{"id":157590,"date":"2026-07-29T15:32:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=157590"},"modified":"2026-07-29T15:32:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:32:26","slug":"outside-forces-up-high-voodoo-economics-yaka-economics-the-charade-of-economists-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/07\/29\/outside-forces-up-high-voodoo-economics-yaka-economics-the-charade-of-economists-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Outside Forces\u2019 & \u2018Up High\u2019: Voodoo Economics, Yaka Economics & the Charade of Economists in Sri\u00a0Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Posted byee ink.<\/a>Uncategorized<\/a>Tags:history<\/a>, politics<\/a>, sri-lanka<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

blog: https:\/\/eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/a><\/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 July 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018Why did no one see it coming?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 England\u2019s Queen Elizabeth asked<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the London School of Economics (LSE)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

about the 2008 capitalist meltdown<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018The Government is preparing to restore criminal sanctions<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for serious foreign exchange offences after investigations<\/p>\n\n\n\n

into approximately $715mn remitted overseas through<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

fraudulent import transactions<\/em><\/strong> exposed a gap<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

in Sri Lanka\u2019s legal framework.\u2019 \u2013 ee Finance<\/em><\/strong>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Govt to Bring Back Criminal Sanctions for FX Violations<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Headline news this week about an apparent \u2018leakage<\/em>\u2019 or legal \u2018gap<\/em>\u2019, which actually amounts to far more than admitted, was written to read like a detective novel, with the CID hounds sniffing at the Colombo Fort\u2019s always fishy seaside airs more deeply:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Criminal Investigation Department\u2019s (CID<\/strong>) is said to be investigating \u2018approximately $715million transferred overseas between January 2023 & March 2026 [a curious timeframe] through 105 shell companies<\/strong> using import documentation<\/strong> that did not result in actual goods brought into Sri Lanka. The CID has identified 55 individuals<\/strong>, 227 bank accounts<\/strong>, & approximately 24,300 telegraphic transfers (TTs)<\/strong> processed through 13 State & private banks<\/strong> as part of the alleged scheme.\u2019 The blame is also placed on the proverbial Dubai drug traffickers\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Meanwhile Central Bank scammer, footnote fetishist & favorite media go-to, the Ceylon Tobacco Co\u2019s main parliamentary lobbyist & SJB MP, Harsha de Silva<\/strong> is desperately trying to divert blame<\/strong> on to \u2018failing to enforce existing laws<\/strong> & poor technical coordination<\/strong>, rather than a lack of legislation\u2019. And CBSL officials rushed to assure financial finaglers & \u2018laundry\u2019 owners that any legislative \u2018changes would not reverse the liberalization of Sri Lanka\u2019s foreign exchange regime\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Asian Development Bank (ADB<\/strong>) was also thanked for, albeit belatedly, alerting the government to such criminality even as \u2018the abuse of advance import payments may have begun much earlier. The \u2018leakage\u2019, which feels like a flood, followed the enactment of the Foreign Exchange Act of 2017<\/em>, which decriminalised foreign exchange offences & replaced the previous enforcement regime with a predominantly civil framework<\/strong>; that is: allowed criminals accused of such frauds to escape jail. Moral hazard, anyone? So, what\u2019s going on? 2017 suggests the presently ruling JVP was also part of the then ruling coalition that passed this leaky Foreign Exchange Act<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Serendipitously, we came across ee<\/em><\/strong> September 2023 Part 3, which offers a treasure trove of information that makes clear that such legislative changes to capital controls, ie, permitted leakages<\/em>, were demanded from \u2018up high<\/em><\/strong>\u2019, possibly reaching beyond, to the gods themselves but more related to the everyday accounting practices of multinational corporations (MNCs):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018Unnamed \u2018senior officials of the Asia\/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG)<\/strong>\u2018 were in Colombo [in September 2023], just before the IMF arrived. The APG is permanently located in Australia. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka was a rotating APG co-chairperson, 2016-18, when Indrajit Coomaraswamy was CB Governor. It was during his charge in July-Aug 2017 that the Exchange Control Act of 1953<\/em> was scrapped, leading to the haemorrhage of billions of dollars out of the country, & bankruptcy in 2022\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coomaraswamy says he did not draft the bill,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

it was done by \u2018outside\u2019 forces<\/strong>:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

