Sri Lanka - News and Discussion- Post PM appointment crisis

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 12 Sep 2018 17:02

https://twitter.com/cold_peace_/status/ ... 1304894464

Jeff M. Smith @Cold_Peace_

With his party eyeing a return to power, Rajapaksa is in India to make amends. Blames past problems with Modi gov't on "misunderstandings."
Blames Sirisena gov't for everything else, including Chinese debt, and the Hambantota & Colombo deals he negotiated.

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/interv ... epage=true

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 12 Sep 2018 17:24

Embedded video interview

http://sniwire.com/neighbours/i-am-look ... rajapaksa/
I am Looking for Goodwill From India, Says Mahinda Rajapaksa

Sri Lanka’s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is in India at the invitation of BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy to deliver a talk in Delhi. His visit, coming nearly four years after his unexpected ouster, has fuelled speculation about a possible thaw between him and the current Indian government. Nitin A. Gokhale chatted with him on Tuesday.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 12 Sep 2018 21:19

pankajs wrote:Embedded video interview

http://sniwire.com/neighbours/i-am-look ... rajapaksa/
I am Looking for Goodwill From India, Says Mahinda Rajapaksa
Sri Lanka’s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is in India at the invitation of BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy to deliver a talk in Delhi. His visit, coming nearly four years after his unexpected ouster, has fuelled speculation about a possible thaw between him and the current Indian government. Nitin A. Gokhale chatted with him on Tuesday.

once their national testimonials are clamped tight in a chinese nut cracker, why won't he "Look for Goodwill From India"??.

The SLs played us very easily in the past and will, even more easily, do so again in the future.

Surely, there are many aspects of the SL china deal not made public in deference to and also in keeping with the shy and retiring chinese personality.

Just like in paki CPEC deal.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 13 Sep 2018 18:16

China is now entering the north and hill country building houses,etc. in Tamil enclaves of the island,a deliberate plot to neutralise the Indian influence over the Tamil ethnic minorities.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 13 Sep 2018 18:34

Philip wrote:China is now entering the north and hill country building houses,etc. in Tamil enclaves of the island,a deliberate plot to neutralise the Indian influence over the Tamil ethnic minorities.

There seems to be some issue here, saar.

The Sl tamils want brick houses and the chinese are only willing to build cement houses or vice versa.

India may be back in the house building game. after all.

https://www.news18.com/news/world/china ... 55639.html

In April, state-run China Railway Beijing Engineering Group Co Ltd won a more than $300 million project to build 40,000 houses in the northern district of Jaffna. China's Exim bank was to provide the financing.

But the project has been halted after residents demanded brick houses instead of the concrete structures planned by the Chinese firm, saying they preferred their traditional dwellings.

That has given an opportunity for China's old rival India to step in. MA Sumanthiran, a legislator from the regional Tamil National Alliance, said authorities had opened negotiations with India for the housing project.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 16 Sep 2018 08:39

We will have to change 99-year lease to China of Hambantota: Rajapaksa

Peregrine · Post by **Peregrine** » 18 Sep 2018 01:47

Strategic move: AAI to develop Palaly airport in Sri Lanka - Indrani Bagchi & Saurabh Sinha

NEW DELHI: State-run (AAI) will now develop airports abroad, like its private counterparts GMR and GVK. AAI will develop an airport in Sri Lanka’s Palally Airport in Sri Lanks a strategic area for India.

“AAI has signed an agreement with (Indian) ministry of external affairs for preparation of detailed project report for development of Palaly Airport in Sri Lanka. Considering AAI’s expertise and capabilities in airport development and operation management, the authority wants to go global. AAI has developed more than 60 airports in metros and non metros in India and now wants to leverage its expertise to other countries on a bigger scale,” an AAI official said.

“Palaly is in Jaffna in the north — Tamil territory. India had earlier promised to develop Palaly airport which has been a demand by the northern province for some time. The airport will be Sri Lanka's first in the north, give the northern people direct connectivity with places like south India, Malaysia and Thailand. India has also offered to develop the Kankesanthurai airport also in the north, as well as the Mattala international airport in south Sri Lanka, abutting the Chinese developed Hambantota port,” said a person in the know.

“After the Sri Lankan war was over in 2009, India has been involved in the reconstruction and redevelopment of the northern province. However, as China became one of the largest developers of critical infrastructure in Sri Lanka, it forced India to speed up its own development assistance.

Palaly is important due to the fact that it is in the sensitive Tamil-dominated northern province, traditionally closer to India. By developing critical infrastructure here, India is also keeping a foothold in this part of Sri Lanka,” the person cited above added.

The agreement for Palaly was recently signed by AAI’s executive director (land management and business development) Anil Gupta and MEA’s joint secretary Sanjay Panda.

