By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake –

Dr. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake

While the press was distracted with the chilling killing of Mr. Dinesh Shaffter, scion of a respected and powerful business family; ultra-nationalist ex-President of Sri Lanka and erstwhile US citizen, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, slunk back into the United States via Dubai on an Emirates Airlines Flight from Colombo in the third week of December 2022.  

Gotabaya Rajapaksa had done his time and could now return home to the US: During the Aragalaya protests that hit global headlines earlier that year, President Gotabaya was an embarrassment and not welcome in his second homeland the US, or in many other countries. Thus the once powerful President and former war-winning Secretary to the Ministry of Defence became a homeless gypsy for a couple of months in the Empire at large and a sad spectacle. He was taught a lesson for past arrogance and henceforth would abide by Uncle Sam, and go quietly into the night. 

President Gota is on record stating that he always meant to retire in the US where his son works for the government. What he did for the Empire during his second coming as Sri Lanka’s Head Honcho, was for the most part on track but not quite fast enough, perhaps due to some of those consultations with Gnanakka in Anuradhapura framed by the Ruwanveli Seya!

Thus, Gotabaya was out-maneuvered by another US ‘Force’ backed hybrid project — the Aragalaya or so-called “peoples protest’ that enabled sufficient distraction for the Sri Lanka’s first ever Debt Default in April 2022.  This was followed by the unseating of the President and installation of ‘Force’ favourite, Ranil Wickremesinghe, a.k.a Ranil Rajapaksa, who had authorized the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), Bond scam in 2015. The New Force backed President whose ascent was enabled through and despite the protests was appointed in a constitutional coup in order to carry out debt restructuring with the IMF and Colonial Club de Paris following Sri Lanka’s first ever sovereign debt default in April 2022. 

Gotabaya had initially delayed going to the Washington twins, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank (WB) for ‘help’ to pay mounting International Sovereign Bond Debt, but was eventually guided by his brother and fellow US citizen, then Finance Minister of Sri Lanka, Basil Rajapaksa, to deliver the desperately needed Staged Default for Washington’s progress into the strategic island as Cold War hotted up in the Indian Ocean. The Third brother, Prime Minister and Sinophile, Mahinda Rajapaksa was trumped by his Diasporic siblings and their American ambitions. 

The Timeline for Full Spectrum Dominance in 2022: Virtual Reality in the Post/Colony

By now all sides of the equation are remote controlled to greater or lesser extent: This is termed Full Spectrum Dominance (FSD), Over the Horizon operations. The CIA/ NED/ USAID stage managed and funded sequence of events and dramatic timeline of 2022 with the Aragalaya chaos strategy, enabled the Washington Consensus and Colonial Club de Paris to enter and tighten their grip on Strategic Sri Lanka’s Economic, trade and National security policy and maritime zone, including Submarine Undersea Data Cables (UDC), despite the best intentions of many good citizens, genuinely fed up of the political corruption who hit the roads protesting in those heady days of Sri Lanka’s ‘Arab Spring’.

All this was done to target China whose alternative STATE-LED Capitalist development model and Belt and Road (BRI), project for global connectivity and trade are seen as an existential threat to Western hegemony and the nuclear sub War Machine (NATO-AUKUS). Meanwhile, India moving to assert itself as a ‘global power’ in this long predicted ‘Asian 21st Century”, remains the Wild Card, juggling China, Russia and the US.

The US has signaled it would confront China in the maritime domain and hence invented the “Indo-Pacific” and AUKUS for nuclear Submarines some years ago. Enter, Sri Lanka at the center of the Indian Ocean as a key player, where there was a copious plastic spill by a mysterious ship MV Pearl from Dubai to Singapore that sank outside the Colombo port in 2021. Thus, USAID this week lunched a 5 year Deep Dive, Plastic cleanup operation of the Seas of Sri Lanka!

The million-rupee question at this time is: will the two Asian Giants who are not members of the Colonial Club de Paris that represent the bond traders responsible for Sri Lanka’s Default, and significant bi-lateral creditors of Sri Lanka, work together to ensure that the county does not become an Economic Proxy War site, like Ukraine is in the US-led NATO proxy war against Russia? Or even Afghanistan or Haiti.

Its geopolitical ‘wheels within wheels” and ‘turtles all the way down’ in the virtual reality of the post/colony where Full Spectrum Dominance (FSD) and Over the Horizon (OTH), operations are the name of the cyber-war game!  Advantage US, as English is the dominant language of the Internet and social media where Psy Ops take center stage. FSD includes massive Psychological Operations through datafication, Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated shades of virtual reality and Disinformation, with contradictory Big Data, models, algorithms and indices, designed to cause Cognitive Dissonance, anxiety and fear by gaming the corporate and social media narrative in a Post-Truth Risk Society permanently wired to small screens– from cell-phones to laptops.

Meanwhile the real data and evidence, like the forensic audit reports of the 2015 Bond scam remain beyond the reach of citizens, just like certain key chapters in the investigation into the Islamic State (IS) claimed Easter Sunday 2019 attacks that were redacted and embargoed.

Exogenous Economic Shocks and Gotabaya’s Policy Train wreck:

How does South Asia’s richest and only upper Middle Income Country with the best human development and social indicators (HDI), in the region, become a debt-trapped train wreck in just four years? Was it pumped and dumped, and if so, by whom? 

A series of cascading. staged hybrid war-style Exogenous Economic Shocks (EES), and the Gotabaya Rajapaksa regime’s policy mistakes are legendary. These include two years of militarized economically devastating and unnecessary Covid-19 lockdowns albeit on the instructions and advice of the World Health Organization, which consolidated the path to Debt trap and the ISB Debt Default. 

