{"id":152748,"date":"2025-10-27T17:03:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T00:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=152748"},"modified":"2025-10-27T17:03:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T00:03:37","slug":"why-sri-lanka-was-really-denied-admission-to-the-united-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/10\/27\/why-sri-lanka-was-really-denied-admission-to-the-united-nations\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Sri Lanka was Really Denied Admission to the United\u00a0Nations"},"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 19-25 October 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018The\u00a0Ceylon National Congress<\/strong>\u00a0was so reactionary that it actually opposed the grant of\u00a0adult franchise<\/strong> proposed by the\u00a0Donoughmore Constitutional Reform<\/strong> Commission<\/strong>\u00a0in 1929. This class, however, secured its political ascendency when the Donoughmore Constitution (1931)\u2013 while granting adult franchise \u2013\u00a0barred the election of<\/strong> anyone to the State Council who is unable to speak, read<\/strong> & write the English language<\/strong>. Also, the device of a Board of Ministers enabled the notables in this class to become ministers & run the machinery of\u00a0internal<\/strong>\u00a0\u2018self-government<\/strong>\u2018 from 1931-47.\u2019\u2013 Satchi Ponnambalam, 1980 (see\u00a0ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Later in 1948, when Ceylon applied for United Nations membership, the Soviet Union vetoed the application. This was partly because Soviet Union believed that Ceylon was only nominally independent, & the English still exercised control over it because the\u00a0white, educated elite<\/strong>\u00a0had control of the government.\u2019\u2013 Wikipedia (ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>, English Dominion of Ceylon)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Our application for membership was vetoed by the then Soviet Union on the ground that we still had a\u00a0defence agreement<\/strong>\u00a0with England (& that\u00a0Trincomalee was a naval base under the control of the English<\/strong>, despite our \u2018independence\u2019 in Feb 1948) \u2026 As part of a package deal, however, we gained admission in December 1955 in return for the\u00a0US<\/strong> holding back its veto on Soviet allies<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0such as Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary & Romania, who eventually made it to the UN the same day as we did.\u2019\u2013 Thalif Deen (ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>, The day SL was denied admission)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UN Security Council Resolution 109 was adopted on Dec 14, 1955. After being instructed by the General Assembly to consider the applications for membership of Albania, Austria, Bulgaria,\u00a0Cambodia<\/strong>,\u00a0Ceylon<\/strong>, Finland, Hungary, Ireland,Italy,\u00a0Jordan<\/strong>,\u00a0Laos<\/strong>,\u00a0Libya<\/strong>,\u00a0Nepal<\/strong>, Portugal, Romania, & Spain,the Security Council recommended all 16 countries for admission to the UN. The resolution was adopted by 8 votes (France, Soviet Union, England, Brazil, Iran, New Zealand,Peru, & Turkey). Belgium, Taiwan & the USA abstained.\u2019\u2013\u00a0ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>, UN Security Council Resolution 109<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this version of the Soviet veto correct, by Thalif Deen, \u2018Senior Editor at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS)<\/em> News Agency\u2019? Or is it more deliberate, colonially induced, amnesia of what actually was happening at that time? The UN was formed in June 1945, by 51 countries, with the UN Security Council (UNSC) led by the USSR, US, England & China, determining its future course. England\u2019s \u2018Island of Ceylon & its Dependencies\u2019 was turned into an English \u2018Dominion of Ceylon\u2019 in February 1948, with the Queen of England remaining as head of state. So it was, that in 1971, 23 years later, the JVP was charged with attempting to overthrow the English monarchy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In October 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC), which had defeated the Japanese invasion of their country, established the People\u2019s Republic (PRC). The previous rulers, the Guomindang (KMT), fled to Taiwan under the protection