Cheers

Manish_P · Post by **Manish_P** » 20 Sep 2018 11:44

Sri Lankan student charged with terror offences in Sydney

Star Sri Lankan student Mohamed Kamer Nilan Nizamdeen allegedly planned to attack a hit list of "symbolic" individuals and landmarks across Sydney in an ISIS-inspired lone-wolf terror attack that was foiled on Thursday when a co-worker stumbled across the list and alerted police.

Mr Nizamdeen, 25, was arrested by police in dramatic raids on his office high above the University of New South Wales on Thursday, after a colleague in the university’s IT business team found a notebook allegedly containing details of an "ISIS-affiliated" terrorist plot planned for the Harbour City in the next few months.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 20 Sep 2018 12:48

The Chinese have a long-term plan to subvert Sl Tamils to their cause.They know that India's influence in the island is mainly with the Tamil communities there.Therefore....

Act 1.Thousands of houses being built for northern Tamils.

Act 2.10 Chinese students have supposedly enrolled themselves into university in Chennai to study Tamil!

Act 3..wait for the next episode in wooing Tamils both in SL and in India.The huge propaganda exercise in glorifying Sanskrit going on , but ignoring equally or even more ancient Tamil, is not lost upon hard-core Dravidian
entities.Scratch the surface in Tamilnadu and Dravidian resentment at " Hindi imperialism" readily surfaces.The Karnataka govt. eradicating road signs in Hindi not too long ago shows that the south is vulnerable to external influence and mischief.The Eelam wars were not too long ago and Chin mischief amongst the Tamil civilisation of South Asia could be ond of its methods of countering its weaknesses in the IOR.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 23 Sep 2018 14:51

Swamy accuses Sonia, PC of nexus with LTTE

Swamy accuses Sonia, PC of nexus with LTTE

Saturday, 22 September 2018 | Kumar Chellappan | CHENNAI

In a disclosure which could have repercussions across the political spectrum in the country, senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy stated on Friday that Sonia Gandhi, the then Congress president, P Chidambaram, the then Union Home Minister and Velupillai Prabhakaran, the chief of the dreaded Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were hand in glove with each other.

In a message posted on his micro-blogging platform, Swamy said Chidambaram had sent a message to Prabhakaran during the 2009 battle (which saw the annihilation of the LTTE) to await Indian Navy to come to rescue him. “Navy did come but it was Sri Lankan Navy. Prabhakaran walked out of the jungle into the beach thinking it was the Indian Navy and hence was killed,” said Swamy in his posting.

He also said that PC (Chidambaram) had sent the message to Prabhakaran at the behest of TDK (the abbreviation usually used by Swamy to describe Sonia Gandhi) during the final days of the May 2009 war.

He said the Indian Navy ship which was expected to reach the theatre of war did not leave Indian shores because of stiff Opposition from highest authorities. “Prabhakaran could not be informed by the Congress leadership about the change of plan,” said Swamy.

Swamy’s disclosure comes immediately after the visit of Mahinda Rajapaksa, former president of Sri Lanka to New Delhi at the invitation of Swamy. Rajapaksa, who was the President of Sri Lanka during the civil war of May 2009, had told Prashant Tiwari of The Pioneer in an exclusive interview that the Governments of India and Sri Lanka had worked in tandem in the 2009 civil war in the island nation which resulted in the annihilation of the dreaded Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a terrorist organisation.

“We had a mechanism during the war (against the LTTE in 2009) called the Troika, where three officials from both sides (India and Sri Lanka ) were able to discuss any issue, even in the middle of the night,” said Rajapaksa. Experts are of the view that the Troika had played a major role in scuttling the move to save Prabhakaran.

According to Rajapaksa, three high officials from Sri Lanka and India were deputed for regular exchange of information to facilitate proper coordination during the operation against the LTTE terrorists during the month of May 2009. “This was known as Troika System and these officials met even in the middle of the night. What we need is a system like this in our economic cooperation also,” Rajapaksa had said.

This is in stark contrast to the claims by the DMK, then an important ally of the UPA Governnment led by Manmohan Singh. Karunanidhi, the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu had said that the Centre had told him that the operation by the Sri Lankan Government was only to nab LTTE chief Prabhakaran and India had no role in the military operations.

The AIADMK on Friday declared that it would launch a massive agitation all over Tamil Nadu on September 25 to highlight how the DMK had betrayed Tamils all over the world because of its “complicity” in the civil war.

Karunanidhi in the company of his two wives had staged a “two-hour long fast” at Marina Beach questioning the then Union Government’s complicity in the civil war in Sri Lanka and had called it off following assurances from the Centre that it had no role in the military operations. The LTTE had used innocent Tamils as human shields to save the LTTE chief Prabhakaran and his henchmen from the Sri Lankan army.

