{"id":94977,"date":"2019-11-10T21:25:53","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T03:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=94977"},"modified":"2019-11-10T04:56:08","modified_gmt":"2019-11-10T11:56:08","slug":"sri-lanka-cabinet-planning-to-surrender-the-country-to-the-americans-through-the-mcc-sofa-and-acsa-compact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/10\/sri-lanka-cabinet-planning-to-surrender-the-country-to-the-americans-through-the-mcc-sofa-and-acsa-compact\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka Cabinet planning to Surrender the Country to the Americans through the MCC SOFA and ACSA Compact"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mahinda Gunasekera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Thanks\nto the report published in the Lankaweb on November 6, 2019, by the Indian\ninvestigative journalist Sarojini Dutt, we are now able to see the foolish and\ndangerous steps taken by the present government to sacrifice our independence\nand sovereignty to the USA for a mere handful of dollars  ($480 million)\npromised as a grant, which too would go directly to US contractors engaged to\ncarry out the work involving land surveys and converting the land grants given\nto landless farmers into freely marketable units to be registered in a\ndigitized land bank system. This no doubt would make the land holders in the\nnot too distant future, rootless and landless, selling off their land that\nprovided them their livelihoods to the highest bidders including foreigners as\nprovided in the new State Land Bank Act and the Land (Special Provisions) Act\nreplacing the LRC Act which guaranteed them tenure over their lands.
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\nHer expose’ reveals some of the hidden areas in the Millenium Challenge\nCorporation’s Compact under negotiation which was inadvertently distributed to\ninvited participants by the MCC team leader Steve Dobrilovic during a briefing\nto senior legal officers of Sri Lankan banks and the then President of the Bar\nAssociation in September 2018. The documents released included a map of Sri\nLanka as envisaged in the year 2050 following implementation of the Compact\nwhich the present Cabinet of Minister approved for acceptance and nominated the\nFinance Minister, Mangala Samaraweera to sign it on behalf of the country while\nthe people were focusing their attention on the Presidential Election scheduled\nto be held on November 16, 2019.  The map in question also showed a 200\nmile corridor between Colombo and Trincomalee to be awarded to the US\nauthorities coming under US jurisdiction where an electric rail track was to be\nbuilt effectively dividing Sri Lanka into a southern and northern region. These\nnegotiations took place in absolute secrecy between representatives of the\ngovernment and the MCC team from the USA housed within the Temple Trees complex\nused by the Prime Minister.  Due to the lack of openness and secrecy\ninvolved, the concerned citizens were jolted into shock and dismay, leading to\nthe Most Venerable Ududumbara Kasyapa Thero to undertake a fast unto death at\nthe Independence Hall demanding that the President, Prime Minister and Leader\nof the Opposition commit themselves in writing not to proceed with the signing\nof the Compact Agreement prior to same being discussed in Parliament and a\ndecision taken in a democratic manner. With opposition mounting and the fast of\nthe monk going into the second day, the key officials of the government\nprovided the written assurance enabling the venerable monk to call off his\nfast.
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\nThe USA which operated a major military base in the island of Diego Garcia from\nwhich they carried out hostilities in the Middle East, Afghanistan, etc. \nobtaining a 50 year lease of the territory from the UK which expired in 2016,\nhaving tricked and cheated the indigenous Chagossian people of a place to live\nby instilling fear in them about a life threatening disease that would strike\nthem if they continued to remain, and thereby expelling them from Diego Garcia\nand moving them away to live in Mauritius. The Chagossians have since appealed\nto the UK Supreme Court and the UNGA which have ruled in their favour which\nwill allow them to get back to their island homeland soon with Britain being\ncompelled to hand back the island to Mauritius in whom sovereignty rests. \nNo wonder the USA is eyeing Sri Lanka as a logistics hub and potential military\nbase to replace Diego Garcia for which they were willing to make a grant of\n$480 million to the political party whom they helped to install in the year\n2015. Please click on the LINK below to access the article:
\nhttps:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/06\/sri-lanka-cabinet-surrenders-the-country-to-the-americans\/<\/a>
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\nIt is unimaginable that the politicians elected for just a five year term had\nthe audacity to secretly negotiate the break up of our sovereign country for a\nbundle of $480 million, overturning our Non-Alligned policy, and tie up our\ncountry with the military industrial complex of the USA which has evolved a\npolicy of continuous war necessary to profit from the sale of weapons and war\nmaterial and impose their will on other nations.  Having co-sponsored a\nresolution at the UNHRC along with the USA, UK and other western powers to put on\ntrial our heroic security forces personnel that sacrificed their life and limb\nto regain the country after three decades of  Tamil Tiger terrorism, it\nwas still not expected of them to drive their dagger into the heart of this\ncountry ending the independence, freedom and sovereign status enjoyed by the\npeople from time immemorial over many millennia.
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\nMahinda Gunasekera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mahinda Gunasekera Thanks to the report published in the Lankaweb on November 6, 2019, by the Indian investigative journalist Sarojini Dutt, we are now able to see the foolish and dangerous steps taken by the present government to sacrifice our independence and sovereignty to the USA for a mere handful of dollars  ($480 million) promised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption-and-bribery","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94977","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=94977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}