{"id":73166,"date":"2017-12-27T15:06:26","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T22:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=73166"},"modified":"2017-12-28T10:10:56","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T17:10:56","slug":"visiting-cyprus-my-heart-doth-bleed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/12\/27\/visiting-cyprus-my-heart-doth-bleed\/","title":{"rendered":"Visiting Cyprus: My heart doth bleed."},"content":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne\u00a0Author of How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development(Kindle\/Godages)<\/u><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Cyprus, a fertile land<\/p>\n

As fertile as Califoni<\/p>\n

Fruit trees fully\u00a0 laden, all varieties,\u00a0 all over,<\/p>\n

But all coastal areas, ALL GONE<\/p>\n

Parcelled into bits, sold to foreigners,<\/p>\n

Realtors everywhere<\/p>\n

Selling-enticing strangers to buy-<\/p>\n

Do bring in\u00a0 foreign exchange<\/p>\n

We make you a citizen<\/p>\n

Do come in,\u00a0 please.invest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investors- Are they not parasites sucking the country o death<\/p>\n

The country does Cry- being parcelled and sold outright.<\/p>\n

Cypriots slaving as janitors, cleaners<\/p>\n

Their life is as cast aways- the scum of the earth<\/p>\n

Foreigners racing in plush rentals<\/p>\n

Buying lavishly at endless Supermarchs<\/p>\n

This has happened in Cyprus<\/p>\n

The coastal area are ALL GONE<\/p>\n

This Is happening in Sri Lanka, this minute<\/p>\n

The Galle \u00a0Fort is ALL GONE.<\/p>\n

Gone are the days when I covered the South<\/p>\n

Dining at Hikkaduwa Rest<\/p>\n

A dip in the sea and a sumptuous lunch<\/p>\n

Now that is taken over by tourists<\/p>\n

Once,\u00a0 a decade ago<\/p>\n

At Tissa I dropped in at Tissa Rest<\/p>\n

A haunt of mine\u00a0 long ago<\/p>\n

I ordered tea<\/p>\n

It never came<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t dangle dollars- dollar tips<\/p>\n

A fifteen minutes- no signs of tea<\/p>\n

I left in disgust., never to go there again.<\/p>\n

Anyhow entertaining foreigners as tourists is OK<\/p>\n

But selling parcels of land- The bane of Cyprus<\/p>\n

Let that not happen to my Motherland.<\/p>\n

In nostalgia, I relive a verse from our\u00a0 Sandesas<\/p>\n

Its Keragala:<\/p>\n

Sara palaya, amba damba rambada valpita<\/p>\n

Nera jalaya ala dola kandu pitin bata<\/p>\n

Nera lolaya vadavana dutu danan hata<\/p>\n

Keragalaya vajabey me lesin sita.<\/p>\n

That was from\u00a0 my literary days in the Fifties<\/p>\n

The days when\u00a0 I wrote, Sinhala Kaviye Navaugaya<\/u>. (Godages)<\/p>\n

It reads<\/p>\n

Trees fully\u00a0 laden with fruit- mango, amba, damba<\/p>\n

Precious pristine water cascading\u00a0 down.<\/p>\n

Alluring and enticing<\/p>\n

Keragala\u00a0 lives in sheer luxury<\/p>\n

Instead of parcelling and selling land<\/p>\n

We should be developing, planting fruit<\/p>\n

Making all our Jam and Juice and Coffee<\/p>\n

Which we once did make- self sufficient.<\/p>\n

Ours is a Land blessed with\u00a0 plush veg: a haven to behold.<\/p>\n

Our villages should be live, a prosperous peasantry<\/p>\n

Its for our people- to enjoy, to live<\/p>\n

Not for foreign owners- for their fun and frolics.<\/p>\n

For our people to be underlings. NO<\/p>\n

In Cyprus,\u00a0 I went to the North- to Nicosia<\/p>\n

As I approached, on the mountain in the Far domain<\/p>\n

Was the Turkish Flag-shimmering away in the Sky<\/p>\n

It was once Cypriot land, now wrested away<\/p>\n

That was\u00a0 1974 when the Turks invaded and took the North<\/p>\n

The Green Line barricaded : stern armed men-T56s at the ready!<\/p>\n

I remembered the Selalihini Sandesaya;<\/p>\n

Airavana wuwat navtana risin ena,<\/p>\n

Aira dahas dilu dunu kot sipat gena<\/p>\n

Kaikavalehi deka sebalun reka sitina<\/p>\n

Vaiya karan mal turu gana vana hisina\u201d<\/p>\n

It reads;<\/p>\n

Ready to halt even Airavana, the Warrior of Gods<\/p>\n

Sabre rattling with shining swords<\/p>\n

Behold the warriors at Kaikawala<\/p>\n

Get going over the tree tops.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My heart bled- Will that ever happen to Sri Lanka<\/p>\n

