{"id":95037,"date":"2019-11-10T23:53:25","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T05:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95037"},"modified":"2019-11-10T16:48:33","modified_gmt":"2019-11-10T23:48:33","slug":"selling-the-motherland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/10\/selling-the-motherland\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling the Motherland"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Selling the Motherland\ncrept into our leaders only after the General Election of 1977.  In my\nworking life from 1955 to 1973 in Sri Lanka <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 I have kept close\nassociation with ,many of our leaders- Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, ,\nMinisters P.C.Imbulana, Vimala Kannangara,  Dr N.M. Perera, P.G.B\nKalugalle,  T.B. Subasinghe, NH\nKarunaratne , Dr Colvin R de Silva. I am certain that none of them had the idea of  Selling the Motherland even in their remotest\ndreams It is sad to note\nthat the deeds of the leaders of the United National Party from 1977 onwards\nhave proved beyond all doubt   that they all belong to the\ngroup that would Sell the Motherland.  In 1978, President Jayawardena caved  in to the IMF which insisted that if he needed\nFinancial Aid, he had to invariably follow the IMF’s Structural Adjustment\nProgramme. (SAP) The main condition was  that the Government could\nnot handle any commercial undertaking. Everything that the earlier Governments\nhad done in the name of commercial undertakings, to create employment and bring\nabout development had to be totally abolished.  The industries and farms established under\nthe Divisional Development Councils Programme (DDCP) 1970-1977)were totally\nabolished and the youths-   32,000 were inevitably\nconsigned to the scrap heap of unemployment and poverty.   . In detail, . The Boatyard\nat Matara where youths built 30 ft long inboard motor boats- some 40 every year\nand earned good incomes was scrapped and the valuable machinery was neglected,\nsold and also left in a scrap heap. Coop Crayon, established by me and Member\nof Parliament Sumanapala Dahanayake,  which had islandwide sales  was stopped. All other industries and agricultural\nfarms were stopped and a few hundred youths lost their jobs. This is what\nhappened in the Matara District  In an earlier paper of mine in Lanka Web:(Sri Lanka:\nDevelopment  and Pitfalls:Agricultural\nmarketing) ( <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/05\/SriLankadevelopment-pitfall<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

)  I have detailed what happened when  the Paddy Purchasing Scheme, Rice Milling,\nThe Vegetable & Fruit Marketing Scheme, The Cannery  and\nthe Fair Price Shops of the Marketing Department were also axed by the UNP government of President\nJayawardena. Easily tens of thousands of farmers were destined to get lower\nincomes as the Marketing Department Scheme of purchasing vegetables and paddy\nwas scrapped overnight. <\/a> It is important to note that by following the advice of the\nIMF  to liberalize spending\nforeign exchange  and agreeing to meet the\nshortfall with loans the Government was creating a situation where Sri lanka\nwill be building up a colossal foreign debt- which is today around $ 56 to $ 60\nbillion. Before 1977 Sri Lanka had  liitle\nor no foreign debt.  Today the\nPresidential Election  of 16\/11 is to be held in a\nfew days and the stalvarts of the UNP have declared that if victorious at the\npresidential election they will ink the Millennium Challenge Corporation(MCC\n)Compact agreement.  The MCC Project brings in a  grant of $ 480 million to attend to some minor\ntransport fixtures\u2013 busstands, zebra crossings, traffic lights,  advanced trafic management systems”.  and also there is a Land Component to address “the\nlack of access to State lands and private lands for investment Purposes\u201d. The\ncat is out of the bag when the document states: Lack of access to State lands  and private Lands for investment purposes is a\nsignificant deterrent to both foreign and  domestic investment\u201d The\nidea is to create a dynamic market for land.\u201d. It is said to involve  28% of the land mass of our island. The idea is to “convert\npermits and grants  in State lands  to absolute land grants”.  