Few words in modern political language are as burdened—or as reflexively rejected—as communism. To invoke it today is to invite immediate dismissal, as though history itself had rendered a final and irreversible judgment. The argument is familiar: the twentieth century tried communism, and it failed—catastrophically.
But this argument rests on a confusion so basic that it would be surprising—were it not so convenient. It assumes that what occurred in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, or other so-called actually existing socialist” states exhausts the meaning of communism. It treats a historically contingent set of regimes as if they were the definitive expression of an idea that, by its nature, exceeds any single instantiation.
No one would accept this reasoning elsewhere. We do not reduce Christianity to the Spanish Inquisition, nor liberal democracy to the worst crimes committed in its name. And yet, when it comes to communism, the move is made without hesitation: Stalinism becomes its essence, and the verdict follows automatically. This is not historical analysis but ideological closure.
To claim that communism has been tried and failed” is to assume that history operates like a controlled experiment: a hypothesis is tested once, under specific conditions, and the result is decisive. But political ideas are not laboratory propositions. They are lived, distorted, betrayed, revived, and transformed across different historical conditions.
Consider the Soviet Union. Within a few decades, the USSR transformed itself from a largely agrarian society into a major industrial power. Its role in defeating fascism in World War II was decisive. Its scientific and technological achievements—from early space exploration to advances in education and public health—were significant.
None of this is intended to excuse the immense suffering, repression, and violence associated with Stalinism. But it does undermine the simplistic claim that the Soviet experiment can be written off as a total failure. The point is not to redeem the Soviet experiment, but to reject the lazy conclusion that its crimes exhaust the Idea it claimed to embody. More importantly, it raises a deeper question: why should this particular historical formation be treated as the final word on what communism is—or could be?
To equate communism with Stalinism is not only historically crude; it is philosophically incoherent. It is akin to arguing that because a medical treatment was once misapplied with disastrous results, the underlying principle of healing must be abandoned altogether.
What, then, is communism—if not the regimes that claimed its name?
Here the work of Alain Badiou is indispensable. For Badiou, communism is not first and foremost a state form or an economic blueprint. It is an Idea: a commitment to the possibility of a society organized around radical equality, in which collective life is no longer subordinated to private accumulation or hierarchical domination.
The communist Idea affirms, first, that no human life carries greater intrinsic worth than another—that equality is not an aspiration but a starting point. It insists, further, that this equality must take material form in the way society is organized: in how resources are distributed, how work is structured, and how power is exercised. And it demands, finally, that human capacities—creative, intellectual, affective—be developed in common, not narrowed, exhausted, or deformed by systems that convert life into labor and potential into profit.
At this point, a familiar objection arises: isn’t this precisely what every failed revolution has claimed—that the Idea was betrayed, not realized? The force of the question should not be dismissed. But the objection proves too much. If every historical failure were enough to invalidate the principle in whose name it was undertaken, then no political idea—democracy, rights, even justice—could survive its own history. The issue is not whether past attempts fell short. The issue is whether the Idea itself names a genuine possibility that exceeds the conditions of its distorted realization. To collapse that distinction is not a mark of realism, but a refusal to think beyond the limits imposed by history as it happened.
This is not utopian in the sense of being detached from reality. It is, rather, a claim about what reality itself permits—a claim that history has repeatedly, if briefly, brought into view.
The Paris Commune remains one of the most striking examples: a short-lived but profound attempt to reorganize political life on egalitarian principles, abolishing standing hierarchies and rethinking the relationship between labor, governance, and everyday life. Similarly, during the Spanish Civil War, experiments in worker self-management demonstrated that production and social organization could function without traditional capitalist command structures.
Nor were such experiments confined to moments of revolutionary rupture. In postwar Yugoslavia, systems of worker self-management operated for decades, reorganizing firms around collective decision-making rather than centralized state control or private ownership. These arrangements were uneven, constrained, and ultimately entangled in broader political contradictions. But their significance lies elsewhere: they demonstrate that non-capitalist forms of economic coordination can persist beyond exceptional moments, taking institutional shape within complex, modern societies.
What these examples reveal is not simply that alternatives have appeared, but that they recur—under different conditions, in different forms—whenever the limits of existing arrangements become intolerable. These experiments were fragile, often constrained or ultimately undone by internal contradictions and external pressures alike. But their significance lies precisely in their existence. They show that the communist Idea is not a fantasy imposed on reality from outside. It emerges from within history itself.
If Badiou provides a philosophical framework, Slavoj Žižek offers a diagnosis of our present predicament. For Žižek, the real problem is not that we have rejected communism, but that we have accepted a world in which no alternative to capitalism seems conceivable.
We are told, endlessly, that while the system may be flawed, it is ultimately the only viable option. Attempts to imagine something else are dismissed as naïve, dangerous, or historically ignorant. This is what Žižek calls ideology at its most effective: not the imposition of false beliefs, but the foreclosure of thought itself. We are permitted to critique the system endlessly—so long as that critique never threatens to become an alternative.
In this context, the word communism acquires a paradoxical importance. It is not simply a label for a particular program. It is a way of insisting that the space of the possible has not been closed—that the current organization of society is not the final horizon of human life. To abandon the word is, in a sense, to concede defeat in advance.
There is, however, a further reason to revisit the communist Idea today—one that has less to do with historical memory and more to do with material conditions. For the first time in human history, technological development has created the possibility of abundance on a scale previously unimaginable. Automation and artificial intelligence have dramatically reduced the amount of human labor required to produce essential goods.
Writers such as Aaron Bastani have argued that these developments open the door to what he calls fully automated luxury communism: a society in which the necessities of life are provided universally, and human beings are freed to pursue activities beyond mere survival.
We already live in a world where warehouses operate with minimal human labor while workers remain precarious, where food is produced in abundance while millions remain food insecure, where algorithms perform cognitive tasks once thought uniquely human—and yet the basic conditions of life remain unequally distributed.
Even if one rejects Bastani’s vision, the underlying point is difficult to dismiss. The traditional justification for inequality—that scarcity necessitates competition and hierarchy—no longer holds in the same way. The productive capacities of modern societies are more than sufficient to meet basic human needs. And yet, these capacities are organized in ways that perpetuate scarcity, exclusion, and precarity. The problem is not technological limitation but social form.
If communism is so often rejected, it is not simply because of historical memory. It is because the Idea itself poses a challenge that many find difficult to confront. To take equality seriously is to question not only economic arrangements, but the entire structure of social recognition. It asks whether the privileges we take for granted—of wealth, status, or power—can be justified at all. It demands a rethinking of what it means to live together. It also asks whether the advantages we inhabit are defensible—or whether they persist only because we have learned not to question them.
This is not a comfortable question. It is far easier to dismiss the Idea as dangerous or impossible than to consider what it would require of us. And yet, the alternative is not stability. It is a world increasingly marked by ecological crisis, extreme inequality, and technological systems that intensify rather than alleviate human suffering. To insist that this is the best we can do is not realism. It is resignation. What we call realism today is our learned incapacity to imagine a world in which we no longer benefit from inequality. What passes for realism is often nothing more than the defense of advantage.
The point is not to return to the twentieth century, nor to repeat its mistakes. It is to recognize that the communist Idea names something that remains unresolved: the problem of how to organize collective life on the basis of equality rather than domination.
We may find a different word for it. But any such word will have to carry the same weight—the same insistence that another form of life is both necessary and possible. For now, communism remains the most honest name we have. Not because it is free of history, but because it refuses to let history close the question. That is precisely what makes it so difficult—and so necessary—to think again.
To dismiss the communist Idea is not simply to reject a word or a history. It is to accept that the present arrangement of life is as far as thought—and as far as justice—can go.
Sam Ben-Meir is an assistant adjunct professor of philosophy at City University of New York, College of Technology.
Colombo, May 11 (Daily Mirror) – The Central Environmental Authority (CEA) said today that environment clearance has not been granted for a cable car project at the Sri Pada (Adam’s Peak) site.
Director General of the Central Environmental Authority Kapila Rajapaksha confirmed that no environment clearance has been granted for such a cable car project.
He said this while responding to a question whether any approval has been granted to a cable car project at the Sri Pada site.
It was earlier reported that attention has been drawn to introducing a cable car project at the Sri Pada site as part of efforts to enhance the country’s tourism infrastructure.
Before you study the economics, study the economists!”
The USA Wants to Rule Sri Lanka, Yet Who Rules the USA?
e-Con e-News 3-09 May 2026
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‘Wall Street was tough to get into for us.
Not to be crude but there’s a Jewish Mafia,
& a WASP Mafia, & an Irish Mafia…
…They hire their own; they socialize among
their own.’ – Raj Rajaratnam, ruminates
on his jailing for insider trading, in
Anita Raghavan’s The Billionaire’sApprentice:
The Rise of the Indian-AmericanElite
& the Fall of the Galleon Hedge Fund
Who Rules the USA? – is ee‘s lead focus this week, which seeks to unearth the ‘Hidden Architecture’ of their ‘Ruling Class.’ The USA’s particular penchant for always being at war (even now trying to block, if not destroy and control Asian access to fossil fuels), and its unrelenting pursuit of material wealth and money, has given rise to attempts to explain its voracious viciousness by blaming it on sundry conspiracies, naming particularly bestial or racialized or corporatized or banking cliques as: reptilians, illuminati, cabals, white supremacists, with such subsets as White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs), or Jews (Epstein Class, Zionists), Papists, Masons, etc, or oligarchies of finance (JP Morgan), big oil (Rockefeller), auto (Ford), chemicals (Dupont), and weapons manufacturers (Lockheed), etc.
The USA now acts as the lead gangster of a conglomeration of killer settlers (United Slaves), with international sidekicks including Europe, principally Germany, England, Japan, and a host of lesser pitbulls & poodles. William Murphy (an everyday Irish name which sounds exactly like the innocuous moniker a reptilian may choose to hide behind – ha, ha) sees this Anglo-American ruling class (see ee Focus), as, less mystical, and more coordinated, more ‘structural than conspiratorial’, even as it hides behind institutions, which it claims are neutral & technical & free. It remains:
‘Best understood as a networked formation of ownership
& control over capital, production, & finance. It is
composed of overlapping layers: institutional investors
who control massive pools of assets, corporate executives
who administer production, financial institutions that allocate
credit, & state structures that stabilize the entire system.’
Murphy’s rather staid and sober essay goes on to describe the role & functions of this ruling class – financial investors, asset managers, corporate executives, etc – with the ‘state’ and political networks and its actors, embedded within this system. While offering a bibliography, filled with ‘Marxists’, he offers little insight to how an alternative power (a proletariat) can take over and ‘change’ this machine… Still, he offers an antidote to those analyses who seek ‘a royal road’ to scientific discovery…
We have been attempting a deep dive into Karl Marx’s On the Jewish Question (1844), which makes provocative comments about the Jews as sharks. But Marx’s point is that while Jews may have once dominated finance in Europe, they are no longer the only ones. In a capitalist world, of all against all, there are always new candidates to take over that monopoly any Jews once enjoyed. He points to the Christians of New England, USA, who still claim to have no state religion, and yet carry a cash register on their back, and then, after going bankrupt, open a church…
‘All creatures have been turned into property,
the fishes in the water, the birds in the air, the plants
on the earth; the creatures, too, must become free.’
– Thomas Münzer, 1524
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Some readers may see us experts on the casino known as the stockmarket, to offer advice on their day-to-day financial challenges. A few readers have accused ee of avoiding extended investigation into the alleged murders of key witnesses to the frauds & chicanery of the present ‘Clean’ government: Dan Priyasad (aka Prasad, Containers), Nandana Gunatilleke (JVP), Ranga Rajapakse (Treasury), and Kapila Chandrasena (Airbus)… (see ee Random Notes)
Our primary mission, however, has been to popularize the work of SBD de Silva, about his analysis of a merchant & moneylender class who, regardless of parliamentary part-timers and their petty intrigues, operate on behalf of the dominant colonially imposed import-export plantation economy, and sabotage any endeavour to establish a modern industrial (machine-making machine) society. Colombo’s ruling mobs are more commonly explained as relics of the last 500 years of European invasions by Portuguese, Dutch and English. Below them, many of the 20 or more ‘market minorities’ mostly from India and West Asia, have served to buffer this European misrule. They monopolize certain fractions of the economy as petty merchants & money-lenders: Borah, Chettiar, Memon, Parsi, Sindhi, Bharatha, Catholic, Anglican, et al. Related religious and linguistic fractions occupy layers within the state machinery, in the upper bureaucracy military, police, judiciary, etc. They work through and protect the imperialist banks & multinationals such as Citibank, Standard Chartered, HSBC, Unilever, Ceylon Tobacco, CIC/ICI, whose innumerable ‘MSM enterprises’ and fronts, chambers of commerce, thinktanks, dominate media, and cultural discourse.
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‘In 2021, Sri Lanka took a bold & widely noticed decision:
to ban palm oil imports & phase out domestic oil palm cultivation…’
– see ee Agriculture, Palm Oil
A recent lament, ‘Lest we Forget’ (see ee Sovereignty, Belgium), in the Island, by the grounded ‘Guwan Seeya’ (‘Lost in the Clouds’), recalls the butcher of the Congo, King Leopold of Belgium, yet leaves out that he was England’s killer Queen Victoria’s first cousin; that he rode the first ‘official’ train in Ceylon, from Colombo to Ambepussa in 1864; and most importantly that he was financed by William Lever, supplying palm oil to his English factories to produce Sunlight, Margarine & Lux soap,etc.
The corporate palm oil mafia is back in action, demanding it’s un-banning, intimating to the Wijeya Group’s media outlets, they have insider information that the government is about to roll back, that such palms do not really damage the soil. We smell the usual suspects, covertly led by Unilever (Lever’s multinational behemoth, & its fronts Sunshine Holdings, etc, and a dubiously named Solidaridad Network, etc).
How such ‘palms’ are grown and greased, informs this ee Focus on ‘Shea Butter’, where Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of shea nuts, yet enjoys less than 1% of the shea market. Nor does Nigeria gain from value-added processing of shea into cosmetics, food, and pharmaceuticals. ‘Foreign-owned processors, brands & retailers downstream capture the lion’s share of value.’ Warwick Powell offers startling comparisons with coffee, cocoa, olives (though not tea), describing the economic structures that lock nations into raw commodity exports, and where ‘capital & technology remain concentrated abroad’. ‘Decolonising commodity chains’ requires overcoming the fragmentation & atomization of the real producers in Africa, Asia & the non-Anglo Americas.
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‘We need to have a labour movement that asks: why
do corporations have the right to move these plants
in the first place? Why does democracy stop
at the door of corporate property?’
Sri Lanka’s industrial literacy amounts to almost zero, which is why understanding the difference between handicraft, assembly, manufacture and modern machine production remains fundamental. This ee concludes how the USA’s changes in its auto industry affect Canada and the organization of workers, as discussed in this interview with an auto union research director (ee Focus). ee offers this essay, not just to examine strategies to challenge capitalist power, but to also highlight the lack of such organized data & inquiry in Sri Lanka, where every thuttu-dhekay (2-by-3) trade is called an ‘industry’.
‘Outsourcing components like seating or brakes
also outsources potential bargaining power.’
This excerpt also examiners the role played by Japanese corporations in linking to North America’s industrial networks but also undermining all workers’ wages & conditions. We learn of the importance of not just fighting for wages but also for working conditions, health & safety, etc, as well as participating outside the workplace in challenging such national issues as tariffs (they don’t stop job losses) and capitalism’s crises (PM Carney’s fake nationalism). He describes how China has set up a holistic industrial culture, which can offer less expensive industrial products.
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‘Lazy English workers’ was & is a frequent whine, especially by employers and shallow observers, as SBD de Silva examines the provenance of such stereotypes in both English literature and economic commentaries, and how it was carried abroad and amplified to deride African and then Sinhala workers. We conclude de Silva’s most interesting chapters (9) from his classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment, tracking such anti-labour sentiments from Europe’s Middle Ages to the present, via the imposition of chattel slavery in the 17th century, coming to the realization that reducing wages was more important than material costs, midst ‘the transformation of independent peasants and artisans into wage labour’. The state begins to protect the boss over the factory worker, mostly women and children, with working conditions becoming worse than they had been for a 1,000 years.
With the extension of chattel slavery in Africa, English employers began to recognize they could bribe English workers with wages, particularly due to use of valued machinery. However, their ‘lazy worker’ ideology was transferred to the world, where through time & white supremacist ideology has become supposed ‘common sense’. Then came the idea that we were quite happy to work for low wages, and have limited wants. Such ideologies were soon transferred by European slavers from Africa to Asia, where whole peoples were looked upon as a class, whereas white proletarians were only looked at as a section of white people (see ee Focus).
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Contents:
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A1. Reader Comments –
• Scottish Tea • Focus, Please • English Gangster • Unions & China • Bashing Renewed • ee Necklace • Too Much ee • Family & War • Carney Circus • Energy & Protection Racket *
A2. Quotes of the Week –
• Psycho Autopsy-turvy • Life After Death • Change of Heart • Central Banker Goes Missing • Hole in the Passport • Hanuman Now • Civic Miseries • ByForce Resignations • Sajith’s IMF Slaves • Public Swindle • Bankers Exposed • Trade Finagle • Harvesting Revenge • IMF Has a Used US Tractor to Sell • Tea for Veggies • Planters’ Newest Whine • Capitalism’s Foreign Police • US Black Vote on Hold Again • Social Democracy Steps to Fascism
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A3. Random Notes –
• Quiet Deaths • Allies under Pressure • Murder Takes Wing • The Tragic Silence of Kapila Chandrasena • Democracy After Hours Only • Deputy Less Forgiving • Base USA Here • IMF Blanks Sri Lanka • Oiling India • Class Fractures • Class Fractures • Oiling Singapore • USA’s Armed Gas Station Robbery • Russia Sticks up USA • China Says No • Canada’s Hitler • Canada’s War on China
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A4. Who’s Who –
• Moon Calendar • Gen Z’s Emptiness • Gold Ring for Babes • Private Passport Makers • Strategic For Whom? • US Guides War on Russia • No Wealth Analysis Yet • Macro Economists • Prima Among Unequals • Privatisation’s Security Guards • Privatizing Port • USA HillyBilly Steel Blues • Watering Colombo • Gen Z Govi Biz • English Home Garden Chemistry • Banking on German Machines • Trump Crashes on Nukes • Fake Insurance • Rugby Sandwich Boys • Indian Golf • EU’s USAID
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B. ee Focus –
• B1. Who Rules the USA? Inside the Hidden Architecture of the Ruling Class – William Murphy
• B2. Reforming the Nigerian Shea Sector – Challenges, Opportunities & Lessons from Global Commodity Value Chains – Warwick Powell
• B3. The Canadian Auto Industry & Dependence: Polarized Options, Part 2 – Sam Gindin
• B4. The Political Economy of Underdevelopment, Chapter 9, Part 6 – SBD de Silva (1982)
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C. Building Blocks –
• Guaranteed Rice Price for Industrialization • Creation of a Home Market for Industry • Japan’s Limits on Industrial Exports • Smallholding & Science • Extraordinary Culture of Machine Tools • Making Central Banks Independent of the People? • On State-owned Enterprises & Privatization
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D. News Index
• Sovereignty • Security • Economists • Economy • Workers • Agriculture • Industry • Finance • Business • Politics • Media
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A1. Reader Comments
ee thanks Readers who send articles of interest. Please excerpt or summarize what is important about any news sent, or your comments, and place any e-link at the end. Email: econenews@gmail.com
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• Scottish Tea – ‘The first planters in Sri Lanka had no connection with the USA. The ‘Father of Ceylon Planting’, Robert Boyd Tytler, had worked on a sugar plantation in Jamaica. However, most planters came straight from Scotland (95% of planters were Scots, over half from Aberdeenshire), recruited mainly through informal networks. They learnt planting on the job, guided by Pierre-Joseph Laborie’s The Coffee Planter of St Domingo, later replaced by William Sabonadière’s The Coffee Planter of Ceylon in 1870.’
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• Focus, Please – ‘ee should remain focused on Sri Lankan matters. Present international readers with a distinctly SL perspective. You should be unflinching in your critique of current politics, of which I now don’t see any. Give a clear, sharp, principled analysis, not an evasive commentary, full of jargon. Be an educator, bold, uncompromising, challenging & exposing. Don’t be a mere raconteur of events that have happened centuries ago, which have no value now to the reader, except for its cosmetic value, making them pedants, not to make them act, and to disseminate new insights.’
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• English Gangster? – ‘ලංකාවෙ ඉංග්රීසි පත්තර ජවිපෙ/ජාජබ ආණ්ඩුව රකින තව ප්රබල කණ්ඩායමක්– ee is another gang of English media, who protect the JVP/NPP government.’
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• Unions & China – ‘ee has missed out on the trade union role in economic recovery in the context of Sri Lanka’s SoEs… China holds the world’s largest trade union body: the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which reports directly to the ruling party CPC. Don’t trade unions have a role to play in transforming an economy to become a global leader?’
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• Bashing Renewed – ‘ee hasn’t mentioned anything about the inability to properly connect rooftop solar power generation to the national grid due to grid balancing problems. In fact, this is a crime… ee likes to bash Unilever for SL’s industrialization dilemmas, but the renewable energy angels should also explain why they have been unable to enable low-cost energy addition to the grid?’
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• ee Necklace – ‘Gems, gems, of much value…’
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• Too Muchee –‘Lots of good & valuable information as usual. But, ee, too much of a good thing is bad. There is so much to do and so little time. I do understand the dilemma and the urgency that we all face. We all get trapped in trying to divulge too much relevant information that exposes the vast web of the interconnectedness of the deep rot. However, that overinflated exposure clouds the mission and derails the message. In the end, small irrational minds like mine get lost in the information cluster at best &/or completely get overwhelming and confused. Bear in mind that all people are made / socialized unequal by the sociopolitical entrapment environment we were subjected to. So, take it easy on some of our irrational & frail mental conditions. My 2 pence advice would be to zone in on one or 2 of the obviously always invaluable subject matters that would thoroughly drill and educate the vast wretched masses that we all are.’
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• Family & War – ‘What is ee‘s opinion on the impact on ordinary families of the UAE exiting OPEC, the Strait of Hormuz Closure & Energy Crisis, and the US Currency Swap Lines? I am worried about where it’s gonna end.’
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• Carney Circus – ‘What does ee think about Canadian PM Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum? All performance?’ [see ee 31 Jan 2026]
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• Energy &Protection Racket – ‘I’m currently planning to go into the energy sector for career stability. Governments are also investing lot in energy infrastructures too. With the current AI servers’ boom, there will be big demand for electricity also. I want to protect myself & my family (new baby) from the upcoming recession. I already have a mortgage & vehicle lease. Next year renewal coming. Does ee think I should lock it at a fixed rate, or keep it variable?’