 \u2018The Parliamentary Select Committee, assigned to investigate the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage<\/strong>, raised the Foreign Exchange Control Act of 2017<\/em>, with the Central Bank, on 26 July 2019.\u2019 Then Power, Energy & Business Development Minister Ravi Karunanayake (later implicated in the 2015 bondscam) strongly countered CBSL condemnation of the new Foreign Exchange Act<\/em>. Commenting on funds received from Saudi Arabia on 21 occasions<\/strong>, the CBSL stressed that the new Act weakened the CBSL regulatory role, vis-a-vis illegal transactions by institutions linked with those blamed for the attacks. The CBSL took an unwavering stand that the new law impeded its regulatory powers<\/strong>, thereby facilitating illegal transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ravi Karunanayake (RK)<\/strong>: Where does it say such transactions cannot be inquired into in terms of the new Act?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     CBSL<\/strong>: In accordance with 2017 Exchange Control Act, Section 30, action cannot be taken<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

RK<\/strong>: You prepared that Act. Why are you pretending as if you don\u2019t know anything about it? CBSL amended it several times & sent it back.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Coomaraswamy<\/strong>: No Sir. The Act actually was not drafted by us<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     RK<\/strong>: Why not?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coomaraswamy<\/strong>: No Sir. It was done outside.<\/strong> We were actually very upset about it. We were not included. That was drafted without the CBSL being involved.\u2019 <\/em> (see ee<\/em><\/strong> September 2023, Part 2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, who<\/em> drafted the new Act<\/strong>? The Island<\/em> report does not say. Let us recall that Suresh Kumar Shah<\/strong>, chair of British American Tobacco\u2019s Ceylon Tobacco Co (BAT-CTC) was appointed chair of the SoE Restructuring Agency in September 2022. \u2018A separate agency to restructure state enterprises\u2019 had been announced rather quietly<\/strong> by President Ranil Wickremesinghe in US media outlet EconomyNext<\/em>. These SoEs are \u2018eating up people\u2019s taxes\u2019, Ranil wailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Shah was Chair of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC, 2013-15) and was replaced by Rajendra Theagarajah<\/strong>, who backed by \u2018independent economists\u2019, pushed the infamous Foreign Exchange Management Act<\/em> (FEMA<\/strong>), which removed capital controls:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018Foreign investors wooed to invest in Sri Lanka, gain & take profits away at whim<\/em>\u2018 \u2013 an excited CCC headline announced after the new Foreign Exchange Act No12<\/strong><\/em> was imposed in July 2017, during the US-funded Yahapalana regimen: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018The concept of foreign-exchange control has now disappeared from our dialogue\u2019<\/strong>, Rajendra Theagarajah, Ceylon Chamber chair told a visiting New Zealand business delegation in Colombo. \u2018That 5-decades-old Act has been repealed & replaced by a much more investor-friendly FEMA\u2019, announced the \u2018Veteran Banker\u2019. \u2018FEMA allows you to invest your money in your chosen ventures, make gains & take your profit away as & when you wish<\/strong>, without having to obtain any formal, regulatory approval from the authorities.\u2019 Theagarajah, once CEO of 3 private commercial banks, is also a \u2018Senior Visiting Fellow\u2019 of Milinda Moragoda\u2019s Rockefeller-funded Pathfinder Foundation<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Rajendra Theagarajah has chaired the Sri Lanka Banks Association, the Asian Banks Association and Lanka Financial Services Bureau, and served on the boards of Lanka Clear and Colombo Stock Exchange, USA Chamber of Commerce (Ancham), Sri Lanka Institute of Directors and Chairman of Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (2017-19). He is now also on the Boards of Siam City, Sri Lanka, Professional Insurance Corporation of Zambia, Chairman of First Capital Holdings, Janashakti Finance, Payable, and the Board of Trustees of Colours of Courage. In 2022, he was titled Chairman Emeritus\u201d of The Asian Banks Association\u2026and has \u2018made significant contributions towards policy advocacy issues such as the Corporate Governance Framework for Banks, Basel III adoption and Fair Value Accounting by Banks, Financial Inclusion and more recently development of Fintec Sand Box-framework for Banks.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     By January 2022, Theagarajah\u2019s pal Shah was complaining about a \u2018foreign currency crisis\u2019 making it difficult for corporates to open Letters of Credit (LCs<\/strong>): \u2018The path ahead of us is to restructure debt, set out a credible plan to improve our financial position, use this plan for an IMF<\/strong> program, get affordable bridging finance from multilaterals & implement the plan vigorously.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     So, will the APF investigated the Theagarajahs & Shahs?<\/strong> No way. They are faithful servants of empire: The APG Secretariat is permanently located in Sydney, Australia. The permanent Co-Chair is Australia, now represented by Australian Federal Police\u2019s Ian McCartney, and the current rotating Co-Chair is Julien Brazeau, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance in Department of Finance Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The APG\u2019s visit came a month after the SL Cabinet of Ministers approved the Anti-MoneyLaundering & Countering the Financing of Terrorism National Policy<\/em> for 2023-28. