{"id":140893,"date":"2024-03-10T17:48:08","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T00:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=140893"},"modified":"2024-03-10T17:48:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T00:48:08","slug":"sri-lanka-hooked-in-us-indias-red-sea-yellow-sea-hijinks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2024\/03\/10\/sri-lanka-hooked-in-us-indias-red-sea-yellow-sea-hijinks\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka Hooked in US & India\u2019s Red Sea & Yellow Sea\u00a0Hijinks"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Uncategorized<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 03-09 March 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka at the height of its prestige was able<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to initiate a resolution in the United Nations,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

calling for a declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the proposed international conference could not be held<\/p>\n\n\n\n

due to intervention by imperialist forces<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the US Empire\u2019s Pivot-to-Asia<\/em><\/strong> under President Obama,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

renamed the Indo-Pacific Strategy<\/strong> by President Trump,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

has highlighted the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean region<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the West\u2019s attempts to contain China<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Asia has become the vanguard of the world economy<\/strong>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the world\u2019s attention has shifted to the Asia-Pacific region<\/strong>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and in particular the Indian Ocean Region<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has made this region both strategic & vulnerable<\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Communist Party of Sri Lanka, see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US & its <\/strong>designated \u2018Major Defence Partner\u2019 India<\/strong> (like a cowboy comic Lone Ranger & Tonto) have been sedulously softening and hardening the ground, sometimes latently, sometimes blatantly, to stomp their boots into Sri Lanka\u2019s face, and divide the country. These words may appear needlessly inflammatory and provocative, yet there are escalating indicators that this indeed is what they are planning to do, attempting to ensnare us in their shoddy shenanigans to hinder and control industrialization in Asia & Africa by choking access to finance, fuel, food, fertilizer, and pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Indeed, all this maneuvering recalls how England eventually poured 10,000s of English, Indian & African troops<\/strong> into Ceylon in 1942, in a desperate bid to maintain colonial power, soon after Japan threw England out of Myanmar & Singapore, just as India\u2019s independence struggle was at its peak. These present moments also recall how the USA, then \u2018allied\u2019 with England, seeking to replace other imperialist powers in Asia & Africa, just as they were doing in the rest of the Americas. Extending their policy of Manifest Destiny<\/strong>, they saw such aggrandizements as \u2018inevitable & justified\u2019. These whites have maintained their still numerous colonies in Asia & Africa through bribery & violence. Indeed, recent decrees assert that the Atlantic Ocean (& NATO) laps up on all shores. Yet as the Communist Party of Sri Lanka forecasts, Sri Lanka\u2019s future as an independent sovereign nation lies in maintaining its solidarity with the real world in Asia, Africa, & the anti-colonial Americas<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This ee<\/em><\/strong> records the flipping & flopping like a gasping goggle-eyed fish hooked out of the water<\/em><\/strong>, about sending the Sri Lankan Navy<\/em> under the guise of a so-called \u2018Red Sea Crisis\u2019<\/em>. The Sri Lankan oligarchy apparently cannot stop India, Japan and Taiwan from poaching our seas. So, protecting navigation in \u2018Red Sea\u2019 is piffling subterfuge for giving diplomatic solace to the internationally condemned US & European horror in Palestine, which China\u2019s Foreign Minister this week perhaps sarcastically called a \u2018disgrace for civilization\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This ee<\/em><\/strong> also highlights the mephistophelian compact made with the USA when Sri Lanka had its back to the wall during the imperialist-backed, Indian-trained terrorist war waged against the country, resulting in the 8-page 2007 US-SL Acquisition & Cross-Services Agreement (ACSA)<\/strong>, which was then made public. Set to expire 10 years later, an 83-page ACSA<\/strong> was later signed in 2017, under pressure from then Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera and then-SL-envoy to the US, Prasad Kariyawasam<\/strong> (a paid agent of US Development Alternatives Institute \u2013 a CIA front \u2013 <\/strong>& implementing agency for USAID<\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This 2017 ACSA is still \u2018kept classified by both Washington & Colombo<\/strong>\u2019 (Transparency International<\/em>, where art thou?) ACSA allows \u2018US troops to make use of any military bases & ports whenever they want<\/strong>, with the Sri Lankan Government having to provide necessary support, joining in training exercises under US directives, with our Armed Forces taking orders from the US Armed Forces hierarchy\u2019 (see ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>, Shenali Waduge).