Who is behind the Sri Lanka collapse?
If you look at western media you will find that to the extent there is any context at all that the blame is pinned on the corrupt Rajapaksa’s and on China.
According to the narrative the Rajapaksas were responsible for moving away from its traditional western allies and pivoting towards China involving it in a debt trap with China.
These articles are representative.
Lanka paying for China’s colonization by debt; Ex-Niti Aayog Vice Chair flags dubious investments
And
China’s Sri Lankan port grab adds a pearl to its string
On 20 May, the Sri Lankan parliament passed the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill that lays out the country’s legal framework governing the China-financed project built on land reclaimed from the Sri Lankan capital’s seafront, adjoining Colombo’s port. The bill effectively turns these 660 acres into Chinese sovereign territory.
But this should not come as a surprise. China’s shadow seems to loom dark over Sri Lanka whenever the Rajapaksa brothers—Mahinda and Gotabaya—win elections and come to power. Mahinda Rajapaksa is currently prime minister and minister for finance. He was president from 2005 to 2015, when Gotabaya served as defence minister. Today, Gotabaya is president; the Rajapaksas returned to power after the 2019 elections.
The Secret History of Hambantota
If Chinese loans were cigarettes, Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port would be the cancerous lung on the warning label. Some observers have pointed to the underperforming port and alleged that China is using “debt trap diplomacy,” loading countries up with loans and seizing strategic assets after they cannot repay. Others have argued that Sri Lanka, not China, is responsible for its debt woes. The debate is important for understanding the risks lurking in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, especially as the pandemic pushes more of China’s borrowers to the brink.
Declassified documents tell a more complex story: a port that was conceived as far back as 1910, a Canadian firm that began chasing the project in 1999, and a Sri Lankan government that wisely passed on the project in 2003. This history, largely overlooked and its full details previously undisclosed, helps explain the catastrophe that followed. What gave birth to Hambantota Port was the destructive marriage between two rising forces: Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ascent in Sri Lankan politics and China becoming the world’s largest bilateral lender.
But where does the truth lie? The video below shows that China only represents between 6 an d 10% of all Sri Lankan debt,
Debt Trap Diplomacy – Who Really Owns Sri Lanka’s Debt?
Sri Lanka’s international bondholders brace for a haircut
Debt-ridden country’s recent history is a chronicle of a default foretold
Debt-ridden Sri Lanka has stepped into uncharted waters. Negotiations begin this week in Washington between government officials and the International Monetary Fund for a relief program, against the backdrop of protests at home and the decision to stop paying its overseas debts….
…
Bondholders will also be key stakeholders. By the end of 2020, a year into Gotabaya’s term, the country’s foreign debt was $38.6 billion, accounting for 47.6% of the central government’s total debt, according to the IMF.
International sovereign bonds made up the largest share, at $14 billion, followed by $8.8 billion in loans from multilateral lenders and $6.2 billion in bilateral debts. The top 20 ISB holders included BlackRock, Allianz, UBS, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and Prudential, according to Advocata Institute, a Colombo-based think tank.
Here is another analysis from the same source
Sri Lanka: Debt Trap Diplomacy & Putin Price Hikes? Or Something Else?
This Asian financial publication asks the questions
Is Sri Lanka Really a Victim of China’s ‘Debt Trap’?
Sri Lanka’s debt crisis and Chinese loans – separating myth from reality.
THE BAN ON AGRICULTURAL FERTILISERS
In some quarters, ecologist Vandana Shiva has been blamed for the crisis
Did eco-activist Vandana Shiva ruin Sri Lankan agriculture?
Prof .Vandana Shiva hails Lanka’s decision to ban chemical fertilizer
World renowned Indian environmentalist Prof.Vandana Shiva commended the government’s decision to ban the import of chemical fertilizer on Monday.
She said Sri Lanka will become a unique country in the world, if she sticks to this policy.
“This decision will definitely help farmers become more prosperous. Use of organic fertilizer will help provide agri products rich with nutrients while retaining the fertility of the land.
She was addressing a virtual summit on organic farming for prosperous economy organized by the Plantation Institute of Sri Lanka on Monday.