K P Munusamy , the AIADMK strongman told reporters at Chennai on Friday that the disclosure by Rajapaksa proved that the DMK too was engaged in the killing of Tamils in northern Sri Lanka during May 2009. “The Indian Government was offering military assistance to the Sri Lankan Government in the attack against the LTTE. The DMK is responsible for thousands of Tamils who got killed in the war,” said Munusamy.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 23 Sep 2018 15:41

Yes, the GOI and TN politicos were complicit in the destruction of the LTTE...and thank goodness for that!
Assassinating an Indian PM calls for the most extreme action against the perpetrators.The LTTE spurned and double-crossed all those moderate Lankan leaders who were trying to work out an equitable political settlement.Prabhakaran wiped out the entire Tamil TULF political leadership, all his rival militant groups and their leaders, assassinated apart from Rajiv the Lankan pres. Premadasa who secretly gave him arms to fight the IPKF, 3 seniormost Lankan ministers ( Ranjan Wijeyaratne, Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake) the two former were defence ministers, the navy chief, Clancy Fernando, Lakshman Kadirgamar- the Lankan Tamil foreign minister and almost succeeded in assassinating President Chandrika who lost an eye in the attack.She had been tirelessly working for a peace deal with a new constitution being drawn up by the leading Tamil politico, Neelam Tiruchelvam who was deliberately assassinated by the LTTE psycopath, fuhrer Prabhakaran to prevent such a happening.

Apart from these well known individuals, umpteen bomb blasts killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians , the international airport was attacked killing foreigners too and the LTTE apart from killing around 3000 of our IPKF soldiers also provided arms to rebels in our NEast, also colluding with the Pakis to wage war against Indian interests.I was in Colombo just minutes after the last LTTE bombing at the Nippon hotel and in town the day fuhrer P was exterminated with extreme prejudice.The roar and cheers that greeted the news from HQ (a few hours before it was publically announced ) at a favourite watering hole is still fresh in the memory.

Karunanidhi richly deserves the Bharat Ratna for allowing the GOI to assist the GOSL in exterminating the LTTE down to the last man anx preventing pro- LTTE turmoil in Tamilnadu. Extremist Tamil seperatism that reared its ugly head with Eelamists like Vaiko and co. was dealt a fatal blow with the extermination of the LTTE and its fuhrer despite last minute diplomatic attempts by its western ( secret) spondors to allow the top LTTE leadership to be evacuated to escape and continue their mayhem from the safety oc a western country..

One must also place on record the signal efforts of ABV to curtail the LTTE.He prevented the Sea Tigers from being recognised as an " international navy", by reading out the riot act to it and stating that " India recognised only one navy in Lanka, the SLN."The LTTE was trying to get intl. recognition by first getting the Sea Tigers recognised.

mappunni · Post by **mappunni** » 19 Oct 2018 02:06

Hmmm slowly but surely India is undoing Chinese influence.

Sri Lanka reverses $300m China housing deal as PM visits India
An Indian firm stands to make $210m after Sri Lank reverses its decision to give a large contract to a Chinese business.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/ ... 46722.html

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 24 Oct 2018 18:13

mappunni wrote:Hmmm slowly but surely India is undoing Chinese influence.

Sri Lanka reverses $300m China housing deal as PM visits India
An Indian firm stands to make $210m after Sri Lank reverses its decision to give a large contract to a Chinese business.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/ ... 46722.html

This is like buying stale popcorn during the interval when watching a really bad movie.

What next, after this?? a contract to clean the footpaths in colombo??

the hans are deeply entrenched and will not budge. They may be somewhat contained but they will not vacate.

the Sls are back at their old game of squeezing money out of India under various pretexts and are now playing off the hans against us.

mappunni · Post by **mappunni** » 25 Oct 2018 09:58

chetak wrote: This is like buying stale popcorn during the interval when watching a really bad movie.

What next, after this?? a contract to clean the footpaths in Colombo??

the Hans are deeply entrenched and will not budge. They may be somewhat contained but they will not vacate.

the Sls are back at their old game of squeezing money out of India under various pretexts and are now playing off the Hans against us.

Chetakji,
But Han's are being squeezed hard by the US sanctions. Many labour-intensive works like clothing, shoes have totally shifted out of China to Vietnam and other SE Asian countries. Its just matter of time before others move out due to multiple factors.

China cannot sustain throwing around their money at this rate. Many well-off Chinese are moving their money out of China by hook or crook.

The sanctions were just a long rope for China to get itself twisted in knots.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 25 Oct 2018 10:10

mappunni wrote:
chetak wrote: This is like buying stale popcorn during the interval when watching a really bad movie.

What next, after this?? a contract to clean the footpaths in Colombo??

the Hans are deeply entrenched and will not budge. They may be somewhat contained but they will not vacate.

the Sls are back at their old game of squeezing money out of India under various pretexts and are now playing off the Hans against us.
Chetakji,
But Han's are being squeezed hard by the US sanctions. Many labour-intensive works like clothing, shoes have totally shifted out of China to Vietnam and other SE Asian countries. Its just matter of time before others move out due to multiple factors.

China cannot sustain throwing around their money at this rate. Many well-off Chinese are moving their money out of China by hook or crook.

