka, TNA and Mahajana Sabha grandees who wept copiously on behalf of Galle Face Protesters are silent. Why?
FIVE: JVP, JNB, FSP or IUSF had not demonstrated in front of the Iranian Embassy or issued statements showing their solidarity to Iranian women Protesters? Why?
SIX: Muslim politicians, human rights activists, columnists who fill Sunday English weeklies and those Muslims who issue press statements at a drop of a hat had not written anything in support of Iranian women or given any statement in support of them. Why?
SEVEN:Iranian women are protesting against the mandatory Hijab, neither Niqab nor Burqa. Hijab is just a simple colourful headscarf that covers the hair, head, neck and sometimes shoulders. Niqab and burqa cover the entire body except the two eyes. So why the Muslim women in some parts of this country want to dress either niqab or burqa? Why?
University ragging was treated as a way of socialization and was limited to the beginning two weeks after commencing university education. Later the aspect of ragging expanded to more than socialization and ragging expanded to amatory crimes when it was expanded to not only the university premises but also adjoining areas and boarding places and the university administration was reluctant to stop these criminals. University administration knew these amatory crimes inside a university as well as outside the university. The administrators of the university ignored the criminal activity, and on many occasions, they prevented complaining to the law enforcement authority.
Ragging in universities became a political strategy to gain the power of students to Marxist political parties in universities. When I was in the university a student wanted to complain to the police about the amatory crimes done to him, but the university administration prevented it because it would be a problem for them.
Certain rag leaders were appointed as administrators of universities and disrespecting the value of the education system. A famous ragging leader was appointed as the commissioner of Examination without checking the records and these dirty ragging students restricted me engaged in studies. The behaviour of the raging students lost my opportunities to gain a first-class honours degree Many university administrators such as deans of faculties and heads of departments were noted as rag leaders and with these types of appointments, amatory crimes could be continued in universities of Sri Lanka and I observed amatory crimes were legally valid activity in the high education institution in Sri Lanka.
The nature of criminal law is it applies wherever a person committed a crime Wijerama junction and the surrounding area had been a crime zone, but the university administrators worked like docile who did not know anything about this situation.
The roll call was a Eurasian thing of beauty – featuring the leaders of Russia and Belarus (EAEU), West Asia (Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Palestine) and Central Asia (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan).
China and Vietnam (East and Southeast Asia) attended at the level of vice presidents.
CICA is a multinational forum focused on cooperation toward peace, security, and stability across Asia.,Kazakh President Tokayev revealed that CICA has just adopted a declaration to turn the forum into an international organization.
CICA has already established a partnership with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). So in practice, it will soon be working together side-by-side with the SCO, the EAEU and certainly BRICS+.
The Russia-Iran strategic partnership was prominently featured at CICA, especially after Iran being welcomed to the SCO as a full member.
President Raeisi, addressing the forum, stressed the crucial notion of an emerging new Asia”, where convergence and security” are not compatible with the interests of hegemonic countries and any attempt to destabilize independent nations has goals and consequences beyond national geographies, and in fact, aims to target the stability and prosperity of regional countries.”
For Tehran, being a partner in the integration of CICA, within a maze of pan-Asia institutions, is essential after all these decades of”maximum pressure” unleashed by the Hegemon.
Moreover, it opens an opportunity, as Raeisi noted, for Iran to profit from Asia’s economic infrastructure.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, predictably, was the star of the show in Astana. It’s essential to note that Putin is supported by all”nations represented at CICA.
High-level bilaterals with Putin included the Emir of Qatar: everyone that matters in West Asia wants to talk to isolated” Russia.
Putin called for compensation for the damage caused to the Afghans during the years of occupation” (we all know the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder will refuse it), and emphasized the key role of the SCO to develop Afghanistan.
He stated that Asia, where new centers of power are growing stronger, plays a big role in the transition to a multipolar world order”.
He warned, there is a real threat of famine and large-scale shocks against the backdrop of volatility in energy and food prices in the world.”
Hefurther called for the end of a financial system that benefits the Golden billion” – who live at the expense of others” (there’s nothing golden” about this billion”: at best such definition of wealth applies to 10 million.)
And he stressed that Russia is doing everything to form a system of equal and indivisible security”. Exactly what drives the hegemonic imperial elites completely berserk.
Offer you can’t refuse” bites the dust
The imminent juxtaposition between CICA and the SCO and EAEU is yet another instance of how the pieces of the complex Eurasia jigsaw puzzle are coming together.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia – in theory, staunch imperial military allies – are itching to join the SCO, which has recently welcomed Iran as a full member.
That spells out Ankara and Riyadh’s geopolitical choice of forcefully eschewing the imperial Russophobia cum Sinophobia offensive.
Erdogan, as an observer at the recent SCO summit in Samarkand, sent out exactly this message. The SCO is fast reaching the point where we may have, sitting at the same table, and taking important consensual decisions, not only the RICs” (Russia, India, China) in BRICS (soon to be expanded to BRICS+) but arguably the top players inMuslim countries: Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar.
This evolving process, not without its serious challenges, testifies to the concerted Russia-China drive to incorporate the lands of Islam as essential strategic partners in forging the post-Western multipolar world. Call it a soft Islamization of multipolarity.
No wonder the Anglo-American axis is absolutely petrified.
Now cut to a graphic illustration of all of the above – the way it’s being played in the energy markets: the already legendary Opec+ meeting in Vienna a week ago.
A tectonic geopolitical shift was inbuilt in the – collective – decision to slash oil production by 2 million barrels a day.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a very diplomatic note with a stunning piece of information for those equipped to read between the lines.
For all practical purposes, the combo behind the teleprompter reader in Washington had issued a trademark Mafia threat to stop protection” to Riyadh if the decision on the oil cuts was taken before the US mid-term elections.
Only this time the offer you can’t refuse” didn’t bite. OPEC+ made a collective decision, led by Russia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Following Putin and MBS famously getting along, it was up to Putin to host UAE President Sheikh Zayed – or MBZ, MBS’s mentor – at the stunning Konstantinovsky Palace in St. Petersburg, which datesback to Peter the Great.
That was a sort of informal celebration of how OPEC+ had provoked, with a single move, a superpower strategic debacle when it comes to the geopolitics of oil, which the Empire had controlled for a century.
Everyone remembers, after the bombing, invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, how US neo-cons bragged, we are the new OPEC”.
Well, not anymore. And the move had to come from the Russians and US Persian Gulf allies” when everyone expected that would happen the day a Chinese delegation lands in Riyadh and asks for payment of all the energy they need in yuan.
OPEC+ called the American bluff and left the superpower high’n dry. So what are they going to do to punish” Riyadh and Abu Dhabi? Call CENTCOM in Qatar and Bahrain to mobilize their aircraft carriers and unleash regime change?
What’s certain is that the Straussian/neocon psychos in charge in Washington will double down on hybrid war.
The art of spreading instability”
In St. Petersburg, as he addressed MBZ, Putin made it clear that it’s OPEC+ – led by Russia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – that is now setting the pace to stabilize global energy markets” so consumers and suppliers would feel calm, stable and confident” and supply and demand would be balanced”.
On the gas front, at Russian Energy Week, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller made it clear that Russia may still save” Europe from an energy black hole.
Nord Stream (NS) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2) may become operational: but all political roadblocks must be removed before any repairing work starts on the pipelines.
And on West Asia, Miller said additions to Turk Stream have already been planned, much to the delight of Ankara, keen to become a key energy hub.
In a parallel track, it’s absolutely clear that the G7’s desperate gambit of imposing an oil price cap – which translates as the weaponization of sanctions extended to the global energy market – is a losing proposition.
Slightly over a month before hosting the G20 in Bali, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati could not make it clearer: When the United States is imposing sanctions using economic instruments, that creates a precedent for everything”, spreading instability not only for Indonesia but for all other countries.”
Meanwhile, all Muslim-majority countries are paying very close attention to Russia. The Russia-Iran strategic partnership is now advancing in parallel to the Russia-Saudi-UAE entente as crucial vectors of multipolarity.
In the near future, all these vectors are bound to unite in what ideally should be a supra-organization capable of managing the top story of the 21st century: Eurasia integration.