It would be of interest to note that the\nUNP of today is going against the development infrastructure of peasant\ncolonization that was laid down by no less a person than Prime Minister DS\nSenanayake. I quote from one of my earlier writings:(Betraying our Visionary\nLeader DS Senanayake-(LankaWeb:16\/07\/2019) The vast colonization schemes of the Dry\nZone, the peasantry, in thousands  that enjoyed the land,  earning\nbountiful crops were all due to the great achievement of our Leader, DS\nSenanayake, all achieved during his days as the Minister for Agriculture and\nLands. It was his dream to uplift the life of the rural masses and for that\npurpose  he initiated a policy of granting land to the landless poor,\nmaking them partners in production and national development. His avowed aim was\nnot only to see that they are\nfree from hunger and starvation but to see that they are established on land\nand  become self reliant and selfdependent\u201d (Hansard: 26\/2\/1932:State\nCouncil of Ceylon)His plan was not the haphazard\nalienation of Crown land.  He went to the extent of appointing a Select\nCommittee of the State Council, to make any recommendations which they consider expedient and\npractical  for the establishment of a Scheme whereby land may be\nsettled  on villagers and small holders and Crown land alienation or\nleased to villagers or small holders can be prevented  from passing into\nthe hands of persons  other than villagers or small holders\u201d(Hansard:\n14\/03\/1933:Land Development Ordinance).  A Committee was duly appointed . The Committee had sittings\nfor two years  and made submissions to the Council which were accepted.\nReferring to the Land Development Ordinance provisions  he said that  in this Ordinance we have made provision for \nthe protection of holdings  that is we have considered it necessary.. that\nwhen   land is alienated to a class of people to see that the land is\npossessed and it is very necessary that  protection should be continued\nfor all time. It was necessary to see  that not only in the first instance \nthe person who got  the land  belonged to the class  to which we\nwant the lands to go , but that the successors too belonged to that class. We\nfelt that if we gave out right transfers  it will not be possible to\nprotect such lands.\u201d(Hansard: 14\/3\/1933\u201d State Council of Ceylon)He said that it was necessary to avoid what\nhappened when freehold land was given out under British rule:\u201dBut what happened\nto the jungle land up country  under the British Government  with its\nunfortunate laws and practices. Today  owing to the freehold given by the\nGovernment \u2026 all that land has  passed out of the possession of the people\nof this country.\u201d(Statement in the State Council of Ceylon:(19\/10\/1933:\nHansard)Today we are seeing in progress the death knell of the colonization\nschemes and the bold peasantry that was built up by our leader DS\nSenanayake.Reading through the MCCCompact agreement I find the present document\nstates in no uncertain terms that the intention is to create a dynamic market\nfor land\u201d by converting permits and grants in State lands to absolute land\ngrants.\u201d. This aim of the MCC Compact is totally opposed to Prime Minister DS\nSenanayake\u2019s intention of creating a bold peasantry.It is clearly evident that\nthe intention is to create  a situation where State\nlands will be saleable to multinationals. This will create poverty as the\npeasantry will spend what they get out of the sale and will eventually get into\nthe homeless and poverty fold. It is a well known practice in developed\ncountries for multinationals to retain firms that pressurize people to sell\ntheir land. It is also important to note\nthat our founding father DS Senanayake was also the person who created the\nDepartment for Development of Agricultural Marketing with its Guaranteed Price\nfor Paddy, its Rice Mills, its Vegetable & Fruit Marketing Scheme and\nCannery which enabled the march of farmers to productivity and out of poverty.\nThis agricultural marketing infrastructure was totally abolished by President\nJR Jayawardena. The CWE was also established by Prime Minister DS Senanayake.\nThus it is found that President JR Jayawardena as well as the present leaders\nincluding Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe  are not\nconcerned with helping the people of Sri lanka. Their aim to to follow what the\nIMF and other foreign powers like the USA, in its MCCCompact tells them to do.\nThey do not care about the poverty that will be created by the implementation\nof the MCCCompact provisions.   