The sanctions were just a long rope for China to get itself twisted in knots.

mappunni saar,

The sanctions are a passing phase and of course, it will cause damage to the hans which was the main purpose anyway.

However rough it gets, the hans will ride it out, one way or another, make changes economically etc but their core military interests will not suffer from lack of funding. They will undoubtedly be stretched, they will slow down non core funding but projects like hambanthota will not be touched.

The hans do not want to get into "housing" projects and such other gumf like India does. There is no ROI here.

The hans are more the highway, railway, airport, sea port kind of guys where a tangible ROI and, in lieu of the wilfully desired/enginered payment default, the potential for long term take over of the ownership of the project exists and also the potential for revenue generation and/or along with a military objective.

These plans of theirs have been in the pipeline for decades and are only now becoming visible to the rest of the world. The amerikis have also waited from maybe two or more presidencies before trump to lay the foundation and to hit back and undermine the han plans.

It makes me wonder if Trump wasn't actually a deep state project, after all.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 25 Oct 2018 21:48

Lanka's former top counter-terror official arrested over alleged plot to kill Sirisena

An Indian national named Merceli Thomas is currently under detention in Sri Lanka for his alleged involvement in the plot. He had visited Kumara's home raising suspicions.

mappunni · Post by **mappunni** » 25 Oct 2018 22:34

chetak wrote:
mappunni saar,

The sanctions are a passing phase and of course, it will cause damage to the hans which was the main purpose anyway.

However rough it gets, the hans will ride it out, one way or another, make changes economically etc but their core military interests will not suffer from lack of funding. They will undoubtedly be stretched, they will slow down non core funding but projects like hambanthota will not be touched.

The hans do not want to get into "housing" projects and such other gumf like India does. There is no ROI here.

The hans are more the highway, railway, airport, sea port kind of guys where a tangible ROI and, in lieu of the wilfully desired/enginered payment default, the potential for long term take over of the ownership of the project exists and also the potential for revenue generation and/or along with a military objective.

These plans of theirs have been in the pipeline for decades and are only now becoming visible to the rest of the world. The amerikis have also waited from maybe two or more presidencies before trump to lay the foundation and to hit back and undermine the han plans.

It makes me wonder if Trump wasn't actually a deep state project, after all.

Chetak Saar,
I doubt the sanctions are going to be a pass. Mid-term elections will decide the course on whether the Republicans will retain the house and senate.

With Trump Administration officials forcefully coming out against sanctions, I doubt any international lender will lend money to the affected countries, even if they do so it will require a full disclosure. The American administration didn't realize the monster they created themselves by encouraging the Han's.

Still don't think it is too late.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 25 Oct 2018 23:16

mappunni wrote:
chetak wrote:
mappunni saar,

The sanctions are a passing phase and of course, it will cause damage to the hans which was the main purpose anyway.

However rough it gets, the hans will ride it out, one way or another, make changes economically etc but their core military interests will not suffer from lack of funding. They will undoubtedly be stretched, they will slow down non core funding but projects like hambanthota will not be touched.

The hans do not want to get into "housing" projects and such other gumf like India does. There is no ROI here.

The hans are more the highway, railway, airport, sea port kind of guys where a tangible ROI and, in lieu of the wilfully desired/enginered payment default, the potential for long term take over of the ownership of the project exists and also the potential for revenue generation and/or along with a military objective.

These plans of theirs have been in the pipeline for decades and are only now becoming visible to the rest of the world. The amerikis have also waited from maybe two or more presidencies before trump to lay the foundation and to hit back and undermine the han plans.

It makes me wonder if Trump wasn't actually a deep state project, after all.
Chetak Saar,
I doubt the sanctions are going to be a pass. Mid-term elections will decide the course on whether the Republicans will retain the house and senate.

With Trump Administration officials forcefully coming out against sanctions, I doubt any international lender will lend money to the affected countries, even if they do so it will require a full disclosure. The American administration didn't realize the monster they created themselves by encouraging the Han's.

Still don't think it is too late.

I meant that the sanctions are a passing phase and will eventually die out, one way or another.

The American administration didn't realize the monster they created themselves by encouraging the Han's.

Could you please elaborate on the above, saar??

ArjunPandit · Post by **ArjunPandit** » 26 Oct 2018 21:18

Rajapakse sworn in as pm of sl. Interesting timing by chinese

rohan1424 · Post by **rohan1424** » 26 Oct 2018 21:42

Mahinda Rajapaksa becomes new Prime Minister of Sri Lanka amid political drama

In a dramatic political development in Sri Lanka, former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa was on Friday sworn in as the new prime
minister by President Maithripala Sirisena after his party abruptly quit the ruling coalition.Visuals of the former president Rajapaksa taking oath as the premier were released to media and was shown on TV channels.

The sudden development came after Sirisena's broader political front United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) announced that it has decided
to quit the current unity government with prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP).