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     11 APG members are also members of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF): Australia, Canada, India, China, Hong Kong. APG observers include: Asian Development Bank, European Commission, FATF, IMF<\/strong>, UN Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC<\/strong>), & World Bank<\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     So, there it is! We have the word of that Royalist rugby player, former CBSL governor & present Japan Cement director, Indrajit Coomaraswamy, that it was \u2018outside forces\u2019, \u2018up high\u2019 who punctured the leak in the ship of state. Will the CID oblige and sniff them down? We won\u2019t hold our breath, cos that may mean another fact-finding mission to London or New York, or\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The government in Sri Lanka is sending troops to Haiti to join the UN\u2019s \u2018Gang Suppression Force<\/strong>\u2019. This \u2018force\u2019 is commanded by the USA & Canada, etc. But\u2026 but, who are the real<\/em><\/strong> gangsters<\/strong> in Haiti? The USA, Canada, along with France, organized the kidnapping of Haiti\u2019s sitting President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004<\/strong>. They have continued to assassinate leaders who do not conform to their commands. Haiti President Jovenel Mo\u00efse was assassinated in July 2021<\/strong>, when Julie Chung<\/strong> was Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Chung was removed a few weeks after, perhaps due to the bloody messiness of the hit, and the dismal optics, and therefore posted to Sri Lanka, an ocean away, as envoy, in February 2022, to accelerate an almost bloodless coup against then-President Gotabaya Rajapakse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just over 200 years before the kidnapping of Aristide, in 1802<\/strong> (just as England was unsuccessfully attacking the highland kingdom of Sinhal\u00e9) France kidnapped Toussaint L\u2019Ouverture<\/strong>, the leader who had expelled 3 European Armies, French, Spanish & English, from Haiti. France had invited L\u2019Ouverture to talk \u2018peace\u2019 on a ship, then whisked him away. He was killed in a French prison. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was prompted to even pen a poem about L\u2019Ouverture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Europeans were befuddled by the ability of supposedly illiterate African \u2018slaves\u2019 to defeat the 3 armies. They blamed the Haitian victories on \u2018Black Magic\u2019, on the occult powers of superstitious savages \u2013 they called it \u2018Voodoo<\/em><\/strong>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The English expelled from Haiti then resorted to its own \u2018voodoo\u2019 in Sri Lanka by enacting a coup d\u2019etat in 1815, opening the highlands, after murdering & expelling the Sinhala, to the ravages of coffee (& later, tea) plantations. The handbook, which was used to teach planters in Ceylon, and advocated torture & murder, was a text authored by a French coffee planter in Haiti, and republished in Colombo in 1842.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018Voodoo Economics\u2019<\/em><\/strong> was the term used by the corporate media in Sri Lanka to describe the Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR) administration\u2019s massive tax cuts imposed in late 2019, to appease so-called entrepreneurs, which led to a drop in government revenue, that was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic (not to mention the legal \u2018drain\u2019 of dollars from the country that occured after 2017). The term was then extended to covering \u2018money printing\u2019 to discourage the government from directing Central Bank funds to invest in the country\u2019s modern industrially productive energies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018Voodoo Economics<\/em>\u2019 is a term imported from the USA. Former CIA leader George Bush<\/strong>, when he ran in the 1980 US presidential primaries, taged his opponent Ronald Reagan\u2019s proposed policies as \u2018voodoo economics\u2019 (aka Reaganomics based on supply-side economics or \u2018trickle-down economics\u2019). Reagan claimed a cut in tax rates would result in an increase in tax revenue, and thus not increase the government deficit. Regan called it \u2018free-market economics<\/em>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Shiran Illanperuma feels the use of the term \u2018voodoo economics\u2019 by the \u2018economic establishment\u2019 in Sri Lanka to describe GR policies links more to its white supremacist origins, to add to the English Colombo\u2019s denigration<\/em> of (meaning to treat as a \u2018Negro, to blacken\u2019) the Rajapakse family as rustic rural rubes. He recalls that \u2018plantations came to Sri Lanka after slavery was outlawed in the Caribbean\u2019 and \u2018labour practices in Sri Lankan & Caribbean plantations were not that different<\/strong>\u2019 (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     However, Illanperuma\u2019s interest in his latest essay (\u2018Can Sri Lankans Do Economics\u2019) is the miseducation promoted by \u2018mainstream economics\u2019 in Sri Lanka, which steadfastly ignores the \u2018longer-term structural crisis\u2019 of Sri Lanka\u2019s colonial import-export plantation economy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spectre of \u2018<\/em>voodoo economics\u2019 became a convenient way<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