Pepe Escobar is a veteran journalist, author and independent geopolitical analyst focused on Eurasia.
The IMF says Sri Lanka is a middle income country and remains a middle income country even with the decline in GDP that is seen. The Extended Fund Facility is not a concessional. Its a regular IMF facility.
Speaking during the IMF press conference on the Asia and Pacific Region’s Economic Outlook, Deputy Director Anne-Marie Gulde said Sri Lanka remains a middle-income country even with the decline in the Gross domestic product in the past few months.
She noted that Sri Lanka is facing a very severe economic crisis and they are very concerned about what’s going on in Sri Lanka.
Anne-Marie Gulde noted that they are keen to work very fast to end the suffering of Sri Lankans, especially the suffering of the poor and vulnerable.
The IMF Deputy Director of the Asia and Pacific Department said they have reached a staff level agreement on a four-year Extended Fund Facility program on the 1st of September and noted that the initial disbursement of the program will come after the board approval.
She said since Sri Lanka’s debt is assessed as unsustainable at this stage, the IMF is seeking financing assurances from official bilateral creditors and on private sector debt.
Anne-Marie Gulde confirmed that Sri Lanka is currently working with their legal and financial advisors on the debt element.
>She said she cannot predict a timeline on the disbursement of funds since the process of debt negotiations could vary depending on the creditor and other elements.
Deputy Director Anne-Marie Gulde said “And we hope that everybody can work expeditiously to get a process underway, and discussions are have been starting, including with support of all bilateral creditors that are involved.
She added they are working very closely with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Investment Bank, on programs for Sri Lanka.
The IMF Deputy Director of the Asia and Pacific Department said those programs would help for closing the financing gap. But I want to say also very importantly that the policies under the other multilateral lenders in their areas of expertise will be important to resolve Sri Lanka’s longer term growth problems
President Ranil Wickremesinghe says everyone should join together to solve the people’s food issues, casting traditional party politics aside.
The President made this observation addressing the public officers at an awareness program on the multi-sector mechanism to empower rural economic revitalization centers to ensure food security and nutrition at Hardy Advanced Technological Institute Auditorium in Ampara this morning (Oct 15).
The President further noted that no one would be allowed to starve despite the fact that the country is going through a very difficult time and pointed out the importance of successfully implementing the national food production program to prepare for a possible global food crisis in 2023.
The president also said that the agriculture modernization program would be implemented from next year concurrent to the food security program.
The implementation of the multi-sector mechanism to empower rural economic revitalization centers to ensure food security and nutrition in transforming the Ampara District also into a prosperous one with a blooming community was also discussed at length.
The Ampara district contributes 22 percent to the national paddy harvest and discussions were also focused on making the paddy cultivation in the Yala and Maha seasons a success.
It was also special feature that the President paid special attention to the issues faced by the government officials during the field work. The president was made aware of issues related to the agriculture and fisheries industry in the Ampara district and he directed the officials to address those issues. He also instructed to appoint a special committee to study those issues and report to him.
Due to the adverse weather, three individuals have died so far, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) says.
Meanwhile, 55,435 people in total from 13,902 families have been affected.
Speaking on the current situation, Director of Irrigation (Hydrology) Eng. S.P.C. Sugeeshwara said the risks of minor floods in low-lying areas of Kuda Ganga and Maguru Ganga – two tributaries of Kalu River, Attanagalu Oya, Ururwal Oya, Kelani River still persist.
The risks of minor floods in these areas are expected to exacerbate if the rainfall continues, he added.
According to the Department of Meteorology, the current heavy rains are expected to continue, due to the influence of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ – the region where the Northern Hemispheric wind and the Southern Hemispheric wind converge) located in the vicinity of the island.
In a weather advisory issued this evening, the Meteorology Department stated that showers or thundershowers can be expected at times in Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central and North-Western provinces and in Galle and Matara districts.
Meanwhile, heavy rainfall above 100 mm is possible at some places in Western, Sabaragamuwa and Central provinces and in Galle and Matara districts.
Showers or thundershowers will occur elsewhere over the Island during the afternoon or night. Fairly heavy showers above 75 mm can be expected at some places.
The Meteorology Department urged the general public to take adequate precautions to minimize damages caused by temporary localized strong winds and lightning during thundershowers.
The International Monetary Fund is working with other multilateral lenders including the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on financing programmes for Sri Lanka, the IMF’s Deputy Director for Asia Pacific says.
According to Anne-Marie Gulde-Wolf, policies under other multilateral lenders in their areas of expertise will be important to resolve Sri Lanka’s long-term growth problems.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has stated that the global financial agency is pressing for a more debt resolution mechanism.
Delivering the opening remarks at the press conference for the 2022 Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group (WBG), Kristalina Georgieva said, We want the G20 Common Framework to become more predictable, with clear guidelines and equality of treatment for all creditors, public and private.”
She also remarked that the IMF is also looking for ways to expand that kind of donor coordination to middle-income countries, such as Sri Lanka.
There is a lot to do this week. We must act urgently, and act together to make a difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of people,” Georgieva said further.
USA devised its own methods of controlling other countries. US installed puppet governments in the countries they were interested in. US looked for a pro-US local politician, who says he wants to transform the country. Then using NGOs, ethnic and religious minorities groups, opposition political parties and the English language media in the country, a low intensity internal conflict is created and the US nominee installed in power. USA did this covertly in the past, now it is done openly, said observers.
Without exception, governments brought in through American backed conspiracies have failed, said analysts. The failure is due to the poor quality of the persons selected. They were chosen because of their usefulness to USA. They followed US instructions, which led to deep dissatisfaction and chaos in the country, ending in the collapse of the puppet government.
USA also meddled in the elections of other countries. Prof. Levin of Carnegie Mellon University, an expert on American and Russian interventions in foreign elections said the U.S. has intervened 81 times in general elections worldwide between 1946 and 2000. Russians have interfered in 36 elections during the same time period. These interventions are often directed from the highest levels of US government, such as the White House/senior cabinet secretaries. Local US embassy staff and ambassadors carry out the task. The CIA attends to campaign funding and “dirty tricks.”
Russia Today reported in 2021 that US internal documents showed how the United States meddled in the electoral process in Venezuela. US intelligence fronts used social media to promote Venezuela’s right-wing opposition, and assist their election to parliament.
USA took action to ensure that developing countries were kept politically unstable. USA encouraged fissiparous separatist and groups which will keep the developing countries weak and unstable. When countries were unstable, it was easier for USA to manipulate them.
The media was paid to discredit popular governments. Concocted statements were put out, repetitiously and in great volume. ‘Democracy’ and ‘human rights’ promotion groups were set up. ‘Scandals’ were created. Colors were given to newly constructed ‘opposition’ movements, and deadly weapons used at the ‘protest’ sites, said analysts.
US recruited anthropologists and tried to use them for its dirty work. The methods used by anthropologists were found to be of use for intelligence and defense. American Anthropological Association had to develop an ethics code for this in 1971. An independent ad hoc network of anthropologists seeking to promote ethical anthropology was also set up, the Network of Concerned Anthropologists. (date of origin not available).
In 2006, US government set up Commission on engagement of anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence communities” CEAUSSIC to discuss the matter. In 2008 American Anthropological Association told CEAUSSIC that AAA considered the use of anthropology in military spying unacceptable.
The most powerful US agency used to destablise foreign governments was the Central Intelligence Agency, the well known CIA”. USA said Latin America was its sphere of influence and CIA meddled continuously in Latin America. CIA was also working away in the rest of the world. John Perkins in his book ‘The Confessions of an Economic Hit man’ details how operations against smaller nations were carried out with support of CIA.
CIA was popularly seen as a bungling agency, responsible for the many failures of US policy abroad. But it also has many successes to its credit. CIA is responsible for planning, carrying out and providing cover-ups for USA assassinations abroad.
CIA is legally empowered to act overseas. This made CIA powerful abroad, noted TIME. CIA had a top secret kill list, said Edward Snowden. CIA overseas operations were carried out from stations hidden inside American missions, consulates and embassies. There is special surveillance equipment which allows US embassies to watch others. CIA also had black sites where prisoners were tortured, concluded Snowden.