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A2. Quotes of the Week_
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• Psycho Autopsy-turvy – ‘Shiral Lakthilake, Attorney-at-law, former Yahapalanist & NGO bigwig, a member of Dinana Dakuna (Winning Right), at a press briefing called for a psychological autopsy. According to a news item he argued that while forensic medical officers declared the death a suicide, a psychological autopsy could provide deeper insight into the deceased’s mental state & circumstances. Calling for a psychological autopsy instead of demanding a fresh physical autopsy by internationally recognized forensic experts, at this juncture appears illogical, an exercise more academic and cosmetic than practical. This writer views this in the prevailing political climate as a theoretical diversionary tactic – an attempt to deflect mounting opposition pressure on the government. If Sri Lanka lacks the necessary expertise to conduct a physical autopsy, he should suggest inviting specialists from abroad. In my view, this proposal is nothing more than an attempt to wrest attention from the ‘Free Lawyers’ – water down their achievements – who first exposed the scandal and who continue to wage an unyielding struggle against the Minister of Finance, Secretary-Finance, Governor of the Central Bank and other power-holders. This amplifies the contrast between the opportunism of the proposal and the principled stand of the Free Lawyers.’ – Sena Thoradeniya (see ee Security, Alleged Suicide & $2.2min Treasury Scam: Conspiracies, Autopsies, & Public Distrust)
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• Life After Death –‘The Judicial Post Mortem (JPM) report is still not in the public domain. Whether it would remain a privileged communication limited to the judiciary remains to be seen. Hence, none can come to definitive conclusions on the JPM findings – except judicious, informed speculation.’ – Susirith Mendis (see ee Security, Postmortem reports & the pursuit of justice)
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• Change of Heart –’Later that day, Treasury Secretary Harshana Suriyapperuma underwent a dramatic change of heart. Changing his previous No to a Yes at the 11th hour, he willingly appeared before COPF Chairman Harsha de Silva to be questioned on the Treasury’s payment of $2.5mn to a mystery figure that had vanished into thin air. ‘It was during this amicable meeting’ – as Harsha told the media – that we got the news that one of the Finance Ministry officials who had been interdicted yesterday had been found dead in the back garden of his home. We went into a state of shock.’ – see ee Security, Search for Treasury’s missing $millions takes sinister turn
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• Central Banker Goes Missing – ‘The source also questioned the ‘curious silence’ of the CBSL in the aftermath of the incident. ‘We have not heard publicly from the CBSL Governor about this matter. It might be that the CBSL, which relinquished responsibility for debt management operations to the PDMO under the Treasury, would prefer not to get involved in this fiasco. That seems to be its mentality.’ If this is indeed the CBSL’s attitude, it is misguided, the former official insisted. ‘These are public funds. The CBSL cannot wash its hands of the entire thing on the grounds that it is the Treasury’s debacle. They should at least have the courtesy to reach out & offer whatever assistance they can give’.’ – see ee Security, Cyber heists mar NPP’s clean-Govt image
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• Hole in the Passports – ‘An Australia-based IT engineer has identified a security hole in the Department of Immigration & Emigration’s (DIE) electronic travel authorisation (ETA) visa page, which allows the mere entry of a confirmation code – with no additional layer of protection – to access information such as passport numbers, full names, nationality & dates of birth… In October last year, these concerns were brought to the attention of Hans Wijayasuriya, Chief Advisor to the President of Sri Lanka on Digital Economy and, in turn, the Information Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of SL and the SL Computer Emergency Readiness Team (SLCERT), the Sunday Times reliably learns. However, no feedback was received & the security issue remains, many months after it was highlighted.’ – see ee Security, IT expert warns of major security hole in DIE’s ETA visa page
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• Hanuman Now –’India wants to upgrade the India-SL Free Trade Agreement, signed in 2000 during Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s presidency. Declaring that more than 65% of Sri Lankan exports use FTA benefits whereas only 5% of Indian exports use the same, Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, Santosh Jha, emphasised the urgent need to transform the FTA into amodern frameworkthat delivers the full potential of the bilateral economic partnership. Jha was addressing the Global Innovation & Leadership Summit ‘SL & India Ties: a Civilisational Bond,’ organised by Z Media & WION, in Colombo, recently. Jha said: ‘We have spent too long talking about it (FTA); sometimes renaming it; but not actually moving with purpose and required political will to forge a new framework. I say this not to assign blame – but to note that every year of delay is a year of opportunity lost. Think of it, in the last 6 years, India has signed 9 FTAs, covering trade with 38 countries’.’ –see ee Sovereignty, India pushes for direct link between Rameswaram & Talaimannar, FTA upgrade
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• Civic Miseries – ‘In his resignation letter, NPP Municipal Councillor BW Premachandra cited several issues, including illegal trading, unauthorized constructions, irregular fuel usage, irregular overtime payments, officials reporting for duty and leaving early, the inability to maintain cleanliness in the city and various other concerns as reasons for stepping down.’ – see ee Politics, NPP councillor resigns from Kurunegala Municipal Council
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• ByForce Resignations – ‘As you recall, an industrial dispute broke out last week between the employees of Hela Clothing Pvt Ltd (Thihariya) and the Company. Workers walked out of the factory, in an act of strike because the Management was attempting to obtainforced resignation from the workers. After engaging with workers and the Labour Department for one week, the Commercial & Industrial Workers’ Union negotiated an agreement with Hela Clothing Pvt Ltd and Emerald Clothing Pvt Ltd, the new Company taking over the production facility of Hela Clothing. All workers of Hela Clothing were guaranteed employment in the new Company which included continuation of their service period and all benefits which they enjoyed while they worked at Hela Clothing. A 12(1) Agreement was signed between Leon Joseph, Deputy General Secretary of the CIWU, workers representing the leadership of the Branch Union of the CIWU in Emerald Clothing representing the workers of Hela Clothing/ Emerald Clothing and representations from the Managements of the Hela Clothing and Emerald Clothing in front of the Deputy Commissioner of Labour – Gampaha Labour Office. The CIWU also formed a Branch Union in the Emerald Clothing. The Management of the new Company is yet to recognize the Union. However, we are hoping that the new Company will respect the rights of workers to join a Trade Union of their choice and engage in collective bargaining.’ – Swasthika Arulingam, FB
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• Sajith’s IMF Slaves – ‘The high point of the SJB May Day was Sajith Premadasa’s speech. In it, he attacked the previous administration for raiding the EPF-ETF while abjectly following IMF instructions; savaged the Anura administration for failing to rectify that injustice as it had pledged during the 2024 election; promised to do so under an SJB Government; and indicted the JVP-NPP for being ‘slaves’ of both the IMF & the local big bourgeoisie.’ – see ee Politics, Political picture clears: Sajith’s social democratic centrism emerges, SJB impacts
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• Public Swindle – ‘Both the Employees Provident Fund [EPF] (9.46%) & the Employees’ Trust Fund Board (3.38%) are among the top 10 shareholders of National Development Bank (NDB). These 2 funds constitute key components of country’s social security framework, providing financial security to employees upon retirement. As such, since both funds represent the retirement savings of the national workforce, the implications of this fraud extend beyond the institution itself and affect salaried employees and their long-term retirement savings, thereby raising broader public policy concerns. In addition, state-linked institutions such as Bank of Ceylon & SL Insurance Corporation are also among the major shareholders.’ –ee Finance, The Enemy within: the internal fraud at NDB
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• Bankers Exposed – ‘What is remarkable about the NDB case is not the method nor the quantum but what it reveals about SL’s capital markets. The banking industry has long been perceived as operating under the highest standards of governance & regulatory supervision. This fraud exposes the most consequential simultaneous breakdown of statutory supervision, professional auditing, and independent market scrutiny in recent financial history, 3 pillars each independently incentivised to prevent exactly this kind of fraud, failed spectacularly… A Performative Culture – How does a single balance sheet line item that increased significantly and materially over 12 months and was disclosed in a published audited annual report, available to thousands of investors, board committees, an external auditor, and a central bank supervisor, yet trigger no inquiry whatsoever? Detecting this fraud required no sophisticated analysis. A single year-on-year comparison of one line item in a published balance sheet was sufficient. That this elementary observation eluded every layer of oversight: internal audit, board committees, external auditors, institutional investors, and the regulator, is not merely a governance failure, it reveals a somewhat performative financial oversight culture. The fraud was not undetectable. It was visible, disclosed in the financial statements themselves. This oversight reflects a collective failure of professional competence, institutional independence, & regulatory vigilance of the gravest kind. That is the true scandal: not that a fraud occurred, but that every system designed to intercept just such a fraud, failed completely.’ – ee Finance, Fraud at NDB: Suspense & Scandal in the Sector
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• Trade Finagle – ‘The greatest risk is not always the original act of fraud. It is the ease with which it can be concealed. Money can be shifted through settlement accounts, collateral balances, nostro accounts, suspense entries, receivables, payables, and other temporary categories that rarely attract public attention… Trade finance creates another opening. False invoices, duplicate financing, circular shipments, shell entities, and related-party accounts can all create the appearance of legitimate business while masking the movement or extraction of value. Once such transactions pass through connected institutions, what began as one bank’s problem can quickly become a system problem.’ – see ee Finance, Where Banking Fraud Hides
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• Harvesting Revenge – ‘If the current fertiliser shortage persists, it could lead to an ironical turn of events, with the farming community having to adopt biological soil amendments, such as compost, farmyard manure, etc, as they did during the Gotabaya Rajapaksa presidency for want of a better alternative. Gotabaya’s ill-planned organic farming experiment created a situation where the JVP was at the forefront of farmers’ protests, demanding fertilisers. Some JVP seniors were seen clutching clumps of withering paddy seedlings and urging the SLPP government to make fertilisers available. They made the most of farmers’ resentment and gained a turbo boost for their political campaigns to win elections. Today, the boot is on the other foot.’ – see ee Agriculture, Deliver or perish
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• IMF Has a Used US Tractor to Sell –‘Sri Lanka’s rice industry is charting a path to recovery. For the upcoming 2026/27 marketing year (Oct-Sept), milled rice production is forecast to reach 3.45mn metric tons (MT), representing a solid rebound from the revised estimate of 3.25mn MT recorded during the 2025/26 period, according to the latest report published by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service… This comes from a higher planted area of 1.19mn hectares, with yields expected to be steady at 4.26 MT/hectare (rough rice)’. This anticipated growth is supported by a broader economic stabilisation, bolstered by a $2.9bn Extended Fund Facility from the IMFalongside increased tourism and remittance earnings. Highlighting the impact of this financial backing, the report states, ‘This provides the foreign currency liquidity to import agricultural inputs & fuel that have been curtailed since mid-2022.’ – see ee Agriculture, Sri Lanka’s rice production poised for recovery…
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• Tea for Veggies – ‘This shift [from tea to vegetables] is largely driven by Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) and individuals seeking higher short-term profits from vegetables compared to the volatile & often low returns of tea. Many RPCs are sub-leasing ‘marginal’ lands those with old tea bushes or low yields to private individuals for 5-10-year periods to grow vegetables, President of Farmers Alliance Thrindu Rathnayake told Sunday Times Business… The uprooting of tea plantations from the hills causes severe soil erosion and results in landslides. This problem is bound to occur in the Mahaweli River Basin, an area that greatly affects the generation of electricity and irrigation across the nation, he disclosed. Nuwara Eliya has the highest soilerosion rate in Sri Lanka, largely due to potato cultivation on steep slopes, losing up to 15 tons of soil per hectare per year. This siltation impacts major reservoirs like the Upper Kotmale… There are reports of ‘land sharks’ & politically backed groups using loopholes to grab or sub-lease estate lands for non-tea crops, often in violation of long-term lease agreements. Some RPCs have been criticised for ‘asset stripping’ and failing to meet mandatory replanting requirements (the target is 2.5% annually, but actual rates are much lower).’ – ee Agriculture, Nuwara Eliya estates sublease tea land for vegetables
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• Planters’ Newest Whine –‘45% of Sri Lanka’s total annual tea exports – equivalent to approximately $680mn of Sri Lanka’s total $1.5bn tea export revenue – is generated from West Asian markets across Iran, Iraq, UAE, & Saudi Arabia, the Planters’ Association of Ceylon (PA) claims… Wages account for nearly 70% of the total Cost of Production (COP) in tea & rubber. Input material costs such as Fuel, Fertiliser, Chemicals, Firewood, Packing Materials and other physical goods account for the rest of the COP. Until the most recent wage hike which came into effect from Jan 2026, plantation sector wages had been a perennially contentious challenge for the industry.’ – see ee Agriculture, Plantation industry seeks urgent attention to tackle current problems
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• Capitalism’s Foreign Police – ‘The struggle for peace has today become the major struggle to determine the future of humankind. How can anyone active in this struggle forget that Marx was the 1st to demonstrate that the social roots of war lie in the system of exploitation, that the struggles for social progress & for peace are indivisibly connected? Was it not Marx who first pointed out that capitalism is responsible for ‘a foreign policy that pursues aggressive aims, that plays with national prejudices, and wastes the blood and treasure of the people in piratical wars’? Are we not seeing this happen once again in US imperialism’s preparations for a nuclear war under the slogan of fighting an imaginary ‘Soviet threat’? Does not the continuous & determined struggle for peace by the socialist countries confirm Marx’s assertion that peace & socialism are one, because under socialism there is no class or person who stands to gain from war? Is not today’s peace movement, which has taken on proportions hitherto unknown, fulfilling Marx’s behest that, the working people should be ‘conscious of their own responsibility and able to command peace where their would-be masters shout war’.’ – Pieter Keuneman on Marx & Peace, 1983 (from Shiran Illanperuma, FB)
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• US Black Vote on Hold Again – ‘On 29 April 2026, the US Supreme Court gave state legislatures a green light to break up Black & Native voting districts – an attack on Black self-determination, Native sovereignty & basic democratic rights… 1877 again – This is not the first time Black democratic rights have been traded away in a ruling-class crisis. In the Compromise of 1877, Northern capital and the Southern ruling class struck a counter-revolutionary deal that ended Reconstruction. Control of the South was returned to the old slaveholding order and its successors – the planters, merchants, politicians and railroad magnates who ruled the ‘redeemed’ South. In practice, ‘home rule’ meant white-supremacist rule over the Black masses of the South, enforced by a reign of terror.’ – ee Politics, Supreme Court attacks Black voting rights, Native nations
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• Social Democracy Steps to Fascism – ‘Is preserving parliamentary democracies sufficient as a ward against the rising tide of fascism in the political west?… After 1945, the West German SPD drew a different lesson. In the 1959 Godesberg Program, it formally abandoned Marxism, embraced the social market economy, and declared itself a Volkspartei of liberal capitalism. The Bernsteinian path, once a heretical revisionism, became the uncontested foundation of postwar social democracy – embedding socialism into parliamentarism not as its antagonist, but as its loyal leftwing. Elsewhere the end of WW2 saw the consolidation of a moderated capitalism – ordoliberalism, Keynesian-welfarism, social democratic mixed-economies – in the political west, buttressed by an international political economy that preserved the extractive substrate of pre-war imperialism but, this time, dressed up with a de-colonialisation gloss. The Bretton Woods settlement reflected the dominance of war’s victors; the IMF and World Bank did little to alleviate global imbalances. They often made them worse, usually compounding poverty in developing countries rather than alleviating it, and prosecuting policies and prescriptions that amplified western-cum-US power.’ – Warwick Powell (seeee Politics, Bernstein v Kautsky Redivivus)
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A3. Random Notes (‘Seeing Number in Chaos’)_
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• Quiet Deaths –’4 US men participated in the chain of command through which these 2 strike orders were requested; decided; transmitted; executed: They are Commander Thomas Futch, commander of the USS Charlotte; Captain Jeffrey Fassbinder, chief of the Submarine Squadron 7 of the US Pacific Fleet; Admiral Stephen Koehler, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet; and Peter Hegseth, the US Secretary of War (Defense). Hegseth announced in a Pentagon briefing on March 4 what he wanted the public to believe he had done. ‘Yesterday in the Indian Ocean, a US submarine sunk [sic] an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo, quiet death. The 1st sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since WWII.’ Hegseth was deceiving. He knew 2 torpedoes had been fired; it was the 2ndwhich sank the Dena. He knew the Dena did not ‘[think] it was safe in international waters’. This was because US intelligence had been reporting to the Pentagon & the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet command that the Iranian Navy had been requesting safe haven for the Dena and its 2 escorts, IRIS Lavan & Bushehr, in Sri Lanka, then India, for more than 7 days before the March 4 attack. Admiral Koehler knew because he had met with Sri Lankan officials in Colombo between Feb 19-21 to deter them from taking Iran’s side. ‘We stand with Sri Lanka in facing shared security challenges – from maritime domain awareness to countering transnational threats’, the US Embassy announced. On March 4, SL newspaper Tamil Guardian editorialized: ‘Did Washington’s Sri Lanka visit precede a secret naval strike? Questions grow after Iranian frigate sunk.’ – John Helmer (see ee Sovereignty, Not So Quiet Death – the USA’s Order to Kill the Iranian Navy’s Dena & Its Crew)
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• Allies under Pressure – ‘Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath has acknowledged strong US pressure to block repatriation, including threats involving trade concessions & tariff relief. Reuters has also reported that Washington opposed the return of the survivors & coordinated closely with Israeli diplomatic channels. Meanwhile, India has faced criticism for appearing to align itself with US & Israeli strategic objectives against Iran, abandoning its long-standing policy of non-alignment.’ – John Helmer (ee Sovereignty, Dena sinking: Survivors testimony, diplomatic delays, & US-India-SL role
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• Murder Takes Wing – The extensive coverage and disquietude displayed for the alleged murder this week of engineer Kapila Chandrasena (former CEO of SriLankan Airlines & Mihin Lanka), by the US Embassy’s lip services such as EconomyNext, the Wijeya Group’s Daily Mirror, and the World Bank-related Transparency International, reminds us we are rather ill-equipped to investigate such shenanigans though we are intrigued by certain aspects of the case, unexplored by the media in Sri Lanka. Chandrasena’s demise seems to have left the USA & their agents frothing & salivating much like running dogs denied their share of the hunted flesh. The prize morsels being the Rajapakses, whose singular sin appears to be that they sought to have limited relations with free China as well. We say limited, because real relations would involve learning from China’s road to industrialization.
Meanwhile, the latest US regime has yet again legalized the bribing of foreign officials, just as they did in 2017 (ee 10 Jan 2026), proudly intimating how they profit off playing the stock market prior to their announcements of wars & peaces.
Chandrasena served as SriLankan Airlines CEO, during former President Rajapaksa’s second term, eventually placing him at the centre of an international corruption investigation .In 2013, SriLankan Airlines agreed to purchase 6 Airbus A330-300 & 4 A350-900 aircraft, alongside leasing another 4 A350-900s for US$2.3billion. Airbus allegedly bribed Biz Solutions Inc, a Darussalam Brunei shell company owned by Priyanka Niyomali Wijenaike, the wife of then-SLA -CEO Chandrasena, with the European Aeronautic Defense and Euro 1,454,645 ($2mn) as bribe money to Biz Solutions’ account in Singapore in December 2013. Chandrasena then transferred the bribe to his own account at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and to several other individuals, including the then Director General of Sri Lankan Airlines.
The scandal came to international attention in January 2020 when Airbus ‘settled’ corruption probes with the USA, England, and France, agreeing to around 3.5 billion Euros in fines. This settlement included admissions of bribery by Airbus in several countries, including Sri Lanka. Until the English courts claimed to have confirmed evidence of fraud, Sri Lankan authorities could not arrest anyone connected to the deal. Rajapaksa’s successor, Maithripala Sirisena, investigated the deal, but nobody was held accountable until his tenure ended in 2019. Sri Lankan authorities then launched investigations, detained Chandrasena and his wife in February 2020 for money laundering related to the Airbus deal, as revealed by documents filed in an English court, which claimed his wife acted as an agent for the procurement of Airbus aircraft, and Airbus offered a bribe of $16mn.
The US State Department had imposed travel sanctions on Chandrasena and his family over the Airbus deal. Then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa ordered a full inquiry into allegations that a former SriLankan Airlines executive’s wife received the $2mn payment. Chandrasena & his wife were let out on bail in March 2020.
In March 2021, SriLankan Airlines sued Airbus for $1bn in damages, loss of reputation, reimbursement of costs, and interest. SLA also demanded cancellation of the A350-900 Purchase Agreement for 4 A350-900 aircraft, seeking the return of the $19mn advance payment made for those aircraft. However, progress on this legal case remained undisclosed, even under the new government.
Chandrasena was arrested again in March this year. In an affidavit that was somehow shown to EconomyNext, Chandrasena said a top CIABOC official requested him to take the opportunity to reveal the 2 politicians behind the Airbus deal. Chandrasena also said a top CIABOC official threatened him that he ‘will be forced to hang’ if he did not use the opportunity.
And here’s another related factoid: Peter Thiel, a major operator behind Donald Trump’s US Presidency, co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk, was an early investor in Facebook, and a mentor to Vice President JD Vance, donating record funds to his US Senate campaign, and nomination to the US Presidency. Thiel is a co-founder of software & data analysis company Palantir that provides services to France’s General Directorate for Internal Security – the French equivalent of the FBI – and the European aircraft-maker Airbus…
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• The Tragic Silence of Kapila Chandrasena: a Failure of Police & Protection – ‘The sudden and tragic death of Chandrasena is not merely a headline; it is a profound indictment of our legal, investigative, and political systems. As the former head of the national carrier, Chandrasena was no ordinary suspect. He was a central figure in high-stakes investigations involving international aircraft procurement – a case tied to the very core of national integrity. The Mystery of the Bail Application – The events leading up to his death were marked by chilling irregularities. When bail was granted, the absence of recognized family members or socially established guarantors was highly unusual for a man of his stature. Instead, the presentation of 2 unknown individuals as bail bondsmen was a move that reeks of desperation or coercion. It is deeply shameful that a professional of his standing was reduced to such a position, and the truth behind who orchestrated those ‘unknown’ guarantors remains buried. A Fatal Delay in Law Enforcement – The timeline of events between May 6-7 raises harrowing questions about the efficiency of our police force. On May 6, bail was granted. By May 7, the court – recognizing the gravity of the situation or perhaps the deception involved – recalled the case and issued a warrant for his immediate arrest. However, there was a catastrophic gap in action. The police failed to execute the arrest until the moment his lifeless body was discovered. Had the authorities acted with the urgency the court warrant demanded, this death might have been prevented. This delay is not just a procedural lapse; it is a grave negligence that allowed a key witness in a national corruption scandal to perish. The Witness at the Crossfire – Kapila Chandrasena was a ‘special suspect’ because he sat at the intersection of powerful political interests. His initial confession regarding the Airbus deal directly implicated former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Subsequently, his retraction – via an affidavit claiming he was coerced and threatened by the Chairman of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) – flipped the script entirely. By accusing the head of a major investigative body of intimidation, Chandrasena became a liability to multiple factions. Whether his confession was the truth or his affidavit was the correction, he held information that was vital to the public interest. AnAccountable Government? – When a suspect of such high profile, who has publicly alleged state-level intimidation, dies under such mysterious circumstances, the responsibility falls squarely on the government. The failure to protect a witness whose testimony could have reshaped the understanding of national corruption is inexcusable. The public deserves to know: Why was he not under surveillance given the volatility of his statements? Why was the arrest warrant not executed immediately? And most importantly, who stood to gain the most from his silence? The death of Kapila Chandrasena is a dark chapter in our pursuit of the government. We must demand a transparent investigation, not just into his death, but into the systemic failures that allowed a key witness to slip through the fingers of the law and into the grave.’ – Philip Shantha
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• Democracy After Hours Only –’ Labour Ministry has begun discussions to amend the labour law to update it in line with new trends in employment as well as the prevailing situation… Labour laws are being amended. But since it is a herculean task, Labour Commissioner General Nadeeka Wataliyadda was unable to specify a time frame. There are laws to be included, amended, and nullified, while contradictions need to be rectified … We see that people are reluctant to bring up their work-related issues while they are working due to the concern of job security. They wait until they quit or retire, and they rarely check their EPF. Whenever there is an issue, they turn up at the Labour Department offices… She had witnessed gaps in compliance by employers who look into matters of outsourced employees, such as workers recruited through manpower agencies… ‘platform workers, gig workers and online workers are new trends of work; therefore, it is difficult to outline such labour-related work or businesses. We plan to address this matter by amending the code… this year, the minimum daily wage was raised to Rs1,200 and minimum monthly salary to Rs30,000. However, she pointed out that improving the living conditions of estate workers should be handled by the relevant ministry, as the department only handles payment-related issues. She said that within the estate sector, some workers are given land where the worker cultivates, and an amount is paid to estate owners. Such workers do not fall under the employee category. Labour Department statistics reveal that the female employee rate has dropped slightly. The commissioner explained that the nuclear family system, where there are fewer people to look after children, and male-orientated work, as well as restrictions on women working at night, have led to the drop. She added that social norms as well as cultural beliefs are also contributory factors.’ – Kasun Warakapitiya (see ee Workers, Labour laws to catch up with employment changes )
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• Deputy Less Forgiving – ‘Central Bank Deputy Governor Chandranath Amarasekara’s keynote speech at the International Conference on Poverty & Development in Times of Crisis organised by Germany’s Centre for Poverty Analysis: ‘The global environment today is less forgiving; monetary conditions tighten rapidly and synchronously; Capital markets reprice risk abruptly; supply-side shocks are more frequent; and geopolitical fragmentation constrains policy choices’.’ – ee Economists, SL cannot mistake calm for economic strength: CBSL cautions
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• Base USA Here – ‘As the conflict in West Asia threatens the global hub status of places like Dubai and Doha, Sri Lanka could position itself as a safe haven for capital & talent in the Indian Ocean with the proper reforms, an economist has said. ‘If they’re being hit, then others may be attracted for capital & people… Can we be some kind of centre…in the Indian Ocean?’ Ganeshan Wignaraja, Visiting Senior Research Fellow at ODI Global, London & a former Director of Research at the ADB Institute, Tokyo, said, ‘We have to continue macroeconomic stability’ – speaking at a forum on ‘A Global Economy in the Shadow of Middle-East War: Implications for SL’s Debt Recovery’ held at the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies in Colombo. The forum, RCSS Strategic Dialogue – 4, was moderated & presided over by RCSS Executive Director Ambassador (retd) Ravinatha Aryasinha.’ – see ee Economists,SL under compulsion for yet another 18th IMF program
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• IMF Blanks SL – ‘The latest IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) features blank spaces where Sri Lanka’s 2026 GDP numbers should be, placing the country in a ‘club’ alongside conflict-affected places like the Palestinian Territories of West Bank & Gaza, Syria, Lebanon & Afghanistan. ‘Sri Lanka doesn’t have a number, you can look at that & there is no number. And I find that absolutely fascinating. Middle-income country, 4,000 plus dollars a head… but no number for Sri Lanka,’ Wignaraja said, suggesting the omission is likely tied to the incomplete debt restructuring process. Data & projections for Sri Lanka for 2025-31 are excluded from publication owing to ongoing discussions on restructuring of sovereign debt, according to the IMF report. Speaking at a recent Strategic Dialogue organized by RCSS, Wignaraja noted that while the IMF is ‘very happy’ with Sri Lanka’s progress the real economy tells a more complex story. While the immediate fires have been put out, the path toward sustainable growth remains obscured, he said. Ganeshan warned that the cost of living remains the primary pain point for citizens. The current economic uptick, he said, is largely a ‘cyclical recovery’ driven by the ‘base effect’ of a collapsed economy and the relaxation of import controls, rather than new investment. ‘When we congratulate ourselves on recovery, it is certainly a congratulatory moment… however, it is a cyclical recovery on the base effect with relaxation of import controls and some return to some confidence’. The country still lacks the ‘stable economic foundation’ needed to meet massive debt repayments starting in 2028, he said. The path to growth is further hindered by domestic governance failures and ‘unproductive’ habits, Ganeshan said pointing to recent issues at the Treasury and internal frauds in the banking sector as significant blows to investor confidence. ‘Why would anyone want to invest in a country that has a cyber issue in their treasury?’ he asked, noting that as a country in default, Sri Lanka is under intense scrutiny from rating agencies & global lenders. To escape a cycle of being trapped in low economic growth Ganeshan argued that Sri Lanka must move beyond ‘off-the-wall’ monetary experiments and commit to hardcore reforms in factor markets, specifically land & labor. He noted that the country’s high number of holidays & outmoded labor laws continue to act as a deterrent to manufacturing hubs. ‘We’re still in the recovery room in terms of hospital analysis, where we have to start thinking in terms of building up those reserves to a level where we have a much more stable economic foundation,’ he warned. Without more ‘growth-enhancing’ economic reforms and a strategic shift toward supply-chain integration with India, Ganeshan suggests the island risks a return to the ‘hospital’ once the current cushion of borrowed time runs out.’ – Ganeshan Wignaraja(ee Economists,IMF omission of SL GDP projections signals fragile recovery)
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• Oiling India – ‘India imports nearly 90% of its crude oil and 50% of its natural gas requirements. Conflicts in the Middle East, such as the disruption in Strait of Hormuz, pose a severe risk to this energy supply, potentially creating high inflation & hindering economic activity.’ –Mike Roberts (ee Economists, India: a further swing to the right)
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• Class Fractures –‘Why do governments of the Global South agree to such unequal trade treaties and the recolonisation that such treaties typify? The answer lies in the fact that while the working people, the petty producers and even the small capitalists in the Global South would suffer because of such recolonisation (Indo-USA trade treaty, eg, would be particularly harmful for the Indian peasantry), the monopoly bourgeoisie that is closely integrated with metropolitan capital will not. On the contrary, it is likely to be a beneficiary; and governments in the Global South, including and in particular the neo-fascist ones, cater to its interest. The project of recolonisation, in other words, becomes possible because of a fracturing of the earlier anti-colonial class alliance that had brought about decolonisation.’ – Prabhat Patnaik (see ee Economists, Imperialism’s Strategy to Escape a Dead-end)
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• Capital’s Shares –‘The labour share of GDP is a measure of how much economic value goes to workers. Globally, labour share as a percentage of GDP has declined by 0.4 percentage points since 2019. If labour share had stayed at 2019 levels, workers would have been $469bin better off in 2025. Since 2019, productivity has increased by 9% while real wages have fallen by 12%. The share of US national income going to capital has rocketed in the 21st century.’ – Mike Roberts (see ee Economists,Shortages, inflation & stagnation)
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• Oiling Singapore – ‘Nowhere is this scramble more acute than in Singapore, with flow-on implications for those national economies tethered to Singaporean refiners. The city-state’s 3 main refineries on Jurong Island – ExxonMobil, Singapore Refining Co & the integrated petrochemical complexes – were built for a diet of Middle Eastern light-sour crudes. These barrels possess exactly the API gravity, sulfur content and contaminant profile that maximise yields in the complex hydrocrackers, reformers and desulfurisation units that define Singapore’s competitive edge. Talk of ‘simply sourcing more crude from the USA’ ignores basic chemistry and engineering. It also ignores the reality that the USA is a net importer of crude in normal conditions, as I have discussed elsewhere, with present exports taking place through draw-downs in the nation’s strategic reserves… Singapore is not an isolated victim. It is the pivot of Asia’s downstream supply chain. The island refines & exports gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, bunker oil & chemical feedstocks that keep planes flying, ships bunkering and factories running from Southeast Asia to Australia and beyond. When Singapore runs short, regional prices spike, availability thins and supply chains fracture. Australia, which sources roughly one-5th of its refined products from Singapore, feels the pain immediately. But so do Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and India’s coastal markets. There are no quick substitutes. New tankers take weeks to arrive; alternative crudes require months of trial-and-error reconfiguration; and no other Asian hub possesses Singapore’s scale & integration.’ – Warwick Powell (ee Sovereignty,Power, Not Paper: How Iran’s Control of the Strait of Hormuz is Rewriting the Rules )
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• USA’s Armed Gas-station Robbery – ‘US military’s global energy operations – Arctic Sentry, Southern Spear, & Epic Fury – are coordinated to secure the Petrogas-Dollar by controlling oil & gas trade routes from the Arctic to the Persian Gulf… In just 90 days, the USA have executed an energy-blitzkrieg decades in the making: 100s of strikes on Russian tankers & refineries; Disrupting a third of China’s oil & LNG supply; Capturing the largest oil reserves on the planet; Establishing a global naval blockade from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean. And in the process, kidnapped & assassinated 2 heads of state. We are witnessing the transition of the USA from an empire into a lawless Pirate State, and the birth of what I call the Petrogas-$ or LNG-$… In total, the entire Levantine basin is worth over half a trillion dollars – surpassing the combined profits of BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil & TotalEnergies from the entire Ukraine war. These untapped reserves have been kept on ice by the Israeli military, effectively acting as private mercenaries for Corporate USA. It’s no coincidence that all the ports along this coast have been destroyed except Israel’s. By blockading Gaza and crippling the ports in Beirut & Syria, they have ensured Levantines cannot touch their own inheritance – while holding the door open for Chevron to collect.’ – Richard Medhurst (see ee Sovereignty, How the US Pulled off an Armed Robbery of the World’s Energy Supply & Created the Petrogas-$)
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• Russia Sticks up USA – ‘This eastward pivot has strengthened Russia’s position in Asia. China has consistently ranked as the top buyer, with significant year-on-year growth in imports of discounted Urals and ESPO blends. India continues large-scale processing in its refineries. Singapore has emerged as a key hub, recording sharp increases in Russian fuel oil imports for bunkering & transshipment, while Malaysia’s Petronas has negotiated direct crude purchases. Broader Southeast Asian interest from countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam & Thailand has also risen. These developments enhance Russia’s economic and diplomatic ties in key growth markets, even at discounted prices.’– Warwick Powell (ee Sovereignty Will Global Oil & Gas Disruptions Enable US Energy Domination? – Does US Triumphalism or ‘Hegemony Chess’ Hold Water?)
