\u2018Dear Julie<\/strong><\/a>, I am writing to you in the softest electronic print, just in case you don\u2019t already know what we are writing you about\u2026 We notice you are constantly running here and there in Sri Lanka, in places we don\u2019t really expect to or should see a foreign diplomat, showing off your pale overworked knees, which it seems you like to expose below skirts, to perhaps distract our sex-starved or oversexed officials \u2013 the hetero males in particular, but not just that gender orientation \u2013 to help lubricate US deals (like Exxon Chevron lubes our imported cars). Imagine if our ambassador in Washington\u2019s Embassy Row, Hippie Mike Samarasinghe, wearing well-hung tights, took pictures with little white girls (or boys) in Poughkeepsie or Baton Rouge, claiming he was standing up erect for their rights or equality. What on this white god\u2019s earth would them good ole boys think? Lynch? Then again, who remembers all your sermons about \u2018rule of law\u2019? Not your latest leader, and payroll officer. And then, I hear you\u2019ve been meeting judges, too. Poor fellows, you may be causing a lot of rustling under their august robes & woolly wigs\u2026 Approach the bench, indeed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear, dear Julie, we are yours, truly, truly. Until next week, then\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IMF warns Sri Lanka trade unions against strike over pay demand<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IMF: \u2018Sri Lanka can decide public sector size with limitations\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018IMF wishes you have a happy women\u2019s day!\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nWelcome to the 360th<\/sup> almost-weekly edition of ee<\/em><\/strong>. And we too wish our readers a thoughtful & happy International Women\u2019s Day (IWD) \u2013 and not just for today but for the rest of the year & the rest of your life & the next one too, if you don\u2019t take the exit ramp off samsara. For unless we take action soon, if we are reborn in Sri Lanka, we will be born in chains, shackled to an unpayable debt. For look, how the IMF is acting viceroy, warning trade unions and \u2018rightsizing\u2019 \u2018human resources\u2019\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
International Women\u2019s Day is only celebrated as a national holiday in the socialist countries. Outside such countries, it has been hijacked like most holidays, almost wholesale by corporations. Though, with the US government signaling wildly that their DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, Equality) agenda is off the table (In fact, that third headline about the IMF wishing women is clearly fake. For unlike other years, the US-dominated IMF did not wish women happy days. Or did not make a big fuss about it. After all, \u2018gender equality\u2019 \u2013 even as the capitalist media has befogged what exactly gender<\/em><\/strong> means \u2013 has been an almost hourly business headline, alongside saving elephants & leopards & oxygen\u2026 Such virtuous talk of course is always being waylaid by those gentlemen who would offer you their seat in the bus \u2013 tho gentlemen don\u2019t take buses or trains in Sri Lanka \u2013 but once you get to work, they pay you a whole lot less than other workers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All these economists & politicians who get daily-by-daily play in the media, due to being funded by the u-know-who, and have been promoting \u2018export-led growth\u2019, are now scrambling to revise their philosophies and soundbites (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, \u2018Harsha calls on Govt to prepare for US reciprocal<\/em> tariffs). After decades of this free-trade business, their great father-funder in the Northwest Atlantic is about to slam the door shut, and worse, kick them out, dollar-less and handcuffed to boot. So, what\u2019s an unemployed de-dollarized free-trader and virtue-signaler to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Asia Progress Forum<\/strong>\u2018s Shiran Illanperuma in his latest computation of \u2018The Price of Losing Economic Sovereignty\u2019 has other ideas (see ee<\/em><\/strong> Focus<\/em><\/strong>). He believes the hour is long past due \u2013 in this age and art of the no-deal deal \u2013 the only way we can get \u2018a better deal\u2019 is to sign up with the rest of the world \u2013 this time, with a South-South coalition <\/strong>of the more-than-willing \u2013 to take \u2018coordinated multilateral action<\/strong>\u2018 through forming a \u2018debtor\u2019s club\u2019<\/strong>, looking to fora like BRICS to provide a platform, especially when the US and its killer poodles have been pivoting their gunsights from Russia back on to the new powerhouse Asia and its ocean called Indian, with Sri Lanka trapped sitting squat in the middle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have no choice \u2013 the \u2018loss of monetary sovereignty remains the single most damaging element of the IMF\u2019s conditions\u2019. With \u2018mammoth 41% of [budgetary] expenditure taken up by interest payments\u2019 and \u2018private bondholders\u2019 accounting for 70% of these interest payments, with the government claiming \u2018to restore economic sovereignty\u2019, a confrontation with these capitalist bondholders is inevitable. \u2018To pretend otherwise is either na\u00efve or dishonest.