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In July 2019 then-PM Ranil Wickremesinghe announced in Parliament that the government was negotiating a fresh military deal with US, replacing the 1995 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA<\/strong>, signed by then-president CB Kumaratunga), giving US military easier access to Sri Lanka. SOFA provides facilities & conditions to implement ACSA agreement. During the now-famous \u2018constitutional crisis\u2019, then President M Sirisena fired PM Wickremesinghe, and immediately recalled Karayiwasam, who as Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was attempting to brazenly \u2018accept\u2019 and sign an updated version of the SOFA. Waduge notes that signing the updated SOFA would mean the \u2018US does not require setting up a military base in Trincomalee<\/strong> because the US has been given access to entire country. The USA will be using Sri Lanka\u2019s territory as a permanent transit point for military activities.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Kariyawasam now parades as a member of the UN Committee on Migrant Workers<\/strong>. This week he fronted a Financial Times <\/em>(SL) essay on \u2018Collaborating for Regional Sustainable Development: Learning from History\u2019, updating an earlier talk at the 7th<\/sup> Indian Ocean Conference<\/strong> in Perth, Australia (9-10 Feb). There he called for \u2018a security architecture<\/strong>\u2019 to expand \u2018protection of sea-based links<\/strong>, in particular undersea cable networks<\/strong> & freedom of navigation<\/strong> along major sea lanes crisscrossing the region\u2019. Indeed, he is clearly parroting US Envoy Julie Chung, who wishes Sri Lanka to join in the US\u2019 forever wars<\/em><\/strong>. Chung\u2019s latest geography lesson is that \u2018Oceans see no borders<\/em><\/strong>\u2019. Up then squawks kindergartner Kariyawasam too: \u2018The Indian Ocean, since time immemorial, has not existed as an isolated ocean<\/strong>.\u2019 Ironically, it is a Sinhala envoy who first told the Romans about China, and taught them about the ocean\u2019s monsoons! So now, the North Atlantic overflows all equators and continents\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Kariyawasam makes the hilarious claim that \u2018The EU \u2013 the region that gave rise to 2 world wars\u2026 is now well integrated<\/strong>, bringing human security<\/strong> and sustainable development to people living in the EU geographical space<\/strong>. In fact, as a result, there is a clamour among people living in vulnerable<\/strong> regions to enter the EU space even by illegal means<\/em>.\u2019 Perhaps he means Ukraine! If the EU is so self-sufficient, why does it keep invading our countries? He ignores how that \u2018Concert of Europe\u2019 has always meant waging horrific wars in unison on the rest of the world!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Sri Lanka did not have to<\/em> renew the 2007 ACSA deal in 2017. It came after the US & India finagled & funded the Yahapalana (good governance<\/em>) \u2018regime change\u2019 in 2015. This enabled the signing of the still secret ACSA agreement that, along with the SOFA and the still unsigned Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC<\/strong>) will lubricate boots on the ground. This agreement was done in the same year that capitalists in Sri Lanka were able to remove capital controls enabling them to stash billions of rupees abroad<\/strong> (see below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     ee<\/em><\/strong> recalls the \u2018secretive\u2019 entry<\/strong> just over a year ago, of CIA Director<\/strong> William Joseph Burns<\/strong> to Colombo on their Valentine\u2019s Day on 14 February 2023, accompanied by US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, Jedidiah P Royal: along with 29 \u2018persons\u2019 in 2 C-17 Globe Masters<\/em> (see ee<\/em><\/strong> 11 March 2023) \u2013 one year after Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland had set the regime-change ball rolling<\/strong> in Colombo. The CIA had urged the immediate signing of<\/strong> SOFA<\/strong>. Pointing to the military ACSA in August 2017, MP U Gammanpila claimed New Delhi \u2018would still be uncomfortable\u2019<\/strong> against the backdrop of a much-expanded US role here, in spite of \u2018extremely close Indo-US relations in line with US Indo-Pacific strategy \u2013 Sri Lanka couldn\u2019t afford to become a member of any alliance\u2019. MP Gammanpila also cited the joint statement issued by the US Embassy & Sir John Kotelawela Defence University, launching what they called \u2018a shared vision for the Indo-Pacific\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 This week, saw yet another fiasco involving Sri Lanka played out in a US courtroom<\/strong>, where various Wall Street vulture funds<\/strong> (no doubt wailing on behalf of starving US pensioners) are faking a fight to further plunder Sri Lanka<\/strong>. The real problem is the US refusing to democratize the voting at the World Bank, IMF & WTO<\/strong> (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>). Instead, the media keeps shrilling about \u2018corruption<\/em>\u2019 & recent Central Bank