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• China Says No – ‘China’s Leadership has said ‘No’ to a global order issued by US President Trump – and today analysts worldwide are holding their breath to see if the mercurial leader will back down. The Trump administration last week again ordered the world, including specific firms in China, to stop trading with Iranians – the latest in a long series of similar instructions issued since early 2025. But China said on Saturday that it will not comply – and ordered 5 named major Chinese oil traders to carry on, ignoring Washington’s threats. Technically Illegal–The USA’s global orders are technically cases of illegal transnational economic coercion. But the USA’s huge economic and military power has meant countries normally obey, in fear of US secondary sanctions. Not this time. A defiant statement from China’s commerce ministry pointed out the obvious, which is that the US measures unlawfully restrict normal trade with third countries. ‘The Chinese government has consistently opposed unilateral sanctions that lack authorization from the United Nations and a basis in international law,’ the department said on Saturday. The Chinese also said the US action ‘breaches international norms’—a reference to US long-held defiance of World Trade Organization rules. Playing Hardball – To protect its firms, China also used the law. It deployed a blocking measure it had introduced in 2021 to shield Chinese companies from the unfair transnational techniques favored by the USA. It issued an order banning recognition, enforcement, and compliance with US sanctions aimed at the Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery Co & 4 other firms in the same trade. That means the Chinese firms, and the banks and other organizations which deal with them, have to stand together. What will happen next? Trump could issue additional repressive secondary sanctions on the Chinese banks and others: this would be a major escalation in the US assault on world’s free trade. Or the unpredictable US leader could fail to move ahead, and then just shift to something else—such as relaunching the US attack on Iran. You Can Say No – Either way, China’s pushback is significant. The world normally obeys US extraterritorial orders out of fear of secondary sanctions. But China has shown that you can say no. The friction comes just weeks before Chinese leader Xi Jinping is due to have a summit with US President Trump.’ – Nury Vittachi, FB
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• Canada’s Hitler – Canada’s New Governor General: ‘Someone who enabled the ‘Hitler of Africa’, backed bombing Libya and has stayed mum on Gaza has been appointed governor general. Still, many ‘human rights’ advocates are celebrating Mark Carney’s selection to represent the King in Canada. On Tuesday PM Carney announced that former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour will be Canada’s next governor general. Arbour was a leading architect of the liberal imperialist Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, which was used to justify overthrowing Haiti’s elected government in 2004 & destroying Libya 7 years later. As President of International Crisis Group, Arbour backed the NATO war on Libya, calling on the UN Security Council to act to protect civilians in Libya. (Alongside Barrack Obama & others, she later criticized the disaster in Libya.) During her time as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2008, Arbour criticized the Arab Charter on Human Rights for categorizing Zionism as a form of racism when pressed to do so by racist UN Watch. The next year she signed a petition launched by Zionist fanatic Irwin Cotler, titled ‘The Danger of a Nuclear, Genocidal & Rights-violating Iran: the Responsibility to Prevent Petition.’ During the past 3 years of genocide in Gaza Arbour doesn’t appear to have found a single opportunity (petition, public letter, op-ed, rally, etc) to have criticized the Jewish supremacist state’s horrors. But Arbour’s most egregious concession to power took place when she was chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) between 1996-99. She indicted then-Serbian President Slobodan Milošević for war crimes but refused to investigate any potential war crimes NATO committed during its illegal 78-day bombing campaign. Arbour stated, ‘I accept the assurances given by NATO leaders that they intend to conduct their operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in full compliance with international humanitarian law.’ In another important contribution to power serving ‘victor’s justice’, Arbour wasn’t interested in evidence suggesting murderous dictator Paul Kagame’s RPF was responsible for assassinating Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana, Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, and most of the Rwandan military command, which sparked the 1994 genocide. According to French government investigators & National Post, she refused to investigate evidence implicating the RPF in shooting down Habyarimana’s airplane. In 1996 former ICTR investigator Michael Hourigan compiled evidence based on the testimony of three RPF informants who claimed ‘direct involvement in the 1994 fatal rocket attack upon the President’s aircraft’ and ‘specifically implicated the direct involvement of [Kagame]’ and other RPF members. But, when Hourigan delivered the evidence to her in early 1997, Arbour was ‘aggressive’ & ‘hostile,’ according to Hourigan. Despite initially supporting the investigation surrounding who shot down the plane, the ICTR’s chief prosecutor now advised Hourigan that the ‘investigation was at an end because in her view it was not in our [ICTR] mandate.’ According to Anthony Black, ‘What Hourigan didn’t know at the time is that Arbour, after having launched the investigation, had been directed by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (who had handpicked her for the job) to quash the inquiry. And so she did. Arbour would later (again under the aegis of Albright) be promoted to Canadian Supreme Court Justice & thence as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.’ (When ICTR prosecutor who took over from Arbour, Carla del Ponte, began to investigate the RPF’s role in shooting down Habyarimana’s plane, the British & Americans had her removed from her position. Del Ponte details her ordeal and the repression of the investigation in The Hunt: Me & the War Criminals.) When the Globe & Mail confirmed that Kagame was responsible for the act that unleashed the genocidal violence, Arbour sought to shift the blame for failing to fulfil the court’s mandate onto ‘Africa’s Hitler’. She admitted there were ‘very credible allegations’ of RPF crimes but said they couldn’t investigate them due to their dependence on the Rwandan regime. But why wait 20 years to tell the world? In 2016 the Globe drily noted, ‘Ms Arbour’s revelations about her 3-year stint as the tribunal’s chief prosecutor came after Globe obtained 2 documents – a deposition by one of Mr. Kagame’s former top aides and an earlier report by investigators at the UN Rwanda tribunal – pointing to the involvement of Mr Kagame’s forces in the death of Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana.’ In practice, Arbour’s actions legitimated Kagame’s repeated invasions into Congo. Justified as targeting genocidaires 30 years of Rwandan violence has killed several million Congolese. Ignoring Louis Arbour’s role in facilitating imperialism, Alex Neve, Mark Kersten & Paul Champ have all gushed over her appointment as governor general. They demonstrate the liberal imperialist character of Canada’s dominant ‘human rights’ & ‘international law’ rhetoric.’ – Yves Engler, FB
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• Canada’s War on China – ‘According to Canada’s mainstream media, intelligence agencies & politicians, China is threatening Canada. But it is Canada’s military that is engaged in a highly provocative exercise targeting that country. In response to a CSIS report claiming China is spying/interfering in Canada, and rightist forces pressuring the Liberals, there have been a slew of stories hyping the China threat over the past week. These include: ‘Former spy reveals how China hunts down targets in Canada & abroad’ (CBC); ‘Canada Flags Beijing Interference as Most Serious Threat Since the Cold War: Report’ (Vision Times); ‘China – our ‘strategic partner’ & greatest security threat’ (Toronto Sun); ‘India, China among main perpetrators of foreign interference, new CSIS report says’ (National Post); ‘China espionage threat persists as CSIS flags political interference concerns’ (Weekly Standard). Perhaps coincidently, as CSIS, politicians and the media scaremonger, Canadian forces have been participating in a provocative US-led military exercise targeting China. Over the past 3 weeks Canadian forces have been part of Exercise Balikatan in the Philippines. This is the first time Canada has participated directly in the annual exercise, which includes 10,000 US troops. Several 100 Canadian soldiers are part of the 7-country – including France, Australia, Japan, New Zealand – live-fire exercise across the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. Their efforts are designed to rally a coalition against China, explained Wall Street Journal article ‘In the Philippines, Pacific Allies Train for China Threat’: ‘For Washington, that show of force is the culmination of a years-long effort to get its allies in Asia & the Pacific to work more closely together in the face of China’s military & territorial ambitions.’ But China isn’t sending war ships & personnel 1000s of kilometres away to the US, France or Canada. And it’s not China testing highly threatening weaponry. As part of the Balikatan Exercise the US fired a Tomahawk missile 600km on Tuesday from its new Typhon launcher for the first time. Capable of hitting targets deep inside mainland China from locations in the Philippines, the move is highly provocative. According to Dave Camp at Anti War, ‘The Typhon, also known as the Strategic MidRange Fire System, was developed by the US after it withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019. The INF prohibited the US and Russia from possessing ground-based missile systems that had ranges between 310-3,400 miles, limits that China was not bound by.’ Alongside the USA’s belligerent missile test, Japan launched an ‘offensive’ weapon abroad for the first time since WWII. In a drill with the US viewed by the Filipino president and defence minister, Japanese forces fired type 88 surface-to-ship missiles on Wednesday. According to the South China Morning Post, ‘China condemned what it called Japan’s first ‘offensive missile’ test overseas in 8 decades, saying Tokyo’s ‘neo-militarism’ and intensified arms race had gained momentum and threatened regional stability.’ The spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, Lin Jian, bemoaned ‘Japan’s right-wing forces are pushing for an accelerated ‘remilitarisation’ process.’ He complained that Tokyo was overstepping its ‘exclusively defence-oriented’ policy, which was established at the end of WWII after Japan killed millions occupying China & other nations in SE Asia. Last week China’s ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, told Globe & Mail he was optimistic about improving ties between the 2 countries. But Beijing’s envoy criticized Ottawa for sending warships through the Taiwan Strait, which Ottawa has done 11 times since 2018, and Canada weakening its ‘One China’ policy by growing ties with Taiwan. Rightwing commentators and Conservative party officials condemned the statement saying Canada should double down on its provocative moves and send more warships through the Strait & officials to Taiwan. But, why stoke conflict with China on behalf of a US hegemon threatening to annex Canada? The public doesn’t support it. Disapproval of the US is at unprecedented levels with the Globe recently reporting, ‘more Canadians view the US unfavourably than ever.’ A recent Politico poll also found that Canadians prefer to depend on China over Trump’s US by a margin of 57% to 23%. As I [asked] 2 weeks ago, ‘Will any politician condemn Canadian participation in Exercise Balikatan?’ – Yves Engler, FB
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A4. Who’s Who
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• Moon Calendar – ‘From Jan 1966 to Sept 1971, Ceylon replaced the Saturday-Sunday weekend with the Pre-Poya and Poya days, which marked the 4four principal phases of the moon. This dramatic shift from the Gregorian to a lunar calendar was enacted through the Holidays Act No 17 of 1965. The new calendar reshaped the rhythms of work, worship, and everyday life across the island.’ – see ee Media, ‘Just a Phase’ the Forgotten Lunar Calendar
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• Gen Z’s Emptiness – ‘Chandrasekaran Joseph Vijay, a major star in Tamil films, launched his party (TVM) through his 85,000 fan clubs, drawing on a long tradition in Tamil Nadu of film stars, fan clubs, and the political establishment. But there was something novel about his campaign. His entire mood was driven by digital fluency, awareness of social issues that captivate online audiences, & impatience with traditional hierarchies. The excitement of his campaign, the unwillingness to accept party loyalties, and the care with which Vijay’s team crafted political messages to induce cultural rather than political appeal stretched his popularity beyond the lines of the polarized electorate. Born in 1974, Vijay reached out to younger voters in a way that eclipsed the otherwise popular administration of Stalin (born 1953) and the other principal opponent, Edappadi Palaniswami (born 1954). But the Vijay phenomenon is strong on imagery and weak on policy or administrative competence. It carries forward the Gen-Z protests of Bangladesh, which resulted in a right-wing victory at the polls, and the Gen-Z protests of Nepal, which resulted in a government characterized by right-of-center incoherence.’ – Vijay Prashad (ee Politics, Regional Elections in India & the Growing Myth of Gen-Z)
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• Gold Ring for Babes – ‘Among Tamilnadu politician Vijay’s campaign promises that helped him garner enough popular support to win the recent election are a 2,500-rupee monthly allowance for women heads of households, 6 free cylinders of LPG a year for families, one sovereign gold ring each for all newborns, a 15,000-rupee education assistance allowance for mothers of schoolchildren, a 4,000-rupee monthly allowance for unemployed graduates, Rs 5 lakh as new start-up loans, and Rs 25 lakh for biz launch loans. These promises, if ever implemented, will cost Tamil Nadu more than 50% of its annual tax revenue.’ – see ee Sovereignty, The Vijay factor
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• Private Passport Makers – ‘Bidding officially opened on April 27, 2025, attracting 8 major international & local bidders; Tahaluf Al Emarat Technical Solution & VSIS; United Printing & Publishing (E7) /Toppan Forms (Colombo) Ltd; Madras Security Printers / Blue Chip Technical Services; IN Continu ET Service SAS (IN Group) / Epic Lanka; Veridos GMBH / Informatics; IRIS Corporation Berhad / Hayleys Fenton Limited; PWPW SA / South Asian Technologiesand Thales DIS Finland Oy / Just in Time Technologies.’ – see ee Security, Daily Mirror report on e-passport contract draws Govt attention
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• Strategic For Whom? – ‘Deepika Udagama and Ambassador (Retd) Esala Weerakoon have succeeded former Secretary to the PM, M. D. D. Pieris, and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank (CB) and member of the Monetary Board of the CB, Ranee Jayamaha. Current members comprise Amal Jayawardane, (Prof of International Relations, University of Colombo), Chulani Kodikara (Feminist Researcher), Dilip Kodikara (a founding Director of the RCSS), Nazir Hussain (Prof of International Relations & former Dean, of Faculty of Social Sciences at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan), and Varun Sahni (Prof of International Relations at Ashoka University, India). Co-founded in 1992 by Prof Shelton Kodikara – its first Executive Director, Ambassador (Retd) Ravinatha Aryasinha, former Foreign Secretary, is now the Executive Director of the RCSS. Weerakoon was the 14th Secretary General of SAARC, 2020-23, Foreign Secretary of SL (2016-17), Senior Additional Secretary to the President of SL (2018-19 & from 2023-24). He was High Commissioner to India, Ambassador to Norway, Deputy Chief of Mission to the USA and in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism Development and Christian Religious Affairs; Additional Secretary, Ministry of Housing, and Additional Secretary, Ministry of Economic Development.’ – ee Security, Deepika & Esala join Regional Centre for Strategic Studies Board
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• US Guides War on Russia –‘When Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky offered his country up as a testing ground for Western weapons, he wasn’t just talking to Boeing and Lockheed Martin: he was handing Ukraine’s sovereignty to Silicon Valley on a platter… Palantir is not the only Silicon Valley corporation that smelled opportunity in Ukraine. SpaceX provides satellite internet to the Ukrainian military, which is used for communications and drone guidance. Maxar Technologies, Planet Labs, and BlackSky Technology supply satellite reconnaissance. PrimerAI and Recorded Future provide intelligence analysis tools. Clearview – funded by Palantir founder Peter Thiel – supplies facial recognition software that the Ukrainian military uses to identify Russian soldiers & alleged ‘collaborators’ – see ee Security, Silicon Valley (Palantir, SpaceX, Maxar) & NATO’s Delta Are Guiding, Controlling, Enabling US, England, NATO, ‘Ukraine’ attacks on Russia
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• No Wealth Analysis Yet – ‘Centre for Poverty Analysis stands as SL’s leading independent thinktank on poverty & development, with a team of 30 researchers & a portfolio that spans 6 thematic areas… On the international stage, CEPA has worked with the Asian Development Bank, UN Women, the International Labour Organization, UNDP, the World Bank, and ODI Global.’ – ee Economists, CEPA, 25 years of not looking away: Rebecca Jayatissa
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• Macro Economists – ‘The Gamani Corea & SL Economic Association (SLEA) lecture on ‘Sri Lanka’s Current Macroeconomic Policy Directions in the Context of Global Volatility’ was delivered by Central Bank of SL Deputy Governor Chandranath Amarasekara… followed by a panel discussion involving University of Peradeniya Senior Prof in Economics OG Dayaratne Banda; GCF Honorary Board Director Manjula de Silva, and The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Economist Arani Rodrigo. It will be moderated by Daily FT Editor/CEO Nisthar Cassim. The Q&A session will be coordinated by GCF Honorary Chairperson Dr Harsha Aturupane. SLEA President and GCF Honorary Deputy Chairperson Prof Sirimevan Colombage and SLEA General Secretary Nihal Rodrigo.’ – ee Economists,GCF-SLEA on ‘Current Macroeconomic Policy Directions in the Context of Global Volatility’
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• Prima Among Unequals – ‘Large mills like Prima receive duty concessions for grain, allowing them to produce flour cheaper than traders who must pay high duties for imports. This has led many traders to stop importing wheat flour because they cannot compete with this monopoly… Large importers offer credit to retailers, which smaller importers, who need immediate cash to survive, cannot afford to do, further squeezing small businesses out of the market.’ – ee Economists,Goods importers & households weighed down by price pressures
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• Privatisation’s Security Guards – ‘World Bank Country Manager for SL Gevorg Sargsyan, Senior Economists Richard Walker &Anthony Obeyesekere; and Governance Specialist Till Hartman met with the Secretary to the President Nandika Sanath Kumanayake, at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo. They drew attention to the Revenue Administration Reform & Modernisation Bureau established under the Presidential Secretariat and programs linked to the Internal Affairs Units established to safeguard the integrity of officials in state institutions.’ – see ee Economy, Multilateral assistance: World Bank backs state-revenue agencies reform
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• Privatizing Port – ‘Joint Alliance of Port Trade Unions has informed the Chairperson of the Ports Authority and the relevant authorities, including President AK Dissanayake, in writing that the senior management of the Authority has confirmed that it is more advantageous to operate the East Container Terminal of the Colombo Port & the South Asia Gateway Terminal (SAGT) under the Ports Authority. They have also stated that they would oppose any attempt by the Government to privatise the ECT or to re-privatise the SAGT… The letter, signed by the heads of the Nidahas Sevaka Sangamaya, Podujana Progressive Employees’ Union, National Workers’ Union, Samagi Workers’ Union, and the Eksath Workers’ Union — organisations affiliated with the Joint Alliance, which represents a majority of the employees of the Authority — has been addressed to the Chairperson of the Authority, with copies forwarded to 10 parties including the President, the Prime Minister (PM), and the Opposition Leader.’ – ee Workers, Port TUs warn Govt: ‘Hands off East Container Terminal & SAGT’
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• USA HillyBilly Steel Blues – ‘Appalachia infamously fueled industrial capital expansion with its coal, timber, & iron resources, while Alabama, as Birmingham’s ‘Steel City’ nickname hints, has been one of the nation’s leading producers of iron & steel since Reconstruction. Atlanta is the headquarters of Georgia’s largest employer, Georgia-Pacific, the company responsible for the Peach State’s title as the number one state for paper & pulp production in the USA. As Scalawag’s extensive coverage of the Gulf South frequently notes, the USA’s position as the world’s leading oil producer is so because of the sprawling petroleum extraction and chemical processing infrastructure that pollutes Texas & Louisiana. The urban South – Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, Nashville, Oklahoma City—are all booming and emerging tech hubs. Yet, despite being the historic home of NASA, Disney, SpaceX, Texas Instruments, Coca-Cola, FedEx, and Delta Airlines, the South and its labor force remains unthought in conversations about tech and corporate fascism.’ – ee Workers, May Day: Exporting the Southern Plantocracy
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• Watering Colombo – ‘The Labugama & Kalatuwawa reservoirs were constructed between 1882-86, when the population of Colombo and its suburbs was approximately 120,000. Today, Greater Colombo supports over 2million people, alongside a growing industrial base…Colombo’s water supply depends on a delicate balance between river abstraction & limited reservoir storage. The Kelani River, via the Ambatale intake, provides nearly half of the city’s daily requirement, approximately 550-590,000 cubic metres per day. In contrast, the Labugama and Kalatuwawa reservoirs function primarily as supplementary buffers rather than reliable long-term storage.’ – see ee Agriculture, Urban water crisis in Greater Colombo
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• Gen Z Govi Biz – ‘ICT Lawyers’ Guild President Sunil Abeyratne at the Agro Harvest Cultivation Group of Companies… International Chamber of Agricultural Plantation Industry & Farmer Producer Organization… Guests included Nalaka Silva, Jitendra Joshi, G.D. Singh and H.E.M.N. Sardar Ali.’ – ee Agriculture, Gen Z turning away from farming raises alarm over future of agriculture
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• English Home Garden Chemistry – ‘CIC / ICI Senior Professor of Crop Science at the University of Peradeniya, Buddhi Marambe struck the keynote at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Science Forum on Food Security – ‘Facing Agriculture Crisis – Home Gardening as a Tool’ organised by the Media & Event Management Division of NSF under the purview of the Ministry of Science & Technology: ‘Home gardens cannot substitute systemic solutions required to address structural weaknesses in the country’s food production sector…’ joined by Shiromi Perera, DG, NSF; Renuka Silva, Wayamba University; Thusitha Malalasekara, Member, NSF Media Committee; Sudath Samaraweera, Chairman, NSF; KKDS Ranaweera, Emeritus Professor, University of Sri Jayawardenapura; Hiranya S. Jayawickrama Consultant Community Physician, Family Health Bureau.’ – see ee Agriculture, Home gardening must shift from production fix to nutrition strategy – CIC/ICI Prof Marambe
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• Banking on German Machines –‘The initiative promotes equipment from internationally recognised manufacturers including BOMAG rollers, Kaeser compressors, Everdigm breakers, Gehl skid steer loaders, Car Mix self-loading concrete mixers, along with an extensive portfolio of Komatsu construction & earth-moving machinery. These technologies play a vital role in construction, infrastructure development, manufacturing & industrial operations across the country.’ – ee Industry, HNB-DIMO introduce leasing solutions for heavy machinery
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• Trump Crashes on Nuke Fams –‘Scores of energy campuses and new power plants are planned to be built quickly across the USA, aiming to provide the energy that companies such as Google, Microsoft & OpenAI say will be needed to power the data centers underpinning their future AI services… Fermi’s co-founders include Rick Perry, energy secretary during President Trump’s first term, and his son Griffin…Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s son Kyle Lutnick is executive vice chairman at Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment firm formerly led by Howard Lutnick. Regulatory filings show Cantor & a subsidiary were paid $6mn in cash for work on Fermi’s IPO. Another of Lutnick’s sons, Brandon, is Cantor’s CEO… Former Fermi CEO Toby Neugebauer is the son of former congressman Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas), still sits on Fermi’s board. His family & other Fermi insiders fired in the shakeup that began on April 17 still own 40% of Fermi stock.’ – ee Industry, A Trump-branded nuclear power project thrilled investors, then came the crash
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• Fake Insurance – ‘Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC) said the transactions were executed through 5 Central Bank-appointed primary dealers, Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC, HNB Securities Ltd, First Capital Treasuries PLC, Capital Alliance PLC and WealthTrust Securities PLC, without transaction fees, in line with market practice.’ – ee Finance, SLIC rejects ‘false’ bond claims
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• Rugby Sandwich Boys – ‘The biggest fear is that school rugby is now engulfed by a new breed of promoters calling the shots while sportsmanship has been flung out of the window with 16- or 17-year-olds becoming the sandwich boys of corporate companies jumping on the bandwagon to advertise their products.’ – ee Business, Sandwich boys exploited by sadism at schools rugby
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• Indian Golf – ‘V. Puthirasigamoney was appointed to chair the session and oversee the electoral process. Senior Attorney-at-Law K. Vivehanandar was subsequently elected as President of the club, while Senior Attorney-at-Law Reinzie was elected Secretary. The newly appointed working committee comprises V. Puthirasigamoney, A.P. Kanapathipillai, Rev. L.L. Joshua and J. Kummaresh.’ – ee Business, New leadership elected after dramatic AGM at Nuwara Eliya Golf Club
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• EU’s USAID – ‘The EU channels resources toward this agenda, reconstructing a vast system of programs, funding schemes, and projects through which ‘100s of millions of euros are allocated annually’ to various actors within so-called civil society—universities, newspapers, thinktanks, news agencies, & NGOs—which contribute to reinforcing the legitimacy of European policies. ‘These are public programmes that can be traced online’’ – see ee Media, Inside Europe’s propaganda apparatus: How the EU influences media, NGOs, & universities
B. Special Focus____________________________________________
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• B1. Who Rules the USA? Inside the Hidden Architecture of the Ruling Class – William Murphy
Power in the USA is not located where it is performed.
