{"id":152643,"date":"2025-10-19T15:38:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T22:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=152643"},"modified":"2025-10-19T15:38:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T22:38:17","slug":"landmines-miraculously-unearthed-in-jaffna-after-usa-issues-travel-advisory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/10\/19\/landmines-miraculously-unearthed-in-jaffna-after-usa-issues-travel-advisory\/","title":{"rendered":"Landmines Miraculously Unearthed in Jaffna After USA Issues Travel\u00a0Advisory"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
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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 12-18 October 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The English left time bombs in South Asia<\/em>\u2026\u2013 Zhou Enlai, Premier of China, 1949-76<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018In Muhamalai, once one of\u00a0the world\u2019s densest minefields<\/strong>,decades of clearance are allowing people, once displaced by the war, to finally come back home.\u2019 \u2013 22 June 2025, Sunday Times<\/em>, \u2018Recovering a Mined Patch of Land to breathe free once more\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USA is not only constructing miracles<\/em><\/strong> in Argentina, but in Sri Lanka too. Constructing the Miracle<\/em> is the title of Argentine leader Javier Milei\u2019s new book. Unfortunately, that \u2018anarcho-capitalist\u2019 miracle maker, usually waving his signature chainsaw (with which he promised to symbolically sever state interference in private capital), needed an emergency bailout from that state called the United States of America (see ee Who\u2019s Who<\/em><\/strong>, US Vulture Funds over Argentina). US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is said to be bailing out Argentina in order to save his hedgefund friends. And Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the IMF (which constantly demands that our Central Bank remain \u2018independent\u2019 of the people\u2019s legislature) was also reported as stating an IMF bailout was needed to ensure Milei won this month\u2019s election! Policy independence<\/em>? Miracles indeed! (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Yet a most amazing miracle in Sri Lanka was performed this week, as the US issued another \u2018Travel Advisory\u2019 warning about landmines. It\u2019s an old story, says the always-leaving but never-exiting US Envoy Julie Chung, who just returned from Washington after giving them lessons on Marxism-Leninism in Thambuttegama. But lo & behold<\/em>, landmines, supposedly fully cleared in 2017, were soon uncovered by a farmer in Muhamalai, Kilinochchi, just days after the advisory! (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>) Is it miraculous serendipity, or big, beautiful coordination?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     It was only in June 2025, just a few moons ago, that once-Tiger-infested Muhamalai in Jaffna was officially again declared mine-free! The mine-free declaration was made at another \u2018beautiful\u2019 ceremony attended by US State Department\u2019s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Office<\/strong> of Weapons Removal & Abatement Program Officer David Macdonald; Hazardous Area Life-support Organization (HALO) Program Manager Peter Hugh Scott Baker, & Canadian High Commission\u2019s Director of Cooperation Lynda Dearing, leading a host of other resident, hosanna-singing US \u2018state-department<\/em> coolies<\/em>\u2019, such as Strengthening Human Rights & Peace Education (SHAPE) Secretariat\u2019s Marisa de Silva, et al (see ee<\/em><\/strong> 21 June 2025).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The US issues travel advisories against Sri Lanka, whenever their attempts to fully control the country go awry. Last time was in October 2024, after Sri Lanka made some mild criticisms of Israel, and then the Israeli embassy issued a travel advisory, followed by USA also claiming that US (sorry, Israeli) tourists were supposedly under threat in surf-ridden Arugam Bay \u2013 all aimed at hitting the persnickety tourist business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The latest travel advisory lands like a bunker-buster just as a 23-member (some media reported 17 members!) US delegation of \u2018investors\u2019 arrive. Surely, they must have felt very safe to come a-calling. Did they aerially survey all the chaos they have created from Africa (Congo, Sudan) to West Asia (Iran, Palestine, Yemen), or did they fly \u2018Indo-Pacific\u2019 over US-occupied East Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan)? The delegation included such luminaries of hyper capitalism as the Crow family<\/strong> (the largest real estate operators in the US<\/strong>), the Hudson Institute<\/strong>, American Enterprise Institute<\/strong>, and \u2018executives representing technology & human capital development sectors\u2019. Such institutes\u2019 gospels are intimately mimicked by such thinktanks as Advocata<\/strong> & Verite<\/strong>, and such online rags as EconomyNext<\/em><\/strong> (which tags the country\u2019s name Sri Lanka<\/em> to every headline to keep reminding themselves that their universal libertarian \u2018free trade\u2019 dogma needs local anchoring).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The delegates arrived just 2 weeks after another US government \u2018advisory\u2019 to investors about Reds hiding under the ruling NPP bedpans. The latest \u2018travel advisory\u2019 swoops down midst another attempt by the US to stall any industrialization in Hambantota, via China\u2019s Sinopec refinery (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, US Envoy\u2019s Anti-Sinopec Move Collapses). The immaculate coordination between the US Embassy & their Jaffna stipendiaries unearthing incendiaries, indicates that their efforts at conserving all species of wildlife can pay dollared dividends when called upon\u2026 Indeed, it is a not-so-sudsy soap opera, a clumsy choreography involving the labelling of countries as terrorist<\/em>, communist<\/em>, staging expensive UN charades, striped quadrupeds and sundry explosions, etc. A carnival, nay, a concert of whiteness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018The white man made us many promises, more than I<\/p>\n\n\n\n