\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So who may these private bondholders be? Our monkey media won\u2019t tell us. This week saw US \u2018fund manager\u2019 Blackrock<\/strong> grab 43 ports around the world, including 2 at either end of the Panama Canal from HongKong\u2019s CK Hutchison, with a wink from the Don, who BlackRock nudged to publicly demand the Canal back (to see who was really behind it, see Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>). Not one word has been heard from the Panamanian government or its people. BlackRock is also the lead loanshark to which we must pay huge \u2018interest\u2019 payments<\/strong>. BlackRock is not just behind Adani\u2019s \u2018Green\u2019 gas & wind, but also a major shareholder in our old fair&lovely Unilever, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Please bear with us. When we refer to monkeys<\/em>, we are refer to our brand of merchants. Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution, Marx quipped, was not talking about monkeys, but was referring to the survival of the craftiest English capitalists<\/strong>. \u2018The capitalist state is a band of warring brothers\u2019 (thus spake Marx). And Sri Lanka\u2019s economy is also controlled not just by New York fund mangers and the Washington-dominated IMF, but also by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA), who dump their rickety cars on the country. \u2018Sri Lankan is a cemetery for Japan\u2019, a Japanese professor once told SBD de Silva. The philanthropy & largesse exhibited in the last weeks by Japanese NGOs (search ee<\/em><\/strong> News Index<\/em><\/strong> below) was due to Sri Lanka being forced to open the hatch of yet another ship bearing luxury vehicles: the MV Jupiter Leader<\/em>, operated by Japan\u2019s Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK). The MV<\/em> stands for Motor Vehicles. And the MV Jupiter<\/em> is registered in Panama!<\/p>\n\n\n\n And see how the IMF\u2019s Senior Mission Chief Peter Breuer speaks not just with a tongue that is forked but spooned with silver as well (\u2018He stated that reopening the vehicle imports would increase demand for dollars, whilst stressing that the country\u2019s reserves have improved significantly under the ongoing bailout program.\u2019 So welcome MV Jupiter<\/em>, by Jove (which also means Jupiter)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Politics is 10% ideas & 90% implementation (aka 1% inspiration & 99% perspiration). If we are to confront this blatant usury (for as President AKD rather belatedly remembered, \u2018Our economy is running on conditions<\/strong>. There is no economic independence or sovereignty<\/strong> \u2013 it is under probation and being monitored\u2019), there is little use just talking about \u2018economic democracy\u2019 and \u2018economic sovereignty\u2019. A budget <\/strong>(or some other plan<\/strong>) guides industrialization<\/strong>, by targeting specific sectors and activities conducive to technological change<\/strong>, and long-term productivity gains<\/strong>. Targeting firms by size (SMEs) is not really a priority, and not transformational. Praising and protecting the small business and the small farmer maybe good for elections to pull the wannabe petit-bourgeois to the booths, but there are larger forces which control these lovely \u2018small\u2019 people, which media columnists can only hint at. Take \u2018Emeritus Professor Ranjith Senaratne, Department of Crop Science, University of Ruhuna\u2019 on \u2018Our rice crisis: A holistic solution\u2019. He proclaims: \u2018Needless to add that the hapless<\/em> farmers are at the mercy of the large-scale rice millers and traders, including input and service providers<\/strong>.\u2019 Note: \u2018input and service providers\u2019. Exactly who are they? And why are we not allowed to make these inputs here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nestl\u00e9 Lanka inaugurates new Rs1.1bn biomass boiler at Kurunegala factory<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2018Nestl\u00e9 Lanka has been delighting consumers with much-loved brands<\/p>\n\n\n\n