to discredit anything that challenged the cookie-cutter prescriptions<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of<\/em> neoclassical economics<\/em><\/strong>. In a sense, it was the<\/em> economics<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

establishment\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> way of absolving itself from blame<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Illanperuma also takes aim at the Ministry of Education & the Central Bank, which claim to be promoting \u2018financial literacy\u2019 blaming the state of the economy on people\u2019s idiocy. Yet he points to United Nations Conference of Trade & Development (UNCTAD) reports where Sri Lanka\u2019s situation is not at all different from most of the world \u2013 trapped in debt bondage. Yet, we are lectured:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You are in debt because you have misbehaved,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

taxed too little, & printed too much money.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have been<\/em> corrupt \u2013 as if there is no corruption<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the USA, the European Union, & Japan.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a strange assertion.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

He then traces the \u201875 years since the birth of modern Sri Lankan economics<\/strong>\u2019. Most interesting is the recall that the Central Bank, at the moment of its birth in 1950 under the US economist John Exter, devalued the Sri Lankan rupee by 30% against the US Dollar. However, Illanperuma does not mention the devaluation helped the USA buy rubber inexpensively, for its war waged to divide Korea\u2026 nor that Exter promoted (not modern industrial production), but widespread conspicuous consumption in order to bribe the so-called middle class<\/em> to remain tied to colonialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Illanperuma suggests \u2018voodoo economics\u2019 could well translate as \u2018Yaka Economics<\/em><\/strong>\u2019 in Sri Lanka. Yaka<\/em>, translated by the English as \u2018devil\u2019, actually relates to ancestral worship. We need a true Yaka Economics<\/strong>, that will not only finally expel the English (& their US & EU avatara) but also free us from the deadly embrace of their slave plantation & incessant \u2018export\u2019 prognoses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