It is located where ownership, credit & production are organized.
Every few years, US politics turns into a spectacle of moral theater. Elections are framed as existential battles, presidents are cast as saviors or villains, and the public is encouraged to believe that history pivots on the outcome of televised debates & campaign slogans. But beneath that surface choreography, something far more stable operates.
Policies shift, personalities rotate, and rhetoric intensifies – but the structure that organizes economic life remains remarkably consistent. The same corporate giants expand. The same financial institutionsconsolidate control. The same geopolitical priorities persist regardless of which party occupies the White House. This stability is not accidental. It reflects the deeper architecture of power in the USA: a system in which real authority is rooted not in electoral office, but in the ownership & control of capital itself.
To understand who rules the USA, one must move beyond personalities & institutions as they appear on the surface and instead examine the material structure beneath them. What emerges is not a conspiracy in the cinematic sense, but something more durable and far more impersonal: a class system organized around capital accumulation.
The Ruling Class as a Structural Formation – The first misconception to discard is the idea that ‘the ruling class’ refers to a small, easily identifiable group of individuals sitting in coordination. This image is comforting because it simplifies complexity into intent. But the reality is more structural than conspiratorial.
The ruling class in the USA is best understood as a networked formation of ownership & control over capital, production, & finance. It is composed of overlapping layers: institutional investors who control massive pools of assets, corporate executives who administer production, financial institutions that allocate credit, and state structures that stabilize the entire system.
What binds these elements together is not personal unity but shared class position. They are connected by the fact that they depend on the reproduction & expansion of capital accumulation. Their decisions, whether made in boardrooms or regulatory agencies, tend to converge because their material interests converge.
This is why power in advanced capitalism often appears decentralized while functioning in a deeply coordinated way. It is not that someone is issuing orders from a hidden center. It is that the system itself produces alignment through its structure.At its core, the ruling class is defined not by wealth alone, but by control over the strategic levers of economic life: investment, credit, production, and enforcement.
Finance as the Central Nervous System of Capital –If one searches for the densest concentration of power within this system, it is not immediately found in industrial production or even corporate headquarters. It is found in finance.Modern finance does not simply facilitate economic activity; it organizes it. Large institutional investors & asset managers sit atop vast portions of the economy through complex ownership structures that are often invisible in everyday perception. What appears as dispersed ownership across 1,000s of companies is, in reality, increasingly coordinated through centralized financial institutions.
The significance of this arrangement is not merely that a few firms are large. It is that capital allocation itself has become highly centralized, even while formal ownership appears widely distributed.This produces a distinctive form of power. Financial institutions do not need to directly manage companies to influence their behavior. They shape the conditions under which companies must operate. Investment flows, shareholder expectations & credit access determine strategic direction long before any product reaches the market.In this sense, finance operates as a kind of silent coordination mechanism for the entire system. It does not issue political commands. It sets the parameters within which economic life becomes possible.
Corporate Management & the Discipline of Production – Below the financial layer sits the corporate executive class, which translates abstract financial imperatives into concrete organizational decisions. These are the individuals who manage global supply chains, oversee labor regimes, and determine the geographic distribution of production.Their role is often misunderstood as one of autonomous entrepreneurial leadership. In reality, it is closer to systemic administration. Corporate executives operate within constraints defined by financial markets, shareholder expectations, and competitive pressures that are themselves structured by capital accumulation.Their decisions about automation, outsourcing, wage suppression, or expansion are not merely business strategies in a neutral sense. They are mechanisms through which surplus value is extracted and redistributed.
Major corporations in technology, energy, pharmaceuticals, logistics & defense do not function as isolated entities. They function as nodes in a global system of production. Their internal hierarchies mirror broader class relations: command flows downward, surplus flows upward, and labor is organized as a cost to be optimized.What makes this layer significant is not simply its size, but its function. It is the operational interface between financial capital & material production. Without it, accumulation remains abstract. Through it, abstraction becomes material reality.
The State as Structural Stabilizer – The role of the state in this system is often mischaracterized as either neutral arbitration or direct corporate capture. Both views miss the deeper structural function.The state in advanced capitalism operates as a stabilizing apparatus for the reproduction of the system as a whole. It does not simply enforce laws; it manages the conditions under which capital accumulation remains viable over time.This includes monetary policy, fiscal intervention, legal frameworks for property rights, and, crucially, the capacity for coercion through military & policing institutions. In moments of crisis, whether financial collapse, social unrest, or geopolitical conflict, the state absorbs shocks that private capital cannot manage alone.
Far from standing outside the economy, the state is deeply embedded within it. It provides the institutional continuity that allows capital to survive its own contradictions. Importantly, this does not require conspiratorial intent. It emerges from structural necessity. Any modern capitalist state that failed to stabilize accumulation would cease to function as a viable state within that system.
Political Leadership as Managed Representation – Within this architecture, elected officials occupy a specific and limited role. They are not sovereign decision-makers in the full sense often implied in public discourse.Political leadership functions primarily as a mechanism for managing legitimacy, mediating competing interests within capital, and translating systemic imperatives into publicly acceptable language.Campaign finance structures, lobbying networks, thinktanks & revolving-door employment patterns ensure that political actors remain embedded within the broader field of elite economic interests. Even when individual politicians express personal convictions, their institutional environment constrains the range of viable action.This is why political change often appears dramatic in rhetoric but incremental in substance. Administrations shift, but the underlying policy orientation toward property rights, financial stability & global capital flows remains remarkably consistent.The political sphere is therefore not the center of power but its administrative surface. It is where systemic decisions are narrated, not where they are primarily made.
Ideology & the Production of Consent –No system of domination survives through coercion alone. It must also generate legitimacy.In the USA, this function is carried out through a wide constellation of ideological institutions: media organizations, universities, philanthropic foundations, and cultural industries. Their role is not to coordinate propaganda in a crude sense, but to define the boundaries of what can be considered reasonable thought.Through these institutions, certain questions become thinkable while others are quietly excluded. Debates are structured in ways that assume the permanence of existing property relations. Critique is often redirected toward cultural or interpersonal conflicts rather than systemic ones.The effect is not total ideological control, but structured limitation. People are not simply told what to think. They are guided toward frameworks that keep deeper structural questions outside the field of everyday political discourse.This is one of the most effective forms of power: not suppression of thought, but the organization of its horizons.
A System Without a Conspiracy, But Not Without Coordination –One of the most common misunderstandings about this system is the expectation of centralized coordination. There is no single council directing all decisions. Yet the absence of a central command does not imply the absence of coherence.What produces coherence is shared material interest & institutional interdependence. Executives move between corporations & government agencies. Financial institutions advise regulators who later join those same institutions. Policy experts circulate through thinktanks, universities, and administrative roles.This circulation creates a dense network of alignment. Decisions made in one part of the system resonate through others because they are structurally connected. What appears as coordination is often the emergent behavior of a tightly integrated class system.
Contradictions & Instability Within Stability – It would be a mistake to interpret this system as static or omnipotent. It is, in fact, deeply unstable in its own way.Capitalism reproduces itself through constant expansion & periodic crisis. Inequality, geopolitical competition, environmental limits, and technological disruption all generate tensions that cannot be fully resolved, only managed.Each crisis forces restructuring. Sometimes this leads to greater centralization, sometimes to fragmentation, but always within the same underlying logic of accumulation. The system survives not by eliminating contradiction but by metabolizing it.
Conclusion: Seeing the Structure Beneath the Surface – To understand who rules the USA is not to identify a hidden cabal. It is to recognize a structural reality: that economic power is organized through ownership of capital, control of finance, & institutional management of production.The ruling class is not invisible. It is simply embedded in institutions that present themselves as neutral or technical. Its power is not exercised through constant explicit commands but through the everyday operation of systems that determine investment, production, and policy constraints.Once seen clearly, the illusion of political sovereignty dissolves. What remains is a more sober picture of power: not personal, not mystical, but structural.And structures, unlike myths, can be analyzed—and eventually changed.
Sources & Further Reading:
• Arrighi, Giovanni, The Long 20th Century: Money, Power, & the Origins of Our Times. Verso, 1994.
• Baran, Paul A, & Paul M Sweezy, Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic & Social Order. Monthly Review Press, 1966.
• Duménil, Gérard, & Dominique Lévy, The Crisis of Neoliberalism. Harvard University Press, 2011.
• Harvey, David: A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, 2005; The New Imperialism, OUP, 2003.
• Marx, Karl. Capital: a Critique of Political Economy.
• Miliband, Ralph, The State in Capitalist Society, Verso, 2009.
• Robinson, William, Global Capitalism & the Crisis of Humanity, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
• Sassen, Saskia, Expulsions: Brutality & Complexity in the Global Economy, Harvard UP, 2014.
• Wright, Erik Olin, Class Counts: Comparative Studies in Class Analysis, Cambridge UP, 1997.
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• B2. Reforming the Nigerian Shea Sector – Challenges, Opportunities & Lessons from Global Commodity Value Chains: Warwick Powell
Nigeria stands as the world’s largest producer of shea nuts, contributing nearly 40% (& in some estimates up to 45%) of global output with annual production between 350,000-500,000 metric tons. Yet despite this dominance, the country captures less than 1% of the estimated $6.5bn global shea market. Official export earnings from raw shea nuts have often hovered around or below $65mn annually, while the potential for value-added processing could generate 100s of millions – & ultimately billions – in revenue through shea butter and derivatives used in cosmetics, food, and pharmaceuticals. This stark disparity exemplifies postcolonial economic structures that lock developing nations intoraw commodity exports, while foreign-owned processors, brands & retailers downstream capture the lion’s share of value. As economist Fadhel Kaboub has powerfully documented in his analyses of ‘cocoa colonies’ and Tunisian olives, these patterns are not accidental but systemic features of global value chains shaped by colonialism, unequal trade rules, and concentrated corporate power.
The Commodities Development Initiative (CDI) of Nigeria, working in tandem with government policy, is spearheading reforms to shift this dynamic. A key pillar is digitalisation: platforms enabling coordinated ‘single-desk’ selling through the Nigeria Commodity Exchange (NCX), enhanced traceability for buyers and financiers, and better producer bargaining power. Recent policies, including the 2025 ban on raw shea nut exports (extended through 2027), mandate that all shea trade routes through the NCX, aiming to curb informal cross-border losses and force domestic processing. This essay examines the challenges & opportunities of reforming Nigeria’s shea sector, situating it within the broader struggles of agricultural commodities in the developing world – cocoa in West Africa, olives in Tunisia, and coffee in East Africa to name but a few. While formidable barriers remain, strategic digitalisation, industrial policy & regional solidarity offer pathways to greater local value creation & economic sovereignty.
The current state of Nigeria’s shea industry reveals deep structural weaknesses rooted in its upstream position in the global chain. Shea trees grow wild across a vast belt spanning over 5 million hectares in 20+ states, primarily harvested by rural women collectors who gather fallen nuts seasonally. Production remains fragmented among millions of smallholders with minimal organisation, leading to inconsistent quality, high post-harvest losses (up to 90,000 tons lost annually to informal trade), and vulnerability to middlemen. Domestic processing capacity stands at around 160,000 tonnes but operates at only 35-50% utilisation due to unreliable power, poor infrastructure, inadequate technology, and limited access to finance. Most nuts are exported raw to Europe and Asia for refining into shea butter (which commands 10-20 times the price of raw kernels), where multinational firms control fractionation into stearin and olein for high-margin applications.
The 2025 export ban, while visionary in intent, exposed immediate challenges: nut prices plunged by up to 33% initially, disrupting established trade networks and hitting women collectors hardest. Processors lacked capacity to absorb the surplus, underscoring the gap between policy ambition and implementation readiness. Broader issues include meeting international standards for cosmetics and food-grade products, climate variability affecting tree yields, and gender dynamics – shea is often a critical income source for women yet receives little investment in training or credit. These mirror systemic postcolonial traps: capital & technology remain concentrated abroad, while producers bear price volatility and environmental risks.
Kaboub’s framework illuminates why such imbalances persist across commodities. In Tunisia – the world’s second-largest olive oil producer in good years (up to 500,000 tons) – producers export the vast majority in bulk to EU countries like Spain & Italy. European firms (Deoleo, Sovena, Acesur) blend, bottle, brand, and distribute under premium labels, capturing value in marketing and retail while Tunisia earns commodity prices. EU quotas (eg, 56,700 tons duty-free annually, often exhausted quickly) enforce ‘managed access’ rather than free trade, locking Tunisia at the bottom of the hierarchy despite producing the raw value. This is no market failure but a ‘well-oiled colonial machine’ of global value chains.
Cocoa offers an even starker parallel. West Africa produces 71-74% of global beans, with Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana dominant. Yet farmers receive less than 9% of the final chocolate bar’s value; supermarkets in Europe capture ~42%, while multinationals like Barry Callebaut, Cargill, Olam (grinding), and Hershey, Mondelez, Nestlé (branding) reap high margins (17-26% operating profits). Even local grinding capacity – now ~30-50% in these countries – often remains foreign-controlled, with profits repatriated. Price risks & climate impacts (eg, swollen shoot virus) fall on smallholders. Kaboub terms this ‘cocoa colonies vs chocolate empires.’
Coffee in Ethiopia & Uganda follows suit: 1.7-1.8 million smallholders dominate production, yet quality premiums rarely reach farmers due to fragmented aggregation, weak cooperatives, & buyer-driven chains controlled by global traders. Local roasting & branding remain limited; most value accrues in consuming countries through roasting, packaging, and retail. Common threads across shea, cocoa, olives & coffee include tariff escalation (higher duties on processed goods), sanitary-phytosanitary barriers, and corporate concentration that stifles upstream bargaining. Colonialism-introduced cash crops, extractive trade pacts, and lack of downstream infrastructure – perpetuates dependency.
Reforming these sectors faces multifaceted challenges. Economically, scaling processing requires massive capital for factories, energy & logistics – Nigeria’s installed shea capacity illustrates the underutilisation trap. Politically, policy consistency is elusive; the shea ban’s short-term disruptions sparked calls for review amid livelihood concerns. Socially, organising millions of dispersed smallholders (especially women) for collective action is difficult amid low literacy and trust deficits. Technically, achieving traceability and certifications (eg, for EU deforestation rules or organic claims) demands technology many lack. Globally, entrenched buyer power and competition from established processors resist change. Climate change exacerbates vulnerabilities across all crops: erratic rains for shea and olives, pests for cocoa, and shifting suitability for coffee. In Kaboub’s view, incremental reforms (larger quotas, niche branding) fail without confronting the structural hierarchy.
Yet opportunities abound, particularly through digitalisation and coordinated policy. Nigeria’s NCXmandate for shea exports creates a de facto single-desk mechanism, enabling price discovery, warehouse receipts, grading, and aggregation that strengthen producer negotiation. Digital platforms – to be advanced via the CDI – facilitate traceability from farm to fork using blockchain or mobile apps, delivering the transparency buyers and financiers demand for premiums. This leapfrogging technology reduces middlemen, links smallholders directly to markets, and unlocks credit against verified stocks. Local value addition to shea butter could multiply earnings while creating jobs, especially for women, in refining, cosmetics formulation, and packaging. The ban, paired with government financing schemes & industrial incentives, aims to expand capacity rapidly.
Broader lessons from peers are instructive. Ghana has modestly increased cocoa processing shares and shea exports through targeted support; Ethiopia’s coffee cooperatives demonstrate how organisation improves quality premiums. Tunisia could pivot via African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to intra-African and South-South markets, bypassing EU quotas. Kaboub advocates regional blocs for collective bargaining, sovereign development finance for downstream plants, and strategic industrial policy to own grinding, bottling, and branding. For shea, Nigeria could target cosmetics giants with certified, traceable supply while building domestic and regional demand for shea-based products. Sustainability angles – biodiversity in shea parklands, ethical sourcing – align with global ‘clean label’ trends, commanding premiums.
Digitalisation is transformative across commodities: coffee traceability apps in Uganda, cocoa blockchain pilots in Côte d’Ivoire, and olive oil platforms in Tunisia all enhance coordination & value capture. In Nigeria, integrating NCX with farmer apps and CDI support could coordinate selling at scale, attract investment with certainty, and enable financing innovations. Combined with the export ban’s push for processing and AfCFTA market access, this positions shea as a model for decolonising commodity chains.
In conclusion, reforming Nigeria’s shea sector is fraught with challenges embedded in postcolonial structures – fragmentation, capacity gaps, foreign dominance – but the opportunities are profound. Through CDI-led initiatives, digital single-desk platforms, traceability, and value-addition policies, Nigeria can move from raw exporter to processed powerhouse, potentially multiplying earnings from tens to hundreds of millions (and beyond). Parallels with cocoa, olives and coffee underscore that success requires more than isolated reforms: sustained political will, gender-inclusive organising, climate resilience, and Global South solidarity to reconfigure value chains. As Kaboub argues, true sovereignty demands repositioning from colonies to empires of one’s own making. Nigeria’s shea renaissance, if realised inclusively, could inspire a broader agricultural transformation across the developing world, fostering jobs, forex stability and equitable development in an era of global economic rebalancing.
(‘Tackling global development challenges is a key theme’ of Powell’s work, ‘as a researcher, analyst & practitioner. In line with the core themes of the research, much of this focus is on supply chain reform, orchestration and transformation so as to deliver tangible transformations in the production, circulation & retention of value. The conceptual foundations of this approach is found in my recent book Thermoeconomics in a Time of Monsters, and its practitioners’ companion handbook, The Provenance Economy. This essay focuses on the Nigerian shea butter supply chain, where my colleagues at Smart Trade Networks and I have been retained to provide strategic enabling assistance to deliver long-term transformations.’)
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• B3. The Canadian Auto Industry & Dependence: Polarized Options, Part 2 – Sam Gindin
Andrew Elrod (AE): How has the transformation of the industry in the USA affected Canada?
Sam Gindin (SG): The Canadian industry is even more dependent on Asian-based auto assemblers than the US is. For example, GM used to have 3 assembly plants just in Oshawa, which alongside its component facilities once made it the largest auto complex in North America and perhaps the 2nd largest in the world, after Volkwagen’s complex in Wolfsburg, Germany. It now has one vulnerable assembly plant left in Oshawa. Its Quebec plant is long gone, and its CAMI facility, which was assembling electric vans, recently closed.
Stellantis had a big operation in Brampton, which they also just closed since Trump’s tariffs. So, Stellantis’s assembly operation is now reduced to the plant in Windsor. Ford closed 2 of its 3 assembly plants over the years, leaving it with only the Oakville plant, which is in the process of converting into large pickup truck EVs and seems safe for now. We still have significant engine plants at GM (St Catharines) and at Ford (Windsor).
We used to have maybe 80% of the parts industry unionized. Today, it is perhaps half that. Unifor has had some success in organizing large component plants. Before the financial crisis, eg, in the course of an organizing drive at a Magna seat plant, with the company carrying out a vicious anti-union campaign, we used our strength at the Chrysler assembly plant receiving the seats to tell Chrysler we would not install the seats unless Magna left workers free to choose who would represent them without the company’s interference. We ultimately got a neutralityletter from Magna stating that it would no longer fight the unionization efforts at that site. Unifor has continued these gains, but not in breaking through at Toyota’s 3 assembly plants and at Honda’s assembly facility.
One of the changes that has been underdiscussed is the strategic power that used to reside in assembly plants has now shifted to parts producers. This is the result of the outsourcing of work from the companies to independent parts suppliers, often in rural areas, supplying both Japanese & US assemblers. Outsourcing components like seating or brakes also outsources potential bargaining power. One seat plant might, eg, supply 5 different assembly plants. Shutting down that seat plant would significantly impact the industry.
The non-union sector obviously weakens the unionized sector, but the problem goes deeper than competition in the product market from non-union producers. Canada’s unionization rate is nearly 30% – 3 times as large as the US, yet this doesn’t translate into the Canadian labour movement being that much more dynamic than the unions in the USA. It’s the quality of unions, and not just their density, that is decisive. A union movement that isn’t fighting for working conditions is going to have a problem organizing Japanese plants because the Japanese companies can easily equal the wages to maintain control of the workforce. If the unions don’t argue over working conditions, health & safety, and so on, they cannot point to these workplace gains that bring leverage against the employers. These are what win over workers in unorganized plants.
AE: How do you see these different parts of the industry trying to shape the trade negotiations between the governments in the US, Canada, & Mexico?
SG: Corporations in Canada will use the uncertainty arising from Trump’s tariffs in collective bargaining with workers. eg, it gives them an excuse to ask workers to open their collective agreements early and agree to concessions in order to save jobs. This is par for the course for employers, and their promise of job guarantees in exchange for concessions on wages, work rules, and benefits are not to be trusted. For one, corporations can’t promise anything in the present context. For another, they will cut jobs no matter the promises if it serves corporate interests.
The point is not to fall into the trap of trying to solve large issues like tariffs and economic crises through collective bargaining. These demand political responses – a government ready to mobilize Canadians to forcefully challenge Trump in spite of the risks, since giving in will only encourage him. Since Americans are themselves critical of the tariffs and a significant number of US states are concerned with the tariffs and Canada’s response impacting them negatively, Canadian resistance can reinforce resistance within the USA, too.
The UAW has an important role to play here. Shawn Fain has been a progressive trade union leader. Fain’s commitment to organizing has put a healthy pressure on Canadian unions. But he supported the tariffs on Canada. Historically, Canadian & US auto workers were always very careful about being played off against each other this way. But Fain got elected on a narrow margin and is wary about the fact that a good number of his membership believe that tariffs protect jobs. In some cases, tariffs can be positive. But to really matter they would have to be combined with far more regulations and serious planning that challenge corporate control over the industry – the failed transition to EV’s is an example. No such regulations or planning is on Trump’s radar. USA’s workers also have the history of the impact of tariffs; it is worth recalling that the end result of Reagan’s quotas, as emphasized earlier, did not help the workers facing job loss (the Japanese companies invested elsewhere) and the new plants ending up undermining standards for all workers.
Something that the union & its workers – not just Unifor but the UAW also – are not confronting is the limits of auto being the job producer it was in the past. Saving existing jobs is, of course, vital. But the industry as a whole is not going to expand much. Let’s go back to EVs: the USA’s companies looked at the short term and tried to delay moving to EVs as long as they possibly could so they could make a fortune off of internal-combustion engine vehicles. And the US federal state, because Trump has been completely supportive of expanding the oil industry, has essentially undermined the shift to EVs. China is not just ahead here but miles and miles ahead. And it’s not just because of lower cost labour. China subsidized research, subsidized consumers buying vehicles that were socially more beneficial, built the recharging infrastructure, and as the industry grew, benefitted from spreading the costs across large volumes – to the point that Chinese EVs are now offered at less than half the price charged for North-American-made EVs.
Trying to save the USA-based companies has failed as a strategy. The crucial focus should be how we save the productive capacities the auto companies are rejecting – the machinery, tool & die, the engineering and skills in the components sector – and apply this potential to addressing private & social need. For example, if we are serious about addressing the environment, this will mean changing everything about how we live, work, travel, enjoy leisure – we will have to reconstruct offices and homes, rebuild and expand mass transit infrastructure, modify equipment, radically expand solar & wind power. If we take all this on, we’ll find that we actually have a labour shortage.
AE: Would a former internal-combustion engine auto plant provide a basis for producing this great variety of new energy products & materials that you’re talking about?
SG: During COVID, General Motors produced masks at a Michigan assembly plant because they didn’t have enough masks for their own employees, not because of some concern about everybody else. The equipment & skills in assembly plants might not be the best place to make mass transit vehicles, but converting a factory making warplanes might. And, if converted to addressing energy systems and the environment, military equipment and technological expertise offer important fits. In auto, the conversion to EVs is one waiting project, but the larger question is: what do we need? Can we meet those needs in existing facilities? Can those facilities & their machinery, tooling, engineering, management expertise be adapted as they have been throughout history? And, if not, can we build new facilities that can meet those needs and are located in communities where they can employ workers otherwise threatened by job loss?
There is a social value to repurposing our existing infrastructure toward new aims. In every community there should be hopes of engineers who can convert infrastructure to suit the changing needs of those communities. There are all kinds of things that people need or that could replace imports or that could be used for the environment. Every municipality has projects that they want to run that are sitting on their shelf. We need to be asking ourselves whether the facilities can be adjusted and people trained to support changing needs.
If we don’t seriously take on such questions, restructuring will continue to take place in an undemocratic, unplanned way geared toward profit maximization.
AE: You said this is ultimately a political question, but the kind of politics that would involve converting existing manufacturing facilities into alternative uses seems like a very different kind of politics than where we began this conversation – about what the Canadian government can do vis-à-vis the USA in terms of trade negotiations.
SG: The kind of politics that has to be developed in the Canadian case is to say: we tied our wagon to the USA because it was the dominant power, but there has been a cost to that. That cost is becoming evident. The problem isn’t tariffs; the problem is that the Americans can do whatever they want to intimidate Canada. Canada has to reduce this dependence. What will its manufacturing industry produce to facilitate this? That question forces us to think about how to restructure our industries to serve other needs and other markets. So, the 2 things are related.
But this demands building a social force that can fight to make good ideas a reality. The problem isn’t primarily developing good policies but an alternative politics. What happens in the absence of that alternative is the politics of Carney. A liberal central banker, Carney has a sense of the importance of responding to this dependence in some way. But his alternative is to go whole hog on exporting our raw materials. His program for independence is to support and build up our oil exports. His position on manufacturing is that we have to subsidize purchases of EVs. But if China’s offering a $22,000 EV and North America is offering $50,000 one, consumers are going to import it if they can.
This means you need a policy for domestic EV manufacturing. But this gets complicated if you lack the technology. Canada has just agreed to let 50,000 EVs in. It’s nice to have 50,000 EVs as a gesture, but it’s a tiny part of the market and doesn’t address our capacity to make things here. They could demand that the Chinese build in Canada in order to sell to the Canadian market, but even then, we would still not reach those economies of scale. These are difficult questions, but ignoring them or being overwhelmed by them is giving up.
