Lankan think-tanks controlled by US, alleges former Lankan ambassador

Sri Lanka is fast losing its economic sovereignty and the government’s position at the UN Human Rights Council and declarations reveal that Sri Lanka no longer enjoys political independence.
Furthermore the planned foreign takeover of fixed assets occupied  by the armed forces will ensure that this country will no longer be able to defend its territory, according to Tamara Kunanayakam, economist and former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in Geneva.
She was expressing her views on the threats looming over Sri Lanka’s sovereignty while speaking at a forum “Sri Lankan sovereignty; Non-negotiable”, organized by Sri Lanka Association for Political Economy (SLAPE) with Department of Economics and International Relations and the Economics Students Association (ESA) of Colombo University and held at the university auditorium in Colombo. 
In a more-than-one hour presentation on how the country’s sovereignty and the economic independence is threatened, she more or less blamed the issue on the US and the neoliberal lobby.  In her explanation she pointed to many instruments that are virtually involved in negating the sovereignty.
Ms. Kunanayakam indicated that the neoliberal project has its origins in the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) a secretive shadowy organisation founded in 1947 by Friedrich von Hayek. In Sri Lanka neoliberal think-tanks are profoundly influencing the policy changes and far reaching reforms are underway including drafting of the new Constitution 
The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) which is Sri Lanka’s main economic policy think tank, she alleged, is a classic example of how Western governments and their think-tanks function together to hijack state sovereignty in other countries. She said that it shows how such foreign funded, foreign controlled entities which are not in any way accountable to Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions, penetrate state bodies and work from within – without any impediment – to implement an alien agenda and in the most deceitful of ways. 
She said that while IPS says it is “independent”, it is allegedly independent only from the institutions of the Sri Lanka state, but dependent on western states, their oligarchs and their capital.
IPS, she alleged, was directly involved in the organization of the Sri Lanka Economic Forum held in January 2016 under the patronage of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.  The forum brought together – directly or indirectly – the Harvard University’s  Centre for International Development, George Soros and his Open Society Foundation, the US Administration and the corporates to draft the government’s 3-year economic development plan, which manifested itself as vision 2025. 
The Harvard Centre itself is funded by the US Federal agency International Trade Commission (USTR), the Soros Open Society Foundation, as well as banks, investment and equity funds, including the standard bank Group; the financial services group BBVA, banking and asset management conglomerate Investec Asset Management; and MasterCard.  
Another influential Colombo-based neoliberal think-tank actively identifying key areas for reform promoting free market, challenging the efficacy of state-owned enterprises and aggressively engaged in their dismantling is Advocata Institute, also known as Advocata. Like IPS, it is connected to MPS and the US administration.  
She pointed out that today, Sri Lanka is being turned into an aircraft carrier for Washington’s undeclared war against China, and the country’s people, foot soldiers in the battlefront. She said “Yahapalana’s (Good Governance) utter submission to US hegemony is reflected in its constant citation of acclamation from Washington as example of success.  Only recently, President Sirisena told BBC that the new Ministers appointed must be acceptable to the international community, as well”.
She said that the country should return to its principles that were based on the country’s sovereignty and independence and political independence could only be achieved through economic independence, which could only be achieved if people are able to exercise their inalienable right to own, control and develop – on a permanent basis – al their wealth, natural resources, and economic activities.
Some of the participants were stunned to hear about the foreign threats on the country’s independence and sovereignty. Some of them also did not fully agreed to the accusations she made against US, but in her summing-up at the panel discussion she stressed neoliberals are the culprit.
With Ms Kunanayakam, the panel discussion included Dr. W. A. Wijewardene, former Deputy Governor, Central Bank and Prof. Asanga Abeygoonasekera, Director General, Institute of National Security Studies, Sri Lanka. It was moderated by Prof. W. D. Lakshman, Vice Chancellor, SANASA Campus and Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Colombo. (QP)