This week saw \u2018tea smallholders\u2019 accuse traders of stealing their foreign-exchanged dollars. Meanwhile, the Planters\u2019 Association accused gangs of stealing crops (see ee Agriculture<\/em><\/strong>). They seek to divert from the backwardness of the plantation economy, and its need to rip off unfree workers, which immiserates the economy and all workers as a whole, in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This low-wage economy remains the main focus of SBD de Silva<\/strong>\u2019s 1982 classic The<\/em> Political Economy of Underdevelopment,<\/em> as ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> continues his Chapter 12 on \u2018Labour Relations in Plantations\u2019. In this brilliant excerpt, SBD examines the \u2018extra-market forces\u2019 that conditioned the \u2018wage levels and working conditions\u2019 of Indian labour in plantations. And just as interestingly, he compares the relatively \u2018better\u2019 treatment of Chinese workers, due to the different ways in which workers were \u2018recruited, organized & controlled<\/strong>.\u2019 He provides a fascinating glimpse into the Chinese in Malaysia, who were much better organized, demanding, and receiving better wages & conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This week saw the merchant media in Sri Lanka excavate old colonial English tropes such as \u2018triads\u2019<\/em> to explain a dispute between 2 groups of Chinese people in Colombo. SBD traces the origins of such dubious terms, in the role played by \u2018mutual aid societies\u2019 in protecting workers, as well as the policies pursued by the English authorities to divide Malay, Chinese & Indian workers. He also describes the structured impediments to solidarity among Indian workers, sabotaging their ability to bargain with employers. He examines the curious role Christianity played among enslaved Africans, which made them assume an equality with the planters, whereas the retention of Hindu practices enabled the planter to promote deep divisions among workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018On 20 Jan 2025, a small Chinese AI startup called DeepSeek<\/strong> sent shockwaves<\/p>\n\n\n\n

through Silicon Valley by releasing an AI model that matched the most advanced<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US models built by Google, OpenAI, & Anthropic \u2013 systems that had required<\/p>\n\n\n\n

$10billions & the most advanced chips\u2026 Within days, Nvidia\u2019s stock began cratering,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

wiping out $600bn in market capitalisation on 27 Jan,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the largest single-day loss in stock market history<\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> also continues Bappa Sinha\u2019s intriguing deep dive into \u2018China\u2019s rapid technological advances\u2019, which he says offers \u2018hope for the Global South to break the dominance & dependence imposed by the West\u2019. Sinha\u2019s \u2018Breaking the Stranglehold: How China is Shattering US Technological Hegemony\u2019 examines the sharp difference between the differing national approaches, between \u2018Embodied Intelligence\u2019 and \u2018Algorithmic Rent-Seeking.\u2019 He also outlines \u2018competing AI visions\u2019 midst the desperate efforts by the US & EU\u2019s ruling classes to sabotage China\u2019s & the rest of the world\u2019s paths to economic advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018China\u2019s socialist planning system<\/strong> identified renewables<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as strategic industries, directed massive subsidies &<\/p>\n\n\n\n

cheap finance, absorbed early failures, & scaled up<\/p>\n\n\n\n

successes. State enterprises, public banks, grid overhauls<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& industrial policy allowed coordination on a national scale\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Sinha provides a snapshot of the latest nodes in the tech wars, involving AI & data centers, robotics, renewables, nuclear reactors, & rare earths. He points out that the issue about rare earths<\/em> is not its actual sparseness & extraction \u2013 it is available across the earth\u2019s crust \u2013 but in its intricate processes of \u2018separation & refinement\u2019. The USA, sitting on its past laurels, closed its rare earth processing sites and instead, has chosen to make money from money<\/em>, rather than invest in modern production. With an ageing infrastructure & outdated technologies, their main aim right now is to prevent China\u2019s (& Cuba\u2019s, etc.) threat of a good example<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imperial control has historically operated<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