AE: Presumably the Chinese firms would want to be able to sell into the US consumer market.
SG: That would be the first thing that China would say. The first thing the USA would say is if Canada’s making a deal with China to ship cars into the USA, we’re gonna put a 100%, 200% tariff on it, or we’ll just ban it. Trump could have come to office and immediately said: we want TVs, China’s making them, we want them to make them here. If China comes and makes them here, we’re happy. If they don’t, we’ll keep them out.
AE: Which is what Reagan did.
SG: Which is what Reagan did with the Japanese. But what kind of a Chinese company would risk coming to the US and investing a billion dollars? The politics is crucial because, when you’re thinking small, you’re always stuck. You’re defensive. If you don’t actually act at some moment so that you can start changing your options, nothing happens.
AE: The last time Trump was president, the orientation of the Canadian government to China seemed to be very different than it is today. How do you interpret Carney’s trip to China & the changes underway?
SG: What Carney really wants, above all is to go back to the old status quo. He is resisting Trump because of obvious economic interest and popular pressures. His nationalism is quite politically appealing, and he is using it to his advantage. He is not, however, truly challenging the politics that Trump stands for, or the structure of the Canadian economy. Ultimately, we do not want to be dependent on the USA or China. But Carney is walking a delicate line that doesn’t challenge key aspects of these economic relationships, in part because of how reliant on the USA we really are.
Part of the deal with China getting 50,000 or so EVs to come into Canada was that China would import more agricultural products from Canada. It was a gain for the farmers who were selling those agricultural products. And the Canadian auto workers thought that letting in the 50,000 vehicles was a loss. Those kinds of divisions certainly exist. You are always dealing with competition between farmers in the agricultural sector because there are all kinds of subsidy programs on both sides of the US-Canada border.
But everything is more complicated than it appears. Farmers in the USA are finding out that some of the components that they need, equipment or components for equipment, is costing more. They’re starting to lose their market. So, Trump is having a lot of problems in the rural areas because just protectionism isn’t enough – you have to really think about how you restructure rural life in the US, which has been in crisis for decades.
AE: While China can provide a consumer market for Canadian agriculture, it doesn’t seem like it will be a major consumer of Canadian automobiles.
SG: Yes, and Canada is still part of NATO. The Cold War mindset is still there, and we would prefer to have an ally next door. So, the government is just hoping that Trump goes away and is catering to nationalist sentiments in the meantime. They are also tripling our defense spending. Who is going to pay for that? Down the line, we are headed for a big deficit driven by defense spending that will trigger cuts to other parts of the public budget. Canada can’t just increase its deficits without harming the Canadian dollar and having to increase interest rates to borrow, the way the USA can. Ultimately, workers will pay for this.
We cannot just be responding moment by moment – we need a broader and more long-term vision. What was so striking about the 1960s was that the mood in society generally had a major impact on what was happening in the plants. With the Civil Rights Movement and the events of 1968, there was a sense of a broader political fight that challenged authority. This encouraged people in the auto plants. So, the external climate is very important, and at the moment, it does not seem to be there.
AE: What would you say to someone who argued that, in the upheavals of the 1960-70s, it was the weakening of company discipline that promoted companies to restructure & outsource labour?
SG: I would be impressed that they asked that question, which is a very good one. One of the lessons from the ’60s is that popular militancy is necessary, but it is not enough. We need to have a labour movement that asks: why do corporations have the right to move these plants in the first place? Why does democracy stop at the door of corporate property? If you’re not ready to ask those larger questions, the result is the restructuring we saw in the late ’70-80s. People eventually become exhausted of the militancy, allowing the state to step in under other leadership – in that case, neoliberalism. When… I worked on The Making of Global Capitalism, we interviewed the head of General Motors North America and asked him why they remained silent when Volcker raised interest rates to 18%. The Volcker shock meant that people stopped buying cars, because they couldn’t buy them on credit. It had profoundly injured the industry. He said they didn’t object because they learned it was necessary.
What he meant was that there was a crisis which had to be solved. And if breaking the labour movement required a period of pain for the firms, they were ready to take it, because it was a solution in permanently breaking workers’ expectations of constant improvements. So, we should admire the militancy of the 1960s – and recognize that it wasn’t enough. If we are not joining with workers around the world to ask who gets to make economic decisions and why, we will always be left on our back feet. The whole point of class politics is to broaden our choices for action.
Today, we are in a political moment in which capitalism is facing a deep crisis of legitimation. People don’t trust governments, they don’t trust political parties, they don’t trust political institutions at all. The challenge this poses is first to appreciate that this is a moment of polarized options; the middle ground has failed. 2nd, to channel this into organizing & building a social force up to the task. These are intimidating but absolutely essential.
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• B4. The Political Economy of Underdevelopment, Chapter 9, Part 6 – SBD de Silva (1982)
Chapter 9 Problems of Labour Supply & the Recourse to Migrant Labour, Part 6
II. The Response of Indigenous Labour to the Plantation System
A growing impatience with labour and their supposed indifference to work was felt by the employer class at various times in history. Daniel Defoe [author of Robinson Crusoe – ee] was just one of the many publicists to express such beliefs during the half century which preceded the industrial revolution. He ‘castigated the worker for the sloth that made him waste his time in idleness and low diversions, and the vice that led him to squander his scanty resources in alcohol and debauchery’ (D.S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, 1969, p60). Arthur Young regarded the pernicious effect of high earnings of workers on their readiness to labour as axiomatic that it was ‘idle to think of proving it by argument’; Mandeville had shown that ‘there were riches… in the poverty and necessitous state of the masses’ (OC Cox, Caste, Class & Race, 1959: 339; based on Edgar Furniss, The Position of the Labourer in a System of Nationalism, 1922: 19-20; Mandevllle, Brittania Languens: 153). English workers were thought of in the same character and tone which was later reserved for coloured workers only. ‘British employers then, like South Africans now’, Hobsbawm pointed out, ‘constantly complained about the laziness of labour or its tendency to work until it had earned a traditional week’s living wage and then to stop ‘ (EJ Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1964: 70). Tawney had noted earlier: ‘The denunciations of ‘luxury, pride & sloth’ of the English wage-earner of the 17-18th centuries are, indeed, almost exactly identical with those directed against the African native today’ (Religion & the Rise of Capitalism, 1926: 269, quoted in W E Moore, Industrialization & Labour, 1951: 37). Poverty was evidence of ungodliness, and workmen had to be forced into virtue (Moore, ibid). A comparable change during the development of bourgeois civilization is in society’s attitude towards mendicancy. The mendicant was stripped of the aura of sanctity that was attached to him throughout the Middle Ages, and he began to be regarded as a vagabond, a ‘professional loafer’. Governments in Europe from the beginning of the 16th century passed legislation and established institutions to set the poor to work. This change in attitudes was most evident in regions where the development of capitalism and manufactures had proceeded farthest (Henri Pirenne, A History of Europe, 1961: 529 ff).
The manpower situation and the significance of a cheapened labour supply was a leading concern in Mercantilist thought; Sir Josiah Child, even before becoming Governor of the East India Company, had rejected the settlement of white labourers in the colonies, on the ground that emigration deprived England of workers and consumers (D.B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, 1971, p.208). Davenant clearly suggested that aliens be encouraged to settle in England so as to make up for any emigration of Englishmen. By the end of the 17thcentury, with the intensification of commercial rivalry in Europe, a new cost-consciousness developed, in which the cost of labour was more important than that of raw materials. Wage costs could be lowered by increasing the labour supply and reducing wages, and some of the Mercantilists, including Mun, even put forward a subsistence theory of wages (JF Rees, Mercantilism & the Colonies, Cambridge History of the British Empire, 1, 1929: 563). Low wages as a means of stimulating exports became a matter of such concern as to lead to a change in the conception of England’s demographic status – from an over-populated country, which she was thought to be in the 16th century, to a belief in the 17thC that she was underpopulated. ‘The desideratum was a population as large as possible, as fully occupied as possible, and living as near as possible to the margin of subsistence’ (‘In the case of a few later writers, the employment argument gave rise to a new balance-of-trade concept, in which the amounts weighed against each other were not the values respectively of the exports and the imports, but the respective amounts of labour or employment they represented, ie, the ‘balance of labour’ or the ‘balance of employment’ (J Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade, 1955: 52). While Englishmen emigrated to Americas, England’s chief commercial rivals, Holland & France, it was alleged, had a ‘greater output at lower costs because they were well populated’ (Rees: 564).
Thus the curbing of wages was first applied to labour in Europe. The disintegration of the precapitalist economy had caused the transformation of independent peasants and artisans into wage labour, leaving no option to those involved; and society as a whole was conditioned into condoning and accepting the wage levels and working conditions which resulted. In the early stages of capitalism, as labour became an important item of cost, influencing profits and the competitiveness of the national economy, the extraction of the last ounce of effort from labour was the concern of both employers and the state. As Eli Heckscher explained, ‘By forcing down wages… the export of such goods as-contained relatively more human labour could be increased. The corollary was that efforts had to be made to obtain an abundant supply of labour at as low a price as possible’ (163). With increased competition in world markets, the state arraigned itself on the side of employers to maintain a pressure on wages. Its intervention was invariably in favour of the employer and official wage-fixing as a rule proscribed maximum wages. The state now began to protect the employer against actions taken by labour in defence of its interests. Women & children were employed, especially in the manufacture of textiles, with a view to cutting down costs. To pay them lower wages, the employers even explained that the factory system gave children disciplined habits and allowed them to support their parents, and that children and most females who were not taken into the factory would be exposed to vice and immorality (Edith Abbott, Women in Industry, 1910: 58 ff, quoted by J. Kuczynski, The Rise of the Working Class, 1967: 61). In England the living standard of large numbers thus declined during the first period of industrialization (JT Krause, Some Neglected Factors in the English Industrial Revolution, Journal of Economic History, 19, 1959). ‘Without any alteration in the juridical relationships prevailing in society, the working regime acquired characteristics of duress such as had not been known in Europe for the entire preceding thousand years’ (Celso Furtado, Development & Underdevelopment, 1967: 105).
However, a low wage ideology in the West proved to be only a transitory phase. The ‘virtuous indignation’ Landes spoke of, and which hardened the employers’ attitude towards the labouring poor in the late 17th & early 18th centuries, seemed ‘to have softened’ from the middle of the 18thC, and thereafter it was argued that ‘labour was not incorrigibly lazy and would in fact respond to higher wages (Op.cit., p.60). The manpower problem in both its aspects – ie, inadequacy of the total supply, and the employer’s lack of control over the worker – was being overcome by a change in the technology of production. This, according to AW Coates, provided a definitive solution to the labour problem (Changing Attitudes to Labour in the Mid-18thC, Economic History Review, 1958: 46-8). Though the exact circumstances in which this occurred cannot be discussed here, the pivotal element in it was the use of machinery and the adoption of capitalist production relations. There was in consequence an improvement in the quality of labour, and a rise in productivity.
The widespread belief among employers regarding the unresponsiveness of the labouring class to higher wages, having originated in the West, acquired a universality as the Europeans established their dominance over the economically less developed regions. An early recognition of this was by James Stephen, Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Colonial Office in 1841. When Lt Gen Colin Campbell, the Governor of Sri Lanka, referred to ‘the great advantages likely to arise from the reduced wages of labour’, Stephen minuted:
So the rich invariably argue in all parts of the World. Whatever gives them a greater command of the labour of the poor on lower terms, they, who hire such labour, will always regard as a public benefit… One would think wages were low enough in Ceylon where you can hire a day labourer for 3 pence, and men live in Wigwams with clothing and food not much better than those of an Aboriginal New Hollander (Colonial Office 54/190, Stephen’s Minute of 16 Oct 1841 on Campbell’s despatch of the Annual Blue Book).
The more or less conscious development of an idea, even supported by audacious claims, is necessary only in its formative stages, after which it acquires a credibility that is independent of any conscious element. Thus do ideas acquire a life of their own. Human attitudes, conditioned as they are largely by social factors, are prone to accept what is advantageous to the dominant groups in society, although it is true ideas do not visibly appear in the garb of sectional self-interest. The moulding of society as a whole by the ideology of the ruling interests is doubly easy with regard to doctrines which are not verifiable without systematic evidence or study. Or else, what is demonstrable in some situations, as, for eg, the ‘backward sloping supply curve of labour’, is seized upon & applied indiscriminately to other situations.
One element in the conventional characterization of coloured labour, that it is used to a customarily low standard of living, leads quite easily to its central tenet that such labour accepts such a standard and even welcomes it – preferring to work less if wage rates rise. This theory of the insensibility of ‘natives’ to monetary inducements is said to have 2 aspects. One is that given the opportunities ‘natives dislike spending money; the other is that though not averse to spending money they will not earn it’. The former is a crude version of the theory of limited wants which IC Greaves thought not even its rashest exponents now hold (Modern Production among Backward Peoples, 1935: 196). The distinction she makes between the 2 aspects of the ‘theory’ is, however, not always appropriate, since one follows closely on the other. The central premise in the theory as a whole as applied to peasant societies is that the consumer aspirations of the peasant are transfixed on a traditional horizon, limiting the attractiveness of earnings through work. Though widely discredited in recent times, this view of peasant behaviour even in its crude form has been remarkably tenacious among administrators and planning officials when explaining the failure of peasant agricultural programs. ‘In the observation by James Stephen, which I quoted, on the ethics of low wages what is most pertinent is the indication it gives of the ‘prime mover’ which underlies this social attitude.’ In the crisp comment of Ludowyk, ‘Those who preach the virtues of work have tended to profitfrom the labour of others’ (67).
The application of such ideas, which in the case of capitalism in the West proved limited in the long run, persisted more firmly in the colonial lands where domination proceeded on racial lines. The refusal of people to accept wage labour on the terms and conditions imposed by the employers was attributed to drawbacks in their outlook and personality. The image of the Africans as a set of ‘indolent, berry-picking natives’ conformed to this notion, as much as did the later characterization of the peasants in Sri Lanka and Malaysia when they failed to offer themselves as wage labour to the owners of plantations and mines. Compulsory labour on European enterprises was invested with an educational value – a view even accepted by the English Colonial Office. The African, it was said, must be ‘convinced of the necessity and dignity of labour’ and that the European’s task was to teach him to work! These attributes of colonial labour as seen by employers were also the basis of its thoroughgoing and more intense subjection long after the degradation of the European working class had declined to tolerable limits. Various forms of compulsion and fraud were adopted by the plantation employers to avoid paying such wages as the state of the labour market would have required. The disdain in which the labourers were held aggravated the injustice & cruelty inflicted on them. ‘Besides the clash of interest under most trying circumstances’, wrote DH Buchanan in regard to the tea plantations in Assam, racial & social antipathy were ever present’ (63).
At one time the feelings of the planters as a body towards their imported labourers was most deplorable… Among the worst sort of planters this feeling of aversion deepened into a mingling of hatred & contempt that led… to systematic & gross ill-treatment (Edgar, Report on Tea Cultivation in Bengal, British Parliamentary Papers, 1874, vol XLVIII, Cd Paper 982, cited earlier: 22)
Such feelings were not confined to labour in mines and on plantations. Racial discrimination, as I have mentioned elsewhere, was also applied to skilled or educated labour and to those in technical, administrative and managerial positions. As OC Cox (334) stated, ‘the whole people is looked upon as a class – whereas white proletarianization involves only a section of the white people’. The process of rationalization of the relations between the colonizers & the colonized was so extensive in its scope as to involve what he termed the proletarianization of the coloured races. (Next: Chapter 10)
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C. Building Blocks
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Every ee carries these extracts below to counter: 1) The constant harangue about exports, when they must at all times serve to advance or recapture and control of our home markets to develop modern industry. 2) We need to learn about machine industry versus handicraft, assembly and manufacture 3) The rules of the Sangha require constant interaction between people.
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• ‘The biggest handicap to industrial development is not the lack of capital but the absence of external economics, such as cheap power, cheap transport, technical and managerial ability, and above all the lack of a home market. The home market in an agricultural country is essentially the rural market. It is only a prosperous peasantry that can provide the home market for our industry. This is the connection between a guaranteed price for paddy and the industrialization of our country’ – Philip Gunawardena
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• ‘The Creation of a Home Marketfor our Industry is the pivot on which the future industrialisation of our country rests. In Ceylon’s context The Home Market essentially means The Peasant Market. To create the home market therefore we must substantially raise the living standards of the mass of the peasants so that they will be able to buy the goods produced by our industry. This demonstrates clearly the necessary connection between Industrialization & Agrarian Reform.’ – Policy Statement of the Ministry of Industries, 1956
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• ‘Their field of production, the smallholding, admits of no division of labor in its cultivation, no application of science and, therefore, no diversity of development, no variety of talent, no wealth of social relationships. Each individual peasant family is almost self-sufficient; it itself directly produces the major part of its consumption and thus acquires its means of life more through exchange with nature than in intercourse with society.’ – Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, p124
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• ‘Japan will retain and encourage the branches of the machine industry that yield high added value, but production facilities that involve a low degree of processing and generate low added value should be moved to developing countries… so that Japan can concentrate on high technology & knowledge-intensive industry.’– Japan’s Council on Industrial Structure, 1977 (in SBD de Silva, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment)
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• Economics Not Taught – The Machines Nobody Knows – The Extraordinary Culture of Machine Tools – If we were a truly ‘developing’ country, here are the questions a national media would need to ask: A plan requires a political, economic & military strategy, which will first assess peasant & worker power, land (including natural resources), & capital, that the nation possesses, and the time needed to transform these powers into material reality:
Here’s ee’s Index of a Real Economy or, at least, how a real economy would be measured:
1. The index of a strong economy is modern industry.
2. The index of modern industry is the production of machines.
3. Machine tools (MT) are the most important of all machines.
4. MT is needed for huge diversified metal fabricating industries (auto, electrical, etc.)
5. MT is essential for production of machines for all other industries.
6. Full data on machinery production is needed:
7. What portion of our machinery needs are supplied by machines built in Sri Lanka?
8. What is the trend? Are we producing more or less machines than we did before?
9. Data on imports & exports of machinery is needed (esp shipments of MTs & other Industrial Machinery)
10. MT production vs imports, must include: Mining & Metallurgical Machinery, Pulp & Paper Machinery, Textile Machinery, Woodworking Machinery, Logging Machinery, Sawmill Machinery, Office & Business Machines (adapted from: ee 20-26 Sept 2020).
D. News Index______________________________________________
• ee News Index provides headlines & links to make sense of the weekly focus of published English ‘business news’ to expose the backwardness of multinational, corporate controlled ‘local media’:
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D1. Sovereignty
(ee is pro-politics, pro-politician, pro-nation-state, anti-corporatist, anti-expert, anti-NGO)
ee Sovereignty news emphasizes sovereignty as economic sovereignty – a strong nation is built on modern (machine-making) industrialization fueled by a producer culture.
• Not So Quiet Death – The USA’s Order to Kill the Iranian Navy’s Dena and Its Crew – Helmer
• India trade push could boost Sri Lanka exports by half: ADB
‘South India, particularly Tamil Nadu, is emerging as a manufacturing hub, creating demand for intermediate goods and services that Sri Lanka is geographically well placed to supply’
D2. Security (the state beyond ‘a pair of handcuffs’, monopolies of legitimate violence)
ee Security section focuses on the state (a pair of handcuffs, which sposedly has the monopoly of legitimate violence), and how the ‘national security’ doctrine is undermined by private interests, with no interest in divulging or fighting the real enemy, whose chief aim is to prevent an industrial renaissance as the basis of a truly independent nation.
• Live bomb found In Weerakodithola reserve in Puttalam
D3. Economists (Study the Economists before you study the Economics)
ee Economists shows how paid capitalist/academic ‘professionals’ confuse (misdefinitions, etc) and divert (with false indices, etc) from the steps needed to achieve a modern industrial country.
• Sri Lanka’s Manufacturing Moment – Milinda Moragoda
‘China also began with labour-intensive exports, including garments, but used them as a transition platform into electronics and advanced manufacturing. Sri Lanka, by contrast, remained anchored to a narrow industrial base.’
• Continuing West Asian war deepens global economic crisis, hits Sri Lanka – Sanderatne
‘We have to find ways and means of coping with these economic difficulties. We have to find ways of curtailing our consumption of imports by using substitutes.’
The Vietnamese President also argued that development should not be measured solely through GDP growth, but by improvements in living standards, jobs, education, healthcare and public trust.’
• Once richer than South Korea, Sri Lanka now eyes Korean dream: Rockefeller Pathfinder
‘In the ‘50s, SL was regarded as the ‘Star of the East,’ boasting a strong plantation economy & literacy rate that was the envy of Asia. Its per-capita income – US $ 200 – was triple that of South Korea.’
ee Economy section shows how media usually measures economy by false indices like GDP, etc., in monetary terms, confusing money and capital, constantly calling for privatization, deregulation, moaning about debt & balance of payments, without stating the need for modern industrial production.
• Sri Lanka’s Poverty Line recorded at Rs. 16,690 in March 2026
ee Workers attempts to correct the massive gaps and disinformation about workers, urban and rural and their representatives (trade unions, etc), and to highlight the need for organized worker power
• Port unions oppose Sri Lanka Ports Authority terminal privatisation
• SLPP leader Mahinda Rajapaksa tribute to Labour Leader T.B. Ilangaratne on May Day
‘The late T. B. Ilangaratne was an active trade unionist who had served as the President of the General Clerical Service Union (GCSU) before taking to politics.’
D6. Agriculture (Robbery of rural home market; Machines, if used, mainly imported)
ee Agriculture emphasizes the failure to industrialize an agriculture that keeps the cultivator impoverished under moneylender and merchant, and the need to develop the rural home market, monetization and commercialization, to produce, rather than import, agricultural machinery.
• Kiridi Oya overflow floods around 30 houses in Wellawaya
• Sri Lanka’s rice production poised for recovery amid lingering climate and global supply hurdles – Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service
D7. Industry (False definitions, anti-industrial sermons, rentier/entrepreneur, etc)
ee Industry notes the ignorance about industrialization (versus handicraft and manufacture), the dependence on importing foreign machinery, the need to make machines that make machines, build a producer culture. False definitions of industry, entrepreneur, etc, abound, and the need for a holistic political, economic and military strategy to overcome domination by merchants and moneylenders.
• Minister of Health of the Russian Federation attends the Sri Lanka– Russia Medical Forum
D8. Finance (Making money from money, banks, lack of investment in modernity)
ee Finance tracks the effects of financialization, the curious role of ratings agencies, false indices, etc., and the rule of moneylenders, preventing investment in modern production.
• Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation rejects ‘false’ bond claims
• Sri Lanka sends largest delegation to SelectUSA, signalling push for US-linked investment
‘Sri Lanka has sent its largest-ever business delegation to the USA for the SelectUSA investment summit, with 14 entrepreneurs and business leaders currently engaging with partners and investors.’
D9. Business (Rentierism: money via imports, real-estate, tourism, insurance, fear, privatization)
ee Business focuses on the rentier diversions of the oligarchy, the domination by a merchant mafia, making money from unproductive land sales, tourism, insurance, advertising, etc. – the charade of corporate press releases disguised as ‘news’
• Sri Lanka urged to include apartment buyers as creditors in bankruptcy law
ee Politics points to the constant diversions and spectacles and the mercantile and financial forces funding the political actors, of policy hijacked by private interests minus public oversight.
• The standard-bearer of human rights campaigns in Lanka – Suriya Wickramasinghe
• Tilvin’s May Day rhetoric sparks renewed fears of one-party rule
‘The JVP General Secretary said that it is the NPP government that is the only government” that would be there to build the country from now on, and there is no room for any other government’
D11. Media (Mis/Coverage of economics, technology, science and art)
ee Media shows how corporate media monopoly determines what is news, art, culture, etc. The media is part of the public relations (corporate propaganda) industry. The failure to highlight our priorities, the need to read between the lines. To set new perspectives and priorities.
For more than sixty years, Sri Lanka has suffered repeated man‑made disasters. Every few years, something man-made (manufactured) happens that pushes the country back by almost a decade. These setbacks did not come from natural disasters—they came from selfish people, from violence, from poor leadership, and from decisions made without thinking about the nation’s future.
Since 1971, uprisings, terrorism, and political chaos have taken thousands of young lives. Each time, the country lost not only its youth but also its stability, its economy, and its hope.
But the deeper problem began even earlier. From the 1960s onward, many political leaders stopped caring about long‑term development. They focused on personal gains and power, not the progress of the country. They made decisions for personal gain (financially and politically), not national benefit.
In recent years, the situation has become even more alarming. People who exposed corruption—whistleblowers, honest officers, financial scandals, and potential witnesses—have been threatened, silenced, or even killed. A mafia‑style political culture has taken root, far worse than what existed decades ago. It reminds many of the fear and instability that surrounded the events of 1971.
How can a nation move forward when:
Law and order are weak,
Financial fraud happens repeatedly,
Uninformed politicians make decisions for short‑term gain and neglect the growth of the country,
The unitary nature and sovereignty of the country are threatened, and
The judiciary is manipulated, weakening justice and democracy?
No country can progress and maintain true democracy under these conditions. If this continues, Sri Lanka risks falling into a deeper crisis—possibly worse than the collapse seen in Ethiopia’s recent turmoil.
A Message to Every Voter
From now on, at each election, the responsibility lies with the people.
Don’t vote for untrustworthy people or those who have committed violent or fraudulent activity,
Don’t blindly vote for a party—study their policies (not gimmicks) and see whether you can trust them.
Don’t be carried away by posters, advertisements, and slogans (these are paid activities by beneficiaries), with empty promises.
Every voter must think carefully about:
The nation’s future, maintenance of the unitary nature and its sovereignty,
Law and order and the safety of their children,
The stability of the economy, and
The protection of democracy and the independence of justice.
Sri Lanka cannot afford to repeat the same mistakes. It cannot afford leaders who bring fear, division (religious, ethnic, etc.), or corruption. It cannot afford another decade lost.
The ballot box is the only peaceful tool the people have to protect the country. Use it wisely. Choose stability over chaos, integrity over corruption, and national interest over personal loyalty.
The future of Sri Lanka depends on the choices that you make now.
Sri Lanka has suffered one man‑made disaster after another. Every few years, something (manufactured) happens that pushes the country’s development and economy back by nearly a decade. Since 1971, much of this damage came first from the JVP uprisings and later from the LTTE conflict. Each time, it is unfortunate that thousands of young people lose their lives for no good reason, and the nation (innocent) families) paid a heavy price.