can remember, but they never kept but one;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

they promised to take our land, & they took it<\/em><\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Makhpiya-luta (aka Red Cloud), 29 December 1890<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018At the turn of the century a newspaper as \u2018respectable\u2019 as the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York Times<\/em> (18 May 1899) could editorially threaten that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

those peoples who opposed the new world capitalist order<\/p>\n\n\n\n

would \u2018be extinguished like the North American Indian\u2019.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 J Sakai, White Settlers<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

12 October<\/strong> 2025 was the 533rd<\/sup> anniversary of the invasion of the Americas, with Cristoforo Colombo (aka Columbus) landing on the land they called Hispaniola, a part of which is now Haiti, in 1492. An Italian (House of Borgia!) Pope then divided the world into two (the first G2 conference!), between Spain & Portugal, sending the Lisboans our way, and inspiring the Protestants (who protested such papal bulls) to follow on their booted heels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     533 years may be a long time to take to graduate from the college of historical reality, but apparently, we \u2013 and certainly the merchant media that calls themselves \u2018free<\/em>\u2019 \u2013 have yet to learn any lessons. The story of the Americas is a tale yet to be heard, let alone listened to and interpreted for local consumption. Then again, we do not know our own history, a history divided into various heavily funded \u2018ethnic\u2019 studies, etc. A history, which like all the arts, is magically \u2013 alchemically \u2013 separated from science, ie, separated from our own interests & desires. A history separated from economics<\/em><\/strong>. And how can we know any story, if we do not know the right words, or how to name things are they are, as they are becoming \u2013 assigning such words their apropos weightage\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018The government must discontinue the practice of allowing the UNHRC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to ram resolutions down its throat. Otherwise, there will be no end<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to resolutions the UNHRC moves against Sri Lanka, according to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the whims & fancies of the western powers swayed by influential<\/p>\n\n\n\n

