{"id":141437,"date":"2024-04-17T04:40:47","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T11:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=141437"},"modified":"2024-04-17T04:40:47","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T11:40:47","slug":"coup-after-coup-after-coup-sabotaging-the-5th-industrial-revolution-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2024\/04\/17\/coup-after-coup-after-coup-sabotaging-the-5th-industrial-revolution-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Coup After Coup After Coup: Sabotaging the 5th Industrial Revolution in Sri\u00a0Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
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ee<\/strong> wishes readers a Happy New Year!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, ee<\/em><\/strong> reproduced an Island<\/em> report recalling how an attempted military coup,<\/strong> to overcome the so-called 2018 \u2018constitutional coup<\/strong>\u2019, was thwarted. Observers of such machinations of state & statecraft wonder if the latest tale about former President Maithripala Sirisena<\/strong> allegedly disclosing an \u2018Indian Hand\u2019 as being behind the April 2019 bombings, may indeed be true. ee<\/em><\/strong> also wonders if the dearly beloved \u2018Cardinal\u2019 too had inside information about this all along, \u2018incensed\u2019 because this handle<\/em>r was being censored? After all, the precious prelates of the Catholic Church must surely have hourly access via the Vatican to the oldest of the black-robed practitioners of such Jesuitical methods, amply provided to certain actors at regular intervals, 1948, 1959, 1962, 1971 and 1983-2009?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In those smoky hours in 2019, ee <\/em><\/strong>also wondered about the role of such \u2018secretive\u2019 organizations as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)<\/strong> \u2013 the power behind India\u2019s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)<\/strong> \u2013 seeking to kill (& malign) 3 birds (Christian, Muslim, & Buddhist) with one coordinated blow. This also included a so-called \u2018failed attempt\u2019 at an Indian-owned hotel, where the alleged bomber later blew himself (or was blown up) at another non-Indian location. India\u2019s PM N. Modi was the first foreign head of state to visit Sri Lanka after that carnage, in June 2019, chaperoned throughout by Sajith Premadasa. Meanwhile, media this week also headlined the push for a \u2018Hindu Eelam Movement<\/strong>\u2019 & their Presidential candidate (see ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     If Indian secret services<\/strong> had arranged the April 2019 terror, do their links with Sri Lanka\u2019s own secret services<\/strong> explain why they were not pursued? Their \u2018warning\u2019 beforehand fits the pattern, evident in the planners of the Moscow concert hall attack<\/strong> who also claimed, later, that they had \u2018warned\u2019 the recipient (Russia<\/strong>) of their intended actions beforehand. Our good & generous neighbour too \u2018warned\u2019 us in 2019. Double gain! First, it signals friendliness and diverts suspicion away. Second, it allows later icing on the cake by blaming the recipient for not taking the warning seriously, to perhaps suit their own stratagems. ee <\/em><\/strong>would have loved to see \u2018our\u2019 mass media outlets pursue other parties like the JVP & their current apparently popularized leader about his opinion on this matter. We guess, it is too much to ask for that level of independence in \u2018our\u2019 media. Meanwhile, perhaps fearing arrest or possible harm, Sirisena and family are said to be taking refuge in Singapore, that bastion of the rule of law where a former fugitive Central Banker resides \u2013 the closest outpost perhaps, far from India\u2019s hitmen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 Fast & Furious<\/em> in Mariyakaday<\/strong> \u2013 Last week ee<\/em><\/strong> wondered if there were weapons meant for Sri Lanka aboard that Maersk-chartered Baltimore-bridge-crashing ship that had docked at the US Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, prior to its fateful Maryland snafu. Curiosity was piqued by the amount of \u2018empty containers\u2019 on that ship making such a long journey all the way around that Cape of Storms aka Good Hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     With the US (& their Core Group, including Canada, etc) about to invade Haiti, <\/strong>to apparently suppress \u2018gangs\u2019, it is important to recall that it is the US via their \u2018gusano\u2019 (expat Cuban) gangsters in Miami who are flooding Haiti with guns. Haiti does not have a \u2018gang problem\u2019, it has a US imperialism problem<\/em>. The same goes for Somalia, which the Anglo-Saxon media keeps repeating, has a \u2018piracy problem\u2019. It is the US (& their EU allies) who\u2019s financed various \u2018terrorist\u2019 groups in Somalia. Again, East Africa & Red Sea & West Asia too, have an US imperialism<\/em> problem, but no Anglo-Saxon media dare call it so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     ee<\/em><\/strong> also recalls how the US sold 1,000s of firearms to Mexican \u2018drug cartel\u2019 leaders, which has led to the current \u2018gang wars in Mexico\u2019. The US claimed this \u2018gunwalking\u2019, or \u2018letting guns walk\u2019 tactic was \u2018purposely\u2019 used by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF<\/strong>) Project Gunrunner <\/strong>aka Operation<\/em><\/strong> Fast & Furious<\/strong><\/em> to identify gang leaders. Each weapon was equipped with a GPS unit<\/strong>, to supposedly enable the ATF to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them. Instead, over 150 Mexican civilians were maimed or killed by these guns in Mexico. In September 2011, the Mexican government linked an undisclosed number of guns found at about 170 crime scenes, to the US project. The US scheme aimed to intentionally arm the Sinaloa drug cartel<\/strong> to defeat rival drug gangs. US President Barack Obama invoked executive privilege<\/strong> in order to withhold documents about the project. Mexico \u2013 so far from their Aztec gods & so close to the US \u2013 has a US imperialism problem too<\/em>. The US\u2019 pitbulls in Ecuador<\/strong> just broke into the Mexican embassy<\/strong> in Quito. Just as the USA\u2019s pitbulls in occupied Palestine<\/strong> just bombed the Iranian embassy<\/strong> in Syria<\/strong>. Unprovoked attacks<\/em>, indeed! So, the question remains: just what was<\/em> in those Dali <\/em>containers? Which fractions in which political faactions are they arming?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018Customs has no way of knowing who the consignee is & what<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the cargo is until the cargo manifest is filed by the agent here<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even then, cargo description is in most cases not sufficient to properly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