of the US military, \u2018freezing\u2019 the US war on China. The USA thus kept refusing to permit the PRC to take its proper place in the UN, let alone in the UN Security Council. Instead, the US continued to wage war on New China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Missing Background:<\/strong> In 1950, the US got the UN Security to Council to illegally vote in favour of a \u2018police action\u2019 in Korea. The USSR was absent for the vote in the Security Council<\/strong>, as they were boycotting the UNSC<\/strong>, since the US & England kept refusing to allow the People\u2019s Republic<\/strong> of China to take the China seat, instead of the defeated KMT government (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>). The UN from its very inception to this day has been a tale of the European imperialists and their settler colonies manipulating the substance of its membership and resolutions to allow their continued invasion of the world. The USA kept using its veto to squash the writ of the UN General Assembly, and the demands of the vast majority of the world. It would be 24 years before China was allowed to enter the UN, in 1972, the same year Sri Lanka became a Republic and finally, or at least nominally, was able to get rid of the English monarchs as rulers. By then, imperialism had developed new methods to undermine our societies, under a seemingly coy US hegemon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Imperialism now uses neocolonialism instead of direct colonial rule.There is an unholy trinity \u2013 the\u00a0International Monetary Fund<\/strong>,the\u00a0World Bank<\/strong>\u00a0&\u00a0World Trade Organization<\/strong>\u00a0that directs neocolonial plunder of dependent nations. A rational struggle against imperialism should obviously oppose this unholy trinity.\u2019\u2013 Jayatilleke de Silva (ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, Anti-imperialism: Rhetoric & Reality)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 \u2018The 21st<\/sup> century \u2013 it\u2019s all about the ocean<\/strong>,\u2019 is a most-quotable quote in Lasanda Kurukulasuriya\u2019s report on The Geopolitics of Hydrography & Lanka\u2019s Dilemma<\/em> (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>). \u2018Hydrography<\/strong> has become a flashpoint in the ongoing geopolitical contest between big powers in the Indian Ocean. But, is it a contest, or the continuation of the invasion by Europe & its \u2018quadrangular\u2019 pirates of the seas about us? China does represent an ongoing security anxiety for us\u201d, proclaims a politician from Australia, a country, still a colony, which was turned into a destination for \u2018convicts\u2019 sailed in, as England \u2018ruled the waves\u2019 from the 19th<\/sup> century, while proclaiming \u2018free trade\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The recent attempts by the imperialists, with India in tow, to prevent Chinese research ships from visiting Sri Lanka, claiming they\u2019re \u2018spying<\/em>\u2018 on the seabed, can be easily resolved, declares Kurukulasuriya. The Seabed 2030<\/em> <\/strong>global project, \u2018aims to produce \u2018the definitive map\u2019 of the world ocean floor by 2030 and make it available to all\u2019. If, indeed, it \u2018is made available to all\u2019 in an \u2018open source\u2019 way, and competition is replaced by collaboration\u2019, adds Kurukulasuriya, the attempt to turn Sri Lanka into another base for imperialism to covertly wage proxy wars, could be obverted. Besides, if this information is so freely available, then why would Chinese ships need to be accused of spying<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Sri Lanka under Sirimavo Bandaranaike once led the movement to turn the Indian Ocean into a \u2018Zone of Peace\u2019. It is the US & its nuclear pitbulls &lesser poodles who have opposed such a truly \u2018pacific<\/em>\u2019 (as in, \u2018peaceable\u2019) zone. Instead, England recently, illegally leased Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago for the USA to commandeer as a nuclearized military base of operations, to be able to keep bombing Asia & Africa. The practices by imperialism to divide & rule, to barter & exchange countries still continues, albeit somewhat restricted by growing resistance, especially with China organizing solidarity initiatives like the BRI, BRICS, SCO\u2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018The consumer base in [SL\u2019s] Western Province is<\/p>\n\n\n\n