Mahinda Amaraweera, agriculture minister and the general secretary of the UPFA, told reporters that the UPFA decision has been conveyed to Parliament.The unity government was formed in 2015 when Sirisena was elected President with Wickremesinghe's support, ending a
nearly decade-long rule by Rajapaksa.Sirisena, who was Rajapaksa's minister of health, broke away from him to contest the presidential elections.
Political analysts said Sirisena's move to install Rajapaksa as the prime minister could lead to a constitutional crisis as the 19th amendment to the Constitution would not allow the sacking of Wickremesinghe as the premier without a majority.Rajapaksa and Sirisena combine has only 95 seats and is short of a simple majority. Wickremesinghe's UNP has 106 seats on its own with just seven short of the majority.

There was no immediate comment from Wickremesinghe or the UNP

Dumal · Post by **Dumal** » 26 Oct 2018 22:24

ArjunPandit wrote:Rajapakse sworn in as pm of sl. Interesting timing by chinese

For what it’s worth he was in India in Aug-Sep and our folks must have used the opportunity to get him on the same page as us. Who knows, maybe this was expected?

ArjunPandit · Post by **ArjunPandit** » 27 Oct 2018 00:41

Yes, at that time I was wondering what's he doing in Delhi with sub Swamy welcoming him posters. It's possible that the 99 year lease thing by this govt is being responded too. There were news articles of current pm saying assassination plans by our RAW in a cabinet meeting, later denied of course.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 27 Oct 2018 00:50

This is a Chinese move.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 27 Oct 2018 05:08

Supratik wrote:This is a Chinese move.

No one wants to reopen the old wounds, but I believe the way forward for India is either connect Sri Lanka with a bridge or establish Tamil Eelam with the help of UN.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 27 Oct 2018 09:51

Tuan wrote:
Supratik wrote:This is a Chinese move.
No one wants to reopen the old wounds, but I believe the way forward for India is either connect Sri Lanka with a bridge or establish Tamil Eelam with the help of UN.

or mind its own business, which is the best option of all.

A bit of commerce, some trade and some tooing and froing as has been done all along will work just fine. Limit it to just that.

no point in willfully creating another greedy and entitled beedi or pukiland on our southern borders.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 27 Oct 2018 10:39

Dumal wrote:
ArjunPandit wrote:Rajapakse sworn in as pm of sl. Interesting timing by chinese
For what it’s worth he was in India in Aug-Sep and our folks must have used the opportunity to get him on the same page as us. Who knows, maybe this was expected?

He came specifically to seek India's blessing and concurrence. Things will eventually reveal themselves. Swamy played a big role in this.

he would not have come without a green light from dilli.

the matter must have been under discussions for months before this and that is also evidenced by the fact that decisive changes took place so quickly after his visit.

Dumal · Post by **Dumal** » 27 Oct 2018 11:42

This http://news.rediff.com/commentary/2018/ ... c6a5cb4292
And this
http://news.rediff.com/commentary/2018/ ... 76bc05dafe

And the timing of these statements suggest to me that there must have been some Chinese meddling that must have precipitated the changes?

Also, SuSwamy can be extremely self-centered and self-promoting in all he says and does. Is it possible he has a role in this but not one that is in our national interest?

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 28 Oct 2018 00:09

It is now clearly a China backed coup.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... ter-sacked

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 28 Oct 2018 05:42

Supratik wrote:It is now clearly a China backed coup.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... ter-sacked

So, what happened to the Wuhan spirit? What happened to the '2+1' formula? What happened to Panch Sheel?

ArjunPandit · Post by **ArjunPandit** » 28 Oct 2018 08:10

Suswamy tweeted that rajapakse called him. While not absolving Chinese, let's wait and watch

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 28 Oct 2018 13:27

SuSwamy is not the leader of India. Both US and India have called SL to honor the constitution. In any case Rajapaksa does not have majority in parliament. So this is a coup.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 28 Oct 2018 16:38

Supratik wrote:SuSwamy is not the leader of India. Both US and India have called SL to honor the constitution. In any case Rajapaksa does not have majority in parliament. So this is a coup.

Rajapaksa was in India as Swamy's guest. It would be foolish to imagine that matters pertaining to what has happened in SL were not discussed "unofficially" and also the blessings of the powers that be in dilli would have been obtained.

For Rajapaksa to be in dilli, he needed the plausible deniability of an official visit or even the fact that he may have been "summoned" by the GoI, so maybe he came as Swamy's guest.

The "report" of the "R&AW plot" to kill someone high up in the SL govt is proof enough of the machinations that may have gone on prior to this new situation coming about.

Let us wait and watch the evolving situation and see the true intent behind this move.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 28 Oct 2018 16:50

Sri Lankan Speaker recognises Ranil Wickremesinghe as PM, urges President Maithripala Sirisena to reconsider his sacking

Sri Lankan Speaker recognises Ranil Wickremesinghe as PM, urges President Maithripala Sirisena to reconsider his sacking

Oct 28, 2018

Colombo: Sri Lankan Parliament's Speaker Karu Jayasuriya Sunday recognised Ranil Wickremesinghe as the country's prime minister in a major relief to the embattled UNP leader, who was sacked as the premier by President Maithripala Sirisena.