salary hikes, while ignoring even more shocking normalized robberies by the import-export plantation fraud, led by such multinational corporations (MNCs<\/strong>) such as Exxon, Unilever, Ceylon Tobacco, CIC-ICI, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In 2017 the US-backed Yahapalana<\/em><\/strong> regime baldly removed the Exchange Control Act of 1953<\/strong>, which had required exporters to repatriate their export earnings<\/strong> via the Sri Lankan banking system, and had made non-compliance a criminal offence<\/strong>. The change exonerated 30 foreign-exchange racketeers<\/strong> who would otherwise have faced jail, and the confiscation of their properties. Even worse, the new Exchange Control Act No12 of 2017<\/strong> made non-compliance a civil offence<\/strong> and allowed exporters to \u2018park\u2019 over $50billion overseas<\/strong>. This caused an even more massive drain of dollars, which along with more serious over-invoicing & under-invoicing by importers & exporters<\/strong>, with the blessings of a deceitful Central Bank officialdom. They stepped up their manipulations even after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s government restricted imports in 2021. The \u2018no alternative but to go the IMF\u2019<\/em><\/strong> for their paltry bailouts was therefore clearly a lie! Those responsible for the revenue collection mechanisms had no intention other than entrapping Sri Lanka further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Former Central Bank Governor Indrajith Coomaraswamy<\/strong> has stated, Sri Lanka\u2019s \u2018rich get away with murder\u2019, in the shadow of the killing of financier Dinesh Schaffter (ee<\/em><\/strong> 18 March 2023), Yet it was under Coomaraswamy\u2019s \u2018watch\u2019 that the Foreign Exchange Act No12 of 2017<\/strong> was enacted, repealing the Foreign Exchange Act No24 of 1953<\/strong>, opening the sluice gates for dollars to gush outward. As CB Governor, Coomaraswamy was also directly responsible for the Yahapalana government borrowing \u2018a record $12.5billion from the international bond market<\/em><\/strong>, at high interest rates, from private lenders, primarily in the West\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Coomaraswamy was and is among those in the semi-shadows quarterbacking the economy\u2019s US-IMF sabotage. He & his fellow economists keep blaming the policies of \u2018populism<\/strong>\u2019 promulgated since 1948 Soulbury independence. Is it populism that continued the import-export plantation fraud? Is it populism that has kept allowing the English (thru their banks, MNCs & \u2018Ceylonized\u2019 fronts) to continue to drain capital from the country? \u2018Populism\u2019 was in fact needed by these thieves to maintain the import-export plantation fraud. Welfare for the impoverished is the penance the merchants must pay for preventing the industrialization of the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Populism<\/em> is of course also a thin cypher for \u2018majoritarianism\u2019 or \u2018Sinhala Buddhism\u2019. Indeed, former President Gotabhaya Rajapakse\u2019s rather restrained biography points out that the humiliation of the majority of the people of this country was one of the aims of the \u2018conspiracy\u2019 to remove him. The use of the term \u2018international<\/em>\u2019 to modify \u2018conspiracy\u2019, however suggests that our leadership still believes the world to be a predominantly white space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 We cannot expect a media pretty much \u2018owned\u2019 by MNCs to reveal the real \u2018corruption\u2019<\/strong> (which is merchant capitalism<\/strong>) afflicting Sri Lanka. Look at the advertisements parading as news, how Unilever\u2019s Lifebuoy & Brandix uphold International Women\u2019s Day!<\/strong> The advertising agencies who create this \u2018virtue signaling\u2019 for the corporates call this PR \u2013 puka ridhenavaa<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 because they have to give ass to both corporate marketing executives & newspaper editors who demand \u2018goodwill\u2019 in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     64% of Sri Lanka\u2019s \u2018national exports\u2019 are produced by these foreign MNCs<\/strong> (compared with 31% in China, 45-50% in Vietnam). This export production includes 83% of national industrial exports and 96% of national garment & textile exports. They involve only 6% of the total labour force, conducted through the 15 Export Processing Zones. These multinationals do not invest in developing the skills of workers, nor do they invest research & development. Only domestic firms could do so\u2026 yet instead, the media are paid off to promote an export-only economy, while handing over the home market to MNCs. Butt-hurt<\/em> in deed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 The sharp reduction of capital, as a result of mispricing by importers, in respect of duty\/tax free goods & taxable imports, has proved far more deadly<\/strong> than the parking of funds overseas by exporters. Capital flows occur through 4 forms of trade mis-invoicing<\/strong>, namely import over-invoicing & under-invoicing<\/strong> and export over-invoicing & under-invoicing<\/strong>. This capital, rather than being invested in modern industry, is invested in property overseas, ranging from luxury houses to art, particularly in the USA and Europe. This defalcation primarily involves MNCs, merchants, officials & politicians, so