identify such goods. No one will declare contents as \u2018Toxic Waste\u2019<\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 <\/strong>Customs Spokesman Senior Customs Director Seevali Arukgoda<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another administrative \u2018coup\u2019 is in progress to reduce or remove the powers of Customs Officials and replace them with \u2018senior traders\u2019 aka fraudulent importers. Customs unions, threatening industrial action if the Finance Ministry\u2019s proposed amendments go through, say this is being done on behalf of the same \u2018family of corrupt officials<\/strong>\u2019 <\/strong>that annulled the 1953 Foreign Exchange Control Act and relaxed policies in 2017, enabling the bleeding of foreign exchange out of the country, causing the present economic \u2018crisis\u2019 <\/strong>(see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     After ee<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s revelations on 30 March about hazardous wastes aboard that Danish-Maersk-chartered ship, a National Coordinating Committee (NCC)<\/strong> of \u2018all relevant stakeholders\u2019 was formed in Colombo and met on Friday, 5 April 2024. There has been no news since on what was decided, though we see that Germany\u2019s GIZ is supposedly going to<\/em> fund a pilot pre-arrival processing of import shipments, <\/strong>from May, where Colombo will get \u2018cargo information 48 hours before the departure of the ship from the foreign port.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     There were however continued attacks<\/strong> on ee<\/em><\/strong> (by Maersk-related NGOs & media) with doubts expressed about our revelations. They carefully admit that the materials imported were indeed hazardous, but only one of the 4,700 containers was for Sri Lanka and it was a \u2018normal\u2019 hazardous import needed for \u2018manufacture\u2019, while ignoring why Maersk was transporting toxic US waste through our waters. Maersk has gained a reputation for attacking its own workers who report on their mischief (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     However, in the Daily Mirror<\/em>, Rohan Masakorala, \u2018founder of Shippers Academy International, a former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Shippers\u2019 Council & 1st<\/sup> Secretary General of the Asian Shipper\u2019s Council\u2019 calls ee<\/em><\/strong> a \u2018false blog\u2019 (whatever that is) publishing \u2018false information\u2019 attempting \u2018to mislead the very vulnerable Sri Lankan society\u2019, tarnishing \u2018the image of a reputed shipping line<\/strong>, a private terminal operator<\/strong> in the Port of Colombo & US government institutions supporting Sri Lankan maritime sector through capacity building initiatives<\/strong>\u2019 (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Yet, also in the Daily Mirror<\/em>, Gehan L Kuruppu \u2013 also a \u2018former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Shippers\u2019 Council\u2019 & 38-year veteran in this import-export scene \u2013 decries the attacks on the media who publicized ee<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s revelations, adding:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Who<\/strong> the toxic materials & fuel were consigned to in Sri Lanka \u2013 in technical<\/p>\n\n\n\n