The Covid lockdown saw the Greatest transfer of wealth in Human History, with many countries in the Global South go into near debt Default. Sri Lanka is by no means an outlier when it comes to induced sovereign bond debt traps. The Covid-19 lockdowns and mass militarized injection/vaccination campaign of the population, in line with the Great Reset Global Governance agenda of the Global 1 percent, debilitated institutions, advanced Digital Colonialism, and enabled a pandemic of corruption and Disaster Capitalism. 

Covid lockdowns were more egregious than the tax cut that followed the previous Exogenous Economic Shock—the mysterious ISIS-claimed Easter Sunday hybrid-war style attacks of 2019 on the tourist economy—whose masterminds are yet unknown. Those tax cuts were to boost a slumping economy at a time when the World Bank had upgraded Sri Lanka to MIC thus preventing access to concessionary borrowings, and forcing recourse to private market borrowing at predatory interest rates in the wake of an Exogenous Economic Shock, or IS terrorism. Subsequently, the CIA had notified Minster Harin Fernando that the mastermind of the IS claimed attacks was an internet bot called “Sonic-Sonic” or was it “moronic-moronic”? This was duly announced in Parliament after the CIA had removed materials evidence from the crime scene- the Suicide Bombers phones.

The other policy blunder was the Organic Fertilizer fiasco due to UN Climate Catastrophe narratives and Green Transition advice. In a midnight deal, Gota sold the Yugadanavi Power Plant to a US outfit, New Fortress company, for a clean green and ultra-expensive LNG transition, also jeopardizing Sri Lanka’s Energy security.

Various UN agencies did their part to assist the policy train-wreck towards Debt bondage, with Covid and Climate catastrophe stories. So too Blue-Green bonds have been promoted by the UNDP in IMF PC debt restructuring talks, alongside purchase of expensive green tech. vehicles, solar panels and wind energy projects etc. for which land and marine areas are being appropriated. This would kill two birds with one stone- increase the profit margins at both ends for BlackRock, the holder of the largest chunk of Sri Lanka’s ISBs, via partner Adani– to be gifted key coastal areas for green energy projects in Mannar and Poonerryn, while indigenous communities, fishers and farmers are denied access to their traditional lands, fishing grounds in the name of corporate funded environmental conservation.

The UNDP Green Transition chorus has compelled small countries with incompetent leaders to bear the costs of ‘Loss and Damage’ caused by the Industrialized West although islands like Lanka have not caused climate change and need not rush to get expensive green technology especially after the Covid-19 Lockdowns. This has given rise to concerns about climate colonialism and climate hypocrisy.

President Gota’s Green Masterplan for policy train wreck was also crafted with the advice of his Viyathmaga SB Diaspora buddies. The organic fertilizer debacle enabled various corporate-funded UN agencies all in the Humanitarian Disaster Capitalism industry to claim that Sri Lanka, a fertile and lush tropic country on major trade routes would soon face a Famine! Thus UNICEF, FAO, WFP and other agencies could raise funds for various humanitarian activities in the island, where people were primed with handouts for the IMF’s magnanimous Digital Cash Transfer project for the Global Reset. But protesting Sri Lankan citizens do not want to be subjects of IMF handouts. Rather they seek Debt Justice and Climate Justice and a flat playing field to do their own thing!  There was massive local currency depreciation after the ex-ante and ex-poste the Staged Default, instantly beggaring the county and triggering a spiral of inflation.

Epilogue: Semiotics of a Crime: It’s the Bonds, Stupid!  

The Semiotics of the guillotine style killing of Mr. Shaffter left in his own car in broad daylight at the Colombo General Cemetery (Kannatte), after driving down roads packed with CCTV cameras, indicates a crime staged by perpetrators assured of immunity and impunity. It was a crime designed to send a chilling message to those who may seek the truth about various local and global bond trades and financial crimes that led to Debt Default, or dare speak truth to power.

Dinesh Schaffter was a primary material witness at the Presidential Commission that investigated the 2015 Central Bank bond scams, alleged to have been authorized by then Prime Minister and current President Ranil Wickremesinghe a.k.a Ranil Rajapaksa, also to fund his party’s election campaign. The court case is on-going at this time. Mr. Shaffter whose company had placed bids at the time had inside knowledge.

At this time there are calls for transparency and information disclosure on local and international bond trades, Forensic Audit Reports, national asset valuations, and the identities of the bond holders. The IMF and Colonial Club de Paris which represents private creditors and bond holders, principle among them BlackRock, are pushing for a quick Debt restructuring deal for the Creditors at this time along with, a Firesale of strategic assets (lands, marine areas, energy, transport and telecom infrastructure), along with  USD 1 billion worth of blu-green Bonds or DFNS. Protestors have called for a moratorium and ban on borrowing from private capital markets give the Odious nature of the Debt.

Sri Lanka is losing its energy, economic and trade policy sovereignty and independence on the eve of 75^th year also amid increasingly, totalizing climate and pandemic) disaster narratives, promoted by various UN agencies. So too, the Right to Self-Determination of Peoples, National Policy autonomy and State Sovereignty — Founding Principles of the United Nations System have been turned on their head as various UN agencies funded by big corporations (big Pharma and Green tech), promote their products, Neocolonialism and SuperImperialism. 

Finally, the not insignificant good news is that strategic Sri Lanka may well benefit from the current cycle of climate change, given the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Many climate change models and empirical reality (rather than Virtual Realty) indicate that the island blessed with two annual monsoons will get more rain and hence have more arable land and clean, green hydro-electric energy in years to come although sea level rise may be cause for concern.

Welcome to 2023 and (virtual) reality in the Post-truth age!