{"id":108702,"date":"2020-11-15T16:11:13","date_gmt":"2020-11-15T23:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=108702"},"modified":"2020-11-16T17:13:32","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T00:13:32","slug":"the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-c8j","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/11\/15\/the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-c8j\/","title":{"rendered":"THE POHOTTUWA GOVERNMENT OF SRI LANKA Part 2 C8J"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

This essay, which is the final\nessay of this set, summarizes the  \nreactions to the three agreements discussed, namely, ACSA, SOFA and MCC.\nAll three agreements are with the United States of America  and all three were prepared by USA, In USA to\nbenefit the USA. Of the three\nagreements, ACSA is already signed. SOFA and Millennium Challenge\nCompact are yet to be signed.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we sign these Agreements\u201d, which are formal treaties,   not    \u2018Agreements\u2019\nat all, we shall lose our independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity,\nsaid critics.  USA will make Sri Lanka a\nmilitary base and the whole country will become a colony. With our small armed\nforces Sri Lanka will not be able to get rid of the US troops if they wish to\nstay on in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

US control of Sri Lanka has become urgent since US may have to\nvacate its military base in Diego Garcia. International Court of Justice has\nruled that the occupation of Chagos Islands by USA is illegal and that Chagos\nmust be handed back to Mauritius \u2018as rapidly as possible.\u2019 Chagos Islands are\nhome to the strategic US military base of Diego Garcia.  If Chargos Islands goes back to Mauritius in\naccordance with the UN ruling then US will need an alternative base, observed analysts.\n That\nwill be Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A high profile agreement, between the US and Sri Lanka Parliament   was signed\nin September 2016 in Washington. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya and Chairman, House\nDemocracy Partnership of the U.S. House of Representatives J.Roskam signed the\nagreement on Sept 14, 2016 on behalf of Sri Lanka and the US, respectively. This\nagreement, it is known, has a bearing  \non ACSA, SOFA and MCC.  However,\nwe are not told the contents of this agreement said critics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In addition to ACSA, SOFA\nand MCC, US wants two new Acts of Parliament pushed through fast. They are the Land\nSpecial Provisions Act and the State Land Bank Act. These Acts of Parliament\nwould facilitate acquisition of land by foreign investors and the formation of\ncorporations for the development of these lands. The public will need to be on\nalert because once these laws are passed there is no possibility of judicial\nreview, under the Constitution, warned Lasanda Kurukulasuriya. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npublic, specially the intelligentsia are worried. The three US\nagreements are seen as  a major intrusion\ninto the country’s sovereignty   It looks as though we are about to go into our\nfourth bout of foreign rule, this time under the United States of America, they\nsaid. They do not like this idea at all.   They wish to prevent it. We must look into the\nlegality and validity of these agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was\npointed out that ACSA is already signed. Sri Lanka must now accept this and\nrespect the decision. Sri Lanka has no intention of accepting it. The public\nwant ACSA revoked. ACSA will lead to a US Logistics hub in Sri Lanka, providing\nsupplied and services at sea critics said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using ACSA an\nUS aircraft carrier could to dock into Trincomalee under ACSA and USA could use\nit as a floating base for its military activity. USA army can come into Sri Lanka in   any \u2018unforeseen situation\u2019. The 2017\nagreement, unlike the 2007 one, has annexures which list by name, the various US\nmilitary units which can come into Sri Lanka.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though ACSA\nis said to be \u2018reciprocal\u2019, it is weighted heavily in favor of the US, since\nSri Lanka army does not engage in military adventures abroad, said critics.  Analysts also wanted to know whether in the\nUSA, the ACSA had the approval of two-thirds of the US Senate, in accordance\nwith regulations. If it did not, what is its status in international law?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apologists\nsaid that the 2017 ACSA had less number of pages than the ACSA signed in 2007. that\nthe new ACSA signed had only five pages. Critics replied You don\u2019t measure the\nharmfulness of an agreement by the number of pages, but on the content.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wimal\nWeerawansa had tabled the 2007 ACSA Agreement in Parliament. It has only eight pages<\/strong>and no annexures. The recent ACSA\ndocument has 83 pages with more than 50 annexures.\u201dI have a copy of it. I also\nhave with me the Sinhala version forwarded to the Cabinet. That contains only\nthe primary section\u201d, Weerawansa said.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Admiral Wijegunaratne when asked by\nthe media, about ACSA, said, I refused to say yes to ACSA when I was Commander\nof the Navy, because the navy could not agree to certain matters.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

. MCC is still pending under\nthe Pohottu government. Pohottu government is toying with the MCC and the\ndiscussion on these Agreements continues after Pohottu came in. The\nintelligentsia wants MCC agreement to go before Parliament. Under the\nSri Lanka Constitution, ( dualist) the MCC draft , requires it to be submitted\nto and enacted by the Parliament (MCC Article 7, Section7.1), observed Palitha\nKohona. One can detect the influence of the US lawyers and their thinking in\nthe MCC draft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\nYahapalana rule the intelligentsia objected to the manner in which the\nagreements were negotiated.  Critics\ncomplained that the Agreements   are\nknown only to one or two pro-American Cabinet ministers who then push the\nmatter through Cabinet. The public loudly objected to the secrecy involved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is outrageous that plans involving such drastic changes are not\nmade available for public debate. The secrecy surrounding them shows that the\ngovernment knows the Agreement will be unpopular, observed Lasanda\nKurukulasuriya.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were ACSA, SOFA and MCC discussed in Cabinet and in Parliament, by\nthe parliamentary Sectoral Oversight Committees handling foreign and defense\nissues, they asked.  If not, why not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ACSA has not being presented to the Cabinet, Parliament and the\npeople, they said. There was no\ngovernment statement explaining the contents of ACSA, nor was it tabled in\nParliament, they complained. In 2019, critics wanted to know why even after two\nyears ACSA was not tabled in Parliament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agreements such\nas ACSA should be approved by Parliament, said critics. Parliament should have\na role in discussing such agreements because they affect the sovereignty,\nindependence and territorial integrity of the country.  (continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS This essay, which is the final essay of this set, summarizes the   reactions to the three agreements discussed, namely, ACSA, SOFA and MCC. All three agreements are with the United States of America  and all three were prepared by USA, In USA to benefit the USA. Of the three agreements, ACSA is already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}