terms the consignee of the cargo or the notify party<\/strong> \u2013 is not being reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, it is a long way for such hazmat & fuel to be exported in one voyage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

without calling in other ports en route to Colombo Port. There are reports of uncertainty<\/p>\n\n\n\n

about who is exporting such toxic waste to Sri Lanka, and who is importing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are the US & the media institutions attempting to divert attention<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

from the ship charterer Maersk Line\u2019s involvement?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless there is some classified information that cannot be divulged<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for reasons that are unknown to authorities. In this instance, it is not possible to say<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that the authorities cannot find who the exporter & the importer are<\/strong>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as the US Customs rules are that any vessel leaving the port of US origin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

has to make a prior establishment in filing the manifest<\/em><\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(see ee Industry<\/em><\/strong>, Baltimore Bridge collapse, Dali<\/em> & controversy)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ansell Lanka General Manager Ramesh Nanayakkara told the Sunday Times<\/em>\u2019 Sunimalee Dias (who reports Maersk & IMF, World Bank, ADB press releases as uninvestigable gospel) that they had one container on the Dali <\/em>bound for Colombo that contained a chemical resin classified as hazardous. Used \u2018in the normal manufacturing process\u2019 \u2013 this raw material is used to make \u2018industrial gloves\u2019, and has been \u2018imported for over 2 decades<\/strong>\u2019. \u2018The country of origin of this particular chemical is the USA\u2019. The rest of the over 500 containers were said to be for transshipment cargo due for India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     If this is gospel, isn\u2019t it odd to bring this resin all the way from Baltimore? Is this imported \u2018resin\u2019 another ploy for foreign-exchange fraud? Ansell is linked to an old English multinational Dunlop, now based in Australia. Why not import the resin from there? Or produce it here? And if the rest of the containers were going to India, Singapore &\/or Malaysia, or most going to China[ as some claimed, why not thru the Pacific? After all their talk of \u2018carbon footprints\u2019 & \u2018Asia-Pacific\u2019 etc. Odd, no?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018English industrial policy was to prohibit any form<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of industrialisation in any of their colonies\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 HN Thenuwara (see ee Focus<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lanka is about to miss the 5th industrial revolution<\/em><\/strong>, having missed the first 4 industrial revolutions in the world, and HN Thenuwara, a former Sri Lanka Central Bank Director of Economic Research <\/strong>now teaching at the University of Iowa, USA, is worried. This latest revolution of the industrial kind is being fueled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Thenuwara therefore consults ChatGpt to find out what he thinks we should do (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>). Unfortunately, he does not quite get it, as neither can ChatGpt, whose intelligence is not that<\/em> artificial at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     While Thenuwara very kindly lays out what the first 4 revolutions were all about, he does not quite hit the nail on the thumb. The English did not just prohibit, they destroyed & mutilated, as in India, where they cut the thumbs of the weavers, etc. In Sri Lanka, ingenious traders, including, and not only Indian, importers & exporters, and the Central Bank & officials they have trained very well, who all work on behalf of US & European multinationals & banks, will simply not allow any hint of a modern industrial policy in our parts of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Thenuwara repeats standard mercantile shibboleths about 1970-77, saying \u2018the country experimented with closed economy policies, which are countermeasures of industrial revolutions, and resulted in colossal