lobbying groups sympathetic to the LTTE.\u2019 \u2013 Island<\/em> Editorial<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>, Geneva: Claims & ounterclaims<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 This week, saw diverse media commentators, including those of the \u2018Left,\u2019 hailing the US government\u2019s supposed peace deal in the Middle East<\/em> (what West Asia is still miscalled). Here is what one Sunday Island <\/em>columnist (supposedly an LSSPer from Jaffna, now resident in Toronto, & a fanboy of \u2018deplorable\u2019 Hilary Clinton) said: \u2018Netanyahu\u2019s fatal mistake was his failed attempt to kill the Hamas leadership in Doha on 9 September. Trump was furious.\u2019 Really?<\/em> Trump can fake furious one minute, and funny, the next second, whatever face his donors & handlers demand. Doha in the monarchy of Qatar, sites one the largest US bases in the world, as well as hosting Al Jazeera<\/em>, which humorously parades as a monarchic expert on democracy. And so, the US, with all its ubiquitous eyeballs, intrusive cutleries and murderous machineries, didn\u2019t know? Really? Aney! Aney!<\/em> The lack of any knowledge of USA\u2019s \u2018white-settler\u2019 history, other than the Hollywood & Disney caricatures, becomes apparent in this latest US imposition of a \u2018peace of the graveyard\u2019 in West Asia, with the pitbull&poodle media singing chorus. By pitbulls, we mean English & European vassals, and by poodle we mean the so-called Islamic (minus Iran & Yemen) & Arab states and Japan & occupied-Korea. Apparently, \u2018Muslim\u2019 & \u2018Arab\u2019 is a \u2018unity\u2019 only to be deployed when it suits their purpose, such as against the rule of Sinhala people in this country. Meanwhile, some nationalists think we should ally with the MAGA-tiks in the USA & the neo-fascists in Europe, apparently unaware that there is cross-party consensus in the US and Europe when it comes to imperialist needs (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>, Bhadrakumar). Or, as Malcolm X reminded: \u2018When they hear the word \u2018nigger<\/em>\u2019, they \u2013 Jew & Gentile, Catholic & Protestant \u2013 all run in the same direction.\u2019 Remember, remember, we said it here first: The white man may love Jews & hate Muslims today, and go back to hating Jews & loving Muslims tomorrow. It all depends on what their latest printed holy bible says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The merchant media have no need to heed the Oglala Sioux leader Makhpiya-luta\u2019s words about the white man\u2019s promissory notes. First of all, the media are paid to camouflage that the wars in West Asia & Africa & Myanmar & Eastern Europe, are US-led<\/strong> white wars! And as for American<\/em> (not just the US, Canada too, etc) history, the threat by the USA to deploy nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles in the Ukraine against Russia, reminds us that \u2018Tomahawk<\/em>\u2019 is an Ojibwa Algonquian word from the early 17th<\/sup> century, when Spain, Portugal, France, England & Holland were warring on the original people, and between themselves, to dominate the Americas<\/em>. They soon resolved to make peace among themselves to rob the world, in the 19th<\/sup> century, post-1815, through a \u2018Concert of Europe\u2019, led by England. But this concert did not last, with the mass-slaughters of their World Wars 1&2. Now we have a post-1945 \u2018Concert of Whiteness\u2019 led & conducted by the USA aka United Settlers of the Amerikas<\/em>. This concert wishes various diasporas to take the bullet and the blame: Wall Street Jews for Zionist policy in Israel, Miami Cuban mafia for white (in truth: imperialist) policy in Cuba, or East Coast Irish gangsters for US policy in Ireland, or Midwest East European fascists for such policy in Europe, or Khalistani Sikhs for separatist policy in India, or Eelamist Tamils for such fissiparous policies in Sri Lanka. Well, these diasporas may help point the US missiles more accurately, but the codes for fingers to press the buttons are firmly clenched by the ruling capitalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Multinational corporations like Coca-Cola & Unilever,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

supported by chambers of commerce, are trying to water<\/p>\n\n\n\n

down Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) by calling<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it consumer responsibility<\/em>. This is unacceptable\u2026 For over<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20 years, we\u2019ve been stuck in endless discussions because of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

political & corporate resistance.\u2019 \u2013 Hemantha Withanage,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 ee Agriculture<\/em><\/strong>, Lanka must make plastic polluters pay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 This week, saw the tea mafia (Planters\u2019 Association, Tea Board, etc) claim that the French were helping protect the \u2018Ceylon Tea\u2019 brand worldwide. Yet it is England\u2019s multinational corporation (MNC) Unilever that is threatening to tamper & dilute (aka \u2018sophisticate\u2019) Ceylon Tea. Many MNCs are richer than most countries, and their control over the media & politics in a country are heavily camouflaged. ee<\/em><\/strong> has recorded how the League of Multinational Corporations (LMNC) in Sri Lanka, including Baur & Co, Ceylon Tobacco Co, HSBC, Indian Oil Co, Mastercard, led by Unilever, cried out in 2019, \u2018everything needs to be fixed in the context of international standards, in terms of human rights & labor law too\u2019. They then went quiet, having cued their quisling economists to take up their cry. (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>, Rigid Labor Laws)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018As in early elections, the communal cry was once again raised<\/p>\n\n\n\n

