{"id":71472,"date":"2017-11-09T14:05:35","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T21:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=71472"},"modified":"2017-11-09T14:05:35","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T21:05:35","slug":"oil-crisis-a-display-of-indian-hegemony-over-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/11\/09\/oil-crisis-a-display-of-indian-hegemony-over-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil Crisis \u2013 A display of Indian Hegemony over Sri Lanka.\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

By : A.A.M.NIZAM \u2013 MATARA<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

For the last few days people were suffering untold hardships due to non availability of petrol.\u00a0 Many petrol sheds remained temporarily closed due to non-availability of stocks and very long queues were seen at almost all sheds but they too distributed restricted quantities.\u00a0 A large number of three wheels and trucks came to a stand still and the poor drivers of these vehicles who depended on hire charges of these vehicles were without any income and even were compelled to pawn their valuables to feed their spouses and children.\u00a0 When the people who really suffered were critical of the government for its short sighted policies and mismanagement infuriated President Sirisena speaking at a function on the 8th<\/sup> evening severely blamed the people asking whether it is he who distributes petrol to the Sheds, whether it is he who gives medicines in hospitals to blame him for the shortage of medicines, and whether it is he who admits children to schools to blame him when it becomes difficult to get a child admitted to a school? What we have to ask him is then why he remains as the President of the country if he cannot govern the country properly? Is it his responsibility only to enjoy the luxuries and accompany his wife and children on foreign jaunts?<\/p>\n

This is not the first time that Sri Lanka faced a fuel crisis.\u00a0 When Prime Minister Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike nationalized the western monopoly of fuel distribution in the country and established the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation in 1962, the western countries including the twin evil United States and Britain imposed sanctions for fuel supply to Sri Lanka placing the country in a severe crisis situation.<\/p>\n

At that time, due to her friendly relations with non-aligned countries, the President of Egypt Gamal Abdul Nasser diverted some of the oil shipments destined for his country to come to Sri Lanka enabling the country to come over the crisis and thereby defeat the western conspiracy against Mrs. Bandaranaike\u2019s government.\u00a0 This government claims that they have won over the whole western world and if that is so why any of these so-called friendly countries failed to rush at least one oil tanker to Sri Lanka to come over the present crisis?<\/p>\n

The Island Editorial of 9th<\/sup> November fulfilling its journalistic obligations has made a hard hitting comment on the current oil crisis.\u00a0 A relevant passage from the editorial is quoted herewith Minister Duminda Dissanayake has seen a conspiracy behind the prevailing petrol shortage. He who can, does: he who can\u2019t, blames others, one may say with apologies to Bernard Shaw. Politicians who get into trouble see more devils than vast hell can hold!Who are the conspirators Minister Dissanayake is talking about? Most of the yahapalana ministers are those who conspired against the Rajapaksa government while being members of its Cabinet and brought it down. Given their track record, the question is whether they are hatching a plot to destabilise the present government as well. Old habits are said to die hard! If there has been a conspiracy as Minister Dissanayake claims, then, logically, the main conspirator must be Minister Arjuna Ranatunga himself. For, if he had maintained adequate stocks of fuel there wouldn\u2019t have been a petrol shortage, which has incensed the public beyond measure. Any government in its proper senses does everything in its power to ameliorate people\u2019s suffering and assuage public resentment. But, the present dispensation does not care two hoots about the ever increasing prices of essential commodities. Instead, it is busy finding ways and means of bringing down beer prices!\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar to the myopic and bullshit Dissanayake, the government Ministers and MPs have a penchant for blaming the former President Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government for all the ills and mismanagement of this government.\u00a0\u00a0 The UNP MP Nalin Bandara has stupidly said that the present oil crisis has resulted because of the mistakes of the Rajapakse government. The\u00a0 twin jokers Rjitha and Dayasiri, addressing the weekly Cabinet media conference have blamed the Petroleum Ministry officials for creating an artificial shortage of petrol by releasing fuel stocks less than the normal requirement,\u00a0 and have blamed the officials of sabotage and added\u00a0 that it will be investigated by a Presidential Committee and those responsible will be punished.\u00a0 The public servants have now become the scapegoats fo all the fallacy of the government Ministers, MPs and their cohorts.<\/p>\n