The\naims of the MCCCompact is totally impractical . It talks of fixing a few zebra\ncrossings, making a few changes to transport networks and projects that it will\nbenefit 7million people and similarly it projects that the land Project will\nbenefit as much as  5 million people. Having\nplayed a major role in the development field in Sri Lanka for 18 years as a\nsenior administrator and having served as an International Consultant in\nBangladesh and the Bahamas for four years and having bagged the Ph.D. in Ag\nEcon and Non Formal Education from Michigan State University, my knowledge and\nexpertise tells me that the MCCCompact project will if implemented create an\ninsignificant progress to public transport  while\ndefinitely consigning  millions of prosperous\npeasants on colonization schemes and state land  projects to\nbecome landless, destitute  and to utter poverty. The\nMCCCompact Agreement currently in circulation, perhaps the version submitted\nfor signature now,  does not refer to the\n200 mile corridor from Colombo to Trincomalee, with an electric train, to be\ninstalled under the Transport Section and an electrified fence dividing the\nNorth and South of Sri lanka that was submitted, drawn on a map of Sri Lanka to\nbank managers and the Bar Chief URL de Silva at a meeting at Temple Trees on\n25\/11\/2018 by MCC Team Leader  Steve\nDobrilovic , referred to in Sarojini Dutt\u2019s article in the Lanka Web of\n6\/11\/2019.(Sri Lanka Cabinet Surrenders the country to the Americans).  It is sad that our present UNP leaders\nare  selling the Motherland to\nforeigners. They do not care for the welfare of our people.The damage that the rule of President\njayawardena  did to Sri lanka is\nirrepairable. Sri Lanka has lost its development inrastructure that enabled the\npeople and the country to march from colonial rule to prosperity. It was with\nthis development infrastructure that we became self sufficient in paddy, the\nstaple crop under the reign of Premier Dudley Senanayake.The present leaders have forsaken the great\nachievements of leaders like DS Senanayake and Dudley Senanayake. I have happened\nto work closely with Premier Dudley when I was Additional GA at Kegalla in 1978\nand 1979 and can vouch for the sincerity of purpose he had in alleviating\npoverty which he did achieve. I am sad that the present leaders of the UNP are\nmoving in the opposite direction to sacrifice the peasantry and the people of\nSri lanka. I am certain   that the combination of\nleaders- former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya and former Premier Mahinda  can effectively strategize a programme to end\npoverty and unemployment in Sri lanka. The experience that all other\npresidential aspirants hold  is  insignificant and not of the caliber of\nachieving development.  The voters have a clear\nchoice before them- whether our Motherland  is for sale to\nforeigners. Leaders Gotabhaya and Mahinda with their achievement of freeing the\ncountry once from the LTTE terrorism that ruled us for three decades tells me\nthat they will be the only hope for our Motherland.These words come to you from a Sri Lankan  administrator who once in 1982 and 1983 was working\nas the Commonwealth Fund Advisoir to the Ministrry of Labour and Manpower in\nBangladesh, when I was able  to obtain approval to\nestablish a Youth Self Employment Programme, a task that the ILO had miserably\nfailed in the earlier three years and who within two years did create the\nProgramme and trained Bangadeshi staff to continue it- a programme that has\nguided  two million youths upto\n2011 into self employment, an achievement beyond par in the annals of\ndevelopment history. This is today the premier employment creation programme\nthe world has known that has withstood the sands of time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne, Ph\nD. Michigan State UniversityAuthor of:How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and\nAlternative Programmes of Success(Godages) 2006)How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development (Kindle\/Godages:2017)09\/11\/2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne Selling the Motherland crept into our leaders only after the General Election of 1977.  In my working life from 1955 to 1973 in Sri Lanka   I have kept close association with ,many of our leaders- Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, , Ministers P.C.Imbulana, Vimala Kannangara,  Dr N.M. Perera, P.G.B Kalugalle,  T.B. Subasinghe, NH […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95037","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\/95037","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=95037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}