In a letter to Sirisena, Jayasuriya questioned Sirisena's decision to suspend the House until 16 November, saying it will have "serious and undesirable" consequences on the country. He asked the president to restore Wickremesinghe's privileges as the leader of the government who has "obtained a mandate to secure democracy and good governance”.

The speaker said a prorogation of Parliament should be one in consultation with the speaker. "In this context continuing the prorogation of parliament until November 16 will have serious and undesirable consequences for our country and I kindly request you to reconsider the same.

"I consider it is my duty to draw your attention to the convention that a prorogation should be one in consultation with the speaker," Jayasuriya said.

The speaker also questioned Sirisena's decision to withdraw the security of Wickremesinghe. Jayasuriya reminded Sirisena of certain forcible takeovers of state institutions since former strongman Rajapaksa was named Wickremesinghe's successor by the president on Friday night.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 28 Oct 2018 17:10

It looks like president Sirisena has a large part to play in the ongoing political turmoil. He may well have precipitated the entire fiasco.

Turmoil in Sri Lanka: Mahinda Rajapaksa's return poses challenges for India but it may not be a zero sum game

Turmoil in Sri Lanka: Mahinda Rajapaksa's return poses challenges for India but it may not be a zero sum game

India Sreemoy Talukdar, Oct 27, 2018

Nearly 24 hours have passed but India still maintains official silence over the dramatic developments in Sri Lanka, where a prime minister has been “sacked” by the president and a new one installed in his place. The US has declared that it is monitoring the situation and asked all parties to remain calm and follow the Constitution.

The US is following events in #SriLanka. We call on all parties to act in accordance with SL’s constitution, refrain from violence, and follow due process. We expect gov of SL to uphold its Geneva commitments to human rights, reform, accountability, justice, and reconciliation.

— State_SCA (@State_SCA) October 26, 2018
Mark Field, UK Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific, has expressed his “concern” and asked everyone to respect the Constitution and “due political process”.

Following today’s developments in #SriLanka closely and with concern. We call for all parties and competent authorities to ensure that the constitution is respected and due political process followed.

— Mark Field MP (@MarkFieldUK) October 26, 2018
Yet India, which considers Sri Lanka an inalienable part of its sphere of influence and is keen to guard its turf from encroachments by other powers such as China, has been reluctant to react — except for one reaction from Subramanian Swamy. The BJP MP told ANI that he is “happy” at the turn of events because Mahinda Rajapaksa, the former president and the designated prime minister who is seeking to replace incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, “is a staunch nationalist. He’ll not sacrifice this sovereignty even one bit for any country/terrorist group. India would benefit from good relations with him.”

But Swamy is not known for his reticence and in any case, it is his personal opinion. From the looks of it, India seems to be wary about playing its cards and wants to wait out the volatility till a clearer picture emerges. The Washington Post quoted an official from India’s external affairs ministry as saying New Delhi “is aware of the developments and watching the situation closely.” India’s caution is understandable. The situation is complex, and New Delhi has been sucked into the vortex of Sri Lanka’s domestic politics without wishing to play any role in it.

There is a distinct fear in New Delhi that it has inadvertently become the proverbial straw that finally broke the camel’s back, and India’s cautious response is likely a desperate effort to stay out of the controversy.

The dramatic developments unfolded on Friday when President Maithripala Sirisena finally called time on the unstable coalition by quitting the so-called ‘Unity government’ and ousting Prime Minister Wickremesinghe. The coalition was in ICU and its fall was inevitable. Yet the descent into volatility was caused by a few recent events where India plays an unintentional part.

The first event involves Wickremesinghe’s recent meeting with Narendra Modi in New Delhi, after which the Sri Lankan prime minister's office released a curious statement, where Modi was quoted as “unhappy” and disappointed with the delays that various Indian projects are facing in Sri Lanka.

The release from Wickremesinghe’s office, written in Sinhala, stated: “Mr. Narendra Modi has expressed his concern over the implementation of Indo-Sri Lanka joint development projects in accordance with the MoU signed between India and Sri Lanka in 2017…Mr. Modi said he was not satisfied with the response he had received from the Sri Lankan government to his overtures.”

The statement released by India was nondescript. “Both the Prime Ministers discussed the entire gamut of bilateral relations and ways to further deepen the historically close and friendly relations between the two countries. The leaders exchanged views on regional and global issues. They also reviewed the progress in implementation of various decisions taken during high level exchanges in the recent past, including the visit of Sri Lankan Prime Minister in April and November 2017, Prime Minister’s visit to Sri Lanka in May 2017 during the International Vesak Day Celebrations and the visit of Sri Lankan President for the International Solar Alliance Founding Conference in March 2018.”