against Keuneman & he had to fight the Tammany Hall<\/strong> tactics<\/p>\n\n\n\n

at which Goonesinha was past-master. But with a devoted band<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of Party & election workers, Keuneman was able to overcome<\/p>\n\n\n\n

this & win a seat, thus creating history by being the first Burgher<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ever to be elected<\/strong> to the supreme legislature \u2013 & from a constituency<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in which Burghers were less than 1% of the registered<\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Pieter Keuneman: a Profile<\/em> by Basil Perera<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018Police & thieves in the street (Oh, yeah<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fighting the nation with their guns & ammunitions<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026All the crimes committed, day by day<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one tries to stop it in any way<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the peace makers turned war officers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hear what I say, hey, hey, hey, hey-hey\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Junior Murvin, \u2018Police & Thieves\u2019, 1976<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 This week\u2019s media diversion involved a much-headlined \u2018breaking news<\/em>\u2019 altercation between lawyers & police. The merchant media \u2013 which along with the US and other imperialist pitbull&poodle embassies have declared themselves whiter-than-white arbiters of \u2018transparency\u2019 \u2013 have declared the police to be the most corrupt institution in Sri Lanka. They tactically avoid shaming the blackcoats, and conveniently avoid naming themselves or the import-export plantation merchants they have always served so well. SBD de Silva\u2019s classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment <\/em>has many a reference to the subservient role played by the judiciary in deference to the colonial plantation system, where many English \u2018planters\u2019 presided as magistrates and judges, even as they robbed and tortured workers, reinforcing the umbilical link in private property law between merchants & the police. This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> continues Gustavus Myers\u2019 History of Tammany Hall<\/em>, that New York \u2018charity\u2019 that was a front for the political machinations of the US\u2019 foremost metropolis & municipality. Here Myers notes how \u2018reform\u2019 administrations would come & go, but shows how they were unable to break the nexus between police & crime. The Tammany machine, with the larger monopoly capitalists hiding behind them, turned \u2018corruption<\/em>\u2019 of smaller actors into a religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018One of Sri Lanka\u2019s biggest missed opportunities was the failure<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to make Trincomalee the \u2018oil hub of Asia\u2019 long before Singapore\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Where are<\/em> the Engineers?!<\/strong> \u2013 The ongoing economic and political debacle in Sri Lanka (which did not begin in 2022 or in 1948) is a \u2018heavy indictment on the economists at the Central Bank & officials of the Ministry of Finance\u2019, records Sunil Abhayawardhana. What we need, he insists, are not economists but engineers! These economists (dollared economic hitmen, really!) just keep repeating the old & insane merchant (he calls them \u2018neoliberal\u2019) mantras that \u2018got us into this quagmire in the first place\u2019. Abhayawardhana claims what we lack, is \u2018a proper plan & thought process\u2019. Funds to invest in \u2018an integrated steel mill\u2019 and \u2018shipbuilding industry\u2019 were available in 1948. He tends to emphasize the \u2018export\u2019 business, but at least he refreshingly emphasizes that exports are needed only after an initial phase of import substitution<\/strong> & protection of our home market<\/strong>. He points out that the countries that now advise us against import substitution, themselves only advanced<\/strong> through such policies, directed by the state. The export stage is only needed at the end in order to make us \u2018competitive\u2019 (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 The first phase in the investment pattern of the settler colonies was \u2018inwardly orientated<\/strong>\u2019, wrote SBD de Silva, as ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> continues Chapter 2 of his classic, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment<\/em><\/strong>. Inward<\/em> refers to protecting and promoting their home market. SBD noted the important role that tariffs<\/strong> & protectionism<\/strong> played in those settler colonies creating completive structures. He shows how \u2018farming enterprises had a high degree of self-sufficiency based on a union of agriculture and manufactures\u2019. SBD made a most vital point how these \u2018small enterprises\u2019 later became major industries in the towns, developing an industrial bourgeoisie. We often wonder if the EU & USA\u2019s constant stress on SMEs (small & medium enterprises) is not to allow the SMEs to expand, but to keep them at a rudimentary level, of cooking cutlis, handicraft, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     For, secondly, SBD noted, even as the settler economies were also like the non-settler economies at first, dependent on exporting a few \u2018staples\u2019, such as cod, lumber, minerals, tobacco, etc, the \u2018satellite\u2019 relationship was soon \u2018disturbed\u2019, by investment in machinery<\/strong>. SBD de Silva recalled the Canadian historian & economist HA Innes\u2019s famous theory of \u2018staple base dynamism\u2019<\/em><\/strong> (which ee<\/em><\/strong> notes mimic SBD\u2019s initials!). This dynamism (SBD! SBD!