our capitalist leaders will always be subject to their manipulation & extortion. This became evident in the US trial of a relative of the ruling Rajapaksas \u2013 former SL Ambassador to the US, Jaliya Wickramasuriya. A former tea exporter, he was accused of fraud (speculating in US real-estate<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 that foremost US national religion!). The trial ran simultaneously alongside the aragalaya. He was finally sentenced \u2018lightly\u2019 on 20 July 2022, the very day a shutdown Parliament was resumed to choose a new \u2018unelected\u2019 President \u2013 Ranil Wickremesinghe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     It was CIA agent Prasad Kariyawasam as Foreign Secretary who got Jaliya Wickramasuriya\u2019s diplomatic immunity removed, enabling his arrest in Colombo and his eventual trial in the USA.  Kariyawasam had replaced Wickramasuriya as SL envoy in the US. Curiously, Kariyawasam, once an SL envoy to Jamaica, the Bahamas, Chile & Colombia, must surely be well-aware of these US-massaged tax hideouts & drug laundries, and their Sri Lankan clientele.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 This has been a week like no other:<\/strong> SriLankan Airlines<\/strong>, one of the world\u2019s more hospitable carriers, was put up for public auction, like a slave on a trader\u2019s block, though no one seemed to take the bait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Gotabhaya Rajapakse<\/strong> published a memoir on the \u2018international conspiracy\u2019 that ousted him, though he refrains from naming \u2018international\u2019 names as such. The Russian Embassy<\/strong> called upon him to name those diplomats he refers to, as forcing themselves into military installations (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     A fake biography about Rajapakse by one Billie Wallace<\/strong>, Impromptu Resignation<\/em>, clearly fabricated by an AI robot, was immediately released to divert from his book. It claimed to have been published a day after his resignation, though we only hear about it now, displaying Amazon<\/em> & Google<\/em> at the finest heights of its disinformation machinery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The US government retired<\/strong> their Gallican-Jewish settler fat-rat Victoria Nuland<\/strong>, who is being blamed for driving the slaughter of Slavs in the Ukraine. Nuland may not be celebrating International Women\u2019s Day, which (outside of socialist countries who actually give women a holiday) has been hijacked by corporations such as Unilever and Brandix, who make their billions through ripping off workers, men included, using the usual \u2018third-party\u2019 sweatshops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Royal-Thomian Cricket Match<\/strong>, which features teenage brown simians in white flannels, saw the President singing rather nostalgically about a decoction that promised to turn us white and instead caused unrestrained bowel movements, while Ceylon Tobacco MP Harsha de Silva danced drunkenly with US Envoy J Chung, whose dancing aped a crawling snake, while nervous bodyguards tried to act unconcerned and keep the MP from performing undiplomatic acts, beyond his oceanic limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Reading the English media in Sri Lanka, one would have been at pains to know that the largest \u2018parliament\u2019 in the world, China\u2019s 14th National People\u2019s Congress (NPC) was in progress.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     <\/strong>This week also commemorated the 71st<\/sup> anniversary of the passing of USSR leader Joseph Stalin, who led the Red Army\u2019s smashing of the Nazi war machine and resurrected Russia to its modern industrial heights, on full display today in vanquishing the quislings of NATO.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 The USA, Canada & France (The Core Group!<\/em>) stepped up their plan to invade Haiti<\/strong>, using the pretext of a rise in gangsterism, especially after the massive prison escape this week. The US is pressuring the acting Haitian PM & president Ariel Henry to step down. Last week, Henry visited Kenya to discuss a plan to have 1,000 international police officers from Africa etc to provide a \u2018Black mask\u2019<\/em><\/strong> for the invasion of Haiti. Meanwhile, a Kenyan Police Commissioner mysteriously died in a Washington Hotel. Henry is now stranded in Puerto Rico, unable to safely return home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The US installed Henry after they murdered their previous dupe Jovenel Moise. Last ee<\/em><\/strong> should have stressed that the information deducing the link to US Envoy J Chung in Sri Lanka comes from a radio podcast mentioning the ongoing Haiti court case in Miami<\/strong>. The revelations in court have been placed under a \u2018gag order\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, and only the indictments of Haitians are broadcast. The podcast however mentions that Nuland was clearly involved, but it was Nuland\u2019s rep Chung who met Moise before he was unceremoniously knocked off<\/em><\/strong>. The US is blaming his wife instead! (see ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>, Moise Assassination Investigation)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

____________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Sri Lanka Hooked in US & India\u2019s Red Sea & Yellow Sea Hijinks<\/a><\/blockquote>