CIA had front organizations. International Signal and Control,” a US defense contractor firm, was a CIA front for gunrunning, said Economist. CIA and BND, Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service had for decades used a Swiss encryption company Crypto AG, for spying.
Crypto supplied devices for encoded communications to some 120 countries. Unknown to those governments, Crypto was secretly acquired in 1970 by the CIA and BND. They rigged Crypto’s equipment to break the codes of other governments and read their messages. The two agencies were thus able to gather information during major crises such as the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. Economist confirmed that from 1970 to 2000 Crypto AG was wholly owned by the CIA and was a front company of the CIA.
National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Albert Einstein Institute, Freedom House and the Open Society Institute of George Soros are engaged in doing USA’s dirty work abroad, said critics. The most active of these agencies is National Endowment for Democracy. NED was known globally as the second CIA”. NED exported various kinds of anti-government ideas, incited color revolutions, and plunged the Arab world into war, social unrest and economic recession.
NED is funded by White House and the US Congress, and takes orders from the US government. It has manipulated and directed NGOs around the world to conduct subversion, infiltration and sabotage using its generous funding. NED is the US government’s white glove” that serves US strategic interests, announced China.
NED provided financial support to persons and groups loyal to USA. Also to those who wish to break up a country.NED has long provided funding for the training of politically active” Sudanese young people. NED gave funds to Tibetan Youth Association and World Uyghur Congress in 2020.
NED infiltrates target countries, cultivates local anti-government forces and stokes social tensions. NED colludes with local political groups. NED pushed useful issues, such as feminism, freedom of the press, and human rights activities, makes grants to civil rights” organizations and funds academic seminars and training.
NED has been at it for a long time. in 1989 NED provided financial support for Solidarity to help them overthrow the Polish government, heralding drastic changes in Eastern Europe.
NED was there in Central and South America. NED orchestrated a violent coup In Haiti. Between 2016 and 2019, NED provided at least 4.4 million US dollars to Nicaraguan opposition groups and media organizations. Organizations funded by NED played key roles in Nicaragua’s coup attempt in 2018. These organizations called on the opposition to attack the government and assassinate the President.
In Venezuela NED has run its activities using the USAID office in the US Embassy as well as the offices of the organizations to which it gave funds. NED has engaged in all kinds of activities in Venezuela, said critics. They have built close ties with opposition parties. They have provided several funding packages to the largest opposition union in Venezuela and pushed it to stage anti-Chavez protests and demonstrations.
In March 2019, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said that many organizations conducted destabilizing activities across the country, funded by NED. They have been attempting to overthrow the Venezuelan government for the past 20 years.
NED was right behind the Arab Spring which took place in Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Syria, and Libya. NED played an important role in organizing and manipulating anti-government demonstrations in Egypt. NED funded and worked closely with NGOs such as the Women Journalists Without Chains” In Yemen. That NGO organized and led student rallies against the Saleh government. In Algeria, a number of organizations involved in the Arab Spring protests received funding from NED. Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights received US funding in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2010.
In October 2000, NED financed and instigated the Velvet Revolution in Serbia which overthrew the Milosevic government. NED gave two Serbian opposition groups 10 million and 31 million US dollars respectively. Washington Post wrote in its post-mortem analysis of Serbia’s Velvet Revolution that US-funded advisers played a key role behind the scenes in nearly every aspect of the anti-Serbia movement. They tracked the polls, trained thousands of opposition activists and helped organize the crucial parallel vote tabulation.
Rose Revolution broke out in Georgia, in 2003 and President Eduard Shevardnadze was forced to step down. NED planned and participated in the entire process from selecting” opposition leaders, training the opposition to providing huge funds.
Bolivia enjoyed political stability and the fastest growth rate in South America in the 14 years under Morales. Its poverty rate continued to drop, people’s livelihoods improved markedly. From 2013 to 2018 NED and USAID provided 70 million US dollars to the opposition in Bolivia.
NED created an anti-Morales network spanning universities, think tanks and civil organizations, it even roped in indigenous Bolivians to stand against Morales. A number of leading figures of the opposition received financial support or had close interactions with the United States. NED initiated street movements. In 2019, NED started a ‘revolution’ forcing President Evo Morales to resign and go into exile. The Morales government won the general election, but was forced to step down.
The methods used by NED in Bolivia resemble those practiced by Aragalaya in Sri Lanka. In Bolivia on the night of 9 November 2019 violent riots escalated throughout Bolivia. Violent anti-Morales rioters overran the streets in the capital city of La Paz Rioters began to storm government offices, flooding the stations of Bolivia TV and Radio Patria Nueva, accusing them of serving Morales .Regional governors had their homes torched. A number of Bolivian organizations called on Morales to resign.
A few years ago there was an extremely popular book in North America called What Colour is Your Parachute?”
It is a great book that all young people who leave universities from all parts of the planet should read. The contents wise up the reader what they need to do to get into some suitable employment. Theoretically very good, practically too it gets a pass mark, the book certainly is sensible. Unfortunately, it also depends on which sky you are walking under. Third world denizens (living below the poverty line) and 4th world ‘super-stars’ like us Sri Lankans (borrowing money to eat) hardly qualify for this floating parachute business. We may have a few colour pens here and there but who has parachutes?
For the first and second world countries, it is a cake walk; come home with your degree and find your silk parachute and paint it bright and beautiful with colours that shout out your qualifications and bail out. They soar in the corporate markets until they find employment or till the employers find the para-gliding candidate. The chances are pretty good that some ‘King-Pin’ giants would see the ‘rainbow-hued float’ and pick you to join their serenade. There you go! Dream job and minted silver-plated future and sometimes in gold or could even be platinum. Doors open automatically as if they were waiting solelyc for you.
Good if you have a silk parachute, good if you have the colours to paint with and good if you can float and be found. The best would be if you are a Manchurian Candidate, especially in the third and fourth worlds where papas and grandpapas carry ‘magic potions’ like Asterix, connected to their I-phones that are much more powerful than multi-coloured parachutes.
One call to the right man and it is just you scratch my back and I will reciprocate” becomes the final selection criteria.
Out here in Sri Lanka the life of a prototype Uni student is very different. I do not know much, but I do know some of the horrendously tragic tales of students. They struggle from the first whistle of tertiary education to the final exam and end up in Lipton Circus getting water-washed for sins committed in impotent protests. I am not talking from stories that drift in the monsoon winds but firsthand miseries that I have come across. For the last 27 years I have been associated with an organisation working as a volunteer to help some of these unfortunate students. Most undergraduates I met were sandwiched between the ‘Sa duking pelena un” ideology and the ramshackle existence of poverty they inherited as a birthright. All their dreams are tied to the degree they read in a local university where hope springs eternal at the beginning for a secure future. But that often stands lava-frozen simply as a mirage of misery.
Now he and she have the qualification, but it is at most times wrapped with the English dilemma of ‘fol toppie and fan cake.’ That’s what they take to the interview. And their parachute itself is certainly not of smooth silk (such is only for the elite). The average student often has only a gunny sack material floating device with ‘rat-eaten’ holes, and no colour spectra to select and paint with. How to be seen? Everything around them is colour-blind. How to leap and float to be found? It is more like a jump in the dark, swinging one’s arms to cling to some salvation of a job, just so that their pauperised existence can be maintained without being a perpetual burden to their poverty-riddled parents.
Sir, I sold my earrings to pay my hostel fees”. I asked ‘Why did you sell? You could have pawned them.” She gave me a dry smile, Where do we find the money to redeem, Sir?”
Yes, I know these stories. On a given day we have more than 1,000 students under sponsorship and around 400 of them are uni-students. Some of them are the ‘super-poor’ types who receive the Maha Pola’ scholarship and send some money home so that their siblings can have some sort of food on their ‘belek pigang’ to eat and survive. These are the students, the confederacy of the humiliated who constantly get marginalised by the many manifestations of poverty and suffer a hundred setbacks just to survive to read the degree.
The sad side of this Rubik Cube is that few among the well-to-do are aware of the perpetual plights of a lot of Uni students. How would you know? Unless you too have been on that ‘Full Option Poverty Trail’. It would be difficult for you to understand what I am talking about. Yes, I have been there before, a long time ago, that is why I know.