From the early 1960s onward, many so‑called political leaders stopped thinking about Sri Lanka’s long‑term future. They focused on grabbing power at any cost in national elections, not progress. False promises and misleading voters mostly accomplished these.
In recent years, the situation has become even worse. People who raised genuine concerns, exposed major governmental corruptions and scandals, or acted as whistleblowers have been threatened, silenced, or even killed. A real mafia‑like system now operates in the country—far worse than anything seen before. It feels dangerously similar (or can become worse) to the atmosphere that led to the 1971 tragedy.
How can a nation move forward when there is no law and order, when significant financial fraud happens one after another, and when politicians chase short‑term personal gain instead of protecting the country’s future? How can democracy survive when the judiciary is manipulated, when judicial freedom is weakened, and when the unitary nature and sovereignty of the nation are put at risk? This cannot continue.
Unless something changes soon, Sri Lanka may face an even deeper financial, unruly, and social collapse—possibly worse than what happened in Ethiopia’s economic crisis.
Did you all know that consumption of Beef was forbidden in Japan, for over 1200 years? It was actively forbidden by the Buddhists and also the Hindu influence over Japanese philosophies, including Shintoism. Consumption was rare, stigmatized, and legally discouraged, rather than entirely nonexistent. If you consume, you’d be made to do penance for 100 days. Until 1872.
And then came Emperor Meji and along with him he brought the Meiji restoration. He decided to go hook line and sinker and ape the west. Emperor Meiji formally lifted the bans to promote modernization, Westernization, and better nutrition. The influence of Christians and Europeans on him will make for a separate post. But, in 1872 he made a royal decree allowing people to eat Beef, thus upturning centuries old law in Japan. This alienated the Buddhists so that about a dozen priests went to protest at his palace. Most of them were killed.
He publicly ate beef to encourage the population. This was 1872.
In 4 decades he died of Uremia. A toxic buildup of a significantly high proportion, related to high consumption of red meat.
Emperor Meiji had fifteen children, including five princes and ten princesses, but ten of them died of meningitis-like disease in their infancy. All three of Emperor Meiji’s children by his concubine Yanagiwara Naruko contracted meningitis during the first year of their lives, and their first two children died of the illness. Another of his concubines, Chigusa Kotoko, also gave birth to two daughters who died of meningitis in infancy. Bacterial meningitis is again a product of uncooked or undercooked beef.
Within a decade and a half of his passing the Beef decree, Japan became a colonial power and visited untold miseries on Korea and China. Approximately 14 million people died. About 4 million Japanese died.
Japan, for the first time in its history, was conquered by another country. It has, since, been a vassal state.
Of course, all this is unrelated to eating beef. Isn’t it? But what so disturbed the spirit of the land?
Colombo Dockyard PLC which is a subsidiary of Mazagon Shipyard of India and Sri Lankan marine engineering companies could benefit substantially from India’s planned shipbuilding component manufacturing expansion — but only if they reposition quickly from traditional repair-oriented activities into integrated regional supply-chain participation.
The Indian strategy is not merely about building ships. It is about creating a complete maritime industrial ecosystem similar to what HD Hyundai, Chinese yards, and Japanese shipbuilding groups developed over decades.
For Sri Lanka, the opportunity lies in becoming a specialized satellite maritime support hub rather than competing head-on with India’s massive industrial scale.
Possible strategic opportunities include:
1. Ship Repair and Lifecycle Support Hub
India’s shipbuilding growth will sharply increase demand for:
dry docking,
emergency repair,
afloat repairs,
retrofits,
ballast water treatment upgrades,
LNG and green fuel conversions.
Colombo Dockyard PLC already has regional credibility in:
offshore support vessel repairs
Cable laying vessels
Green bulk carriers
naval vessels
floating dock operations.
Sri Lanka’s geographic advantage near the East-West shipping route remains valuable.Instead of competing with Indian new building yards, Colombo Dockyard can position itself as:
the maintenance and retrofit yard” for Indian-built fleets operating in the Indian Ocean.
2. Subcontract Manufacturing for Indian Mega Yards
India’s policy aims to localize thousands of components, but large shipbuilding ecosystems initially face supply shortages and capacity bottlenecks.
Sri Lankan firms could manufacture:
accommodation modules,
pipe spools,
cable trays,
switchboards,
steel outfit items,
marine furniture,
GRP products,
deck machinery subassemblies,
HVAC modules.
Manholes etc
This is exactly how smaller Asian economies integrated into Korean and Japanese shipbuilding supply chains.
Sri Lanka can become:
a precision fabrication and modular assembly extension of Tamil Nadu shipyards.
3. Offshore and Energy Sector Expansion
If India expands:
offshore wind,
subsea pipelines,
LNG terminals,
offshore patrol fleets,
and coastal infrastructure
Oil rigs
then demand for:
support vessels,
barges,
fabrication yards,
offshore engineering,
and heavy steel construction will rise.
Sri Lanka could position:
Trincomalee Harbour,
Galle Harbour,
and Hambantota Port
Olivil port
as complementary offshore engineering and logistics bases.
4. Maritime Technical Training Export
India’s shipbuilding boom may create labour shortages.
Sri Lanka has relatively strong:
welding,
marine electrical,
machining,
naval architecture,
and ship repair skills.
Institutions such as:
Ceynor Foundation Limited,
vocational academies,like Fabweld
and private marine training centres
could train manpower for:
Indian shipyards,
Middle East offshore yards,
and African maritime projects.
This may become a major foreign exchange earner.
5. Joint Ventures with Korean and Japanese Suppliers
Since HD Hyundai and other international players are expected to establish supplier ecosystems in India, Sri Lankan companies could seek:
joint fabrication ventures,
marine electronics assembly,
specialized coatings,
offshore fabrication partnerships.
Colombo Dockyard PLC already has Japanese ties through Onomichi Dockyard Co. Ltd., which can become strategically important.
6. Strategic Risk Sri Lanka Must Avoid
The biggest danger is remaining only:
a ship repair location,
or merely a port transshipment economy.
India is moving into:
manufacturing,
engineering,
technology transfer,
marine equipment,
and industrial clustering.
If Sri Lanka delays:
industrial zoning,
maritime investment incentives,
power reliability,
customs modernization,
and technical workforce expansion,
then regional marine manufacturing will migrate almost entirely to Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
Strategic Recommendation
Sri Lanka should urgently develop:
a Maritime Industrial Policy,
marine component export zones,
tax incentives for shipbuilding suppliers,
and a Trincomalee marine engineering cluster.
A practical model would be:
India = mass shipbuilding,
Sri Lanka = repair, retrofit, specialized fabrication, offshore support, and skilled manpower.
That complementary approach is far more realistic and profitable than direct competition with India’s scale.
The proposed India–Sri Lanka land bridge must be viewed not merely as an infrastructure project, but as a long-term strategic and geopolitical decision with deep political, social, demographic, and security implications for Sri Lanka.
At a time when Tamil Nadu politics is becoming increasingly assertive, Sri Lanka must proceed with extreme caution. The emergence of political figures such as Joseph Vijay, reportedly supported by influential Christian NGOs and regional nationalist groups, may create future pressures on Sri Lanka far beyond trade and connectivity.
Sri Lanka has already experienced how regional political waves from Tamil Nadu can influence domestic affairs. History reminds us how external political sympathy and ethnic politics affected Sri Lanka during difficult periods in the past.
While maintaining excellent relations with the Government of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sri Lanka must distinguish between cooperation with New Delhi and pressures emerging from Tamil Nadu state politics.
Before even discussing a physical bridge, priority should be given to carefully negotiated maritime connectivity under India’s Sagarmala initiative, by developing Trincomalee together with regulated shipping, ferry services, energy cooperation, and port and offshore industry development.
A sea-based connection provides flexibility, control, and security without permanently altering Sri Lanka’s strategic vulnerability.
The example of Bahrain and the King Fahd Causeway also demonstrates that such links fundamentally reshape demographics, economics, labour movement, and political influence over time.
Sri Lanka must first complete comprehensive national security, environmental, economic, and demographic impact studies before committing to any irreversible land connection.
Bridges can unite economies — but they can also create dependencies and vulnerabilities if built without strategic foresight.
Violence has metastasized into humanity’s baseline condition. Yet international institutions remain paralyzed by vetoes and rivalry, offering hollow declarations while dehumanization becomes normalized. Coordinated action, not gestures, is desperately needed
Global violence today is metastasizing, not contained; over 180,000 violent events reported globally by the International Institute for Strategic Studies signal a world in which conflict has become a baseline condition rather than an exception. More than 130 armed conflicts now rage—over twice the number of 15 years ago—shattering infrastructure, tearing apart social fabric, and normalizing dehumanization as a political weapon. Women and children bear the brunt: hundreds of millions live within range of armed clashes, with millions of preventable deaths and lifelong trauma caused not only by bullets and bombs but by hunger, disease, and gender-based violence unleashed by war’s chaos.
Yet the UN system and the world’s democracies appear increasingly paralyzed—trapped in vetoes, geopolitical rivalries, and hollow declarations—offering gestures of concern rather than the coordinated, enforced accountability this modern plague of violence so desperately demands.
The global escalation of violence is a structural crisis rather than an aberration—one that reveals the failure of international institutions, exposing the normalization of suffering across political, economic, and societal dimensions. The proliferation of violence signals not just an increase in armed confrontations but a breakdown in the very mechanisms meant to constrain conflict, rendering dehumanization a routine tool of power, as demonstrated in the following.
The Philosophical Angle
Violence represents the collapse of legitimate political authority and the rise of impotence masquerading as force. Hannah Arendt’s foundational insight remains essential: Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course, it ends in power’s disappearance” (On Violence, 1970).
This speaks directly to today’s proliferation of conflicts, which indicate not state strength but institutional failure, where violence substitutes for the consent and legitimacy governments can no longer command. The resort to violence signals the exhaustion of political dialogue and the absence of legitimate power structures capable of resolving disputes.
Economic Disenfranchisement
Economic drivers are critical accelerants of contemporary violence through resource competition, commodity exploitation, and systemic inequality. Slavoj Žižek’s concept of systemic violence captures the pervasive economic roots: Therein resides the fundamental systemic violence of capitalism, much more uncanny than the direct pre-capitalist socio-ideological violence: this violence is no longer attributable to concrete individuals and their ‘evil’ intentions, but is purely ‘objective,’ systemic, anonymous.”
The greed-driven exploitation of natural resources—from diamonds in Sierra Leone to oil in Venezuela and cobalt and other conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo—finances rebellions and turns conflict into a profitable enterprise. Economic deprivation, geoeconomic confrontation through weaponized tariffs and sanctions, and commodity price shocks directly shape military capacity and conflict outcomes.
The Political Compulsion of Violence
Political violence emerges not merely from divergent interests but from the deliberate choice to pursue objectives through coercion rather than negotiation. The paralysis of the UNSC and democratic institutions reflects what Arendt identified as bureaucratic tyranny: In a fully developed bureaucracy, there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can present grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. … everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act… where we are all equally powerless, we have a tyranny without a tyrant.”
This captures the international community’s inability to enforce accountability—vetoes and geopolitical rivalries create a structural void where violence thrives unchecked. Political fragility and weakening institutions, seen in Syria and Myanmar, make societies vulnerable to breakdown, radicalization, and violent dissent.
Societal Fragmentation
Societal conditions create climates where violence becomes normalized through inequality and the erosion of social cohesion. Thomas Hobbes’s bleak assessment of unconstrained human nature remains relevant: in the state of nature, the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” While Hobbes described a pre-political condition, his insight applies to societies where governance collapses and fear dominates, conditions now afflicting millions living within range of armed clashes.
Social norms that accept violence as conflict resolution, combined with economic inequalities and a lack of community participation, create environments where aggression flourishes. This normalizes dehumanization, where, as in Nigeria, Israel and South Africa, gendered violence, ethnic tensions, and historical grievances fuel recurring cycles of brutality.
Nationalism, Repression and State Complicity State-level factors amplifying violence include the failure to address ethnic marginalization, resource competition, and the absence of functional governance. Walter Benjamin warned of violence’s relationship to law and state power: There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism” (On the Concept of History, 1940).
This observation underscores how national institutions perpetuate violence through their foundational structures and exclusionary practices. Nations repeatedly falling victim to civil and international wars demonstrate governments’ inability to recognize and address destabilizing issues like political, religious, or ethnic marginalization. The weaponization of state apparatus through totalitarian mobilization of violence destroys the very space where political thinking and resistance might occur, as demonstrated in China and Eritrea.
Religious Instrumentalization
Religion, when co-opted by political actors or stripped of its ethical core, becomes a potent catalyst for violence, sanctifying exclusion and legitimizing brutality. Sectarian divides—whether in the Middle East, South Asia, or parts of Africa—transform identity into a battlefield where compromise is heresy and annihilation becomes duty. René Girard’s insight is instructive: Religion shelters us from violence just as violence seeks shelter in religion.” When faith is manipulated to justify power or grievance, such as in India, Israel or Iraq, it ceases to restrain violence and instead consecrates it, deepening cycles of retribution and rendering conflicts existential rather than negotiable.
The convergence of these dimensions explains why violence has become a baseline condition rather than an exception. Several measures must be considered to de-escalate global violence. Although effecting change is extremely difficult, every effort must still be made, provided the public leads the charge through sustained protest, continuous advocacy, and relentless pressure on policymakers to enact change.
Reform UN Security Council Veto Power
Governments must constrain veto authority by restricting its use in cases involving genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Permanent members should abstain when directly involved, transforming the veto from obstruction into accountability and addressing institutional paralysis that enables unchecked violence.
Establish Functional Early Warning Systems International bodies should implement systems linking detection to preventive action, closing the warning-response gap. These must integrate predictive analytics, local expertise, and cross-border coordination to anticipate violence months before eruption, enabling timely diplomatic and humanitarian intervention.
Address Economic Inequality and Insecurity Governments should implement policies that reduce income inequality—including wage increases, tax reform, and financial assistance—aimed at addressing violence triggers. Targeted lending, job creation, and redistributive policies alleviate financial strain that fuels conflict and crime, making structural prevention more effective than reactive measures.
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Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is President of the Institute for Humanitarian Conflict Resolution.
Below is the last paragraph of Part III published eleven days ago:
Be that as it may, his (i.e., president Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s) efforts are apparently expended on appeasing the handful of racist Tamil separatists and the few religious extremists hiding safely in plain sight, taking refuge within the larger peaceful Tamil, Catholic, and Muslim mainstream minority communities. The latent resurgence of political (Tamil separatist) and religio-political (Catholic and Islamist) extremism has become a complex social, political, and security issue for the Sinhalese Buddhist majority Sri Lankan state. This problem gets more complicated by the interventionist attention that is focused into its internal affairs by competing global and regional superpowers in the geostrategically supersensitive Indo-Pacific, where Sri Lanka is located, especially by the powerful Western countries that have taken in large Tamil diaspora populations. The Buddhist majority community is not totally free from its own variety of extremists. The agitating monk activists like Balangoda Kassapa Thero and Galaboda-aththe Gnanasara Thero who criticise the Walk for Peace having misunderstood its genuine purpose, are examples; they are doing a great disservice to the genuine causes they are trying to bravely champion.
Part IV begins here:
The egregious attempt to link the nationalist political leaders and some prominent members of the defence forces who served under them to the horrific Easter Sunday suicide bombings carried out by IS Jihadists in 2019 (as established by the American Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)I, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and the British Scotland Yard/Metropolitan Police, and by Sri Lanka’s own Intelligence services) is based on some alleged exposures made by a shady character/in fact, an absconding wanted criminal suspect evading justice in his home country Sri Lanka according to social media sources called Hanzeer Azad Maulana, to the British Channel 4 TV. (The director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Sri Lanka Police Department Shani Abeyesekera was reported to have gone to France to meet with Azad Maulana, who is alleged to be actually living in Switzerland at present seeking political asylum there; Abeysekera’s intention is said to be to get Maulan’s assistance with his plan to indict the Rajapaksas in connection with the Easter Sunday bombings).
Now, the British Channel 4, though publicly owned, receives no public funding and therefore, is required to earn its revenue through its commercial activities. As is well-known, one of the ways it earns income is by commissioning, producing, and broadcasting fake documentaries for high-paying clients. To mention a few examples that AI provides for this: Ghostwatch (1992), Brass Eye (1997-2001), A Very British UFO Hoax (2003), Accused: The Hampstead Paedophile (2015) and Will AI Take My Job? (2025).
Sri Lanka has been at the receiving end of Channel 4’s engagement in its disinformation business. Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields (June 2011) and its follow-up, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished (March 2012) were flaunted at the time as ‘award winning investigations’ produced by the British ITN Productions for Channel 4 TV. Watching Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields in June 2011 broadcast in Australia by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on its Four Corners programme, I at once realized that it was a collage of stock footage and news reels depicting purposely acted out scenes supporting Channel 4’s made-up story of alleged Sri Lankan Army atrocities against captured Tamil rebels and innocent Tamil civilians. These films were carefully analysed by Sri Lankan IT experts and revealed to be fakes concocted with the assistance of lying Tamil economic refugees seeking asylum in the West after the military defeat of the separatist movement in Sri Lanka in 2009.
Channel 4 aired a documentary film entitled ‘Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings: Dispatches’ as an episode of a long running, so-called investigative series, featuring the above named Azad Hanzeer Maulana on September 5, 2023. Maulana was presented there as a whistleblower (Never mind, he was more than four years too late, for whistleblowing in this case). He had served as spokesman for Sivanesaturei Chandrakanthan alias Pilleyaaan, a former rebel child soldier turned politician, who later became the leader of the Tamil Makkhal Vidutalai Puligal party. Maulana was depicted as exposing high level complicity in the 2019 Easter Easter Sunday bombings, based on his prior active association with Pilleyaan. In the 2023 Channel 4 (pseudo)documentary, Maulana implicated high-ranking Sri Lankan officials in the heinous crime by claiming that they were participating in a plot to create instability in the country prior to the November 2019 presidential election and facilitate the return of the Rajapaksa family to power.
But, at the time of the Easter Sunday bombings in 2019, Pilleyaan was in prison because he had been arrested in October 2015 in connection with the 2005 murder of former Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP for Batticaloa, Joseph Pararajasingham. Pilleyaan was in prison from October, 2015 to November 2020 under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). So there was no way he could have gotten involved in the Easter Sunday bombings plot in order to facilitate the Rajapaksas’ return to power in November 2019 (in the form of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s election as president).
The reason for GR to be targeted by anti-nationalists (nostalgically harking back to the successful 2015 regime change plot) is not far to seek in my opinion. He played a decisive role in defeating Tamil separatist terrorism, and has earned the wrath of the unforgiving Eelamists. They believed that the executive presidency was the greatest obstacle to their separatist project. The final goal of Kumar David, the proponent of the ‘single issue common candidate’ platform for the 2015 regime change presidential election, was the complete abolition of the executive presidential system, as stated before. He had arbitrarily decided that the executive presidential system centralized power in the president.
The immediate objective that he suggested was for the common candidate to win the election and soon after to abolish the executive presidential system and just ‘go home’! He wanted to unify the divided opposition against the Rajapaksas whom he hated. To this end, KD insisted that there should be no departure from the course he had proposed and that it should be included in the election manifesto of the opposition coalition, the New Democratic Front (the NDF led by Ranil Wickremasinghe’s United National Party) that fielded Maithripala Sirisena against the then incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa, leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Apparently, KD was not taken seriously at that point; so he wanted others who shared his insistence on the abolition of the executive presidency to withdraw support for Sirisena in 2014 (which obviously, did not affect the final election result that went in favour of the latter).
To return to president Anura Kumara Dissanayake wooing the Catholic Church, he, as stated at the beginning, extended an official invitation to Pope Leo XIV, Pope Francis’s successor, to visit Sri Lanka, presumably on a date that suits the latter. Incidentally, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, visited Sri Lanka in November 2025 to mark the 50th anniversary of the formalization of diplomatic relations between it and the Holy See. He met with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya on November 4, 2025. They discussed their common purpose to reinforce cooperation between Sri Lanka and the Holy See as sovereign states. The Vatican Secretary conveyed Pope Leo’s intention to visit Sri Lanka. So, president Dissanayake’s invitation was probably in response to that papal wish. On the 2025 visit, Archbishop Gallagher visited St. Anthony’s Shrine in Kochchikade, which was one of the sites of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings, and celebrated a Solemn Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Lucia Cathedral in Kotahena, Colombo.
There have been only three papal visits to Sri Lanka since then, and all three after 1970, in which year the United Left Front (ULF) coalition led by Mme Sirimavo Bandaranaike, having won a landslide electoral victory, formed a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution, and subsequently proclaimed the country a republic in May 1972: the first visit was by Pope Paul VI in December 1970, the second by Pope John Paul II in January 1995, two months into the first term of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s presidency, after seventeen years of UNP rule, and the third by Pope Francis in January 2015, soon after Maithripala Sirisena’s swearing in as president. The Republican Constitution introduced in 1972 replaced the previous Soulbury Constitution, the legal framework which had established a British model based parliamentary system of government with its bicameral legislature (House of Representatives and Senate) and its institution of a Prime Minister who was responsible to Parliament and who headed the executive, while the monarch served as the ceremonial head of state; the Soulbury constitution had also provided special safeguards for minorities through its Section 29.
The Soulbury Constitution remained operative from 1948 until it was replaced in 1972. Its replacement must have been viewed with concern by the minorities. A lasting hangover of discontent among minority groups with the republican change of 1972 seems to have persisted to this day. While the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community saw the change as an affirmation of total independence from British colonial rule for all the communities, certain racial and religious minorities, usually under the influence of opportunistic politicians, tended to interpret it as the beginning of an era of discrimination against them by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, leading to an erosion of their human rights. Heads of state elected from the left of centre nationalist camp, of necessity, because of or despite the country’s constitutional guarantee of the foremost place for Buddhism (Article 9) without prejudice to the rights of other religions, have always made a special attempt to reassure the successive Popes that Sri Lanka is firmly committed to look after its Catholic community without any discrimination; they have also adopted a similarly peaceable, even dovish, diplomatic approach towards global Hindu and Muslim states.
After Pope Paul VI visited Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1970 at the beginning of the United Left Front government of Mme Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the country established diplomatic relations with the Holy See in September 1975. Following Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1995, President Mahinda Rajapaksa met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in June 2012 and received his counsel about post-war reconciliation and shared his positive view of the local Catholic community’s role in national development.. Pope Francis’s visit in January 2015 coincided with the inauguration of president Maithripala Sirisena, heading the Yahapalana administration that resulted from the 2015 regime change effected through external intervention, as generally held by informed political observers.
Sirisena had decamped from his long-time colleague and leader Mahinda Rajapaksa’s United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), but soon returned to assume its leadership, and lure Rajapaksa to be his ally in order to win the parliamentary election, but, in a lowly below the belt act of betrayal, vowed not to give him premiership even if the UPFA were to win the largest number of seats in the then imminent parliamentary election; Sirisena played this trump card of his in an election eve speech when the time allocated for electioneering had expired. In another wily stratagem (probably thought up by the external regime changers) in 2018, Sirisena severed the UPFA from the so-called unity or national government of the Yahapalanaya, which allowed it to run its dysfunctional course to the end.
No amount of disinformation and misinformation can change the fact that the Yahapalana authorities failed to prevent the deadly Easter Sunday suicide bombings staged by Islamist jihadists just six months before that eventhough prior warnings including names of specific individuals and places, and times from foreign and local intelligence sources had been received well in advance.
The 2005-2015 decade saw exceptionally rapid overall development of the country despite the ravages of separatist terrorism and the undermining efforts of oppositional saboteurs. Sri Lanka successfully transitioned to a lower-middle-income country status around 2010, and by 2014, it was actively pursuing the goal of reaching the upper-middle-income status following robust growth, with the economy growing at an average of 6%-7.4% (based on World Bank figures) following the end of the civil conflict in 2009. The economic surge was driven by construction services and industrial shifts. The end of the 30 year insurgency was soon followed by sure signs of increasing income and improving infra structure, leading to significant poverty alleviation. Unfortunately, the main architects of that comprehensive national development, the Rajapaksas then at the helm, indulged in naive dynastic politics and nepotism, and apparent soft-pedaling on corruption by cronies and became easy prey to global hegemonic powers that identified them as inimical to their geopolitical agendas.
From pre-historic times, Sri Lanka’s geographical location in the Indian Ocean has been the most decisive factor in shaping its economy, culture, and politics. For about two thousand years it acted as a vital trade hub on the maritime Silk Road, connecting China, India, Persia, Egypt, and even Rome. Just as Sri Lanka faced seventeen invasions from South India over that long period, which she defeated, she survived the depredations of three mercantile nations from Europe during the last five centuries. Lingering apparitions of those ancient demonic powers are forming a coalition of destabilizing fifth columnists in the form of racist Tamil separatists and Christian and Islamic religio-political extremists arraigned against the island state located at a strategic point in the Indian Ocean re-named by the powers that be as the Indo-Pacific; the new name signifies a major geopolitical shift linking the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans into a single strategic maritime system in order to contain the rising China.
Palm leaf manuscripts have been in existence in Sri Lanka from the ancient period onwards. The two oldest palm-leaf manuscripts found in Sri Lanka today are the Cullavagga Pālimanuscript of the H.C.P. Bell collection, which is held at the Library of the National Museum, Colombo, and the Mahavagga Pāli manuscript in the University of Kelaniya collection. Photocopies of both are available at the Library of the University of Peradeniya. Both are dated to 13 century. Cullavagga manuscript has wooden covers richly decorated in lac with a design of flowers and foliage.
Karmmavibhāga
However, the oldest known Sinhala palm leaf manuscript in the world, is the Karmmavibhāga which wasfound in a Tibet monastery in 1936 by the Indian scholar Rahul Sankrityayan. Rahul Sankrityayan, (1893–1963) former Kedarnath Pandey, was an Indian polymath, who searched out rare Buddhist manuscripts on his travels abroad. Sankrityayan visited Sri Lanka as well. Vidyalankara Pirivena is mentioned.
Sankrityayan visited Tibet several times to collect manuscripts from the Buddhist monasteries there. In May 1936 on his second visit to Tibet Sankrityayanvisited the Sa-skya monastery. The Chag-pe-lha-khang Library in this monastery was specially opened for Sankrityayan
He stated in his autobiography that when the clouds of dust which greeted this rare opening of its doors had subsided, they beheld rows of open racks where volume on volume of manuscripts were kept. After rummaging around, I came across palm-leaf manuscripts. They were not wrapped in cloth, but were tied between two wooden planks with holes through them.” Sankrityayan found several important manuscripts he had been looking for, in that collection.