through energy scarcity \u2013 restricting<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

hydrocarbon access, controlling<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

shipping routes, & manipulating prices.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The USA\u2019s biggest fear is that other countries will adopt China\u2019s model of growth, hence the resort to tariffs and export & import controls, while promoting \u2018free trade<\/em>\u2019 for over a century! As numerous analysts point out, China\u2019s economy & AI is rooted in \u2018the material base\u2019 of industrial production & application, using automation to lower costs, improve quality & increase capacity, while lifting their people\u2019s quality of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Many observers, however, see the USA\u2019s massive investments in AI as suckering investors to create a bubble & burst it, so as to further monopolize the latest technologies, which it hopes, by hook or by crook, to take full control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Imperialism (or hyper-imperialism<\/em><\/strong>) has adopted a variety of strategies and tactics to prevent the coming together of the world majority to confront and overcome their repressive. ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s latest excerpt of \u2018Hyper-Imperialism<\/em>: A Dangerous Decadent New Stage\u2019, looks at those countries (excluding Sri Lanka) that have played a current or historically progressive role in the world \u2013 \u2018The relative degree to which they are targets of regime change<\/strong> and their role in publicly advancing international anti-imperialist stances<\/strong>.\u2019 From Brazil to South Africa, Algeria to Nepal & Zimbabwe & Namibia, as well as many others, the Tricontinental Institute<\/em> tabulates their role in independence struggles, and the countries that still seek to control them, via sanctions & military interventions (demanding bases, etc.), as well as their striving to form wider alliances to overcome subjugation.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 The media coverage of the killing of 5 workers by fire, in a safety helmet factory<\/strong> that apparently flouted environmental rules<\/strong>, lasted 2 days at most. It\u2019s hard to avoid the exaggerated claims about environmental concerns (amid incessant conferences in air-conditioned rooms, wearing woolen suits & asphyxiating ties \u2013 who pays for them?) by the USA\u2019s & EU\u2019s lip services in Sri Lanka, like their Chambers of Commerce, their thinktanks & economists. They claim to be promoting \u2018green\u2019 & \u2018sustainable alternatives<\/em>\u2019, but in truth they are efforts to prevent us from adopting the latest & more inexpensive techniques from China. The same goes for the promises to harness Sri Lanka\u2019s mineral & energy resources. Companies are buying up access not to develop these resources like graphene, according to an industrial plan, but to hoard & prevent competitors from gaining control. The fire at the factory in the Katuwana Industrial Zone, \u2018manufacturing\u2019 safety helmets, reminds that the white man, and their honorary white allies, have only permitted labor-intensive & toxic-material-related production in our countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 The resort to lawfare<\/strong>, constantly crying about corruption<\/em> without naming the real thieves \u2018up high\u2019, arresting or threatening arrest of political opponents to keep them and the country off-balance, buzz like flies swarming around an open wound that is kept suppurating. While promoting the rule of rent-seeking merchants who are fronts for MNCs, this constant stream of accusations appears to be more about appeasing the white man\u2019s hallucinatory demons, and a narrow minority\u2019s thirst for revenge, than removing the merchant & moneylender mafia that block our road to industrialization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Meanwhile, the English media in Sri Lanka, seemingly written largely for white diplomats, who can order the removal of an editor or journalist, at the flick of a keyboard, is clogged with the telegraphed largesse about all the wonderful aid<\/em> & goodies they keep promising. No media dares deconstruct this \u2018aid\u2019<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 with no mention that it involves paying for services & parts to be obtained from the donor forever\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 The imperial beast is holding (stalling) our development under its clawed paw. They know well about our abundant resources, diverting from our needed destiny by blabbering about our being a \u2018small island<\/em>\u2019 etc.  It is unclear what the government\u2019s actual plan is for industrialization, with no mention of supply chains, etc. Then again, consider the accomplishments of a TB Illangaratne, Philip Gunawardena, William Silva, G Ponnambalam, etc, in setting up industries with the USSR\u2019s help. The present \u2018rulers\u2019 seem almost incompetent & incoherent, but perhaps we live in another more straitened time\u2026yet\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     A recent Daily News<\/em> story about China helping to build agricultural machinery, reminds that much of the media is written, especially headlines, in the future tense, using infinitives, i.e., the timeline for implementation, usually extending to infinity, like an Alabama jail sentence for African Americans, over several lifetimes, never to be served or seen to served within our own brief sojourn in samsara. The story does not elaborate on what if they do proceed, and what would the small private armies of finance companies, sales agents for Kubota & Massey Ferguson & Mahindra, do to sabotage its progress?