According to a report in The Hindu, officials from India’s Ministry of External Affairs present at the meeting “said the delayed projects had indeed been the ‘main subject of discussion’, but characterised Modi’s reaction as ‘taking stock’ of progress on the projects rather than ‘disappointment'."

The public declaration seemed to be a thinly veiled attempt by Wickremesinghe to shift the blame for delayed projects on to Sirisena, with whom he ran into major differences over the East Container Terminal in Colombo port. Wickremesinghe was keen on the port to be run by an Indian company but “under Sirisena’s direction, the terms of deal with the bidders were changed to keep the Indians investors away.”

Amid these differences, the controversy over an alleged assassination plot complicated the situation further. Sirisena was quoted as saying in a recent report by The Hindu that Indian intelligence services had hatched a plot to kill the Sri Lankan president, keeping Modi in the dark.

Both Sirisena and the Indian government later denied the allegation and dismissed the report, and Sri Lankan police later held a news conference to declare that no evidence of such a conspiracy was found but Sirisena, while denying India’s role in the plot, nevertheless reportedly felt that Wickremesinghe government wasn’t giving the matter its due importance.

Recent media reports also indicated that President Sirisena was under “tremendous pressure” from a section of his Freedom Party members to pull out of the coalition with Wickremesinghe’s United National Party and appoint a “caretaker government” with Rajapaksa as the prime minister.

We see that while India was a factor in the deterioration of relationship between the coalition partners, the larger logic behind Sirisena’s action was a recognition of the altered ground situation. The economy, led by the Wickremesinghe government, is under-performing. Sri Lanka’s $87 billion economy had reported a sluggish growth of 3.3 percent last year from 4.4 percent in 2016. The 16-year low was blamed on “tight monetary and fiscal conditions, droughts and floods.” Meanwhile, former president Rajapaksa, whom Sirisena had defeated in the presidential elections in 2015, came back in reckoning with a thumping victory in recent local elections.

Sirisena’s actions in sacking his prime minister and giving the job to the former president, therefore, looks like an attempt to stave off popular discontent and mend the relationship with Rajapaksa, who is widely expected to win the presidential elections in 2020.

The problem, however, is that Sirisena’s move unilateral move has come under challenge from the incumbent prime minister. Wickremesinghe insists that he is still the prime minister and that Sirisena’s move is unconstitutional. He continues to occupy Temple Trees, the official residence of the prime minister, and in a letter to the president has demanded that Parliament be reconvened so that he can immediately prove his majority. Wickremesinghe has also vowed legal action and claimed that he can only be removed by the Parliament, which was due to meet on 5 November.

Wickremesinghe has reasons to be confident. The Rajapaksa-Sirisena combine has little less than 100 seats while Wickremesinghe’s UNP has 106, just seven short of majority. “As far as the prime ministership is concerned, the person who has the majority support in parliament has to be the prime minister, and I have that majority of support… When a motion of no confidence was moved (in the past), we defeated it, showing that the house has the confidence in me,” Wickremesinghe said in a news conference.

Reacting to his move, Sirisena has suspended the Parliament till 16 November in an apparent attempt to deny Wickremesinghe the chance to prove his majority on the floor of the House and also to help Rajapaksa buy some time. Sirisena would have noted that Tamil, Muslim parties and many lawmakers are still firmly behind Wickremesinghe.

This deepens the political crisis. However, under the Sri Lankan Constitution, the president has the power to remove the prime minister and it seems likely that the battle will move to the judicial arena. Sri Lankan courts have kowtowed before power earlier and it is possible that they may not be able to prevent Rajapaksa from returning to power.

Namal Rajapaksa, a lawmaker and the son of the former president, was quoted as saying in The New York Times that “we have more than 130 seats in Parliament, definitely.”

India therefore must proceed with the assumption that Wickremesinghe, with whom New Delhi had a good equation, may be ousted. This complicates the turf for New Delhi, which has been grappling with the swift changes in the Indo-Pacific strategic dynamic due to China’s aggressive courting of Indian neighbours. Rajapaksa, the strongman who served for 10 years as Sri Lanka’s president till 2015, had single-handedly pivoted the nation towards China.

He had engineered an economic run fueled by opaque Chinese investments and plunged Sri Lanka into a debt trap that led to, among other things, the island nation handing over the strategically located Hambantota port and nearly 15,000 acres of land around it to China on a 99-year lease. Though the lease was authored after Rajapaksa was voted out of office, the Sirisena government had little choice. The port gave China a toehold in a critical freight and military pathway.

Sirisena’s move to bring Rajapaksa back into the power game may have been rooted in political reasoning, but it may add more spice to the geopolitical power game between India and China.

