Sri Lanka opposition doesn’t want foreign-led economy through ETCA

Important issues for & against are in the horizen that needs to be to be considered carefully & widely & openly..From one side recurrent serious trade imbalances do indicate unsustainable situations since the key theme mutual benefits seems to be missing.On the other hand some harping jut to make few more billionaires by shutting SL maketets to outside world is useless since large population may be paying through nose for mnaupulations by one or two individuals.We do import many many things even @ present that has been ,& can be produced here generating huge unemployment, lower incomes for locals (consider the plight in estates) for what?Simply using the principle of free trade.T The bottom line has to be how future FTA benifit majority of our people & country in a sustainable way?The bottom line also include mutual benifit (country to country not individual to individual or few organisations) .It means sustainability of majority of the people & industry that supports them ).It is this decades of manipulation(a chance for few or market for some (individual or country)insted sustainable two way stream in many areas that has made borrowing the most sort after profession in SL whilst people & assets idle in poverty.

The joint oppositions statement offers a glimpse into its thinking and gives cause for much concern, when it calls upon the Sri Lankan business community, professionals and general public to oppose what it sees as “ foreignization of the Sri Lankan economy”.

For the information of those who are too young to remember, this is a very clear indication that the xenophiobia seeking to legitimize itself by dressing itself up as “protectionism” that emerged in the 60’s and led to stunting, malnutrition and starvation in the 70s and to the relegation of the island to the position of a quaint backwater with outdated technologies, ancient motor vehicles, broken down roads, rattling and bug infested railways, crumbling buildings and people with ideas and cultural aspirations that belong to a time 2500 years ago, is still the mainstay of this joint opposition. This thinking on “foreignization” can be stated briefly as “freedom from human civilization also known as the white mans law” which unfortunately has always been the “freedom” longed for and aggressively and violently advocated by the more rabidly nationalistic sections of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and its communist and Trotskyite allies who seem to make up the majority of this joint opposition.

This cloying xenophobia has prevented the realization of the fact that this is a small island with a small population of only 20 million people with an average national IQ of 79 which borders on mental retardation and that such a population is very unlikely to be able to generate the advanced human resources required to ensure that its development is synchronized with and relevant to the development of the species Homo sapiens to which it belongs and of the planet as a whole. If the island is to realize its inherent potential within this global developmental process of which this joint opposition appears to be unaware, then it will be necessary to engage the best brains of the world to do so and very few of these best brains of the world are to be found among the islands predominantly low IQ population.

The employment of such advanced human resources from all over the face of the planet is therefore essential and this joint oppositions categorizing of such employment of advanced human resources as “foreignization” is ugly and unacceptable. Moreover this charge of “foreignization” of the economy appears to be a biased and inaccurate one. This is demonstrated by the fact that thousands of Chinese workers were employed on various projects on the island and this joint opposition which was then part of the government saw no indication of “foreignization” in this practice. Moreover this joint opposition was part of the government that was prepared to – treacherously – give away to China, large chunks of strategically valuable land in the Colombo Port City and it saw no “foreignization” in this
course of action. Why this joint opposition sees the Indian governments wish to provide the islands population with a sophisticated island wide ambulance service as “foreignization” of the economy is therefore very difficult to understand UNLESS this joint opposition is committed to the severing of ties with people from all other countries other than China. This is totally unacceptable since China has proved itself to be an opportunistic element with no concern for the interests of the islands population which is why it happily came forward to finance one of the most repressive regimes that opposed the most basic principles of the lobal civilization of the human species and attempted to set up an autocratic feudal dynasty, while almost all other nations opposed this attempt.

Why the Government of India wishes to finance of all things an ambulance service on the island is something that must be explored deeply. As this joint opposition has pointed out local operators can provide such a service if our government gives them the resources that the Indians are being given by their government in order to set up and establish this service. There is no reason why our government should not give local businesses who are already running such services the resources to take their operations to scale at national level EXCEPT for the fact that there is no clear reason why such an island-wide ambulance service is required UNLESS there is good reason to anticipate a sudden increase in the number of patients requiring such a service. What kind of sudden epidemic can generate such a need cannot at the moment be perceived and if the government of India is able to perceive such a need then we should ask it to tell us more about the factors it perceives that would account for the emergence of such a need.

In the meantime this “Joint opposition” had better get its act together and make clear the policy nexus underlying its recommendation that the proposals of the government be opposed by “the Sri Lankan business community, professionals, and the general public”. If such a clear and credible policy nexus cannot be articulated or worse still if such a nexus does not exist, then this offer of an island wide ambulance service may take on an air of ominousity given the post independence history of this islands population. After all foreign investment in the Sri Lankan economy – this joint oppositions opposition to “foreignization” not withstanding – offers opportunities to the general public and especially young people seeking employment, professionals who wish to widen their professional practices and businesspersons who wish to access wider markets through collaborations with foreign investors.