The Port at H\u2019tota to the Chinese<\/p>\n

The Air port at Mattala to India<\/p>\n

Trinco to another- haps God knows to whom?<\/p>\n

Will the Treaty of Berlin of 1885 be enacted on our soil?<\/p>\n

Chancellor Bismark did parcell Africa among the Europowers<\/p>\n

Or Are we going the way that Somalia went?<\/p>\n

,Once Somalia was a luxury land.<\/p>\n

Siad Barre got Aid from the Soviets<\/p>\n

Then the US offered better terms:-Siad turned to the US<\/p>\n

Then the\u00a0 weak Gorbachev faltered and fell<\/p>\n

Then the US Aid ceased-dried up<\/p>\n

Somalia was no longer a strategic point.<\/p>\n

Somalia was left high and dry.<\/p>\n

Warlords- the Aidids\u00a0 fought, wrested areas<\/p>\n

The rich vanished to the West-to the UK<\/p>\n

Some of my students at Westminister narrated<\/p>\n

A once\u00a0 life of mirth and happiness- Now ALL GONE<\/p>\n

Many scooted to the UK-<\/p>\n

There is a Somaliland in Streatham- in England<\/p>\n

Full of Somali shops, avoided as a plague by the Whites.<\/p>\n

The rif raf left in Somaliland turned to plundering on the high seas.<\/p>\n

That was all they could do.<\/p>\n

Plundered bounty now runs Somalia.<\/p>\n

Somalia dismembered.<\/p>\n

Let than not happen to my Motherland.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it is happening under our feet-<\/p>\n

India for everything- to build our roads<\/p>\n

To sell our petrol- earnings for India!<\/p>\n

To make homes in the North and on Estates<\/p>\n

Are we dumb not\u00a0 to see through their shrewd tactics?<\/p>\n

Why not our bricks and our hands build the homes<\/p>\n

It requires only earth and wattle and daub<\/p>\n

Though in 1977 Sirimavo handed over a debt free country<\/p>\n

JR and Ronnie got caught in the IMF web<\/p>\n

We will give you Aid- Loans Galore<\/p>\n

but you have to allow free imports<\/p>\n

(to enable us to sell you our products)<\/p>\n

Allow the free use of forex to everyone<\/p>\n

It was the rich that went on luxury holidays;<\/p>\n

Camb and Oxford for the kids<\/p>\n

Little did we know that the forex that came on loan<\/p>\n

Found their way back to the donors with profits<\/p>\n

Leaving our country with the\u00a0 debt.<\/p>\n

A Master stroke to make us colonies again-<\/p>\n

This time it was a Financial Missile!<\/p>\n

Now we stand surprised that debt piled up!<\/p>\n

Weren\u2019t we duff: could not put two and two together!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That was a\u00a0\u00a0 Conspiracy hatched by the IMF<\/p>\n

to make our countries debted.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been singing this song for long<\/p>\n

No one believed me:\u00a0 Learned economists ignored me<\/p>\n

All that is now proved Gospel Truth-<\/p>\n

With expert John Perkins writing<\/p>\n

Confessions of an Economic Hitman in 2005<\/h2>\n

Where he confesses to have drafted Aid Projects, with dud statistics,<\/p>\n

Where the Aid given somehow went back to the donors,<\/p>\n

Leaving Equador indebted.<\/p>\n

That also did happen to All- Equador, Sri Lanka, Greece and Cyprus.<\/p>\n

We are all caught in the web woven by the IMF-<\/p>\n

Borrow and borrow;\u00a0 Spend and Spend<\/p>\n

Greece is in dire straits- Cyprus will follow soon<\/p>\n

Way back in 1994 one of my foreign students wrote in<\/p>\n

The Malaysian Straits Times<\/p>\n

Creating Debt is the tool of the Superpowers\u201d<\/p>\n

To control us once again- Get us to become debted<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

It is time to rethink development-<\/p>\n

Put the IMF teachings to the litmus test.<\/p>\n

Garvin Karunaratne<\/p>\n

26\/12\/2017<\/p>\n

Author of How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development(Kindle\/Godages)<\/u><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne\u00a0Author of How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development(Kindle\/Godages) Cyprus, a fertile land As fertile as Califoni Fruit trees fully\u00a0 laden, all varieties,\u00a0 all over, But all coastal areas, ALL GONE Parcelled into bits, sold to foreigners, Realtors everywhere Selling-enticing strangers to buy- Do bring in\u00a0 foreign exchange We make you a citizen Do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73166","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=73166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}