Sankrityayan catalogued fifty-seven manuscripts bound in thirty-eight volumes. The thirty-seventh volume was written in the Sinhala script. Sankrityayanrecords that this volume contained ninety-seven palm- leaves each of which measured 18 1/4 by 1 1/4 in. (46 x 3 cm.) and that there were seven lines of writing on each folio.
According to Sankrityayan, these Sinhala texts originally belonged to a Sri Lankan monk called Anantaśrî who had come to Tibet in the time of Śrî Kîrttidhvaja (Kirti Sri Rajasinha). Analysts noted that Sankrityayan does not give the source of this information and the manuscript makes no mention of Anantaśrî.
Sankrityayan had taken with him to Tibet, one Abeyasinghe, (Abhayasimha) to help him with copying manuscripts. They made hand-copies of the important manuscripts. Abhayasimha hadcopied about 250 to 350 strophes each day. But Abeyasinghe fell ill due to the extreme cold and was sent home in June. Abeyasinghe had written letters home during his stay in Tibet.
Photographs of the manuscripts found during Sankrityayan’s expeditions in Tibet are preserved at the National Archives in Colombo. There is also a copy in Vidyalankara pirivena library The Historical Manuscripts Commission In its 1960/1961 report, drew attention to this manuscript, known as Sa-skya Codex, describing it as “a unique document.” (Annual Report of the Government Archivist 1960/61, 1963)
Sinhala scholar P.E.E. Fernando examined photographs of the Sa-skya Codex at the request of the Historical Manuscripts Commission and assigned it to the 13th century. The Historical Manuscripts Commission, dated it to either twelfth or the thirteenth century.
The Historical Manuscripts Commission observed that this manuscript was of great value for the study of the development of the Sinhala script. Ven.Meda Uyangoda Vimalakîrtti and Nähinne Sominda in their edition of the Karmmavibhāga published in 1961 agreed that the Sa-skya Codex represented an early stage in the evolution of the Sinhala language.
Mahavamsa
Mahavamsa is considered a unique historical document. There is nothing like it in South Asia, and probably all Asia, with the exception of China. Mahavamsa provides a historical account of events, with emphasis on chronology and dating. This, it appears, was rare at the time.
However, Mahavamsa is not a political history, though that is the popular perception of the Mahavamsa. It is a religious history. It was written to record the introduction and entrenchment of Buddhism in the country. Other Buddhist countries, such as Cambodia, Burma and Thailand value the Mahavamsa for this reason. They held copies of the Mahavamsa and used events from it in their temple frescoes.
But Mahavamsa is also an important reference source for reconstructing the political history of Sri Lanka. Political and social facts are included in the Mahavamsa narrative when describing religious events, and this makes the Mahavamsa important for historians. This tradition of history writing, beginning with the earlier Sihala Attakatha and Dipawamsa, it is suggested, started in Sri Lanka in 2nd or 3rd BC.
Today, the Mahavamsa has become a major source of historical information, not only for dating kings, temples and reservoirs, but also for reconstructing ancient Sinhala society. The fact that Kuveni was seated beside a pond, spinning thread has been used to indicate that there was water management and textiles long before Vijaya arrived. Dutugemunu (161-137 BC) paid a salary to the workers building the Maha Thupa. This shows that money was used at the time.
Copies of the Mahavamsa have been treasured and looked after in Sri Lanka for centuries. They have been copied over and over again. The manuscripts were held in temple libraries because the subject of the Mahavamsa was the entrenchment of Buddhism in Sri Lanka.
The Mahavamsa manuscripts did not pop up suddenly during British rule as people seem to think. The British did not ‘discover’ the Mahavamsa. It was there. When the British administration started to take in interest in the history of the island, the sangha would have directed them to the Mahavamsa, in the same way that they directed HCP Bell to the ruins in Anuradhapura and the Sigiriya frescoes. HCP Bell did not discover those either.
The British administrators saw the value of the Mahavamsa and copies were sent to libraries abroad. The Bodleian library, Oxford has a well preserved Mahavamsa manuscript, taken from Mulkirigala, which Turner used for his translation. Cambridge has two Mahavamsa manuscripts. The two copies at India Office library, and the copy in East India Library are probably in the British Library today. The Royal Library, Copenhagen, has a copy, consisting of 129 sheets, 12 lines to a leaf, written in good handwriting.
In Sri Lanka there are several copies of the Mahavamsa in the Colombo Museum Library. One copy, known as the ‘Cambodian Mahavamsa ‘is in Cambodian script. University of Peradeniya has at least three copies.
It is interesting to note that the Mahavamsa was known to the Sinhala elite and some had copies in their private libraries. The Historical Manuscripts Commission of the 1930s said in its first report that five copies of the Mahavamsa and a 19th century copy of the Dipawamsa were found in private collections.
The temple libraries had many copies of the Mahavamsa. some were of very high quality. Wilhelm Geiger had looked at the copies held at Mahamanthinda Pirivena, Matara and Mulkirigala vihara. Asgiriya, Nagolla Vihara and Watagedera Sudarmarama Potgul vihara, Matara, are three of the many libraries that held copies of the Mahavamsa.
Sirancee Gunawardene examined the copy at Mahamanthinda Pirivena, Matara, very closely. She says that it is a very old manuscript. According to its colophon the manuscript was first copied 400 years ago. It is in very good state of preservation. It has 232 folios. Each 50 cm long 6.25 wide. Nine lines on each side, in Pali metric verse.
The writer of the manuscripts said that his version was an improvement on the copy. He wrote, I will recite the Mahavamsa which was compiled by ancient sages. [their version] was too long and had many repetitions. This version is free from such faults, easy to understand and remember. It is handed down from tradition, for arousing serene joy and emotion’ .
The Mahamanthinda manuscript records the continuous history of 23 dynasties from 543 BC to 1758 AD. It refers to the principle of hereditary monarchy as 39 eldest sons of reining monarch succeeded their fathers to the throne. It highlights the fact that fifteen reigned only for one year, 34 for less than four years, 22 kings were murdered by their successors, 6 were killed during battles, 4 committee suicide, 11 were dethroned.
Mahawansa as a World Heritage document
An ola manuscript of the Mahavamsa, held in the Main Library of the University of Peradeniya has been recognized by UNESCO as a part of World Heritage. UNESCO announced In 2023 that it has included the Mahavamsa” as one of the 64 items of documentary heritage inscribed in the UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register for 2023. The manuscript is dated to the early 19 century.
The certificate declaring the Mahawansa as a world heritage document was handed to Chancellor of Peradeniya University by UNESCO Director General, who visited the University in 2024 specially to do so. She also unveiled a plaque marking the declaration
The story began much earlier. The National Library of Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Buddha Sasana had jointly appointed a 6-member committee headed by Prof Malani Endagamage, to find the best preserved copy of the Mahavamsa in Sri Lanka. This would have been in 2000 or so. For two years, this team had examined copies from over 100 temples nation wide.
Temples around the country yielded copies, crumbling to well-preserved, reported Sunday Times. There was one from the Ridi Vihara that almost made the cut, but four other copies were short listed. One from the Dalada Maligawa, Kandy and three manuscripts from the Main Library of the University of Peradeniya. Three academics from the University’s History Department, Professors K.M. Rohitha Dasanayaka, Mahinda Somathilake and U.S.Y. Sahan Mahesh examined the three Peradeniya manuscripts
Dasanayaka said, We poured over the copies together, and it became clear that one copy stood out. While the other two had numerous inconsistencies, this one, written in a curvy hand, was neat and beautiful. After more than two centuries, the manuscript was still very attractive, with a ‘flaming cinnamon orange’ cover and elegant lettering.
The first section of the manuscript ends with Mahasen (274–301 AD), written by the monk Mahanama. The second part ends at 1815. The author is given as Ven. Thibbotuwawe Buddharakkhita but he was dead by 1815. The final part was probably done by an acolyte. He has done a very neat job, seamlessly adding his bit, concluded Dasanayake.
This manuscript was acquired by the Library of University of Peradeniya when K. D. Somadasa, was the Librarian (1964 – 1970). It is held in the Main Library and its Accession Number is 277587.
The unique ola manuscript. Pix by Indika Handuwala ( Sunday Times)
National Library & Documentation Services Board of Sri Lanka, which administers the National Library of Sri Lanka submitted a nomination to UNESCO on behalf of this manuscript. The National Library acts as the focal point of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme for Sri Lanka. UNESCO responded positively to the application.
UNESCO said the Mahavamsa was recognized as one of the world’s longest unbroken historical accounts, presenting Sri Lanka’s history in a chronological order from the 6th century BCE. The authenticity of the facts provided in the document has been confirmed through archaeological research conducted in Sri Lanka and India.
It is an important historical source in South Asia, said UNESCO. It was the first of its kind in South Asia, initiating a mature historiographical tradition. It has contributed singularly to the identity of Emperor Asoka in Indian history. The existence of a number of manuscripts of the Mahavamsa in several countries as well as the transliteration and translation of the text to several Southeast Asian and European languages stand testimony to its immense historical, cultural, literal, linguistic and scholarly values, . UNESCO press release said.
Further, UNESCO found that this manuscript was correctly conserved at the University Library. The university and its library maintained high standards in safeguarding the palm-leaf manuscripts, preventing deterioration, declared UNESCO. (continued)
The Animal Welfare Bill proposed by the Law Commission in 2006 (and verbatim reproduced in the Private Members Bill tabled by Ven. Athureliya Rathana Thera, in Parliament, in October 2010) has been hijacked by the Meat Trade and its collaborators and converted into an Animal Welfare Bill (2022) protecting not the innocent animals but the interests of the Poultry and Meat trade, and those who use live Animals in totally unnecessary experiments despite the availability of viable non-violent and harmless suitable alternatives.
The Animal Welfare Bill (2006) introduced a robust legal framework and powers for protecting all animals. It was destined to become an International Gold Standard at least for countries in Asia. How we treat animals, and the legislation we must have to govern animal welfare, is a hallmark of a civilized society. Animals have always enjoyed a high priority status in our pre-colonial civilization running for over 2, 500 years. That has always been a source of pride for this nation and drew a lot of respect from the neighbouring countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
In ancient times the inhabitants of Sri Lanka i.e., the Buddhist Sinhalese, were called the ‘Arya Vamsa’ (people of noble character) because of our caring and compassionate attitudes towards non–human living beings. This hallowed tradition should be continued. Today, we should be constantly looking to improve and refine our legislation in the area of animal welfare. It is a moral duty. The Animal Welfare Bill of Sri Lanka (2022) with its inhumane and draconian amendments enshrines ‘Cruelty’ within a facade of a legal framework. It is a retrograde step. A slur on Sri Lanka’s image. It must not be enacted in Parliament.
Mr. Senaka Weeraratna LLB (Ceylon), LLM (Monash), Barrister and Solicitor (Victoria), Attorney-at-Law, Former Honorary Legal Consultant to the Sri Lanka Law Commission on Animal Welfare Legislation (2000 – 2006)
Drafted first draft of the Animal Welfare Bill for Members of the Law Commission and steered the drafting process until its finalization in 2006
The renewed call by India’s High Commissioner to fast-track a land bridge between Sri Lanka and India has reignited an important national debate.
There are serious concerns inside Sri Lanka, even hinted in public reactions and past debates:
1. Sovereignty & security concerns
Fear of uncontrolled movement of people and goods
Customs, immigration, and law enforcement challenges
2. Economic imbalance
Risk Sri Lanka becomes:
A satellite economy
Or overwhelmed by Indian labour and goods
3. Social & political resistance
Historically, Sri Lankan leaders have rejected or delayed the idea due to public opposition
The proposal to physically connect the two countries across the Palk Strait is undoubtedly bold, transformative, and economically attractive at first glance. However, Sri Lanka must approach this proposition with strategic clarity rather than emotional enthusiasm.
There is no doubt that Sri Lanka stands to benefit from deeper economic engagement with India. As our largest trading partner, a leading investor, and the primary source of tourists, India already plays a critical role in our economy. Enhanced connectivity—whether through trade, energy, or logistics—can accelerate growth and bring much-needed investment.
But the key question is not whether Sri Lanka should integrate with India. The real question is how.
A fixed land bridge fundamentally alters the nature of connectivity. Unlike maritime links, which Sri Lanka has historically leveraged to its advantage, a physical bridge removes the natural buffer provided by the sea. It creates a permanent, high-capacity corridor that may expose Sri Lanka to economic, social, and political pressures that are difficult to manage.
The asymmetry between the two nations cannot be ignored. India, with its vast population and industrial base, could easily overwhelm local industries if adequate safeguards are not in place. A land link may also complicate border control, increase regulatory challenges, and heighten concerns over uncontrolled movement of goods and people.
More importantly, the political dimension must be carefully considered. Regional dynamics, particularly in Tamil Nadu, have historically influenced Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. During election cycles, external political pressures can intensify. A direct land connection could amplify these dynamics, reducing Sri Lanka’s strategic insulation and increasing its vulnerability.
Recent results of Tamil Nadu election should be carefully considered
This does not mean Sri Lanka should reject connectivity with India. On the contrary, the country should actively pursue deeper integration—but through a model that preserves control and flexibility.
A sea-based connectivity framework offers a more balanced alternative. Strengthening ferry services, Ro-Ro shipping, and energy linkages can deliver many of the same economic benefits without the irreversible consequences of a land bridge. In this context, the development of Trincomalee as a regional energy and industrial hub becomes critically important. Positioned strategically, Trincomalee can serve as a controlled gateway for India–Sri Lanka economic cooperation, enabling trade, investment, and energy security while maintaining national autonomy.
Sri Lanka’s long-term strength lies in its maritime identity. Located along one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, the island has the potential to become a leading logistics, marine services, and industrial hub. Any decision that shifts focus away from this natural advantage must be carefully evaluated.
The proposed land bridge is not merely an infrastructure project. It is a strategic choice that will shape Sri Lanka’s economic model, geopolitical alignment, and national security framework for decades to come.
Therefore, the way forward is clear: Sri Lanka should not rush into a decision. Instead, it should prioritise controlled, phased, and sea-based integration with India, anchored around the development of Trincomalee and other maritime assets
Thus is why Trincomalee marine and offshore development is more important than road link
Connectivity is essential. But it must be designed in a way that strengthens—not compromises—Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, resilience, and long-term strategic interests.
On an annual basis, this equals around $1.04 trillion a year. It’s higher than America’s entire 2025 defence budget, which stood at roughly $839 billion before the current conflict, per the Congressional Budget Office (CBO, 2025 baseline). In effect, the US now pays nearly $3 billion per day just to service existing debt. When such levels become unsustainable under peacetime budgets, war increasingly serves as an instrument to justify further borrowing.
Interest-based debt doesn’t just fund wars it structurally requires them. When debt grows faster than production, the economy must always find new areas to absorb that excess borrowing.
The interest trap: How compound debt forces perpetual growth
Modern financial systems are built on compound interest debts that grow continuously even without new productivity. To visualise this, consider a simple scenario: if the US borrows $200 billion at 4% interest to finance a war, the annual interest bill alone is $8 billion. Over 30 years, total repayments have risen to around $440 billion, more than doubling the original loan. This exponential expansion echoes what Albert Einstein famously described when he referred to compound interest as the eighth wonder of the world”, highlighting its extraordinary power to generate growth far beyond what seems naturally possible.
The alleged suicide of an Assistant Director in the Treasury, linked to the US $2.2 million cyber fraud, has ignited a storm of conspiracy theories. For more than two weeks these theories have circulated widely in the public domain, amplified daily by social media and reinforced by criticisms from opposition political parties.
The autopsy or the judicial postmortem examination, conducted by four regional” Judicial Medical Officers (JMOs), reportedly handpicked by ruling party panjandrums, has only deepened suspicion. Opposition politicians and social media activists allege that all four JMOs are either JVP cadres or NPP sympathizers. The panel members submitted their report within 24 hours, as they were guided by the divine wisdom of Lord Ganesh (Ganadevi Nuwana), who bestowed upon them his intelligence. In other words, they are the children of Greek Goddess Athena who judged a weaving contest in the myth, weaving a story to please their masters. Serious doubts have been raised regarding their qualifications, training and experience. Rather than quelling doubts, their findings have poured fuel on the fire. They concluded that the injuries were self-inflicted and the death was due to suicide. Majority of the people have outrightly rejected the story, claiming it violates basic principles of forensic medicine.
Against this backdrop, Shiral Lakthilake, Attorney-at-Law, former Yahapalanist and NGO bigwig, a member of Dinana Dakuna” (Winning Right), at a press briefing called for a psychological autopsy. According to a news item he argued that while forensic medical officers declared the death a suicide, a psychological autopsy could provide deeper insight into the deceased’s mental state and circumstances.
Calling for a psychological autopsy instead of demanding a fresh physical autopsy by internationally recognized forensic experts, at this juncture appears illogical, an exercise more academic and cosmetic than practical. This writer views this in the prevailing political climate as a theoretical diversionary tactic, – an attempt to deflect mounting opposition pressure on the government. If Sri Lanka lacks the necessary expertise to conduct a physical autopsy, he should suggest inviting specialists from abroad.
In my view, this proposal is nothing more than an attempt to wrest attention from the FreeLawyers” – water down their achievements – who first exposed the scandal and who continue to wage an unyielding struggle against the Minister of Finance, Secretary- Finance, Governor of the Central Bank and other power-holders. This amplifies the contrast between the opportunism of the proposal and the principled stand of the Free Lawyers”.
Readers are reminded that in this situation, we are ready to camp even with the devil rather than with the peddlers of impractical theories.
Yet most of the public remains unfamiliar with the very concept of a psychological autopsy. Colleagues, friends, and readers have asked us to explain what it means. I must clarify: I am neither a lawyer, nor a medical professional, nor a psychoanalyst, nor even a social worker with experience in suicide prevention. My reflections here are based on common knowledge and reasoning beyond my usual realm of writing. To ensure a more scientific perspective, to gain insights in its theoretical aspects and methodology I consulted AI to shape this discussion. I found that the methodologies are largely similar to those employed in social science research, an area in which I possess not only familiarity, but teaching and practical experience.
What is a Psychological Autopsy?
A psychological autopsy is a post‑mortem method used to recreate the mental state, behaviour, and conditions of a deceased person prior to the death. It is often used in cases where the cause of death is uncertain, usually to clarify whether the death was suicide, accidental, or otherwise or where suicide is suspected but not established conclusively. It is not a physical examination of the body as the term denotes. It is conducted afterthe person has died, by gathering information from records and interviews with relatives, friends, and I add with peers, subordinates and superiors in the organization the deceased worked or in rather complex cases with outside stakeholders. So, it drastically differs from a medical autopsy.
The goal of a psychological autopsy is to reconstruct the psychological profile of the deceased, offering insight into whythe death occurred.
In Sri Lanka, however, the concept remains largely unfamiliar. It is not an alternative to a disputed physical autopsy – cannot replace forensic medicine. The public has little knowledge of its scope, methodology, benefits or limitations. It can only complement a physical autopsy by addressing the human and psychological dimensions of death.
It is not on record that Sri Lanka has conducted psychological autopsy studies, except investigating suicides (2008). This study concluded that alcohol abuse and domestic violence were major contributing factors of suicides
The writer remembers a medical doctor who devoted his research to examine the patterns and circumstances of drowning deaths in Sri Lanka.
This writer when he was writing his award-winning novel Bandara Meroo Un” (2014), studied these drowning patterns. The protagonist of the novel – an internationally renowned artist- dies mysteriously drowning in the River Mahaveli. The Judicial Medical Officer, who himself a researcher in drowning deaths, who conducts the autopsy makes a valiant attempt to trace a copy of a novel written by the artist, now long out of print. His search succeeds with the aid of the mysterious Dark Lady, the muse who inspired the artist to complete the second part of that work.
Whether this search amounts to a psychological autopsy; whether it is forensic inquiry or literary reconstruction or the recovery of artistic memory remains uncertain.
Findings and conclusions of a psychological autopsy can be easily dismissed much like those of any other social science research, underscoring the perceived lack of reliability of sources, methodologies employed, reporting etc. interviewees forgetting or misinterpreting events, not disclosing sensitive information.
Fundamental Questions Surrounding a Psychological Autopsy as Raised by a Non-expert
The proposal to conduct a psychological autopsy raises more questions than answers. Before such an exercise can be taken seriously, several fundamental issues must be addressed:
Who will conduct it? Do the proposed investigators possess the necessary qualifications, expertise, and experience in forensic psychology and psychiatry?
Will the authorities permit it? Will the President, Minister of Finance, Secretary, and others in the highest echelons of power allow such an inquiry to proceed without interference?
Access to evidence: Will investigators be granted permission to interview colleagues, subordinates and superiors at the workplace, examine diaries, letters, and digital communications, and reconstruct the deceased’s psychological profile?
Timeframe: How long will such an investigation take, and will it be conducted urgently?
Reporting: To whom will the findings be presented—Parliament, the judiciary, or the public?
Impact: What will be the outcome? Will it challenge the conclusions of the physical autopsy already conducted?
Possibility of alternative conclusions: Could it establish that the death was not suicide but homicide? If so, who are the culprits, and how will they be identified and brought to justice?
These questions highlight the complexity of introducing a psychological autopsy into a politically charged environment. Without clear answers, the exercise risks becoming yet another diversion rather than a credible route to seek truth.
Assumptions and Constraints
Let us assume, for argument’s sake, that the family of the deceased grants full cooperation: allowing investigators to interview closest relatives and friends, providing access to his medical records, mental illness, drugs taken, suicide notes, diaries, letters, social media content, and disclosing whether he ever displayed suicidal tendencies. They might divulge details of his behavioral patterns, temperament, emotional state, attitudes, perceptions, religiosity, ritualistic habits, relationships, conflicts, stresses, use of harmful implements, or any prior suicide attempts.
Already it was revealed that the deceased maintained a betel cultivation (additional income as well as a hobby, nursing the plants); was planning to visit Dalada Maligawa following day; a devoted husband and father.
Relatives and friends may intentionally or unintentionally forget or misinterpret events.
Sensitive information about the deceased will not be disclosed.
Yet the critical obstacle lies elsewhere. The government may not permit such cooperation. Instead, inducements could be offered – promises of promotion to the spouse, foreign education for the children, or even relocation of the entire family abroad. Such tactics would effectively silence the family, preventing investigators from accessing the very evidence required to reconstruct the deceased’s psychological profile.
Judicial Acceptance and Possible Consequences
Even if a psychological autopsy were to be conducted, another critical question arises: will the judiciary accept such a report as credible evidence?The courts would need to determine whether its methodology meets legal standards and whether it can stand alongside – or in contradiction to the physical autopsy already performed.
If the psychological autopsy were to suggest that the death was not suicide but homicide, the implications would be heavy. The judiciary would then be compelled to treat the case as murder. This could trigger:
Reopening of investigations into the circumstances of death.
Summoning of witnesses and examination of workplace colleagues, family members, and associates.
Identification of suspects based on behavioral and circumstantial evidence.
Criminal proceedings against those implicated, with charges ranging from conspiracy to homicide.
In short, acceptance of such a report could overturn the official narrative, challenge the government’s position, and set in motion a legal process aimed at uncovering the culprits and bringing them to justice.
Unlikelihood of Judicial Action
Yet it is highly improbable that such a course of action will materialize in Sri Lanka. The conduct of the police and the CID, often functioning as appendages of the government, coupled with interference in the judiciary, and the use of promotions, diplomatic postings, and other inducements as instruments of control, make genuine accountability elusive. The atmosphere is further tarnished by the rhetoric bellowed by the President and senior party members at the recently concluded May Day rallies, which revealed more rage than commitment to transparency.
Silence at the Rallies and Funeral
What is most striking is the silence. At the May Day rallies, not a single speaker mentioned the death of the Treasury official, nor did anyone extend condolences to his grieving family. It later emerged that the deceased was regarded as a staunch JVP/Malima supporter. Yet, despite this, no representative of the governing party, not even a local politician was present at the funeral. The absence spoke louder than words, underscoring both the political uneasiness surrounding the case and the deliberate distancing of the ruling establishment from one of their own. In the Parliament Ministers and MPs of the ruling party categorically deny that the wife of the deceased has requested an autopsy on grounds of suspicion, despite the letter sent to the Magistrate by the Secretary, Health, confirming her request.
Conclusion: Impossibility of Truth-seeking in the Current Climate
This silence, combined with the government’s tendency to suppress freedom of expression, intimidation, threatening opposition politicians and social media activists, CID investigations, make the prospect of a genuine psychological autopsy unlikely. In the present context, truth-seeking is subordinated to political expediency. There is a widening gulf between public opinion and official narratives, leaving suspicions of an autocratic rule in near future, with imprisonment of opponents, death to diehards.
To sum, this proposal is more theoretical than practical under current conditions.
The Right (Dakuna) headed by JVP/NPP is already enthroned in power, (Dakuna Denatama Dina Etha”) and another Dakuna cannot seize or usurp power in the present context. To ignore this reality is to misread the political landscape entirely.
The reported move by the Criminal Investigation Department Sri Lanka to obtain a statement from Asad Maulana living overseas since 2022, in connection with allegations involving Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay, raises several questions.
Media reports indicate that the CID’s actions are linked to a complaint filed by Father Rohan based on claims made by Asad Maulana in the Channel 4 Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings: Dispatches.
Several issues remain unaddressed:
Why did Maulana not appear before domestic commissions or parliamentary committees to officially state his claims post-attacks
Why did he not file any formal police complaint in Sri Lanka in February 2018 itself
Even the Fort Magistrate had questioned why he did not come to Sri Lanka to record a statement
This then necessitates to ask:
On what legal and procedural basis is public funds being used for investigative officers to travel overseas without exhausting domestic mechanisms first?
Let us make clear that a witness who has made detailed public allegations in a fixed forum cannot freely alter those statements without undermining their own credibility.
Fixed Public Record Cannot Be Rewritten
Asad Maulana’s September 2023 testimony is not private or informal.
It was:
Broadcast internationally via Channel 4
Framed as extraordinary testimony”
Presented as evidence of alleged State complicity
Once placed in the public domain, such statements become:
A fixed narrative record
A basis for investigative reliance
A benchmark against which any later statement will be tested
Therefore:
Asad Maulana cannot materially revise or contradict claims made in 2023. While all claims require to be independently corroborated.
Under the Evidence Ordinance (Sri Lanka), prior inconsistent statements may be used to impeach the credibility of a witness in judicial proceedings.
Furthermore – where a witness provides detailed, time-specific allegations in a public forum, any subsequent material deviation from those claims must be explained and supported by objective evidence.
Accordingly, while investigative authorities may record supplementary statements, such statements cannot be selectively revised in a manner that undermines earlier sworn or publicly recorded narratives without affecting its credibility.