Sir, I eat a vadey for dinner,” says one. Sir, I drink a lot of water to fill my hunger in the night.” No, these are not fairy tales of my imagination but what I hear in sighing words from sad-eyed faces. The ear-ring seller is now a practising lawyer and the ‘water dinner man’ is a Financial Controller. They did make it, more by chance than by design.
Do these bright hardworking undergraduates get a chance to write a CV and apply for a job in the posh and polished corporate world? Do the big guns with their carpeted floors allow these unfortunate youth to walk in through their gilded arches to face an interview? Of course, some kind and considerate institutions do consider them and such corporate leaders should be lauded and praised. But isn’t the truth more of refusals? ‘Many are called, but few are chosen,’ that sings right for these ‘law’ income graduates, who are tattooed at birth as children of a lesser god. They will certainly not be in the chosen few. They rot for long periods of unemployment and if lucky, they might get selected for a job in a government office. That too needs a special qualification, more to do with whose posters they ‘paappafied’ and pasted on the walls.
Even if they get an interview, they will mostly be ‘also rans’ if the medium of conversation is English. Most have never had any communications in the Queen’s language (sorry I forgot, it’s the King’s language). How could they compete with other applicants from affluent backgrounds who have been on debating teams arguing the merits and de-merits of subjects such as colonialism and League of Nations in Shakespeare English?
Would they get any consideration for the mire-filled trenches they crawled out from birth as poor pilgrims? Can they write in their CV in bold black that they have suffered multiple burdens of poverty to educate themselves? Have you seen any CV that highlights how poor they were? No blame to those who sit on interview panels, how would they know? That is a very sad part of this education system. The equation is at most times lop-sided for the non-English speakers.
One says to me Sir, I was a frefect.” Another says Sir, after that I will play with the ear.” Thank God, both the frefect and the ‘with the ear man’ are now gainfully employed.
The problem is English. That is the catalyst that brings down the confidence of the graduate job seeker. We need to do our best to address the recurring purgatory that burns the very souls of the youth. Oh no! Please do not talk about regime changes and the milk and honey that will start gushing limitlessly from every orifice of Diyawanna Oya. Man! We have seen that far away dream for 74 years at every political change when different gods took their seats on the proverbial Mount Olympus. Let me stop there before I go berserk with my abated anger.
This is 2022. Month of October as I write. The country is suffering like never before and the peoples’ hopes too have become almost hopeless. The queues may have reduced but the prices have soared to reach the distant stars. The Diyawanna Oya circus is operating at its optimum latitude and some of the mongrels in that mansion think they have a god- given right to destroy this beautiful country and ruin its inhabitants. People are leaving Paradise in droves; it is a migration of hopelessness that has no single reason but multitudes of unfathomable man-made miseries that are the direct responsibility of those who rule us.
We can only wish for a better day. Pray to all the gods in creation to give us solace from the catastrophic calamities that are looming ahead for us. We live in a misplaced paradise and if the powers that be continue this trend of destruction it won’t be long before we convert ourselves into a paradise lost.
Something needs to be done, somethings have to be changed by some means. Unless we find a way to make a serious course correction and charter a roadmap to break away from the sugar-coated slippery slope we are sliding on now, we are finished. That cannot be too far away.
President Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister in 2003 had awarded the Indian Oil Company to develop the 850-acre World War II built oil tanks in Trincomalee for an annual payment of USD 100,000
Colombo:
Sri Lanka has to cooperate with India to develop the crisis-hit island nation, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said today, underlining that the countries also have to join hands to develop the Trincomalee port in the north eastern coast.
President Wickremesinghe was visiting the eastern port district of Trincomalee to inspect the district’s integrated development plan.
“We have to work jointly with India in the development of the Trincomalee port and the oil tank complex,” he said.
“We signed the Trincomalee port agreement in 2003. The trade unions expressed strong opposition to the oil tank agreement then,” President Wickremesinghe said, adding that if India was allowed to operate the oil tanks then Sri Lanka would not have faced the current fuel shortages.
President Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister in 2003 had awarded the Indian Oil Company to develop the 850-acre World War II built oil tanks in Trincomalee for an annual payment of USD 100,000.
The IOC-run 15 oil storage tanks in Trincomalee came to Sri Lanka’s rescue during the ongoing fuel crisis.
The USD 700 million credit line from India ensured Sri Lanka’s fuel supplies at the beginning of the economic crisis when forex shortages caused shortages of essentials leading to public unrest in the island.
“We are currently working with India on renewable energy projects. This will become operational in Trincomalee. We can convert Trincomalee to be our energy hub by using our ties with India,” President Wickremesinghe said.
“We have also agreed with India to develop our industries in this region. I have proposed to set up an industrial zone jointly with India,” President Wickremesinghe said.
Sri Lanka in January inked a deal with a subsidiary of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for the long-gestating project to refurbish and develop the Trincomalee oil farm, an 850-acre storage facility with a capacity of almost one million tonnes.
Cooperation on the Trincomalee tank farm has been followed by Indian assistance for Sri Lanka to overcome its severe economic crisis.
Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is going through its worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948 which was triggered by a severe paucity of foreign exchange reserves.
In mid-April, Sri Lanka declared its international debt default due to the forex crisis.
The country owes USD 51 billion in foreign debt, of which USD 28 billion must be paid by 2027.
There have been street protests in Sri Lanka against the government since early April due to its mishandling of the economic crisis.
A crippling shortage of foreign reserves has led to long queues for fuel, cooking gas, and other essentials while power cuts and soaring food prices have heaped misery on the people.
China’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka Qi Zhenhong today assured former President Mahinda Rajapaksa that Chinese tourists would begin to visit Sri Lanka soon as China’s COVID-19 common policy allows.
The Chinese envoy paid a courtesy call on Mahinda Rajapaksa today where the two discussed a wide range of issues in relation to further strengthening the cordial relations between Sri Lanka and the People’s Republic of China.
During the discussions, Rajapaksa handed over a congratulatory letter addressed to President Xi Jinping, wishing him for the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China which will be a new milestone in China’s socialist construction.
Ambassador thanked Rajapaksa for his best wishes and said Sri Lanka and China had shared a long history of friendship, trust and mutual understanding which was evident in their relationship even to date.
Ambassador Qi also noted that Sri Lanka was presently facing difficulties but said he was confident the country would restore normalcy soon.
He also assured of China’s assistance for Sri Lanka to overcome its challenges.
Rajapaksa also raised the issue of Sri Lankans travelling to China, and Chinese tourists to the island, to which Ambassador Qi responded saying Sri Lankan businessmen and students have already been given visas to return to China and the Chinese tourists will come back to the island as soon as China’s COVID-19 common policy allows.
The SLPP leader and the Chinese Envoy also discussed on the international relations at the current crucial moment, and both agreed that the SLPP and the CPC should further enhance exchanges and collaboration especially for the youth members.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe emphasized the importance of ensuring food security in the country by cultivating all arable agricultural lands, the President’s Media Division (PMD) says.
These remarks were made by the President participating in a discussion held at the Eastern Province Governor’s office this afternoon (Oct 14), with the farmers of Trincomalee District regarding the land issues faced by them.
During the meeting, it was discussed in detail regarding the handing over of lands to the farmers in the area, which were traditionally cultivated by them and compelled to abandon due to the war.
Emphasizing the need to solve the problems of the farmers immediately, the President explained the need of preparing for the possible food crisis in 2023 by making the upcoming Yala and Maha seasons a success.
Also, the progress of implementation of the programme on food security and nutrition introduced recently under the direction of President Ranil Wickremesinghe in Trincomalee district was also reviewed.
Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, State Minister Dilum Amunugama, Presidential Senior Adviser on National Security and Chief of Staff to the President Sagala Ratnayake, Secretary to the President Saman Ekanayake, Eastern Province Governor Mrs. Anuradha Yahampath and Trincomalee District Secretary, Provincial Chief Secretary, Governor’s Secretary and other government officials and heads of security forces of the province participated in this discussion.
People must protect themselves from poor local governance and the imperfect global economic order
The Annual Meeting of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG) in Washington DC this October, will discuss issues of global concern. Debt justice should be at the top of their agenda.
