I saw Sri Lanka during Chandrika’s era. Things weren’t that bad. Things have gone very south.
I know people around the IMF world such as Raja, and whatever the economic argument for the bailout package is, I don’t think it is helping our sense of sovereignty.
I also hear the same sad logic from local newspapers and local press: say good things locally, get local publisher coverage, but nobody outside Sri Lanka will buy it.
I think that logic is killing us.
You need to go beyond this. You need to fight where the fight is happening.
People like Shavendra are upset that they cannot even use a credit card normally internationally and are subject to decisions taken in Washington. Once U.S. sanctions or other restrictions exist, there is very little anybody sitting in Colombo can say that simply makes American institutions ignore them.
If that b***h Kamala had won, she would have ordered the CIA to "deal with that war criminal Shavendra or your friend Chandrika or this or that problem", and that'll have been carried out on her instruction. They will blindly follow directives, even that Kimberly Cheatle had Trump shot in the head, that Biden removed IRGC's FTO label, and let them send suicide bombers in, paying them money, so they can kill Trump. That's how people are. The CIA will do whatever their boss tells them. They'll spy on to blackmail, or otherwise, pay, some amount, to go plant a bomb or detonate or shoot. That's how it is.
You said something important "Sri Lanka went years without a IMF bailout package". That shithole Pakistan's on their 20+ bailout. They're going to go on their 30th one in one decade.
If the White House tells Shanil, "go put black boards or black out the windows" after 4/21 in 2019, they'll do it. Why would you or anyone imagine anyone who actually works for them, will say no?
That is the reality of where power sits.
Sri Lanka's a colony. In 10 years, your kids will be finding themselves in a separated, war torn shithole, where China vs America will play out, because the place will collapse without any money coming in.
And look at what passes for foreign investment around us.
The only “investment” we seem to celebrate is the US side paying JKH to import and sell BYD cars with money by their Gov't finance corp try to running 1 of several terminals in Colombo Port.
Or an Indian company setting car rates and things like a Rs 2,000 minimum basket value for Uber Eats from India.
There is no Facebook office here. No Google office here.
We get a tiny number of executives whose job is essentially to manage this region while the real decisions are made elsewhere.
That is precisely my problem.
Sri Lanka has spent decades talking about FDI while the firms that actually control technology, capital, publishing, distribution and global audiences remain somewhere else.
How is a Sri Lankan publisher, going to win $1 for Sri Lanka? It's just not going to happen. They won't buy it.
Your efforts with us could pave the way for our nation.
I’m getting virtually no response from Sri Lankan enterprise or Sri Lankan leaders, and with that frustration we’re getting disappointed.
It's great that Wijewardene overrode that Jamila Hussein to publish an interview of me. But I don't think there'll be any Sinhalese left by 20 - 30 year's time to even do that.
That Indian Nalanda university reality is what's dawning on beggar Sinhalese children of this country.
Shanil has sold a lot of his stock. Kris sold. Sanjiva retired.
There are people here being paid something like $20,000 for work which, if performed as a California job at the figure we use, would be roughly $73,500 a year.
And ultimately an American company will follow American law and American government requirements. If Washington tells an American firm it cannot do something here, somebody in Colombo cannot simply talk the company out of complying.
There’s nothing anyone here can say to make that structural reality disappear.
Commercially, we can always focus on foreign authors, foreign brands and foreign assets instead.