almost equal to the consumer base in Thailand<\/p>\n\n\n\n

which is affluent & modern.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Carl Cruz, Chairman of Unilever, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This accidental admission from the then-chairman of England\u2019s Unilever is from Business Dialogue<\/em>, the magazine of the National School of Business Management (2019). This enlightening statistic apparently became the subject of dissension in a national newspaper, as the media in Sri Lanka depend on the English multinational corporation\u2019s (MNC\u2019s) lavish advertising budget<\/strong>. Apparently, Unilever does not wish to remind us that they, along with other European (and imperialist) MNCs, have taken our home market hostage. Sri Lanka\u2019s Western Province is a parasite<\/strong> on the rest of the country. Nonetheless, the market in Sri Lanka\u2019s Western Province is \u2018almost equal\u2019 to Thailand, which has a population of at least 70 million people, is quite a revelation! Such statistics matter, because, even as our population is larger than 150 other countries, many being already industrialized, Sri Lanka\u2019s market is declared as too small<\/em> to enable industrialization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This supposed inadequacy is the subject of SBD de Silva\u2019s classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment<\/em>, as this ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> continues excerpting Chapter 3. Innumerable & unending are the excuses for stalling or preventing the growth of modern industrialization in Sri Lanka \u2013 and one of the biggest pretexts is a lack of a local market. Here SBD challenged \u2018certain perceptions which attribute the non-industrialization of these countries to market limitations<\/strong>\u2018. He pointed out that settler colonies still industrialized their societies, despite having smaller home markets than Sri Lanka<\/strong>. He then painstakingly demolished such arguments, along with other objections such as impoverishment, economy of scale, lack of entrepreneurial ability. Here it is important to note that he took on the limitations of the diverse entrepreneurial activities undertaken by Sri Lankan companies, despite persistent claims (including by \u2018Leftists\u2019) about the \u2018repair & servicing of tea & rubber machinery\u2019. Such efforts did not challenge the domination & monopoly of the MNCs, and were outside the main relations of production (tea pluckers, rubber tappers, etc), nor did they lead to other types of products (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Data concealment is assisted by the giant accounting firms<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

acting in alliance with corporate power.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(See, ee<\/em><\/strong> 22 Feb 2025, The Secret Evasions of<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

England\u2019s Ceylon Tobacco Company in SL<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018In place of direct thieving methods of getting rich,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

indirect methods, surrounded with secrecy & every<\/p>\n\n\n\n

possible precaution against detection, were developed.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018His operations in amassing his wealth were entirely legitimate;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018inside\u2019 real estate speculations<\/strong>, connections with trust companies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

& other corporations and stock transactions<\/strong>. Knowing him to be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the source of much legislation & administrative favors<\/strong> worth 10s,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

if not 100s, of millions of dollars to corporations, his opponents<\/p>\n\n\n\n

were by no means wholly satisfied with such an explanation,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but whatever their suspicions they could never prove that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

he had personally profited from selling legislation<\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 While the daily media is full of the government\u2019s grandiose exertions to combat \u2018corruption<\/em>\u2018, it is easily noted that not a single executive of a multinational bank or corporation, or chartered accountancy, is yet to be \u2018perp-walked<\/strong>\u2018 in handcuffs across the tv screens, front pages or via viral social media posts. This distinction is only granted to petty opposition politicians & officials, mainly Sinhala, it seems, who served them. MNCs are of course the great untouchables. This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> also continues Gustavus Myers\u2019 1917 History of Tammany Hall<\/em><\/strong>, as it provides a great example of the limitations of the focus on \u2018corruption\u2019 (which is a quite \u2018normal\u2019 practice in a merchant-dominated economy). Tammany<\/em><\/strong>, to remind, was the New York \u2018charity\u2019, aka NGO, a front for the political machinations of the USA\u2019s foremost metropolis & municipality, neon lair for Wall Street. This excerpt notes the evolution<\/em> of corruption<\/em> midst the rise of financial capitalism<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Myers describes how \u2018the great life insurance<\/strong> companies<\/strong>\u2019 came to classify bribery expenditures<\/strong> on their accounting books as \u2018legal expenses<\/em><\/strong>\u2019<\/em> (later also, \u2018goodwill<\/em>\u2019), making it impossible to trace all of the directions of this \u2018continuous great corruption\u2019, the \u2018enormous sums\u2026 expended in a surreptitious manner\u2019.  Grand Juries proceeded \u2018against a few of the figureheads<\/strong>\u2019, while \u2018the great magnates<\/strong> who had profited so enormously from the huge frauds, were\u2026 left untouched\u2019. \u2018Not a single one of those of great wealth implicated was ever sent to jail or even incommoded<\/strong> by the formality of a trial\u2019. Of course, this was a peak period of the famous \u2018muckrakers<\/strong>\u2019, when, magazines, newspapers & books were filled with:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018The corruptions & colossal manipulations & spoliation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