Sri Lanka and many other nations classified as lower-middle-income countries by the WBG are not developing, and the financial tools that are being provided to help them develop and reform prove to be unsuitable. These countries are falling behind on a range of socio economic indicators and cannot repay debt. In Sri Lanka’s case the causes are both internal and external.
There is world-wide consensus on internal causes, that poor governance, high corruption and economic mismanagement contributes to Sri Lanka’s external debt crisis. The lack of comprehensive and wide-scale political reforms perpetuates these problems.
External causes of Sri Lanka’s sovereign debt crisis
IMF and the WBG, global multilateral institutions, are cornerstones of the financial system designed at the end of the Second World War. They facilitate global economic corporation and protect the interests of wealthy nations. The cataclysmic inequality that defines our planet is intrinsic to systemic factors. Exploitation and debt crises are its inevitable by-product. Debt is a tool of control within the system. The system isn’t broken. It is designed to function like that.
These imperfections of the global economic order exacerbate Sri Lanka’s debt crisis.
The existing system is geared to ensure as many poor countries borrow money from commercial money markets, an idea that has been ‘legitimised’ through financialisation of the global economy. Half of Sri Lanka’s sovereign debts are to private creditors.
Multilateral institutions are in principle important organisations, but only if they are mandated to secure global economic stability whilst improving the wellbeing of all people and the planet. Without agreement for this vision by all donor nations, particularly the USA that creates the global reserve currency, the necessary funding and policies have never materialised.
The continued underfunding of multilateral institutions is a political choice by developed countries and not borne of economic necessity. Since the global financial crisis of 2008, there was a huge infusion of liquidity into the international commercial money markets at near zero interest rates. None of these funds found its way into multilateral institutions in the required scale. This has contributed to the global sovereign debt crisis faced by nearly 53 poor countries today. These nations borrowed and tied themselves into a debt trap, because borrowing from private creditors had become ‘legitimised’.
Both the IMF and WBG have recognised the economic, fiscal and environmental crises the global economy now faces. But missing from their analysis is that the current conditionalities they impose contribute to the crisis of growing poverty and hunger of developing nations.
Worryingly, there seems to be an unquestioning agreement among people with political and economic influence in Sri Lanka that the IMF, in its current guise, can provide a sustainable solution to the nation’s debt crisis despite the 16 previously failed attempts. It cannot, without reform.
Were multilateral institutions asleep on their watch?
Private investors seeking high yields switched their funds on mass to emerging markets during a decade of low interest rates in the western world. To many seasoned observers, the imminent sovereign debt crisis was clear to see. The emergence of the pandemic and trade sanctions against Russia accelerated the crisis to the critical levels they are today.
Sovereign debt restructuring negotiations are complex, and requires the participation of all multilateral institutions, bilateral lenders and private creditors to agree on a solution.
Sovereign debt is the only category of debt without a bankruptcy mechanism and the international community has relied on the contractual approach to prevent and resolve sovereign debt problems. Despite known difficulties in voluntarily engaging private creditors in debt restructuring negotiations, multilateral organisations failed to facilitate effective solutions and legislative changes that would force private creditors to participate.
Public policy has been designed by special financial interests and the political will to make the necessary legal reforms is absent in the USA and UK, countries under whose laws most sovereign bonds are governed. The courts in these locations are often less favourable to sovereign governments.
Yet, the IMF encouraged countries of the developing world to issue International Sovereign Bonds without the necessary safeguards or adequate transparency in the global financial system.
Sri Lanka was able to reach a preliminary agreement with the IMF for a 48-month Extended Fund Facility of $ 2.9 billion. The loan is intended to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability, to unlock the growth potential in the economy. Given the scale of the nation’s overall economic crisis, this is an insignificant sum to set the country on a sustainable recovery path. Unfortunately, the IMF appears to be acting only as a debt collector or de-risking agent to encourage private creditors to join the restructuring negotiations.
With such high levels of borrowing from private creditors, Sri Lanka should look after its national interests by calling out unfair rules that are stacked against them.
Private creditors must bear the consequences of their risky lending practices
Private creditors are unfairly benefiting from both high yields and high protection at the expense of the Sri Lankan people.
There is insufficient transparency for private creditor loans. They fail to show which specific projects are funded or whether these projects would generate a recurring income to pay back their interest and capital. Their intentions of aggressive profiteering were clearly demonstrated by repeatedly failing to engage in the debt restructuring programs of other debtor nations.
Private creditors, such as the world’s largest asset manager Blackrock, must face the consequences of the risks they took. The risks were clear for all to see.
Following Sri Lanka’s historic bond scam of 2015, shockwaves were sent through the government treasuries market and $ 3.4 billion of government securities held by foreigners were divested away from Sri Lanka. Government ISBs were issued to rebuild foreign reserves. Private creditors seeking high returns purchased them despite the surrounding risky landscape.
The lack of robust fiscal management by the Sri Lankan Government was also well-known. Tax intake was dangerously low and the scale of political corruption was unacceptably high.
Responsible borrowing is equally important as responsible lending. Conducing inadequate due diligence on the credit-worthiness of the borrower is both irresponsible and risky. Now that these risks have materialised private creditors should bear the losses.
The people of Sri Lanka cannot be held responsible for the repayment of any odious debts. The debts owed to private creditors should therefore be cancelled.
Mitigating risks posed by the imperfect global economic system
Like all developing countries operating within an imperfect global financial system, Sri Lanka needs access to foreign credit facilities to purchase essential goods and services that cannot be produced locally. But the country can face harmful long-term economic, social and environmental consequences by blindly engaging in this system without taking any mitigating steps to reduce risk. For example, these could be considered:
Critically reviewing IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis framework: As a sovereign country Sri Lanka should have a Debt Sustainability plan of its own, open to public scrutiny, that focusses on the wellbeing of its people and environment. Because the IMF does not share their methodology used for its own DSA, this is a means by which Sri Lanka can then ensure the IMF-DSA considers the country’s priorities.
Collaborating with G77 for the redistribution of $ 650 billion new special drawing rights (SDR): Sri Lanka should collaborate with the G77, a loose alliance of developing nations, to promote a common development agenda, including accessing allocations lying in the accounts of developed countries that could be used as a short-term facility for Sri Lanka.
Reclassifying as a lower income country: Sri Lanka with an annual per capita income of just $ 3,800, is now rated as a lower-middle income country, a rating that excludes it from accessing multilateral loans. Due to the scale of economic hardships endured by its people, Sri Lanka should be calling to be re-classified as a low-income country, and away from commercial money markets.
Gaining larger concessional financing: Sri Lanka should be given emergency funding similar to the one granted to Ukraine. Borrowing from appropriately funded multilateral institutions are most favourable due to low interest rates and longer payment periods. Bilateral loans are less favourable because lender governments may have geopolitical ambitions that can harm sovereignty. It is vitally important for Sri Lanka to have a genuinely non-aligned position in the geopolitical battles between larger nations to obtain support from as many countries as possible.
Restructuring multilateral and bilateral debt: Call on the IMF to lead the debt restructuring negotiations by prioritising the needs of local people and the environment.
Cancelling private creditor debt: Call for a large haircut to private creditor debts or declare these odious debts null and void. Borrowing from commercial money markets (holding International Sovereign Bonds), should always be avoided. By their nature, these opaque loans are open to corruption both on lender and borrower sides. With inadequate visibility of final beneficiaries of ISB’s it is not possible to assess whether politically connected persons in Sri Lanka benefit from these loans.
Requesting bankruptcy mechanism for sovereign governments and a debt relief initiate: Encourage India, the next chair of the G20, a strategic multilateral platform connecting the world’s major developed and emerging economies, to call for a formal bankruptcy mechanism for sovereign governments.
Campaigning for legislative reforms for sovereign debt agreements with private creditors: Make it compulsory for uncooperative private creditors to participate in debt restructuring negotiations.
Sri Lanka has enough human capital and natural resources that can be fully harnessed to embark on a sustainable recovery path that’s underpinned by entrepreneurship, social justice and ecological conservation. The IMF should support a sustainable solution to Sri Lanka’s external debt crisis proposed by a legitimate government which has the mandate of the people. Fundamental to all this are the comprehensive and wide-scale local political reforms needed to establish honest politics, good governance, and economic competence. The door to a better, sustainable future can be opened. The key to it is firmly in the hands of ordinary voters of Sri Lanka.