I would see it far more likely that the crisis came from a government that was fed an idea by western institutions and implemented the reforms without any transition period at a time when any major changes were ill-advised.
Here is an analysis.
Sri Lanka’s ‘Green New Deal’ Brings Poverty, Starvation, and Chaos
Tech tycoons Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks discussed how “Green New Deal” policies promoted by the World Bank, IMF, and Davos destroyed Sri Lanka on the latest episode of the “All In” podcast.
On the latest episode of the All In podcast released last Thursday, tech billionaire and CEO of Social Capital, Chamath Palihapitiya, who is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian and American citizen, discussed the collapse of Sri Lanka with PayPal Mafia member and co-host, David Sacks.
Palihapitiya told Sacks, “Somewhere along the way the leadership of Sri Lanka decided that they were woke and so they enforced every farmer to go organic.”
“The problem with going organic and organic fertilizer was all the small farms shut down, all of the large farms had 20 to 30 percent crop yield reductions, and the prices of food went crazy.”
“What they found as they tried to go woke,” he said, “they went broke.”
Sri Lanka, a small island nation in South East Asia, has completely collapsed after its president’s “green” policies have bankrupted the nation that is no longer able to pay for food, fuel, or medicine.
In 2019, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa pledged to ban the importation of chemical fertilizers on the campaign trail.
“I am honored that my Presidential campaign has been recognized as world’s first carbon neutral election campaign,” Mr. Rajapaksa tweeted on July 20, 2020, “certified by @UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
On April 27, 2021, Mr. Rajapaksa followed through on his campaign promise to ban chemical fertilizers and pesticides when he ordered the country’s 2 million farmers to go organic, prompting a surge in food prices, and leading the debt-laden nation towards catastrophe.
What happened after Sri Lanka banned chemical fertilizers?
Rice production fell by 20% in the first 180 days of the ban on synthetic fertilizer. Tea, Sri Lanka’s main cash crop, has been hit hard, with exports at their lowest level in nearly a quarter-century. Farmers left a third of all farmland fallow. Food prices soared as a result of scarcity and Sri Lanka’s people, their pockets already hit by the pandemic, began to go hungry.
Sacks, who was the founding COO of PayPal before founding Yammer and Craft Ventures, compared the populist uprising in the Netherlands to what is happening in Sri Lanka.
“Basically, they’re implementing the same policies,” he said. “Sri Lanka is just further down the road and a poorer country to begin with.”
Sacks pointed to the fact that the Sri Lankan government adopted these policies because they took massive loans from the World Bank, the IMF, and other international banks, under the condition of implementing ESG requirements.
Sacks continued, “Sri Lanka has something like a 98 ESG rating even as their economy and society is collapsing. How is that possible? Well, they’re doing a great job following the prescriptions of the global elites of Davos.”
“I mean this sort of global elite flies into Davos from Brussels and Washington on their private planes, they have panels on ESG, and then they prescribe these policies for countries like Sri Lanka, and this is the result.”
Sacks explained that Sri Lanka proves the “Davos elites” are wrong about there being “no trade-off” between their “environmentalist policies” and “creating a healthy growing economy”.
“There are real trade-offs here,” he concluded. “And, the crazy thing is that the elites expect poor people in Sri Lanka to make up for their environmental emissions.”
Sri Lanka is the tip of the iceberg of how “Green New Deal” policies promoted by the World Bank, IMF, and Davos will lead to poverty, starvation, and chaos worldwide.
What are the odds that blame for this can be laid at the feet of the United States and western and globalist financial institutions?
Proof: The US Deep-State Helped Orchestrate Sri Lanka’s Uprising!
…this looks to be another US-orchestrated regime change.
As many of you know, there has been a months-long populist uprising in Sri Lanka where citizens have taken over government buildings demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa due to the country’s economic crisis. Sri Lanka was already poor when its government essentially “went WOKE,” putting a ban on fertilizer and forcing the farmers to go organic. This crushed their already struggling economy to the point where people had no access to basic necessities like fuel, medicine, and/or food.