Shailesh Kumar, Asia director at political risk firm Eurasia Group, was quoted as saying in a Business Standard report that Rajapaksa has many friends in China and handled most of the Chinese inflow and “this transition will ensure that China can once again prevail over Sri Lanka’s economy as they have a friend in the prime minister’s office — in contrast to Wickremesinghe.”

An investigative report in The New York Times relates how China pumped money into the Hambantota port despite adverse feasibility studies and how, little by little, it tightened the noose around Sri Lanka in a textbook case of debt-trap diplomacy. As Rajapaksa took on a mountain of Chinese debt under unspecified terms to build large infrastructure projects, the country’s economy sank under the debt burden. At recent estimates, roughly 80 percent of the country’s $14.8 billion goes towards Chinese debt servicing, the terms of which are turning progressively onerous and may end up undermining the island nation’s sovereignty.

While this happened at a rapid pace under Rajapaksa’s watch, Chinese firms pumped in large amounts to money towards financing the former president’s electoral campaign.

According to the newspaper, “During the 2015 Sri Lankan elections, large payments from the Chinese port construction fund flowed directly to campaign aides and activities for Mr. Rajapaksa, who had agreed to Chinese terms at every turn and was seen as an important ally in China’s efforts to tilt influence away from India in South Asia. The payments were confirmed by documents and cash checks detailed in a government investigation seen by The New York Times.”

China had also defended the Rajapaksa government from UN wrath due to alleged human rights violations during the civil war and had described the UNHRC resolution as a move to “impose pressure”.

India, therefore, would have its work cut out. China is reportedly also expanding its footprint into Sri Lanka’s Northers province and central highlands, where India enjoys huge influence due to the ethno-linguistic and cultural ties with the Tamil majority. China’s state-run China Railway Beijing Engineering Group has secured a $300 million contract to contrast 40,000 houses in Jaffna district in the Northern Province, while Beijing is also planning to invest Sri Lanka’s plantation industry, which, according to a report in The Diplomat, is “just a fraction of investment planned in this sector.”

The theatrics in Sri Lanka present a set of challenges for India, but it may be unwise to see the developments through a monochromatic prism. Rajapaksa, in recent times, has been trying to mend fences with Delhi. He had accused India of engineering his ouster in 2015 but later met Modi in 2017 when the Indian prime minister had been on a visit.

The former Sri Lankan president came to India in September this year to attend an event and met Modi again, signaling a thaw in relations.

While India navigates the choppy waters in its backyard, it may do well to remember that its security interests cannot be the sole motivating factor for its South Asian neighbours who have their political agency and will act in accordance with own interests. It is not a zero sum game

Dumal · Post by **Dumal** » 29 Oct 2018 18:39

https://news.rediff.com/commentary/2018 ... 1fede9faaa

Things getting out of control! Also even though Rajapaksa has not proved his majority yet, he seems intent to wield power.

abhijitm · Post by **abhijitm** » 02 Nov 2018 10:28

Is it possible Rajapakse was in Delhi to strike a deal, or pretend to strike one? He must have asked for larger sum than what offered by chinese.

abhijitm · Post by **abhijitm** » 02 Nov 2018 10:29

Meanwhile pak is first country to recognize Rajapakse as lankan PM.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 04 Nov 2018 18:36

India needs to act (overtly or otherwise). Pakis recognizing the cheen agint settles matters. This is far more in-ur-face than the Maldives tamasha. Of course if the other guy is seen to be bailed out by India that may be "log-kya-kahenge" but allowing this twerp to trash SL's already-fragile democracy is worse. Seems like the President needs to retire citing health and personal issues, followed by arrest of the usurping "PeeEm". By the SL authorities of course. OTOH, the Wikramasinghe dude appears to be a sort of Weimar Republic neta: ineffective.

New neta/ newly-gola-grown Wikramasinghe should cancel the Hambantota deal outright (US and India should stand up in Security Council and squash any UN fallout from cheen displeasure). Wikkie needs to visit Maldives on an extended basis. In the hold of a slow fishing trawler like one of the pakis (remember the picture?) arriving at Guantanamo strung in a net in a C-130. Then he can be delivered to the ICJ/War Crimes tribunal to stand trial for genocide.

Doing RealPolitik per advice of the oiseules who "guided" 1980s Indian policy on SL, would be fatal to Indian interests and human interests in general.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 04 Nov 2018 19:27

The betrayer pres. and the man whom he betrayed and has brought back to power are Chin puppets.India can trust a rabid India-hating Paki better than either of these
treacherous two.The glove has to come off and reveal the mailed fist.For far too long our MEA has acted like ...........

Hari Nair · Post by **Hari Nair** » 08 Nov 2018 16:15

There is a recent analytical article by a couple of Reuters correspondents on what precipitated the present situation and is worth a read:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri- ... SKCN1ND0D1

It appears that President Sirisena has been bought well under the influence of the Chinese.

Just a thought - how does this all tie in with Mr Subramanian Swamy's favourable assessment of Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa and inviting him to our country just about a month before this coup of sorts? Any opinions by experts?