(The writer is a former Local Councillor for London Borough of Enfield in the United Kingdom representing the Green Party and a member of the Sri Lankan diaspora.)
The concept of economic crime is involved in a broader area of activities that could be financially valued and a vital aspect of economic crime could be seen it has ample relationships with illegally gaining financial benefits from an economic transaction. Defining an economic crime is a hard task because it involves a diverse area and the value of a transaction would be varied base on many factors. Making a judgment relating to an economic crime would be costly because accurately accounting for the value of an economic crime is one way impossible, another way it may ignore some involvements which have higher values. Google’s website gives reasonable information about economic crimes and this term has come to a debate or discussion after the Geneva conference about Sri Lanka. Details of the Geneva Conference opened the eyes of policymakers in Sri Lanka
Economic crimes are committed by many people and politicians and the political process associated with economic crimes could be highlighted in a specific manner. Economic crimes in Sri Lanka involved political parties and heavy weights of political parties and the case related to Thilini Piumali exampled how economic crimes expand to different types of people including politicians.
In Sri Lanka, all political parties may have been associated with economic crimes and prosecution of the criminals related to various aspects of crimes would be burdensome. It is difficult to find evidence acceptable way in the language of the court. It can read news reports in the media that people who committed economic crimes were released by the court as the cases were not presented to be accepted by the court.
Politicians are associated with economic crimes in Sri Lanka and people in Sri Lanka did not gain information about economic crimes.
Yes, we need peace. We need reconciliation. Such needs are the inevitable outcomes of conflict-end. Fixing these to exaggerated grievances and out-of-this-world aspirations and tying it all to a constitutional amendment obtained by a bully is unacceptable. Ridiculous, in fact.
Indra Mani Pandey. Remember the name. He’s India’s Permanent Representative in Geneva. He’s no novice in matters diplomatic, having joined the service more than 30 years ago. He would have been old enough even before that to know what’s what in Indo-Lanka relations, if he was inclined at the time to educate himself about international relations and in particular South Asian affairs.
So, to cut to the chase, when someone like Pandey says something about Sri Lanka, we need to take note. He has explained why India abstained on the vote against (yes) Sri Lanka at the UNHRC sessions and thereby has told us how India sees Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan issues and Sri Lanka’s future. We must thank him for being forthright: ‘we are grateful, Indra, for the honesty!’ The cheers stop right there, though.
Pandey waxes, not too eloquently: ‘India has always been guided by the two fundamental principles of support to the aspirations of the Tamils for equality, justice, dignity and peace and unity, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Sri Lanka.’
Always? Really? Why then did India arm, train and fund separatist terrorists? Was that to strengthen unity, territorial integrity and sovereignty? India was clearly intent on destabilising Sri Lanka. Indeed India was a major part of the problem. And, thereafter, we had the problem-creator (or problem-enhancer, if you want to be generous) stepping in to resolve the problem. Indra is a funny guy, folks. India is a funny country, one might say, except that there is nothing funny about doing everything possible to prolong an unnecessary conflict, directly or indirectly paving the way to death, destruction, dismemberment and displacement of a magnitude beyond calculation. Three years before Indra entered the service, India stepped in to effectively bail out the terrorists.
Yes, the Indo-Lanka Accord. Indra knows or has learned about it at some point, for he talks of the 13th Amendment. More waxing sans eloquence: ‘While we have taken note of the commitments by the government of Sri Lanka on issues of implementation of the commitments in the spirit of the 13th Constitutional Amendment, meaningful devolution and the early conduct of provincial elections, we believe that the progress towards the same remains inadequate.’
Right. Here goes. The 13th Amendment was imposed on Sri Lanka at gun point by India. Rajiv Gandhi bragged at the time that it was the beginning of the Bhutanization of Sri Lanka. That’s a weird understanding of unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity, right? Let’s talk about commitment though.
India reneged on her commitment to disarm the terrorists. Sri Lanka had to do India’s job and it took a further 22 years. India should shut up about ‘commitments’ especially since India has enjoyed the advantages scripted into the Accord all these years, even after getting a BIG ‘F’ on the one thing India was supposed to do.
How about devolution? Well, on paper it’s not a bad thing, except of course that the relevant territorial demarcations rebel against demography (almost 50% of Tamils live outside the Northern and Eastern provinces), history (lines were drawn by European invaders arbitrarily) and economy (the Western Province’s contribution to the economy is a massive slice and if one pushed the logic of ‘devolution’ to any reasonable conclusion, other provinces will remain relatively impoverished). As for provincial council elections, none of the diehard devolutionists (well, they are really federalists or separatists) have agitated for them to be held over the last several years. Let’s not forget that the Northern Provincial Council couldn’t even spend monies allocated. All it did was to give legitimacy to an Eelam Map that symbolised just one thing: attempted land-theft by one particular ethnic group.
Aspirations. Indra talks about them. He has to, since it’s one of the two ‘fundamental principles of support.’ Tamil aspirations, someone should tell Indra, was essentially a desire to annex two-thirds of the coast and half the land mass for a little more than 5% of the population (considering almost half the so-called ‘Eelam Tamils’ live outside ‘Eelam’. Do the math, Indra/India. Maybe an Indian analogy would help; it would be like Muslims in India aspiring to have control over a territory equivalent to the sum of Rajastha, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. That’s an equivalency the likes of Indra would dare not consider.
Yes, we need peace. We need reconciliation. Such needs are the inevitable outcomes of conflict-end. Fixing these to exaggerated grievances and out-of-this-world aspirations and tying it all to a constitutional amendment obtained by a bully is unacceptable. Ridiculous, in fact.
Indra sweetens the apology by talkie of India’s provision to relief, rehabilitation, resettlement and reconstruction efforts in Sri Lanka and assistance provided this year to mitigate the economic crises. Well, thank you. Very much. Still falls way short of compensation India ought to pay for all the miseries unleashed on Sri Lanka by hegemonic, arrogant and moronic Indian leaders though. Indra should know, because lately India has been belligerent in demanding reparations from Britain. The histories are different of course, but costs are costs, aggressors are known and if justice is about redress then India owes much and talks not at all about all this.
So, in sum, Indra played a typical Indian card in Geneva. A lot of poppycock and hardly disguised enmity. Not surprising.
Garvin Karunaratne, former Government Agent, Matara
I first met Mr P.C.Imbulana, in 1962 when I assumed duties as Assistant Commissioner for Agrarian Services in the Kegalla District. It was during the rule of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and Mr Imbulana was in the opposition. My duties were to implement the Paddy Lands Act and to attend to the collection of paddy under the Guaranteed Price Scheme .
The Paddy Lands Act being a leftist programme was generally disliked by the United National Party to which Mr Imbulana belonged . I therefore expected him to be against the working of the Paddy lands Act. However I was proved wrong. Strangely he was with the people- the farmers and the welfare of the farming community was always his concern. Political nuances was not in him. He was always with the people whom he loved.
It did not take long for us to become close associates.. If there was any progressive movement in agriculture he was there. His lunch table with an array of at least ten curries was always laid down to any person coming to meet him and often I got dragged to a tasty meal.
I got moved to Colombo, to Anuradhapura, to Kandy to Nuwara Eliya and after the United National Party was victorious in 1965,we met again, myself working as Assistant Commissioner of Agrarian Services in Colombo and he being the Deputy Minister in Agriculture. We often met at the Ministry and also at Sravasti.
In 1967 I got posted as the Additional Government Agent at Kegalla and Ruwanwella, Mr Imbulana’s electorate was in the Kegalla District and we had the occasion to meet regularly. That was the time when the Prime Minister Mr Dudley Senanayake started directing the paddy cultivation programme and the Ministry of Agriculture was always in the forefront. Mr Imbulana as the Deputy Minister in Agriculture had his hands full.