done by great corporations & other vested interests,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& the close connection between these & the \u2018bosses\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& machines of both old political parties.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Indeed, the media focused public attention on nationwide scandals and \u2018the great extortions of trusts and other industrial, transportation & financial corporations.\u2019 Yet as we know, the great corporations such as US Rockefeller\u2019s Standard Oil, and Morgan\u2019s General Electric, AT&T, etc, were able to use these expos\u00e9s to transmute themselves (despite being \u2018broken up\u2019 into the \u20187 Sisters\u2019, \u2018Baby Bells\u2019), to make themselves leaner & more centralized, even as they hid behind \u2018dummies\u2019, setting up fake \u2018trade unions\u2019, and movements to murder & usurp genuine opposition, to destabilize real rivals. They would only be counteracted by the formation of modern, vanguard, cadre Communist Parties, led by the likes of a Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, etc \u2013 which then faced the combined onslaught of imperialism, and that \u2018socialism of fools\u2019 \u2013 Fascism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 How will the nominally Marxist-Leninist JVP, the main constituent party of the ruling NPP coalition, wriggle obsequiously, or march head high, out of the lacerating traps set for truly national movements by a globetrotting capitalism? As observers of variable hues note (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>, \u2018Economic Rigor Mortis\u2019), the IMF\u2019s prognoses prevent any kind of attempt at rational transformation. All the NPP has been able to do, it seems, is postpone the reckoning (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>, \u2018Beheading Not Haircut\u2019). One orchestral section in the soap opera that passes for criticism has taken to awaiting the decline & fall of the US & EU empires, though as some astute Marxist observers point out (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>, Creation\u2019s Destruction) capitalism is<\/em> crisis and they are quite happy to destroy, in order to resurrect themselves. Or blow us all up together\u2026 Unless & until the working class can unite to defeat, and<\/em> promulgate plans to go beyond them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 One popular and vocal segment blames everything on the foibles of a Nietzschean (\u2018rationality & morality are for slaves\u2019, \u2018caprice is for masters\u2019) US President. Though others point out such orange personalities are merely ventriloquist\u2019s dummies, enacting the will of the capitalists who are seeking ways to get out of the mass grave they themselves have dug (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>, USA\u2019s Privatizing of Public Wars). The US President is regularly contradicted by his own officials, led by VP JD Vance, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe, White House advisor Stephen Miller, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Daniel Caine, and Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, etc, who themselves represent \u2018pools\u2019 of capitalists, and are the dummies for other larger ventriloquists. The days of kings are long gone, no matter what the US Democratic Party claims (see ee Politics<\/em><\/strong>, No Kings & the Lure of Spectacle).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 VI Lenin\u2019s 1917 classic Imperialism, the Latest Stage of Capitalism <\/em>was written to explain the role played by capitalist monopolies (yes, Nobel Inc included) in igniting the mass slaughter of the 1st<\/sup> \u2018World War\u2019. So, what breath-taking cataclysm, that would not also obliterate the arsonists, can they organize to divert the attention of the world? China is effectively countering US attempts to sabotage its industrial advance (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>, Mother of All Machines). The US proxy war on Russia is being defeated in the Ukraine. Palestine has fought the Zionist praetorian proxy to a standstill. The US while igniting other proxy wars in our part of the world (Myanmar, East Africa, etc) may first wish to consolidate its hold over the Americas (first attacking Venezuela, Cuba, etc, and then grabbing Danish colony Greenland; Canada is already a colony!