Sunday Times 2
“The land belongs to the people and all living beings; thou art only the guardian of it …”
View(s):The letter sent by the National Joint Committee to Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe on the Millennium Challenge Corporation Agreement
The National Joint Committee is committed to protect and preserve the unity and territorial integrity of our nation. We believe that Sri Lanka should follow a foreign policy of non-alignment. Due to the fact that Sri Lanka is strategically located in the Indian Ocean the country needs to remain non-aligned and refrain from getting involved in the geopolitical confrontation that is developing between America and China, through agreements that would enable these countries to gain a foothold in Sri Lanka.
The non-aligned policy was compromised when the Acquisition and Cross Service Agreement (ACSA) was first signed in 2007 and subsequently renewed in 2017. This agreement is now contemplated to be further extended to a Status of Forces Agreement with immunity being provided to foreign servicemen on Sri Lankan soil. There is another controversial agreement with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of America that is supposed to have been signed on April 27, 2019.
Therefore, the National Joint Committee at its last meeting decided to request you to release to the public the text of the MCC agreement.
The information available in certain websites argue that as a result of this MCC agreement with America, the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of our nation will be lost to posterity.
These websites are given below for your information:
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2019/02/26/rise-up-sri-lanka-rise-up-destroy-the-enemy-as-it-pivots-to-lanka-to-build-an-electrified-eelam-border-wall-and-make-the-island-its-military-hub-in-the-indo-pacific-part-1/
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2019/03/12/rise-up-sri-lanka-rise-up-destroy-the-enemy-utterly-as-it-pivots-to-mother-lanka-part-2/
The articles in these websites point out that the MCC agreement will create an economic corridor extending from Trincomalee to Colombo containing a land mass of 1.2 million acres which would be leased for 200 years to America for a sum of 480 million dollars. To accommodate the acquisition of land for this proposed economic corridor, these articles state, that two new laws, namely the State Land Bank bill and Land Special Provision Bill, are to be enacted.
Furthermore, these articles indicate that the area covered by this economic corridor will contain Eppawala phosphates, Limonite, Thorium, Monazite and rare earth metals Cerium and Lanthanum. It is also pointed out in these articles that the law applicable within this economic corridor would be the American law and not the Sri Lankan law.
Therefore, if such an agreement is implemented, the country will be divided into two parts by this economic corridor with the northern part being available to create the nation of Eelam as envisaged in the separatist ideology. It is in this northern part that the ancient cities of Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Kurunegala are situated. Freeport McMoRan, an American Company, in 2000 tried to mine the phosphates in Eppawala, that is now within the proposed economic corridor, by acquiring land using the Ministry of Industrial Development. However, this was not made possible as the Fundamental Rights of the people to possess their land was upheld by the Supreme Court. When delivering judgment in this Eppawala case, Justice Amarasinghe quoted what Arahat Mahinda had said to King Devanampiyatissa:
“O great King, the birds of the air and the beasts have as equal a right to live and move about in any part of the land as thou; The land belongs to the people and all living beings; thou art only the guardian of it ….”
Therefore, if the land belongs to the people, and the King who was the head of state was only a guardian, what right has a Prime Minister to sign an agreement to establish an economic corridor and deprive the people of the land on which they live?
However, given the fact that you did sign a peace agreement as the Prime Minister with the LTTE leader Prabhakaran in 2002 sans the approval of the then head of state or the Cabinet, and been made aware that MCC has recommended a 500 million dollar payment to Sri Lanka subject to the approval of the American Congress, would you be kind enough to inform the National Joint Committee and the public the text of this agreement and if it was signed by you on or about April 27, 2019?
Anil Amarasekera
Lt Col A S Amarasekera (Retd)
Co-President, National Joint Committee