I had a lot to do with him. I yet remember meeting him again and again trying to get the Ministry of Agriculture to continue loans to farmers on the old basis at 2-3% interest. Till then, for over ten years, agricultural loans to farmers via cooperatives was handled by the Agrarian Services Department and loans were given at 2-3% interest. I had myself handled agricultural loans to cooperatives and we did perform a yeoman service. Down came the order that Agrarian Services Department was no longer to handle loans and instead it was handed over to the Commercial Banks and the interest rate was immediately jacked up- to some 12%. Both of us put up a major fight but a petty Additional Government Agent and a Deputy Minister of Agriculture did not have sufficient clout. I am of the opinion that the increase in the interest of agricultural loans that then took place was one of the reasons why the United National Party was defeated at the 1970 general election. We did really try our best.
We lost touch and in 1973 I moved to foreign lands for studies, to the UK, the USA. I next ran into Mr Imbulana when I happened to visit Sri Lanka in 1993. He was then the Governor of the Central Province. He accused me of working for foreign countries and not for Sri Lanka. He had heard of my work in Bangladesh where as a consultant I had designed a new youth employment creation programme which at that time had guided over a million youths to become employed. The confrontation ended with my agreeing to draft a development programme for the Central Province. I spent two weeks at his Residence, travelling all over the Central Province, meeting officials and assessing current development programmes. It ended in my drafting a Report for Self Employment Creation and Poverty Alleviation in the Central Province.
The Programme was to develop the entire Central Province in agriculture and livestock with appropriate small industries. The planning process was to commence from the village, studying the potential of existing home gardens and land extents on a per plot basis and studying the resources of the area. This was to be done by the Grama Niladhari who will be helped by the specialist officers of the various departments. The aim was to provide for activity in productive enterprise, the full development of the land and thereby generating incomes. It was aimed at finding employment to everyone in the village and to streamline government activities to achieve that aim.
The Minister Mr Imbulana was highly taken up with the programme and decided to implement it immediately in selected Grama Sevaka areas. Two villages were selected as a pilot project. The Grama Niladharis and the Agricultural Overseers of the area were given two weeks’ training at the Mahaberitenna Farm. . where training was commenced. I commenced training sessions at both villages- at Hasalaka and a village near Gampola. Plans were drawn up and expertise were obtained from a few retired officers- The Government at the Center did not totally approve the programme, but Mr Imbulana continued it on his own steam. A former colleague of mine, Balachandran once a Deputy Director of Livestock and KB Ratnayake my former Superintendent of Development Work at Kegalla provided voluntary service to further the programme. However, The Programme had to be abandoned because the ruling United National Party lost at the general election in 1965.
So ended the attempt by me and Minister Mr Imbulana to usher in a programme of development for the Central Province. It is my opinion that if only this Programme had been implemented it would have ushered development like the Youth Self Employment Programme designed and implemented by me in Bangladesh in 1984, which is yet going strong- having bagged over three million youths into viable self-employment.
Mr Imbulana was one of the few Ministers who were really concerned with development. He did play his part well. It was Sri Lanka that was unfortunate. The timing was wrong for the programme. It commenced at the tail end of the United National Party rule.
Minister Mr Imbulana’s career stands out as admirable, a lesson for the politicians of today. He is one of the distinguished political personalities that adorned Sri Lanka.
(This programme is detailed at pages 321 to 341 of my book: How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternative Programmes of Success: Godages:2006)
Garvin Karunaratne, former Government Agent, Matara
United States of America became the sole superpower in the world, when the Cold War between USA and Russia ended in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Unable to conquer the world militarily, US hit on the notion of setting up US controlled governments in the countries in which it had a strategic interest and assassinating any leaders they did not like.
USA has assassinated several heads of state. Lumumba was one (Congo, 1961) . Saddam Hussein was another (Iraq, 2006). In 2011 US killed Osama Bin Laden at Abbottabad, Pakistan, with Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton watching In Washington. A photograph of this group seated in the White House, watching the killing was circulated worldwide.
In 2020 USA killed Iran’s most powerful general, Soleimani in a drone strike near Baghdad airport. This was a violation of international law, said a UN expert. In 2022, US killed al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a drone strike in Afghanistan.
US sponsored dictatorships were set up in the countries US was interested in. The two best remembered dictatorships today, are those of Iran and Chile. In 1953, the democratically elected Iranian PM Mossadegh was replaced by the Shah of Iran, in a coup d ‘etat. CIA organized and executed this coup, with support from Britain, and Reza Pahlavi took over as Shah. He used secret police and his rule was a cruel one. Eventually, the public rose against him and US had to take him out of Iran and keep him in the US.
In 1973, US engineered the removal of the highly popular President of Chile, Salvador Allende. He had refused to give US control of Chile’s copper mines. US replaced him with Pinochet. This ushered in a 17 year dictatorship, with 3000 murdered and many more tortured. US had told him to make the economy scream”, which he did. Chile was one of most notorious interventions by US in Latin America, said analysts.
USA set up dictators in other countries as well. Rafael Trujillo, President of Dominican Republic was supported by USA. Trujillo’s army was given formable weapons by US. Trujillo was cruel and unscrupulous. His rule of 31 years is considered one of the bloodiest political regimes ever in the Americas. His regime was responsible for many deaths.
Washington has been associated with every one of the military conspiracies and coup d’états in Central and South America, for many decades, said analysts. USA has instigated rebellions against the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Brazil and Ecuador CIA trained and funded Nicaragua contras.
US had continuously interfered with Venezuela’. US has been trying, for a long time, to oust its President, Nicolas Maduro, who was elected with a large majority at a democratically held election. USA asked the neighboring governments to help overthrow of Venezuela’s President Maduro, and replace him with Guaido. USA also hinted at military intervention. But when Guaido called for street protests against Maduro, in 2020 only a few hundred turned out, reported analysts. ‘The rest went to holiday on the beach.’
USA has been anti-Cuba for decades. Cuba has suffered heavily from US infiltration and subversive activities said analysts. CIA had planned to stage terrorists attack in the 1960s in USA to look as though they were done by Cuba. They were planned carefully, in great detail. Cuban media revealed that USA’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID allocated nearly 250 million US dollars to programs targeting Cuba over the past 20 years. Numerous unsuccessful attempts were made on Fidel Castro’s life.
US also interfered in Africa. In March 2012, President Mutharika of Malawi accused USA of plotting to bring down his government. He refused to give in to USA demands. Mutharika died of cardiac arrest just two weeks later. He was replaced by Joyce Banda and USA provided a USD 350 million grant. Banda was heavily defeated in the next presidential election by Peter Mutharika, brother of the former President. Banda went to the US and was given a position as fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre International Centre for Scholars.
USA had a hand in the Rwandan Civil War (1990-1994). The Rwandan Patriotic Front was armed and trained in Uganda with support from US. The U.S. and UK trained the RPF and helped turn a refugee army into a strong fighting one. RPF leader Kagane was trained in psychological warfare methods at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. Museveni, President of Uganda was a CIA puppet who had everything to gain by helping French-held Rwanda fall into the hands of the Americans, observed analysts.
The US has infiltrated, invaded, bombed, and destroyed many countries, said commentators. US sent troops to Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo without Congress approval. US President does not have the power to authorize military attacks without Congress approval, but US Congress usually approves the action retrospectively and provides funding for such interventions, observed analysts.
There were unlawful US interventions in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1961), Vietnam (1964), Dominican Republic (1965), Chile (1973), Nicaragua (1981–1984), Grenada (1983) Panama (1989), Balkans (2000) , Iraq (2003) and Libya (2012). US invaded Panama to topple Noriega, a former American intelligence asset. US launched an illegal war against Iraq, on the spurious ground that it had weapons of mass destruction.
The US is not concerned about the loss of innocent lives when it attacks countries which have nothing to do with the US. In Iraq, over 300,000 people have lost their lives, in Syria, some 266,000, in Afghanistan, 176,000, in Yemen, 112,000, in Pakistan, 67,000 said analysts. These are conservative estimates. In Yemen, the UN figure is more than twice as high. In Afghanistan, the real figure may be 50,000 higher, according to the Uppsala Data Conflict Data Programme. And there is still no international consensus on the Iraq War casualties.
The US did not win all its wars. It had some spectacular failures such as Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The US won some of the little ones, but lost all the bigger ones, observed Gwynne Dyer. US military fiascos like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, were due said George Friedman, founder of Stratfor, to USA’s addiction to ‘non-strategic wars’.
