{"id":62637,"date":"2017-01-23T23:01:20","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T05:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=62637"},"modified":"2017-01-23T16:00:47","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T23:00:47","slug":"a-precious-birthright-that-belongs-to-the-people-of-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/01\/23\/a-precious-birthright-that-belongs-to-the-people-of-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"A precious birthright that belongs to the people of Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ashley de Vos\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n

One is horrified by the recent statements by politicians, of coming events. Such as the handing over of the Trincomalee Port to the Indians who have never been our friends, India looks after her own interest first, even in the extraction of the smallest pound of flesh. We cannot blame her; our leaders should be doing the same.<\/p>\n

India and RAW have surreptitiously entered Sri Lanka and have spread themselves extensively in the West and South of the country, with the warm support of our leadership, through the Indian Trojan Horse “Ambulance Programme”: A service that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces could have easily accomplished as a peacetime effort, without giving any official access to a scheming hostile force.<\/p>\n

Also, giving the Port, Airport and vast acres of land to the Chinese to develop a mega industrial estate or estates, in the Hambantota region. Even though the Chinese have been our friends historically, for the longest period of time, a free hand to develop industry, unless carefully monitored, could also encourage and facilitate pollution industries to ingress into the landscape. A great threat to the environment and unique wildlife habitat.<\/p>\n

First the Indians told us we should not purchase hardware from Pakistan and now, still worse, the contracting of our essential services to an American Company, who will be telling Sri Lanka, a country with an unbroken history of over two thousand five hundred years, how we should live in a world where the greed driven Americans have a distinct hand in facilitating the destruction of. Is this a stepping stone to a bigger and larger agenda to convert Sri Lanka into an American Military Base?<\/p>\n

Recently India reopened talks with the US on giving access to each other\u2019s military bases. The Logistic Support Agreement (LSA) allows both sides to make changes to each other\u2019s facilities in a way that it allows for easier conduct of military exercises, besides expanding their scope and ambition. The Communication and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) is an agreement that allows both Militaries to come on a common communication platform, and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) largely pertains to geospatial intelligence requiring sharing information on maps and satellite imaging for defence purposes. God forbid, nuclear submarines in the Trincomalee harbour. India would prefer an American base in Sri Lanka rather than within her borders.<\/p>\n

Even the Survey Department, one of the most efficient organisations in the country, the only Department that still polishes its floors on a regular basis, a Department that has existed for a century and half, an existence that is about a third of the whole life history of the United States of America, now to be given to an American company, so that this precious land, the birthright of the innocent people of this country, could be freely distributed to whoever \u2018they\u2019 please.<\/p>\n

In the early 2000, the US tried to introduce the \u2018Tropical Forest Act\u2019 that would commandeer the precious resources from all the Sri Lankan forest assets against interest on monies borrowed by Sri Lanka, that is, every forest reserve in the country at less than Rs. 2,300 an acre or Rs. 14.30 a perch. There were a number of “Sri Lankans” supporting this move. If signed, the resources in the Sri Lankan cloud forests would belong to the President of the United States of America, who is free to conduct military exercises and sell or otherwise exploit the precious resources.<\/p>\n

The big pharmaceutical companies had their antennas tuned on, on to what could have been a trillion $ lottery. There were heavy protests from a few Environmental NGO\u2019s led by the Wildlife & Nature Protection Society and committed individuals, interested in the protection, preservation of an integral and holistic Sri Lanka, who stood their ground. To the great horror of the authorities concerned, this group of Sri Lankans, genuine protectors and lovers of their country, even offered to buy the resource themselves; for which there was a prompt, NO. Thankfully, it went underground, but there is nothing to stop the \u2018Act\u2019 from raising its head again, as many of the original players are back in the ring. Is the taking over of the Survey Department, the final step to facilitate the US Tropical Forest Act.<\/p>\n

Are there more statements in the pipeline, or are they all part of a gigantic red herring that is expected to provide an umbrella to a more sinister process or agreement that is still unknown to the larger population, to be unexpectedly, pushed in under the door. Whatever the sinister move no one, neither politician, nor Prime Minister, nor President has the right to dispose of an asset that belongs to the innocent citizens of this country. It is their birthright. Such action is a violation of their basic human rights. The Sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka is at stake.<\/p>\n

A “Henegahana Aparadayak”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ashley de Vos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ashley de Vos\u00a0Courtesy The Island One is horrified by the recent statements by politicians, of coming events. Such as the handing over of the Trincomalee Port to the Indians who have never been our friends, India looks after her own interest first, even in the extraction of the smallest pound of flesh. We cannot blame […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-106"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}