<\/em>) was related to the permanent domicile of the investors in the settler countries, and their economic autonomy from the imperial centres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In fact, competition from London and Paris, etc, only encouraged the faster development of local industries. This staple dynamism turned flour into bread and a variety of foods, as well as alcohol, etc, developing huge mills. More importantly, rural investment in industry developed a huge urban base, due to transportation needs, railways etc, and manufacture soon dominated the investment pattern<\/strong>. The low level of mechanization in non-settler colonies such as Sri Lanka, only encouraged the extractive nature of the economy. In the settler colonies, however, secondary industries arose; \u2018butter and cheese canneries, meat-packing and refrigeration plants, flour mills, vineries, and wood-working complexes in the vicinity of the primary resources\u2019. Most importantly, the settlers forced the state to play a central role in developing modern industries. \u2018The high level of wages and interest rates and the general level of prices\u2019 then \u2018induced technological improvements.\u2019 (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 In the Land of Abhayagiri<\/strong> \u2013 This week saw the Sri Lankan government note that less than one-third of the students who scramble through the GCE A\/Level exams & qualify for university, get to enter a local university. Meanwhile, the Australian government is demanding their universities to reduce their dependence on foreign Chinese students. Foreign students paying exorbitant foreign exchange have been keeping distant universities (& economies!) afloat in white countries. Almost half the university students in Australia are \u2018foreign\u2019, and 50% of these students are from China. Of course, many of these students are \u2018fake\u2019, in that they end up working at low-paying jobs, which the whites refuse \u2013 instead of study. The \u2018foreign student\u2019 scam is seen as a \u2018backdoor\u2019 immigration policy, even as their media wink and promote anti-migrant (read: anti-Black) propaganda to keep such workers in their place. Very few media in Sri Lanka or elsewhere point out that it is the prevention of modern industrialization that has curtailed the upskilled employment of workers. The US & other white countries tame the demands of their proletarians assembled in large factories & workshops, by resorting to outsourcing (to smaller plants) and offshoring. Such profundity is not for our so-called \u2018free\u2019 media, or for our funded scholars. Oh\u2026and Abhayagiri is that famous monastic university of ancient times, still left to marinate in its ruins\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 \u2018The specter of 1988-89 is quietly re-emerging within the political sphere casting a shadow over the current political landscape\u2019, so asserts the novelist Sena Thoradeniya, most ominously. He insists he is deploying Marxist-Leninist tools<\/strong> to analyse political pronouncements (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>). Will the political police, largely run by imperialism, once again, manipulate such a scenario, once again, pitting comrade against comrade, brother against brother, sister against sister, socialist against socialist, to inspire mass slaughter, to maintain this import-export plantation fraud? The whites are flagrantly exhibiting such bloodlusting propensities in West Asia, and NorthEast & Central Africa. Thoradeniya points to the alleged pronouncements of a suburban mayor affiliated to the JVP, who reportedly claimed that they are capable of \u2018eliminating at least 10 million\u2019 individuals here. In this age of AI fabrications, it is possible to realistically portray anybody saying anything. A largely colonial media plays its part by spreading false binaries and concoctions to confuse and divert. This is their job. A counter-media, that does not depend on the white man\u2019s tools, like so-called social media<\/em> included, is sorely the need of the hour. Life beyond google & facebook etc? Is there such a thing? Of course, there is! & it is up to builders of the new \u2018roads\u2019, to obvert the old colonial \u2018trunks\u2019, and construct such real alternatives.<\/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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Landmines Miraculously Unearthed in Jaffna After USA Issues Travel Advisory<\/a><\/blockquote>