US was very aggressive In Vietnam. US dropped Agent Orange and napalm on Vietnam. US killed thousands in the Vietnam War without caring. BBC reporter, John Sergeant was at an American airbase in Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam War. He found that US pilots who were bombing North Vietnam did not care that they were killing innocent persons. They are just targets, one pilot told Sergeant. They could be trucks, they could also be soldiers but we have to see them simply as targets.
US soldiers also died in large numbers and the American public started to oppose the war. USA lost the Vietnam War in 1975. This was a great blow to its prestige and US has never recovered from this defeat. The Vietnam defeat is still remembered.
US army has been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001. For nearly two decades hundreds and thousands of American troops have rotated through Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a strategic hub in Central Asia bordering Russia, China and Iran, said analysts.
US invaded Afghanistan two decades ago, promising to wipe out the Taliban, instead Taliban won and USA had to withdraw in 2021. The Americans have left behind another unfinished war, said critics.
The world was shown the chaos at Kabul airport in August 2021, when USA made its final departure. They saw a giant USAF transport taking off from Kabul airport with desperate Afghans clinging to its fuselage, and then dropping off.
But the USA retreat was not as disorganized as it appeared on television, said analysts. There was a formal withdrawal agreement between US Ambassador Khalilzad and Taliban chief Baradar signed in February 2020. The Kabul incident was simply the last stage of a planned evacuation. No American assets were attacked by the Taliban after US left.
Taliban takeover will not affect the rest of the world, observed analysts. Taliban is only interested in turning Afghanistan into a theocratic Islamic state. Russia, China and Pakistan have recognized the Taliban government.
Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena requested the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to assist the government’s initiative to establish a digital data base of labour workforce in Sri Lanka. He pointed out that the Ministry of Labour has taken steps to establish a comprehensive digitalized data base of the workforce and urged the ILO to assistance for expediting the process.
This was discussed when ILO Country Director Simrin C Singh and Senior Employment Specialist of ILO Headquarters, Sher Verick called on him at the prime Minister’s Office today (13).
The Prime Minister briefed them on the impact of the Covid pandemic and economic crisis on labour workforce and the short-term and long-term steps taken by the government to recover the economy and to help the workers, especially the low-income labour force.
Ms Simrin Singh said despite some signs of positive trends, most developing countries including Sri Lanka are faced with difficulties due to global recession, limited fiscal space, debt sustainability challenges and rising inflation. She pointed out that these issues have resulted in a labour market crisis.
Prime Minister Gunawardena stressed that the government was very keen to make labour workforce upwardly mobile and explained the multitude of training programmes launched for skill development. Increasing the quality and quantity of jobs is the surest way of moving people out of poverty, he said.
Employment Specialist Sher Verick said that the founding principles of the ILO concerned not only with ensuring sources of income, but also as a means for people to live a self-determined life, and for participating fully as citizens in their communities.
Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara said emphasized that the quality is the essence of the concept of decent work, defined by ILO as opportunities for men and women to obtain productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity.
The ILO delegation assured fullest support to all the efforts taken by the government for the wellbeing of the labour and measures for upgrading skills of the workforce.
The Beatles was a rock band from Liverpool in the United Kingdom. The primary members of the Beatles were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. John Lennon was a singer, songwriter, musician, and peace activist. Paul McCartney inherits the former’s capability. Sir Richard Starkey (better known by his stage name Ringo Starr) is a singer, songwriter, and actor.
At the age of sixteen (John Lennon) and rhythm guitarist McCartney (the age of fifteen) had a meeting with two music-loving teenagers to discuss a separate rock music project. Lennon, at the time, performed with the Quarrymen, which blended jazz and folk music. In 1957 the formation of the group Beatles commenced.
Quarrymen
The ‘Quarrymen’ accepted bookings initially at a charity church in Liverpool. When they set up their instruments for the performance in the evening, the Band’s bass player introduced Lennon to his classmate McCartney. Lennon enthusiastically joined the group and debuted his singing that night, making him a permanent member of the ‘Quarrymen.’ Over three years intermittently interspersed from 1960 to 1962, ‘The Quarrymen’ played for clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg (Germany) before forming the Beatles. Subsequently, the foursome formed the group, and pop music became popular. Consequently, the Beatles gradually expanded and made their reputation sturdier.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr initially performed at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. Brian Epstein, who became the manager later, saw the group in action. After reading about the Beatles in the magazine Mersey Beat’, which was recorded live at Newcastle 02 Academy – in 2018. Subsequently, Epstein’s family-owned record store magazine became popular. He approached the band and convinced him that he could manage the new band; finally, Epstein ended up with a five-year contract signed in January 1962 with the Beatles.
Brian became the Beatle’s manager, often referred to as the Fifth Beatle”, alongside Paul, John, George and Ringo. He hardly had experience managing bands, but he made the Beatles worldwide recognisable. Epstein created another organisation known as ‘Northern Songs Ltd’ to publish the Beatles’ music separately. In doing so, he offered Lennon and McCartney a fifteen per cent commission out of the sales.
Epstein saw the band’s ability and how the four members were the best combination in music. He then began to work in earnestness to promote them. The band’s first UK single, Please Me,” was recorded in November 1962, released in January 1963 and became number one on the UK charts. Epstein eventually travelled to the United States to secure a booking for the Beatles. Finally, the Beatles made their first appearance in the United States on a variety show in February 1964. It became so popular with a vast audience of over seventy million people.
International Fame
In the early part of 1964, the Beatles became international stars and became incomparable. They made their first film which became very popular ‘ A Hard Day’s Night, in 1964, which broke all box-office records. They ultimately ushered in the British invasion of the United States pop market. Their levels of commercial success became the leading force in Britain’s cultural recovery.
The Beatles decided to stop performing in 1966. Still, Epstein opposed such a decision to maintain the quality of ‘The Beatles’ music. Yet the group stopped performing in 1966 and changed their music style to culture-based values music of society. In doing so, their income fluctuated, making them move smoothly from Epstein.
During 1968 -1970 the group conducted many cheerful businesses meeting at their Head Quarters at Apple Records. Amidst the joyous meetings, Lennon hinted that he wanted to leave. Their new manager, Allen Klein, advised that Lennon would go the group but also announced that McCartney and Starr were about to quit the group. Also, Klein discovered a secret about Lennon leaving the group but kept it under the hat until the Apple Records ownership dispute. Although the group’s financial situation improved after signing the Apple ownership deal, Lennon left the band for good.
For a long time, a battle existed between Lennon and Starr on the appointment of Allen Klein of the Rolling Stones to take over as the Beatles’ manager when the group was desperate for revenue, which struck a wedge on their tours after Epstein’s death. In their desperate situation, they opened the Apple Boutique. They recovered a loss of around GBP 200,000 before closing it after eight months.
Lennon and Ono
In 1966 Lennon met Yoko Ono, a theoretical artist. In 1968 Yoko Ono was seen with John Lennon frequently. By 1969 they became inseparable. Yet, Yoko Ono expressively influenced John Lennon’s songwriting to appear on several Beatles tracks. There were also rumours about how Yoko Ono was responsible for breaking up the Beatles.
Lennon and McCartney eventually used Ono as an easy target for the breakdown of the Beatles. Lennon once 1970: pronounced, I had to either marry the band or Yoko, and I chose Yoko Ono.”.
Lennon left the Beatles in September 1969. His departure remained a secret until April 10, 1970. In a press conference, McCartney revealed that his partnership with Lennon was over. Later, Lennon denied that he had left the Band, blaming McCartney.
Last Performance
The Beatles performed their last live public performance in London on 30 January 1969. Despite the hidden tensions, the company published numerous tracks by Lennon. At the same time, McCartney and the other Beatles worked in perfect harmony. Lennon later requested that his songs should be separate from McCartney’s. However, the blending of their music made the albums emblematic,
When the hostility between Lennon and McCartney became public knowledge, and the Beatles broke up, McCartney composed a song against Lennon, Too Many People,” blaming Lennon. In return, Lennon responded (with Yoko Ono), How Do You Sleep? The only thing you have ever done was ‘Yesterday,’ and since you’re gone, you’re just ‘Another Day!”