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The internet must be overflowing with the multitude of promises to \u2018manufacture<\/em>\u2019 machines in Sri Lanka? Though of course, they mean assembly<\/em><\/strong> right? Handicraft & manufacture are not modern production. Our idiot media and related politicians can\u2019t or won\u2019t say exactly when such dreams will materialize? Which reminds, RW, who promised to manufacture Volkswagens, with the German envoy in tow, should be renamed VW<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 Knock off Starlink<\/strong> \u2013 There are calls for Russia to \u2018take out<\/em>\u2019, ie, blow the white supremacist Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink satellites out of the sky, because they are being used to wage wars & guide missiles to bomb civilians & infrastructure from Palestine to Iran and from East & West Africa to Russia. The \u2018celebrity\u2019 Musk, playing the role of hyper individualist & uber man, is just a front man for the white supremacist military & media industrial complex<\/strong>. He qualifies as a terrorist. It is also becoming clearer that fascism & Nazism is not just restricted to Eastern & Western Europe \u2013 \u2018capitalism puking out undigested barbarism<\/em>\u2019 \u2013 but is rooted in the history & practices of the settler colonial states beginning with the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, north & South Africa, and now most evident in the genocidal occupation of Palestine<\/strong>. The old dichotomy of Germans vs Jews can be laid to rest. There were Germans who fought Nazis, and Jews who promoted Nazis. Zionism has proved to be another version of Nazism. With the USA & EU goading Russia & China into open warfare, there are constant predictions the USA will use, or get their satrapies to use, nuclear weapons, spark a bigger fire to douse the growing small & big fires of resistance & revolution. Meanwhile, diplomats from the EU, Germany, Holland & France \u2013 all countries from a continent still afraid to offer reparations through industrial reconstruction, for horrors lasting over 500 years of forever colonial warfare, producing new bones every day \u2013 are traveling to Chemmani in the Jaffna peninsula, to rustle through even more new bones\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 The sabotage of underwater cables, many of which surreptitiously slither data in & out of Sri Lanka, may soon also become permissible & admissible targets. With the USA, and its killer pitbulls & poodles, escalating their wars on Eastern Europe & West Asia, slouching towards possible nuclear war, making no distinction between military & civilian, all bets are off. Having sabotaged the Nordstream pipeline to block Europe\u2019s access to Russian oil, the USA has proceeded to hijack Venezuela\u2019s oil, block Cuba\u2019s access to oil, get Panama to seize China\u2019s legal assets there, demand Canada & Greenland prevent access to their seas by other countries \u2013 proclaiming the Western Hemisphere as their own, even as they demand a \u2018free & open<\/em>\u2019 Indian Ocean, while blocking the Persian Gulf, stepping up attacks in the Black Sea, fighting open & covert wars in Africa, east & west, and Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia), pushing Japan & the Philippines, and the renegade province of Taiwan, to goad China\u2026 yes, all bets are off\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 Memory Matter<\/strong> \u2013 When Memory Dies<\/em> is the title of a novel about 20th<\/sup> century Sri Lanka by London-based A Sivanandan, a novel which credits Kumari Jayawardena\u2019s classic The Rise of the Labour Movement in Ceylon<\/em>. But did memory \u2018die\u2019<\/em> or was it \u2018killed\u2019? England\u2019s \u2018Operation Legacy\u2019 demanded that all files, held abroad, & related to England\u2019s colonial depredations, be burned (en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Operation_Legacy). Someone should write about how the English High Commission carried out \u2018Operation Legacy\u2019 in Sri Lanka, exactly how & where the files were burned, and the ensuing amnesia that made the past melt away\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2022 Keeping the World Off-Balance<\/strong> \u2013 Meanwhile, oligarchies across the world whose moneys and assets are invested in the USA & Europe, keep blaming a single US President, whose flatulent tweets shift from day-to-day, not realizing that such vacillating reflects the strategies of a ruling class that is uncertain about which way or method to wield to maintain their hegemony. These same vested-interest oligarchies, particularly in Asia, like to blame Israel, for what are long-standing European & Anglo-American policies. Israel is an expendable white settler colonial satellite that would not last a day without US and EU funds and weapons. The USA\u2019s so-called \u2018Democratic Party\u2019 would be just as bad as the Republicans for the rest of the world, if not worse, in the long run. Trump has stolen his cadences from earlier dictators like Mussolini, & comedians past. Just as Obama stole Malcolm X\u2019s postures & spacing. Hollywood has an army of such coaches for the expensive theatre of fake electoral freedom & democracy<\/em>. Democrat or Republican matters little, they are all wings of the US Capitalist Party (UCP<\/strong>). \u2018If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, that\u2019s not progress<\/em><\/strong>,\u2019 quipped Malcolm X, when asked about any differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Sri Lanka\u2019s ruling merchants & related wannabes, and their media, also wallow in a dream world, decorated with imported fantasies & hallucinations. The rumours & threats and actual horrors seem not to deter their prognoses of progress or \u2018growth\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka foreign reserves fall to $6.4bn<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