failure\u2019. His notion of failure is not good or bad, it\u2019s sheer ignorance! Because even if there was a loss, a lack of industry would have led to further greater losses elsewhere \u2013 as is now evident, with no modern production taking place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     And industrial policy did not \u2018fail\u2019 \u2013 it was strangled and sabotaged! He fails to show how the proportional representation system impacted those institutions curbing corruption. He ignores how the current US and EU greenwashing is to bind Sri Lanka into only buying their machinery and not making our own. He also does not call out India\u2019s blatant movies to tie Sri Lanka into India\u2019s industrial orbit, making it Chennai\u2019s bitch. Finally, a top Central Bank official going to work for a foreign country, especially a country that displays constant enmity to the country\u2019s economic wellbeing, may well constitute high corruption as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Thenuwara should have asked ChatGPT to improve on this sentence: \u2018Imperialist industrial policy will sabotage any form of industrialization in their colonies (including India & Japan, etc)\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 Just like the US & EU are constantly threatening to remove Sri Lanka\u2019s preferred access to their hallowed market (GSP+, etc), the US is now threatening South Africa<\/strong> with similar menace after S Africa took US-funded Israel to the International Court of Justice for their ongoing genocide in Palestine. While the ICJ\u2019s ruling of \u2018plausible\u2019 genocide doesn\u2019t appear to have deterred Israel one bit (these international bodies are weaponized only against us, usually triggered along with other force-multipliers), the US has launched an investigation into South Africa\u2019s \u2018uppity negro\u2019 behavior (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>), detailing not only their upset about Israel, but also South Africa daring to continue to pursue closer ties with Russia, China, Iran. This sheds further light on how the US views and treats Sri Lanka, a more acquiescent vassal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Hence, the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act <\/strong>was introduced in the US House on February 6. Pandor says, \u2018There\u2019s almost an implication that when the USA holds a particular position, South Africa must follow\u2026 I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s because we\u2019re Africans or some other reason.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     South Africa\u2019s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor was thus beckoned to Washington, DC. South Africa\u2019s accession to the beckoning may relate to the \u2018behind-the-scenes\u2019 deal struck in 1994 between Afrikaner cabinet minister Roelf Meyer & then ANC General Secretary (now President) Cyril Ramaphosa under the aegis of the USA, which led, 1948 Soulbury-suckering-like, to the maintenance of white minority rule over the economy. The US must be threatening to expose this \u2018behind-the-scenes\u2019 deal to undermine the ANC before the upcoming elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In May 2023, the US\u2019 South Africa ambassador\u2019s unfounded accusation that the country was providing weapons to Russia, led to President Ramaphosa saying the allegation \u2018had a most damaging effect on our currency, our economy, and our standing in the world; in fact, it tarnished our image\u2019. In August 2023, a South African official said the country would not give in to pressure from the US to stop using Chinese company Huawei<\/strong>\u2019s equipment on its networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     South Africa is the USA\u2019s largest trading partner in Africa. About 600 US businesses operate in the country. The US African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA) provides sub-Saharan African countries some duty-free access to the US. The US has removed several countries from AGOA, eg, Ethiopia, Mali, Guinea, Uganda, Gabon, Niger, & the Central African Republic. The unstated threat of potential removal from AGOA hovers over the US-South Africa relationship, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

_________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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Coup After Coup After Coup: Sabotaging the 5th Industrial Revolution in Sri Lanka<\/a><\/blockquote>