The irate crowds in the petrol queues were intensively critical of the government and their criticisms included that Balaya bedanna kalin mey aanduwa petrol tika bedanna oney!\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n(Before this Government shares power, it must share the petrol!)\u201d<\/em><\/strong> , Indiyaawata ape depala wikunana eka wahaa navathwanu (stop sale of our properties to India), Veda beri Aanduwa wahaa gedera yanu (Inept government go home immediately), Munta chande deela api apema wala kapaa gaththaa (we dug our own graves by voting for these guys) <\/em><\/strong>and so on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

To register their protest over the inept government\u2019s inability to redress the hardships being faced by the innocent people, mostly the daily wage earning three wheel and truck drivers due to non-availability of fuel, the former President Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa and several other JO MPs arrived at the Parliament yesterday by riding bicycles. Another group of JO MPs led by the JO leader Mr. Dinesh Gunawardene arrived in bullock carts but the Parliament Police stopped them at the Parliament roundabout and prevented them going up to the Parliament building in their bullock carts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A team of JO MPs led b Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa riding to Parliament in bicycles in protest against non-availability of petrol.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Indian puppet Ranil Wickremasinghe has absolved the LIOC from being responsible for the crisis.\u00a0 Responding to accusations made by the Joint Opposition leader Mr. Dinesh Gunawardene that the petrol shortage would not have taken place if LIOC was not allowed to get involved in the fuel distribution of the country, Ranil has said that he could not agree with the criticism heaped on the Lanka Indian Oil Company (LIOC) for the crisis. He has said that the fuel supply was maintained to some extent during the recent strike action launched by petroleum workers, thanks to the LIOC. It must be remembered that the LIOC was created by Ranil during his previous regime breaking the oil sector monopoly held by the national oil company CEYPETCO by Madam Sirimavo Bandaranake\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

Countering the assertion made by Ranil Wickremaasinghe to protect the LIOC, the General Secretary of the Ceylon Petroleum Common Workers\u2019 Union (CPCWU) D. G. Rajakaruna alleged that the IOC\u2019s attempt to hold the CPC to ransom had failed with a fuel ship arriving from Dubai. He said that the IOC created an artificial fuel shortage by holding back a shipment of petrol in a bid to force the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to accept its rejected substandard petrol consignment. He said that they believe the ship carrying IOC fuel had been waiting on the high seas in the hope that the CPC would be left with no alternative but to take delivery of its rejected petrol shipment. .Lashing out at the government for its plans to hand over the Trincomalee oil tank farm to India, Rajakaruna stressed that at present the IOC had only 20 percent of the local fuel market. He urged the government not to hand over the country\u2019s fuel market to India or any other country.\u00a0 At present LIOC is using 14 tanks of the 99 tank oil Farm.<\/p>\n

Accordingly it seems that the whole crisis has been created because of this inept government\u2019s poor planning and allowing the LIOC to hold CEYPETCO on ransom in respect of oil supplies.<\/p>\n

Dr. Nalaka Godahewa, a commentator on current affairs said that the efficiency that the Government has so far demonstrated, in introducing various Bills to please the international community, is not seen in governing the country. He said that the vehicle ownership in the country has grown significantly.\u00a0 Hence, the daily consumption of oil has increased resulting in the need for more storage to ensure uninterrupted supply. Planning these capacities is a basic expectation from those who are responsible for the supplies. In this case there are only two parties who have the authority to import oil into the country; the Petroleum Corporation and the Indian Oil Company. CEYPETCO lack sufficient storage facilities and the Trinco Oil Farm has been leased out to LIOC.\u00a0 He said that steps should be taken to provide more storage facilities to CEYPETCO thwarting its dependence for supplies from LIOC.<\/p>\n

This crisis is a clear demonstration of hegemonic India\u2019s capability to hold this country under its iron boots and how dangerous it would be if Ranil Wickremasinghe\u2019s vicious Indian slavish plans of\u00a0 leasing the Mattala International Airport, signing the ETCA and allowing South Indian States to establish industrial zones in various parts of the country were implemented?<\/p>\n

The current method of oil distribution dominated by LIOC is shown below:<\/p>\n

Courtesy : Daily Mirror \u2013 09.11.2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(End)<\/p>\n

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

By : A.A.M.NIZAM \u2013 MATARA For the last few days people were suffering untold hardships due to non availability of petrol.\u00a0 Many petrol sheds remained temporarily closed due to non-availability of stocks and very long queues were seen at almost all sheds but they too distributed restricted quantities.\u00a0 A large number of three wheels and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aamnizam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71472","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=71472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}