amid higher imports, CB expects recovery<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018Responding to questions on the decline in official reserves<\/p>\n\n\n\n

during June, [CBSL governor] Weerasinghe rejected<\/p>\n\n\n\n

suggestions that vehicle imports alone were responsible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It was not only vehicle imports. Overall import demand<\/p>\n\n\n\n

has been elevated across a broad range of categories\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, CBSL sees demand cooling after<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rate hike, expects inflation to return to 5% target)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The USA\u2019s IMF<\/strong> and related \u2018capital market\u2019 & economists, keep making predictions of \u2018growth\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, demanding Sri Lanka adhere to their prescriptions, even as the IMF\u2019s paymasters, the USA, are desperately trying to prevent the rise of Asia, constantly threatening & waging wars, declared & undeclared, hot & cold. Their unswerving optimism in the face of their negative actions, undeterred by reality, suggests that they could easily be replaced by robots, which can conjure optimism as prompted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     While foreigners are buying up properties in Sri Lanka, which for them are bought at fire-sale prices, our citizens are being forced to leave the country, with the ruling party even gaily announcing they have arranged for 100s if not 1,000s to go work in war-torn Israel, etc. Meanwhile Europe & Anglo-North America, are building more jails, detention centres<\/em> and internment camps, to prepare for more war, signalling they will soon make military recruitment mandatory, and bring back the draft as the USA had during their war against Vietnam. So good luck with the reliance on remittances then\u2026 Corpses don\u2019t tell tales or make money transfers, using undiyal, hawala, Western Express, or Unilever\u2019s transfer-pricing mechanisms\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\u2018Outside Forces\u2019 & \u2018Up High\u2019: Voodoo Economics, Yaka Economics & the Charade of Economists in Sri Lanka<\/a><\/blockquote>