Publicly broadcast allegations do not, by themselves, substitute for judicially tested evidence in a court of law.
The burden of proof rests on the party making the allegation.
Serious allegations of this magnitude require more than assertions or media hype.
If materially contradicted by objective evidence or judicial findings, such statements may become vulnerable to challenge during cross-examination for reliability & credibility.
Scope of Allegations Made in the Documentary
Maulana asserts:
A meeting in February 2018
Arranged on request of Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan (Pillayan)
Between:
Then Brig. Suresh Sallay
Zahran Hashim
At a coconut estate
Duration: approximately three hours
He remained outside during the meeting
He further alleges:
Sallay stated to him that an unsafe situation was needed” for political transition
He facilitated legal and financial assistance to extremist-linked detainees
He received instructions from Sallay on Easter morning to pick up a suspected attacker
This raises the question – Is Asad a whistleblower or an accomplice given his role as facilitator and participant. If so he is liable under criminal law as an accomplice.
Untested one-sided allegations made in public or media platforms, if inaccurate or materially misleading may also expose Asad to legal consequences including defamation – given his allegation by name without judicial determination.
If Maulana possessed knowledge of a mass-casualty attack in advance, why did he not alert any authority, and how should such silence be interpreted?
All claims must be evaluated against the findings of prior investigations, international investigations, law enforcement inquiries & commissions which clearly determined operational negligence & lack of communications across the security apparatus.
Internal Contradictions and Evidentiary Gaps
Several inconsistencies arise when the claims are assessed against known facts:
Prior Knowledge Claim – Contradicts with Fr. Cyril Gamini
If Zahran Hashim and Sallay were already known to each other (as suggested in the 2021 zoom by Fr. Cyril Gamini), there was no requirement for Maulana to function as an intermediary to introduce Sallay to Zaharan, yet the Cardinal immediately congratulated the C4 documentary with a 3 page letter.
Physical Presence Claim – Contradicts with Overseas Records
Sallay’s location at the time is contested.
He was overseas. This can be verified through:
Travel records
Immigration data
Call data records, tower location mapping, and international routing logs can objectively confirm or refute the existence of alleged communications.
Building Existence Issue
If the alleged meeting occurred in February 2018:
Evidence suggests there was no building constructed in February 2018. The building was constructing in Aug-Sept 2018. This raises the question how would a fugitive like Zaharan hold a 3 hour meeting in the open & how can Maulana be stationed outside the building if there was no such building in February 2018.
Participation Paradox
Maulana claims:
He facilitated the meeting
Yet remained outside for the duration
This raises a fundamental question:
How does a non-participant claim detailed knowledge of a three-hour operational discussion if he was kept outside and why would they tell him of the plan if he was not invited to the discussion?
What CID must first establish is whether claims made by Maulana is based on
Direct knowledge
Inference / assumption
Subsequent interpretation
Legal Exposure within his Own Statement
Maulana also claims:
Facilitation of financial assistance
Legal support for detainees linked to extremist elements
If true, these actions may:
Place him under complicity rather than as a witness
Create self-incriminating implications under criminal law principles
If he knew in February 2018 of such a plan – why did he remain silent if he was concerned about the lives of innocent people?
This raises a critical legal contradiction:
A person claiming involvement in facilitating activities linked to extremists cannot simultaneously occupy a neutral whistleblower” position without judicial scrutiny.
Credibility Questions Arising from Conduct
Why did Maulana fail to come forward immediately in February 2018 or after the attacks in 2019 if he possessed such critical knowledge?
Why were these allegations made only in 2023, four years after the attacks and one year after leaving Sri Lanka?
If his claims were genuine and urgent, what explains the delay in disclosure?
Why did he choose a foreign private media platform instead of first making a formal complaint to law enforcement authorities?
Why did he avoid appearing before multiple domestic commissions that were specifically appointed to investigate the attacks?
If he claims Pillayan first suggested his involvement, why has he not formally incriminated Pillayan through official legal channels?
Has any independent investigative body verified his alleged presence at the claimed meeting location?
Has he provided any documentary, electronic, or witness corroboration to support his claims beyond his own statement?
What personal, legal, or asylum-related incentives, if any, may have influenced the timing and content of these disclosures?
Has any benefit, protection, or status been granted or sought in exchange for such testimony?
Delayed disclosure of critical information may affect reliability, particularly where contemporaneous reporting would have been reasonably expected.
Legal Reality of Overseas Statements
Even if the CID records a statement abroad:
It remains investigative material, not judicial proof
It cannot replace in-court testimony
It is subject to strict admissibility rules
It must be tested through cross-examination if relied upon in court
Therefore:
An overseas statement cannot independently establish guilt or conspiracy even if used as negative publicity against the accused.
Institutional and Financial Accountability Question
What legal authorisation was granted for overseas engagement – how many officials travelled and what is the cost of this overseas travel (flight, hotels, transport & other incidentals)?
Why were domestic judicial mechanisms not prioritised first – if so, where is the proof?
On what basis is taxpayer-funded investigative travel justified – if a complaint filed without evidence results in investigators traveling abroad – how many such complaints will get filed taking this as a precedent?
Why is investigative focus being directed primarily at one individual based on a single witness narrative, while other lines of inquiry supported by prior investigations remain secondary?
Questions
The case ultimately turns on verifiable questions:
Did Maulana meet Sallay in February 2018 — yes or no?
Was the meeting arranged on Pillayan’s request — yes or no?
Was Sallay in Sri Lanka at the time — yes or no?
Did any physical structure exist at the claimed location during that period — yes or no?
Was Maulana party to the discussion between Zaharan & Sallay? Yes or no?
If no, how did he know of the plan? If he was not involved why would they tell of their plan?
Legal Authority & Jurisdiction
Under what legal provision is the CID travelling overseas to record a statement from Asad Maulana?
Was prior approval obtained from a Sri Lankan court before initiating overseas evidence collection?
Has an arrest warrant or Interpol notice been issued against Asad Maulana, or is he currently treated as a witness?
If he is a suspect in any pending case, why has extradition not been formally pursued through the legal channels in the nation he is now living in?
Evidentiary Basis
What specific new material prompted the CID to seek a fresh statement now, four years after the events?
Is the CID treating Maulana’s Channel 4 testimony as evidence, intelligence, or allegation?
Has any part of his 2023 televised statement been independently verified before this overseas engagement?
What corroborative evidence exists to support or contradict his claims regarding alleged meetings or instructions?
Consistency of Narrative
How does the CID reconcile any new statement with Maulana’s previously broadcast testimony in the Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings: Dispatches?
Will inconsistencies between his earlier public statements and any new statement be formally recorded and assessed?
If material contradictions arise, will the CID treat this as an issue of credibility or potential fabrication?
Witness vs Suspect Status
What is the official status of Asad Maulana in ongoing investigations — witness, suspect, or person of interest?
If he is treated as a witness, how does the CID address allegations that he may have facilitated meetings involving extremist-linked individuals?
At what point does a witness providing detailed operational claims become subject to investigation as a potential accomplice?
Channel 4 Dependency Issue
Why is a foreign documentary being used as a triggering basis for active CID investigative action?
Has the CID independently verified the claims made in the Channel 4 programme before acting upon them?
Did CID officials consider that Channel 4’s production relied heavily on a single principal witness?
What is the CID stand on the Imam Committee findings specifically appointed to look into Channel 4.
Can the CID reject this Govt commissioned report?
Chain of Custody & Admissibility
If a statement is recorded in France, under what legal framework will it be admissible in Sri Lankan courts under the Evidence Ordinance (Sri Lanka)?
Will the statement be recorded under oath, and will it be subject to cross-examination rights?
How will the CID ensure that the statement is not later challenged as hearsay or untested testimony?
Prior Domestic Proceedings
Why was Maulana not compelled earlier to give evidence before domestic commissions or parliamentary inquiries?
Were previous attempts made to secure his testimony while he was still within Sri Lanka?
If not, what changed now that justifies overseas engagement?
Financial & Administrative Accountability
What is the estimated cost of the CID overseas mission, and who approved it?
Was Cabinet-level or judicial approval required before deploying officers abroad?
How is taxpayer expenditure being justified for what appears to be a follow-up statement rather than new evidence?
Consistency with Other Cases
In cases involving other suspects or witnesses, is overseas evidence collection standard practice?
If not, what makes this case exceptional compared to other major criminal investigations?
Given that Maulana’s claims involve alleged high-level coordination, why is the CID prioritising statement collection abroad instead of presenting independently verified evidence before a court of law?
These are not political questions—they test the authenticity of the claims.
The Easter Sunday tragedy demands rigorous truth-seeking, not narrative reconstruction.
However:
When a single witness statement becomes the foundation for international allegations of state complicity, the evidentiary burden must rise—not fall.
Maulana’s 2023 testimony now forms a fixed public record.
It cannot be casually revised without consequence.
And it cannot substitute for:
corroborated evidence
judicial testing
or cross-examined proof
The central legal test is not whether an allegation is repeated, but whether it is independently corroborated, consistent, and capable of withstanding cross-examination in a court of law.
Ultimately:
Allegations of this magnitude must stand on evidence, not assertion—and evidence must survive contradiction, not depend on repetition.
At Tissa Viharaya, Jaffna, on the days significant to the Buddhists, the unruly individuals of another faith gather at its gates and create disruptive scenery disturbing the religious environment. This is the ugly truth the Buddhists devotees must face regularly. Such an unenviable situation was prevailing for the last one year.
History of Tissa viharya goes back to BC 307 when King Devanampiyatissa was the ruler of Sri Lanka. He became a Buddhist after listening to Ven Mahinda thero. After embracing Buddhism, the King built several temples and in Nagadeepa,-name used for Jaffna peninsula- according to Mahawamsa Jambukola,Tissa viharya and Pachnaramaya were built during the period
What is the reason behind the puerile behaviour in the proximity of such a reputed place of Buddhism? Some of the agitators are political agents who are keen on creating tensions and expecting angry reactions from the devotees so that their agenda can be activated to create divisions within the community of Sri Lankans to attract the attention of public. Some participants are said to be ‘the owners’ of the land occupied by the temple and they want to canvass their grievances and force the authorities to handover the land back to them.
While the law enforcement authorities are ignoring this act of public nuisance which can lead to a serious breach of peace and possible physical damages to the buildings of the temple, there is a simple and a practical method of settlement of this unruly situation
If some of the agitators claim the temple has by force occupied their land, the best method of recovery would be to seek legal remedy by submitting their deeds to the court of law and requesting settlement. So far, no one has sought this clear and simple method. But we have heard from the temple management that they are in possession of valid deed for the land occupied by them and if the other party/parties come before the courts, they will prove that the temple is built on a legally owned land.
Recently. when the temple land was surveyed too, the intruders came in and created trouble and stopped the related work which was useful to the settlement of this vexed issue.
The country is watching the steps taken by the Government and the law enforcement authorities prompt intervention with interest as the religious freedom of the Buddhists too are important to foster a harmony among the Sri Lankans.
Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) played a crucial and vocal role in 1963 in bringing international attention to the repression of Buddhists in South Vietnam under the Catholic-led regime of Ngo Dinh Diem. Sinhala Buddhist leaders, monks and laity, public organizations, and the government, led by Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, acted as a primary international voice advocating for the rights of Vietnamese Buddhists during the Buddhist Crisis.
Introduction
HE Mr. To Lam, the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, along with a high-level Vietnamese delegation, will pay a state visit to Sri Lanka from May 7-8, 2026.
The visit carries a particularly important diplomatic message, reflecting Vietnam’s respect and high regard for Sri Lanka. This is the highest-level visit by any Vietnamese leader to Sri Lanka since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1970.
Ho Chi Minh
In earlier times, Ho Chi Minh, the revolutionary leader and founder of modern Vietnam, visited Ceylon three times between 1911, 1928 and 1946 on Journeys related to seeking independence for Vietnam. These visits, particularly the 1928 stop, are honored today as key moments in building the friendship between Vietnam and Sri Lanka, featuring a statue of him in Colombo and a “Vietnam-Ho Chi Minh space” at the Colombo Public Library.
Key Reminders of Visits:
Statue: A statue honoring Ho Chi Minh was inaugurated in Colombo in 2013.
Commemorative Stamp: A stamp collection featuring him was issued in 2014.
Literary Work: His collection “Prison Diary” was translated into the Sinhala language.
Library Space: A dedicated space in the Colombo Public Library holds publications related to his life
The Buddhist Crisis in South Vietnam – the origins
· The Buddhist Crisis was ignited by a ban on flying the Buddhist flag on Vesak, (Phat Dan, the birthday of Gautama Buddha) which saw nine unarmed Buddhist protestors killed on the streets in Huế by the army on May 8, 1963.
· This was not an isolated incident in the persecution of Buddhists in Vietnam since Ngo Dinh Diem (Catholic) took power in 1954. It was a regular feature. However, it was the ‘Straw that broke the Camel’s Back’, using a cliché. It led to major protests and civil disobedience among the country’s Buddhist population.
· Ven. Thích Quảng Đức (1897–1963)
· Ven. Quang Duc, along with several other monks, demanded that Diem submit to their five-point -plan for equality. All they were asking for was freedom to fly the Buddhist flag, religious equality between Buddhists and Catholics, compensation for the victims’ families, an end to arbitrary arrests, and punishment for the officials responsible. Although Diem said he would listen to them upon meeting with the Buddhist delegation, he rejected the Buddhist grievances, insisting that none of this discrimination” was happening.
· The photo taken by Associated Press Photographer Malcolm Browne of Ven. Quang Duc self-immolating stunned the world. It had such a strong impact on the then U.S. President John F. Kennedy, though prima facie an ardent Diem supporter, was shocked. He was quoted as saying: No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as this one”.
· Ven. Quang Duc’s self-immolation sparked outrage and a sense of solidarity among Buddhists in Sri Lanka. His remains were later re-cremated at 4,000 degrees Celsius, but his heart did not burn and remained intact.
· Thich Quang Duc was declared and honored as a Bodhisattva in 1964.
· The last words of Thich Quang Duc before his self – immolation contained in a letter were as follows:
· Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngo Dinh Diem to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.”
Sri Lanka’s Response
Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike’s initiatives (assisted by Mr. N.Q. Dias – high profile civil Servant who served as the Permanent Secretary of Defense and External Affairs from 1960 to 1965. He was instrumental in shaping both national and foreign policy, particularly during the administration of Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike)
In late August 1963, Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike sent a two-member Ceylonese (Sinhalese) fact-finding mission to South Vietnam to investigate the Buddhist crisis therein. Mr. P. de S. Kularatne (former Principal of Ananda College) was part of the two-member mission. The other member of the team was Sir Nicholas Attygalle: A distinguished academic, surgeon, and then-Vice Chancellor of the University of Ceylon.
The mission was a bilateral initiative by the Government of Ceylon to assess the situation following the raids on Buddhist pagodas by President Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime. This specific mission arrived in Saigon on August 26, 1963.
It is often confused with a later, larger United Nations Fact-Finding Mission that visited in October 1963, which was led by Mr. R.S.S. Gunawardena and included representatives from several other countries.
Furthermore, in July 1963, Merenna Francis de Silva (M.F. de S.) Jayaratne, the newly appointed Ceylonese (Sinhalese) Ambassador to the United States, met with President John F. Kennedy to discuss the escalating Buddhist crisis in Vietnam after Mrs. Bandaranaike had written to President Kennedy on this escalating crisis.
The meeting was a high-stakes diplomatic encounter occurring during a period of severe strain between the U.S. and Ceylon:
Regional Religious Solidarity: As a representative of a predominantly Buddhist nation, Jayaratne expressed Ceylon’s deep concern over the repression of Buddhists by the U.S.-backed government of Ngo Dinh Diem.
Ceylon sought to represent the concerns of Asian Buddhist communities regarding the persecution of their counterparts in South Vietnam.
The “Hot Potato” Context: A secret White House memo from NSC official R.W. Komer described the relationship as a “hot potato”. Relations were already fragile because the U.S. had suspended aid under the Hickenlooper Amendment after Ceylon nationalized American petroleum assets.
Ceylon’s Diplomatic Pressure: While Jayaratne was seen as more “West-friendly” than the government of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, he was tasked with urging the U.S. to curb Diem’s actions. Shortly after, Ceylon successfully lobbied to have the UN appoint a fact-finding committee to investigate the crisis.
Key Sri Lankan Diplomatic Figures Involved (1961–1963)
Ceylon’s Position: Advocating for Buddhist rights internationally.
South Vietnam: The Diem regime was intensifying crackdown on Buddhists
US Position: Attempting to manage the “hot potato” of aiding a regime accused of religious persecution while fighting Communism.
Diplomatic Action at the UN: Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, recognizing the crisis, instructed Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the United Nations, R.S.S. Gunawardena, to highlight the repression of Buddhists in South Vietnam. Due to these efforts, the UN General Assembly adopted a motion on October 8, 1963, to send a fact-finding mission to South Vietnam, headed by Gunawardena.
Monastic Solidarity (Venerable Narada Thera): The renowned Sinhalese monk, Ven. Narada Maha Thera of Vajiraramaya Temple, was a key figure who made 17 journeys to Vietnam, providing spiritual strength and solidarity to local Buddhists during their most difficult times.
Public Protest and Awareness: The Bauddha Jatika Balavegaya (BJB), led by L.H. Mettananda, spearheaded public protests and rallies in Sri Lanka, including a major demonstration at Ananda College, Colombo, to mobilize support for the Vietnamese Buddhists.
Exposing the Crisis: The BJB published a Manual called ‘Catholic Action’ (written by the Secretary of BJB, Mr. Gunaseela Vithanage) distributed materials exposing the “Catholic Action” against Buddhists in Ceylon and Vietnam. This BJB publication galvanized the Buddhists of Ceylon especially after the abortive Catholic Army Officers’ Coup in January 1962. It brought global attention to the crisis and pressured the US-backed Diem government, which was eventually overthrown on November 2, 1963.
The BJB had a star-studded cast. Leading Members of the Sangha and Buddhist laity were members of the BJB who also gave evidence before the Press Commission (1963 – 1964) headed by Justice K. D. de Silva (retired Supreme Court Justice). Their main submission was extensive ‘Catholic Action’ in the Press suppressing and humiliating and sidelining Buddhist opinion. This trend continues to this day.
That is why on-line News websites such as the Lankaweb have become increasingly popular among Buddhist leaders and opinion makers, and also the Buddhist public.
Impact and Outcome
Sri Lanka’s vocal international stance and the presence of the UN fact-finding mission in Saigon added significant pressure to the Diem government. On November 2, 1963, while the mission was still in Vietnam, the Diem regime was overthrown in a military coup, effectively ending the period of intense state-sponsored religious repression.
Sri Lanka’s intervention is regarded as a significant moment of international Buddhist solidarity, directly aiding the restoration of Buddhism’s place in South Vietnam. It was a landmark in modern Buddhist diplomacy that has contributed to strengthening wide ranging links between two leading predominantly Buddhist countries, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.
Since Independence in 1948, some politicians started their campaign of Tamil Eelam as a conceptual republic via forming a party in 1949. The interesting comedy is that they did not deliberate about the concept prior to 1949 or even before independence in Feb 1948. This may indicate some kind of selfishness in the minds of the Tamil politicians. We are all propagating and shouting that Tami Eelam existed since long, however, then why did not the Cheras, Colas and the Pandians establish and declare it a republic or a state of Tamil Eelam. The propaganda initiated strongly by the diasporas in the recent years. One aspect is reflecting quite strongly in our minds, which is the Tamil diaspora have no sense of responsibility of developing the region what they call as Tamil Eelam, however, visit build expensive houses and leave. The diasporas have blown up the land price in the North. A gentleman name Raj Sivanathan wrote an important article; however, how many Tamils do read and understand the concept which was written by RS. My recommendation that Economics” as a subject could be taught up to grade 8, so that students will get a better understanding of the environment in which they live. We Tamils give prominence to Hinduism as a subject with strong focus, however, not science, economics or environmental science.
Just refer to the map we have established; The rights of the extensive area of sea will be held by TE. If at all Tamils want a republic the solution can be only approved by five major countries plus one country. (5 + 1) countries. The +1 by default is Sri Lanka. SriLanka will never ever approve a separate country to be stablished in the island. The rest of the FIVE states could be decided by you all as to which are the countries those need to come forward to approve, which will never ever happen in the next several centuries unless a major destruction occurs in the Indian Ocean and the countries. The five states are quite strong in every aspect of a republic. Wee need to know geopolitics to decide.
Therefore, as intelligent humans our politicians shall not create and stretch the difference in SL between the Tamils and Sinhalese, however, live together as SriLankans and vote for the Sri Lankan party(s). Not for Tamil RACIAL parties. MA Sumanthiran’s association with SLPP is a good move. Similarly, the others shall come forward and join the most humanistic and socialistic political party, the NPP, with AKD as the leader. This is left for the people to decide. The triumph of Tamil racial political parties can cause more damage to growth and not save the Tamils in SL. The diasporas have theoretical vision only. People like Harry Anandasangaree and Vijay Thanigasalam should be considered as jokers and no practical persons. Do not they have a sense of vision for the growth of Tamils in SL? The relative of a guy who voted to disfranchise the one million estate Tamils in SL in 1948 was campaigning to build a monument in Australia. This can only be considered as selfish. Why waste millions of dollars in waste structures. Person like Baskaran Kandiah are practical intelligent people who see vision is for the development. Some Council is trying to build a structure for Prof. Thurairajah. This is a waste, as in the early days, Tamils invested in their children to study Civil Engineering, the reason being they can earn a lot, probably through misappropriation. There was an old civil engineer in Nigeria and he was nicknamed, casual Shun”. This was because he was misappropriating money via theoretical number of casual workers. This is how the minds of the Tamils think. Hero worships some unnecessary fools. Let us be practical in the 21st century. Practically, Mahinda Rajapaksa was not a perilous racist. His development on roads, structures and electricity was equally completed within SL. It is the other Rajapaksas who misappropriated. Mahinda wanted to be a leader; hence he was quiet and let everyone misappropriate.
It is an advice that those of the leftover LTTEs shall not campaign for TE and concentrate on growth and leave the people to survive. The leftover LTTEs are cowards who ran out during the war in 2009. People like Harry Anandasangaree and Vijay Thanigasalam are self-centred selfish fools who have no interest in the Tamils in SL. The leftover LTTEs are cowards who want money to be collected for their growth.
Let Tamils be constructive, practical and complete logical reasoning before they decide, and not be bought over by the Tamil racist foolish politicians.
Since I joined Colombo Dockyard as CEO, the Deputy Finance Minister of Norway came to me requesting us to build UFAC, known as Ultra Fast Patrol Craft, similar to several aluminium crafts built for the Sri Lanka Navy.
He wanted us to finance the project, either through financing from Sri Lanka, and offered a sovereign guarantee from the Maldives.
We built them and also a special luxury vessel for the Maldivian President.
State banks, namely Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank, provided financing. It was the first time state banks funded a foreign project and made history.
Then Mr. Gasim, who was a budding politician of the Maldives and owned ships, came to me and requested financing to build two spherical LPG tanks and later oil storage tanks in Thilafushi Island (we called it Garbage Island). We later built steel landing crafts to carry garbage trucks from Malé Port to the garbage island for reclamation.
Today, that island is a modern industrial city.
Just like India needs us and vice versa, we need the Maldives to develop.
As stated before, this 2,000-island cluster of the Maldives, with the capital Malé and Hulhumalé, is a modern, thriving city.
In those days, we knew only about Maldive fish, extensively used in Malé, and today this small country is a leading exporter of tuna, out of which dried Maldive fish is made.
The victory of King Wimaladharmasuriya I at the Battle of Danture in 1594 was a defining moment that secured the independence of the Kandyan Kingdom and preserved the Buddhist identity of Sri Lanka. By annihilating the Portuguese army, he prevented the total conquest of the island and the potential suppression of Buddhism under colonial rule.
AI Overview
His actions following the victory directly revitalized the island’s religious and cultural heritage:
Establishment of the Dalada Maligawa: After consolidating power, the king brought the Sacred Tooth Relic from its hiding place in Delgamuwa to Kandy. He constructed the first two-storied Temple of the Tooth (Dalada Maligawa) near his palace, establishing Kandy as the spiritual capital and the relic as a symbol of legitimate kingship.
Revival of the Monastic Lineage: At the time of his ascension, the Buddhist monastic order had declined to the point where fully ordained monks no longer existed on the island. The king sent emissaries to Burma to bring back ordained monks, successfully re-establishing the Upasampada (higher ordination) lineage in Sri Lanka.
National Sovereignty: The victory at Danture shattered the myth of Portuguese invincibility and ensured that Kandy remained the sole independent Sinhalese kingdom, serving as a sanctuary for traditional culture and Buddhist practices for over two centuries.
King Vimaladharmasuriya I’s victory at the Battle of Danture in 1594 was a pivotal moment in Sri Lankan history, effectively halting Portuguese expansion and securing the Kandyan Kingdom’s sovereignty. By destroying the Portuguese army and protecting the Sacred Tooth Relic, he secured the center of Buddhist heritage and legitimised his rule, allowing for the construction of the first Dalada Maligawa in Kandy. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Key outcomes of this victory included:
Protection of the Sacred Tooth Relic: Following the victory, King Vimaladharmasuriya I brought the sacred Tooth Relic from Delgamuwa to Kandy, placing it in a purpose-built temple.
Securing the Kandyan Kingdom: The decisive defeat of the Portuguese army led by Pero Lopes de Sousa halted European advances into the central highlands.
Revival of Buddhism: Vimaladharmasuriya I established a foundation for the revival of Buddhist practices, including bringing ordained monks from Burma to restore the Upasampada lineage.
Political Legitimacy: By capturing and marrying Dona Catherina, he unified competing royal claims and cemented his position, enabling Kandy to act as the sole defender of Sinhalese sovereignty. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The victory ensured the continuity of the Dalada Maligawa as the spiritual heart of the Buddhist faith in Sri Lanka, as detailed on Facebook and the Sri Dalada Maligawa website.
2022 අරගලය පුපුරා යාම සඳහා ආර්ථික අර්බුදය පාවිච්චි කිරීම පිළිබඳව අදහස් දක්වමින් මහාචාර්ය ලලිතසිරි ගුණරුවන් මහතා පවසන්නේ ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ ආර්ථික අර්බුදයේ පළමු වගඋත්තර කරුවා කර ආර්ථික අර්බුදයට වගකිවයුතු සැබෑ වගඋත්තර කරුවන්ට බලයට පැමිණීමට අරගලය පාවාඩ එලුවාදැයි ප්රශ්නයක් පැන නගින බවය.