{"id":151430,"date":"2025-08-17T17:05:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T00:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=151430"},"modified":"2025-08-17T17:05:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T00:05:59","slug":"how-does-the-us-embassy-bribe-media-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/08\/17\/how-does-the-us-embassy-bribe-media-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"How Does the US Embassy Bribe Media in Sri\u00a0Lanka?"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
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blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 10-16 August 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018In virtually every colonial territory<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

a certain number had to be killed<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

before the survivors would accept<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

the new prospects. This might even<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

be said to introduce a new concept<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

into the study of political economy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 the indispensable minimum of murder<\/em><\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 SBD de Silva,\u00a0The Political Economy of Underdevelopment<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018The White House letter to Colombo<\/em> ended<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with the clear threat that future tariff levels<\/p>\n\n\n\n

would be decided by the general US-SL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

bilateral relations<\/strong>. With no reference to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

trade or economic factors, Washington is<\/p>\n\n\n\n

indicating expectation of a much wider<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

geopolitical conformity<\/strong> by Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Lakshman Gunasekera (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I remember the World Bank representative saying to me:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That\u2019s the norm, that\u2019s how it\u2019s done everywhere<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We write programs for countries.\u2019 I replied,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m capable of writing my country\u2019s program\u2026\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Multinationals are involved in all development programs<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Eritrea President Isaias Afwerki (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018The Moving Finger writes;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

&, having writ, Moves on\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

How the US embassy in Colombo bribes the media (to move the fingers that write<\/em>) in Sri Lanka has been a subject of speculation for decades. How Wall Street<\/strong> & the US Treasury<\/strong> run Sri Lanka\u2019s economy (through their World Bank & IMF) is now no secret, though the merchant media here keep trying hard to deflect blame for our woes onto China (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>, Waduge, who names names).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     It is also no secret, what kind of \u2018geopolitical conformity<\/em><\/strong>\u2019 the USA\u2019s latest \u2018bilateral relations\u2019 seek to impose. What is the latest \u2018indispensable minimum of murder<\/strong>\u2019 \u2013 the brilliant 4 words by SBD summing up his painstaking vast classic on our world\u2019s political economy \u2013 that the USA is demanding Sri Lankans must endure, before we accept these \u2018new prospects\u2019? What are the \u2018new prospects?\u2019 They are yet to be fully divulged. Indeed, there has been no media inquiry into the role the current US Envoy has played in the overthrow of other nations\u2019 leaders before she arrived here to thus also accomplish. Ju Chung however is a mere US State Department coolie, obeying the dicat of her white bosses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This week saw the always-leaving-yet-never-departing US envoy\u2019eur Ju Chung have her tired photo taken with: the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Chairman (& Keells\u2019 casino king) Krishan Balendra, Vice Chairman (& England\u2019s local Standard Chartered Bank CEO) Bingumal Thewarathanthri, Deputy Vice Chair (& Hirdaramani Group Chair) Vinod Hirdaramani, Secretary General & CEO (& on boards of Sierra, Cargills, etc) Buwanekabahu Perera, and others. These \u2018executives\u2019 are all beneficiaries of the US\u2019 supposed largesse (60% of the swindle called the \u2018garment industry\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, \u2018which does not make a pin\u2019, destined for the US market). As one reader suggests (see ee Comments<\/em><\/strong>), information about the imported tools & machinery & other industrial inputs involved in this \u2018garment trade\u2019 is not easily accessible at all (Transparency International, where are you hiding?<\/em>), and clearly not part of the calculations. Then again, these \u2018tariffs\u2019 are not about making trade equitable<\/strong>, but a prelude to another world war, led by the US & their EU satraps, to target China, to preserve white dominance over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The stashing by these \u2018executives\u2019 of their \u2018apparel\u2019 revenues in foreign tax hideouts <\/strong>is also well known to the USA. The same goes for the tea business (see below). Our Bribery Commissions are somehow prevented from hauling up these CEOs, let alone interrogating the multinationals they actually represent. Nor will they haul Chung in for questioning, perhaps due to diplomatic protocols, even as the US envoy has clearly overstepped her diplomatic boundaries, confident the US has the dirt on anyone who dares do so. Add this, then, to the 1,000s of photo-ops that have spread her jaded visage throughout the media. Yet with all this radiance, no media has ever dared ask her about her nefarious involvements in the overthrow (& murder, in at least one case) of several American leaders \u2013 in Bolivia, Peru, Haiti, etc \u2013 before she was installed as US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, on 2022 February 25, just in time to lubricate the aragalaya & almost-murder of a popularly elected President (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>, also see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong> on Nigeria and the US role in promoting the terroristic Boko Haram).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018A Financial Times<\/em> front-page headline, \u2018Bombshell on BOI investors\u2019, titles a seemingly hurried news item, blaming government officials who listen to trade unions. The unsigned article claims to represent \u2018the investor community\u2019 (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>). Who exactly is this \u2018community\u2019? There was a much-promoted \u2018Investors\u2019 Forum\u2019 this week in Singapore, in that refuge of Convicted Central Banker Arjuna Mahendran, organized by the Securities Exchange Commission & Colombo Stock Exchange. The forum included Asia Frontier Capital<\/strong> Fund<\/strong>, Lynear Wealth Management<\/strong>, Bloomberg TV<\/em> and Farringdon Asset Management. The question as usual is \u2019investment for what and in what and for whom\u2019?  Investment in modern production, or importing cars, etc.?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wages for estate workers are low. This is an industry<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We saw in the recent past that taxed businesses had obtained profits<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Bimal Rathnayake, Minister of Transport<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(see ee Workers<\/em><\/strong>, Increasing plantation workers\u2019 wages a challenge)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 <\/strong>This somewhat cryptic news item appears to be missing some detail. The Minister, who\u2019s not the Minister of Plantations, also reports the government is working \u2018to resolve estate workers\u2019 wage issue within the next few months\u2019. First, he should be aware that the tea fraud is no \u2018industry\u2019 at all. It was rumoured that the JVP once planned to uproot the tea bushes and throw them into the sea. But we are sure they have no such imminent plans. This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> concludes Dhanusha Pathirana\u2019s incisive examination, using SBD de Silva\u2019s analyses, of the fraud by the \u2018licensed export firms\u2019 that prevents reinvestment of abundant plantation sector surpluses in technological advance. He also notes how fancy accounting practices are employed to suppress and deny the workers\u2019 demand to raise the daily wage up to Rs 1,000<\/strong> (no, that\u2019s not a typo\u2026). Pathirana also suggests certain steps that need to be taken: eg, on estate superintendents\u2019 control of their National Identity Card<\/strong> applications; also \u2018the main political demand of the workers therefore should be to revoke the \u2018exclusive\u2019 legal rights of the licensed export firms to purchase from tea auctions<\/strong>\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201870% of the profits of the sector are appropriated<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by licensed export firms. Both licensed export firms<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& RPCs are mainly owned by large conglomerates,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

