Sri Lanka Better Future – By Dr Harold Gunatillake

Harold-Gunethilake

Man who forcibly entered Rupavahini and disrupted telecast arrested at BIA

July 27, 2022, Srilanka: Dhaniz Ali, a social activist, involved in a recent protest campaign, was arrested & forcibly dragged off a flight by plain clothesmen at Colombo International Airport on 26/07/2022. A leading Galle Face protest site activist Dhaniz Ali has been arrested by the CID while trying to leave for Dubai on a flight from the BIA this evening, Police said.

He was accused of entering the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation and attempting to disrupt telecasts on July 13.

The Police media unit said there was an arrest warrant against the suspect. Meanwhile, a video on social media shows CID officers attempting to arrest the suspect while inside the plane despite the onboard passengers protesting against the move.

Repeal emergency regulations Members of the Open University Teachers’ Association (OUTA) staged a protest in Colombo a few days back, demanding the government ensure the rule of law and repeal emergency regulations to stop arrests and suppression of protesters: Sri Lanka: Emergency regulations must not lead to a further crackdown on human rights.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) today urged the government to stop arrests and suppression of Galle Face protesters. JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake told this to the media after a discussion with the representatives of the Galle Face protesters at the JVP head office in Pelawatte today.

He said President Ranil Wickremesinghe got the armed forces to unleash a vehement attack on the protesters even though they had assured to hand over the Presidential Secretariat at 2.00 pm the following day.

He said the attack was carried out to please the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna MPs who voted Ranil to the presidency. “Even after the brutal attack, there is a move to arrest the protesters making various allegations. The government has not realised the cause of the public protest, which emerged due to various hardships and shortages of essential goods and services. The government is trying to hamper reasonable demands of the people through suppression,” he said.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa to return Former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will return to the country from Singapore, Cabinet spokesman Bandula Gunewardena said today. Singapore has granted a 14-day short-term visit pass to the former president as he entered the country on a private visit on July 14, according to immigration authorities in Singapore.

Long-term investments in Sri Lanka are India’s plan to fix the economic crisis: Envoy.

After helping Sri Lanka with unprecedented assistance of around $4 billion since January as the country plunged into a deep economic crisis, India is now planning to invest heavily in newer sectors through both private and public firms there, Gopal Baglay, high commissioner

of India to Sri Lanka, told ThePrint in an interview. India will focus on renewable energy, hydrocarbons, ports and infrastructure, and IT, among others. Both countries are also looking at signing the long pending Economic and Technology Co-operation Agreement.

The top Indian diplomat in Colombo said New Delhi will now work with the new government there, both at the functional as well as political levels, to facilitate talks for a bailout package by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Sri Lanka, which got stuck earlier as the situation there worsened.

Clinching IMF Support

The new president has said the island nation is close to a conclusion in negotiations with the IMF for a bailout program and made progress in “discussions for assistance” with foreign countries. As finance minister, he will lead those talks with the central bank.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told Bloomberg News in a recent interview that talks with Sri Lanka could proceed “quite quickly” as soon as a new government is in place. “Ranil’s administration will have to implement further tough economic measures to raise more revenue and trim spending, to put the country’s finances on a more sustainable footing,” said Peter Mumford, head of South & Southeast Asia at risk consultancy Eurasia Group. “This will inevitably make the new government fairly unpopular.”

Sri Lanka asks China for help with trade, investment and tourism

Sri Lanka has asked China to help with marketing, investment and tourism to help it grow sustainably, Colombo’s envoy to Beijing said on Monday as it negotiates for an emergency $4 billion package to help it emerge from an economic meltdown.

Ambassador Palitha Kohona’s emphasis on China as a key to Sri Lanka’s economic recovery reflects Beijing’s status as one of Sri Lanka’s two largest foreign creditors, along with Japan. China also holds some 10% of Sri Lanka’s external debt,

In an interview with Reuters at Sri Lanka’s Beijing embassy, Kohona said Colombo wants China to ask its companies to buy more Sri Lankan black tea, sapphire, spices and garments and make Chinese import rules more transparent and easier to navigate.

Sri Lankans in Australia is doing what they can to support those in their motherland.

Australia’s Sri Lankan community wants to alleviate the hardships experienced by those dealing with Sri Lanka’s economic crisis. A donation from AUSLMAT of 1000 vials of antibiotics is delivered to Anuradhapura Hospital in Sri Lanka. Source: Supplied / AUSLMAT via Facebook ASLMAT will hold ‘Heal our nation’ the following weekend, another cultural event to raise money to purchase medications and medical equipment to be sent to Sri Lanka.

US envoy and Lankan President patch up after rocky start to relations

byEditor

July 27, 2022

Pledge to cooperate for the betterment of Sri Lanka By P.K.Balachandran Colombo, July 27 (news in. Asia): The US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung and the Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe met here on Wednesday and pledged to cooperate for Sri Lanka’s “better future”.

After an earlier meeting with Wickremesinghe, Ambassador Chung had tweeted saying that she expressed her “grave concern” over the crackdown on the protesters. She described the military cum police action as an “ escalation of violence against protesters” and termed it “unnecessary and deeply troubling.” Wickremesinghe pointed out that even in the US, there are explicit norms regarding protests, as stated by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU says protesters are not permitted to “block government buildings and interfere with other purposes the property was designed for.”

The American Civil Liberties Union is a nonprofit organisation founded in 1920 “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country. The ACLU instructions said: “Your rights are strongest in what is known as ‘traditional public forums,’ such as streets, sidewalks and parks. You also likely have the right to speak out on other public property, like plazas in front of government buildings, as long as you are
not blocking access to the government building or interfering with other purposes the property was designed for.”

Wickremesinghe told the diplomats that measures had been taken to ensure that non-violent protests could proceed within the city without endangering property or lives. Facilities within Colombo, such as the Open-Air Theatre at Viharamahadevi Park, the New Town Hall, Hyde Park and Campbell Park, were available for non-violent protests.
The President appealed to the diplomats not to go entirely by social media reports but to factcheck with concerned government officials before tweeting their comments.

“No more political games. Give a chance to a mandate” – Opposition leader Opposition leader Mr Sajith Premadasa said that the current government is engaging in political gambling when even living has become a problem for the country’s people, and this gambling is no solution to everyone’s issues like oil, gas, milk powder, fertiliser problem etc.

The opposition leader said today (29) that the country needs a new government to eliminate this situation. It should be created in a recent mandate without a private agreement and done through a referendum. He emphasised that the message they should give the country when there are no solutions should not be political gambling. This political gambling is a characteristic of polluted political culture.

The World Bank, the Fitch rating agency and various diplomats like Samantha Power said that the country’s stability must be strengthened to build the country. The opposition leader further said there should be a macroeconomic framework, and there is a problem with what the government members have done in the past few months without setting this framework.

He said that the country could be built in this situation only with a new mandate. For that, he said that a new order should be given as requested by the religious leaders led by honourable Mahanayake Theros and that sharing government positions will not solve the pain and suffering of 20 million people. Wickremesinghe suggests an ‘all-party govt’ to recover from an economic crisis.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe urged the political parties to put aside their differences and form an all-party government which would allow Sri Lanka to recover from the economic crisis.

I hope this video presentation of the current situation in Sri Lanka was proper.

Stay safe and Goodbye for now

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