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     October 25 is the 42nd<\/sup> anniversary of the USA\u2019s 1983 invasion of Grenada<\/strong>, a republic in the eastern Caribbean, approximately 21 miles long & 12 miles wide. This was undertaken to divert from the successful attack on the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed over 300 US and French personnel\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 China<\/strong> this week announced its 15th<\/sup> 5-Year Plan<\/strong>. 15th!<\/em><\/strong> It is farcical to see & hear the imperialist banks inside China praise (however superficial & opportunistic their honorifics may be) China\u2019s planning process. Meanwhile, these same banks (Standard Chartered, HSBC, Citibank, etc) have opposed state planning in Sri Lanka, let alone have financed the sabotage and even assassination of those who advocated such plans. Meanwhile the idiotic merchant media in Sri Lanka seems not to have mentioned one word about such plans, in China, let alone dare call for such plans for ourselves. The oilmen\u2019s media (Bloomberg<\/em>, Reuters<\/em> & their local lip-services, EconomyNext<\/em>, News1st<\/sup><\/em>, their economists & thinktanks) which are largely mouthpieces for imperialist demands, keep repeating (like the commands & spurs to horses, buffalos & elephants: Juk! Juk! Juk! Juk!<\/em>) to demand the state keep to the racecourse set by the USA\u2019s Treasury Department & its minions: IMF, World Bank, ADB, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018The world trading system is in turmoil<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since \u2018liberation day\u2019 tariffs were announced\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 So-called \u2018South Asian Economists\u2019<\/strong> have put out a statement (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>) on what South Asian economies should do, diversify exports, etc. What strikes the reader immediately, is their use of the passive voice<\/em> to describe what are essentially the commands of the USA<\/strong>. They (really, these economists are US- & EU-funded so-called \u2018thought-leaders\u2019) may argue there is no point poking the beast in the eye, but it seems they hope, by looking away from the perpetrator, they can get away with their mild anodynes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018A highlight was Dr Weerasinghe receiving the prestigious<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018A Grade\u2019 award from Global Finance<\/em> magazine<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for his monetary policy leadership.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Central Bank governor seems to be competing for his own post-retirement superannuation in dollars. His incessant \u2018press release\u2019 machinery is only excelled by the President and Prime Minister\u2019s \u2018Media Divisions\u2019. They all offer fine verbal palliatives and promises, though the CB governor\u2019s pronouncements are crowned with such endless infinitives as \u2018expected to\u2019, etc. \u2013 meaning the economy is \u2018expected to\u2019 do fine, after he is long gone. Meanwhile, both the Governor and the Commercial Bank of Ceylon<\/strong> (actually it should change its name to ComBank of Washington) have been awarded prizes by the same dubious organization (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>) that celebrated former Finance Ministers of similarly dubious vintage. How, and more aptly, why do they indulge in such vanity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some sections of the national movement have taken up imperialism\u2019s diversions, by taking sides with the binaries thrown out by the capitalist media: pro-human rights v. anti-Geneva inquisitions, pro-environment v. pro-industrialization, pro-homo vs anti-homo, pro-gender rights v. anti-feminist, etc. ee<\/em><\/strong>, meanwhile, forgot to note in our screed on diasporas, that, for instance, the Jews ruling Israel right now, are those who actively collaborated with the Nazi Germans. Their acts included convincing other Jews they should board trains that were supposedly going to Europe, and instead delivered them to the gas ovens. Schindler\u2019s Lists indeed\u2026Hollywood\u2019s Stephen Schlepberg will make no movie on this other list, of those, who were navigated to power by England, the Nazis and their older brothers, the white settlers of the USA! The cultural school of explaining the world, ignores that within so-called cultures, there are dominant and wannabe classes\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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Why Sri Lanka was Really Denied Admission to the United Nations<\/a><\/blockquote>