including Aitken Spence PLC, MJF Holdings, Vallibel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plantation Management, Richard Pieris & Co, James<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finlay Plantation Holdings, Hayleys PLC, among others.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

We do find it curious, however, that Pathirana has left out the overweening control by Unilever<\/strong> in the tea business, worldwide, let alone omitted the reparations required for those Sinhala people evicted from the highlands. Pathirana notes that this \u2018branding\u2019 of \u2018Ceylon Tea\u2019, has enabled Lankan tea\u2019s special \u2018monopolistic\u2019 niche in the markets, which has no interest in changing a backward colonial status quo of plucking tea by hand on stolen lands. Unilever is now threatening to undermine the \u2018Ceylon Tea\u2019 brand by \u2018blending\u2019 it with other substances, but not to modernize the sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In 2024, the then-Ministry of Agriculture & Plantation Industries signed an MoU with Unilever to \u2018develop the country\u2019s first national and globally accepted standard for sustainable tea production,\u2019 and a more \u2018ethical future\u2019 along with the Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB), \u2018and other tea industry dignitaries\u2019. Unilever Sri Lanka\u2019s \u2018Ceytea\u2019 factory in Agarapathana is the largest supplier of black tea extract<\/strong> to the Global Pepsi-Lipton JV, and its Iced Tea brands \u2018Lipton\u2019 and \u2018Brisk\u2019. This MoU claimed it would \u2018drive sustainable sourcing of agricultural raw materials<\/strong> under the Unilever Climate Action Transition Plan\u2019 (see ee Agriculture<\/em><\/strong>, Unilever\u2026). What is the link between these \u2018export firms\u2019 and Unilever? The role played by multinationals such as Unilever \u2013 an offshoot of the 19th<\/sup> century privatization of England\u2019s East India Company, and the subsequent private English opium trade from India to China \u2013 in undermining the state and the economy, is a tale yet to be fully told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018The underdeveloped countries before coming into contact<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with Western society were not technologically static\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the manufacture of consumer articles, especially cotton<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

& silk textiles, some of the non-European countries<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

until comparatively recently held a technological lead<\/em><\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SBD de Silva, ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Indeed, for a deeper understanding of how the colonial import-export plantation system has monopolized<\/strong> Sri Lanka\u2019s resources of land & labor, we need to refer to SBD de Silva\u2019s classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment<\/em><\/strong>. This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> begins reproducing his first chapter, after last week concluding his \u2018Introduction\u2019, which called for navigating back and forth between our history and the world, to seek clues. Those interested in the state of the economies of Sri Lanka along with the rest of Asia & Africa prior to colonialism \u2013 as well as the \u2018great divergence\u2019 between Europe, its settler colonies and the rest of the world \u2013 will find this Chapter 1 of SBD\u2019s book, most magnetic, with each sentence a product of hours of contemplation<\/strong>. De Silva summarizes whole swathes of history<\/strong> to show how modern imperialism acquired an \u2018automaticity\u2019 through political changes favourable to capital accumulation & investment in modern technology. Despite their daily propaganda against state intervention, and the incessant promotion of \u2018free trade\u2019, their practices in Sri Lanka have been the exact opposite \u2013 just ask British American Tobacco (BAT)\u2019s Ceylon Tobacco Co (CTC) about their monopoly, and the politicians and thinktanks they run. Indeed, the US government\u2019s latest moves very much recall the English system of \u2018imperial preference<\/em>\u2019<\/strong>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 <\/strong>With all this current media chatter about the ascension of a \u2018reform\u2019 candidate in New York City, ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> also continues Gustavus Myers\u2019 1917 History of Tammany Hall<\/em>. <\/em>Myers tracked the emergence of several oppositions to the \u2018Big Bosses\u2019 of the status quo, \u2018Young Democracy\u2019 etc, that \u2018furnish the appearance<\/em> of a contest\u2019, <\/strong>fronts for the oligarchy that has run the USA\u2019s main metropolis, where gangs control the political process of representation & elections, alternating between thuggery & charity\u2026 Particularly interesting is how the corporations place politicians and civic officials, judges and police, on their payroll\u2026 We are to be held captive between a rock & a hard place, between the world\u2019s self-proclaimed \u2018oldest democracy\u2019 (USA? Really?) & the world\u2019s \u2018largest democracy\u2019(India?)\u2026 So, we keep being told (but\u2026 see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>, Sunday Times<\/em>\u2018 Red Eyebrows).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

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How Does the US Embassy Bribe Media in Sri Lanka?<\/a><\/blockquote>