Just a few days ago, it was announced that the president was forced to resign. Many of us here in the US have been looking at this situation in sheer admiration, cheering on the citizens in their successful attempt to overthrow the deep state.
However, looks can often be deceiving. Cat The Great published something on her Telegram which made my head spin and makes me wonder if this isn’t so great after all. Rather, this looks to be another US-orchestrated regime change.
The rest of this article will be spent documenting the evidence put forth by “The New Atlas.”
There is CLEAR evidence that these protests, or at least SOME of them in Sri Lanka, are being funded, backed, and engineered by the US’s regime change apparatus, the NED.
Let me explain…
First, this uprising in Sri Lanka has largely been facilitated and orchestrated via Facebook and other social media. Digital strategists utilized online agitation campaigns to get people to take to the streets.
Now, ask yourself. In what universe would Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter executives help orchestrate an overthrowing of the deep state? If this was an organic uprising of the people, Big Tech would be shutting it down rather than helping to facilitate it.
Second, the National Endowment for Democracy (also known as the NED) is clearly involved. The NED is the US’s regime change apparatus.
Don’t believe me?
… NED’s founder Allen Weinstein declared in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
“In 2004, the US splurged $65 million through NED and other organizations to Ukraine’s opposition forces. It also spent more than $1 million in supporting the so-called democratic process and human rights movements in Kazakhstan in 2020. NED provided French right-wing groups with $1.4 million to campaign against former president François Mitterrand. In Caribbean countries such as Haiti and Nicaragua, NED was deeply involved in overthrowing the democratically elected governments. In Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Belarus, NED colluded with Western propaganda machines to denigrate the countries’ leaders while funneling money to the opposition.”
Victoria Nuland (who was directly involved in the regime change in Ukraine) is an ambassador for the NED. The NED has helped fund and orchestrates regime change around the world for years!
So, now that you understand the NED let’s take a look at who’s leading this uprising in Sri Lanka.
One of the most prominent people behind the movement is a man named Chameera Dedduwage;
Chameera Dedduwage is a digital strategist and campaign volunteer for the “People’s actions for free and fair elections,” or PAFFREL.
“The People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections” is a close affiliate of the “Asian Network for Free Elections.”
Dedduwage’s group “The People’s Actions For Free And Fair Elections” is essentially a carbon copy of the “Asian Network for Free Elections,” and “The Asian Network for Free Elections” is a NED-funded group notorious for meddling in nations across Southeast Asia.
Here you can see that the NED gave $200,000 to “The Asian Network for Free Elections” in 2021. This was taken directly from the NED website.
It stands to reason that the people of Sri Lanka DID rise up in the first place, BUT this effort has now been hijacked. The US’s involvement spells out trouble for the so-called populist uprising. The deep state apparatus is now USING their grievances with their government to help orchestrate an overthrow of Sri Lanka’s president to replace him with a NEW president that serves US interests.
…Business as usual!
US Fingerprints Found Behind Sri Lanka Unrest
Evidence is emerging that at least some segments of the ongoing protests in Sri Lanka are funded and backed by the US, serving US interests. A “digital strategist” given credit by the Western media for the successful toppling of the Sri Lankan government was a “volunteer” at a US National Endowment for Democracy-funded “election” organization. His group’s involvement in the current protests are a carbon copy of events that unfolded during the 2011 US-engineered “Arab Spring.”
References:
Reuters (via US News) – How a Band of Activists Helped Bring Down Sri Lanka’s Government:
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/art…
New York Times – U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/wo…
LinkedIn – Chameera Dedduwage: https://lk.linkedin.com/in/chameerade…
People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections – Partnerships: https://www.paffrel.com/inter_partner…
US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – Board of Directors: https://www.ned.org/about/board-of-di… NED – Elliott Arbrams: https://www.ned.org/experts/elliott-a… NED – Victoria Nuland: https://www.ned.org/experts/victoria-… NED – Scott Carpenter: https://www.ned.org/experts/scott-car… NED – Asia Regional 2021: https://www.ned.org/region/asia/asia-…