such as Nestomalt, Milo, Maggi, Milkmaid for over 118 years\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nLook at these copy&paste corporate press releases, which are really advertisements or infomercials<\/strong> paid for to the \u2018fair&lovely\u2019 media under the table<\/em> (corruption<\/em><\/strong> anyone?). And while it is dangerous to criticize anyone who has more ink & pulls more eyeballs than you, the media in Sri Lanka is one big sensationalist tabloid, posturing a fake gravitas, repeatedly insulting people and villages with Sinhala names as gangsters, etc, while diverting from the real<\/em><\/strong> gangsters. This ee<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>thereforeexamines the capture of the Sri Lankan state & its agriculture, and the prevention of modern industrialization by capitalist banks and corporations. We also direct our readers\u2019 attention again to our News In<\/em><\/strong>dex<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong>(ee<\/em><\/strong> Agriculture<\/em><\/strong>) which overflows with worries, not about the state of agriculture or farmers, but about elephants, monkeys & leopards, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018The Trust\u2019s desires are modest. All it wants is the earth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nwith a barbed wire fence around it. The Tobacco Trust is<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\na hog<\/strong>, and wants all the swill. The tobacco crop is short<\/p>\n\n\n\nthis year. It ought to have brought 12 cents a pound,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but the Trust fixed it at 7 cents or 8 cents,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and that is all that is being paid.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 Raleigh News & Observer<\/em>, 1907<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> looks at the creation of monopolies and their restrictive policies that underdevelop agriculture in Sri Lanka, and elsewhere. It is not just a tale about British American Tobacco (BAT<\/strong>)\u2019s Ceylon Tobacco Co (CTC<\/strong>) who puppeteer politicians like Harsha de Silva, etc, it is also the story of Unilever & Nestles and ICI\u2019s CIC & Booker etc, who also operate through their local agents (Hayleys, Keells, etc.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The policies of BAT\u2019s CTC by the 1980s, aided by the government, were mimicked by other multinational corporations (MNCs, or transnationals) like Nestles (milk) & Booker (sugar) in Sri Lanka. They sought to maintain the relative impoverishment of peasants and isolate them further, making them depend on a package of inputs<\/strong>: finance, machinery, chemicals, processing & marketing, etc, forcing them to sell their produce to MNCs alone at fixed prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1936, the colonial government had set up a separate division within the Department of Agriculture to promote tobacco crops, permitting the Department to function as an adjunct of the CTC monopoly. CTC, rather than increase their own investment, then got the 2 state banks, with the country\u2019s largest network of branches \u2013 the People\u2019s Bank & the Bank of Ceylon, to finance the peasants, based on CTC approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ee<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s concluding segment of Charles Abeysekera\u2019s study, recalls how peasants formed the All-Ceylon Tobacco Growers Association <\/strong>to push the government to end the CTC monopoly, as the peasants were trying not to be at the mercy of monopoly \u2018market forces\u2019. Abeysekera examines how the CTC reacted to break such collective action by shifting tobacco cultivation to the dry zone, and when peasants sought to sell to whom they chose, the CTC illegally got the police and other state authorities<\/strong> to search vehicles<\/strong> for \u2018independent\u2019 tobacco! They broke up barns into mini barns, creating barn owners as tools to harness peasant production to the needs of international capital, creating \u2018entrepreneurs\u2019 & \u2018middle peasants\u2019 linked to the state bureaucracy, to hide CTC\u2019s actions from the peasant grower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most importantly, the large sums of money accumulated were not productively invested in agriculture<\/strong>. The village were also hemmed in by tea plantations, unable to increase cultivable land. Instead, investments are made in trade & transport<\/strong> (imported tractors and lorries, etc. A shoutout to Sarvodaya, here). CTC\u2019s manipulation of peasant agriculture in Sri Lanka was replicated elsewhere in Africa & the Americas. Corporate & state policies have not resulted in expropriation to proletarianize the peasantry, however they have caged them in their diminishing plots, under moneylenders & merchants, subject to international capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The study also examines the limited nationalization of tea plantations in Sri Lanka in 1972-74, the difficulties of cheapening wages midst growing labour strength, and the resort to smallholder production, which amounts to a type of isolated wage labour, shaping \u2018another trajectory along which agriculture is transformed along capitalist lines\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n_________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nContents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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