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• Latest US travel warning to its citizens: Visit Lanka at your peril

A disturbing US Travel Advisory warned Americans last Thursday ‘to exercise caution when travelling to Sri Lanka due to unrest, terrorism, and landmines.’

Every country in the world has its own share of unrest, so let that pass as typical of Western attitudes towards Third World nations. The way President Trump has called the National Guard to patrol certain states, one would get the jitters each time they set foot outside their homes.

But terrorism? Ever since Sri Lanka’s terrorist war came to an end in May 2009, not a single Eelamist gun has fired, nor has any Eelamist bomb explosion been heard for the last 16 years.

And as for mines buried beneath the soil in the northern province, many have been defused by troops and no longer pose a major threat to day-to-day civilian life.

Of course, there were the Easter Sunday bomb explosions in April 2019, but these series of blasts on a single day have been attributed to fanatical Islam fundamentalists, in the same manner fanatical Islam fundamentalists have been blamed for America’s 9/11. Both were considered as one-offs.

Furthermore, the US Department of State also warned protests over the economic and political situation in Sri Lanka can happen at any time, adding that terrorist attacks have occurred in Sri Lanka with little or no warning.

At first glance it seemed the references to terrorism and exploding mines and to police tear-gassing people’s protests were the stuff of familiar US travel advisories issued to its citizens in the past and could be, as Trump would put it, fake news.

US ENVOY JULIE CHANG WITH LANKAN PRESIDENT ANURA KUMARA: Nothing more than a regular than regular travel advisory

The last time the US issued a travel alert had been when trouble brewed at Arugam Bay in October last year. On October 23rd last year a travel advisory was issued by the US Embassy in Sri Lanka stating: ‘The Embassy received credible information warning of an attack targeting popular tourist locations in Arugugam Bay areas. Due to the serious risk posed by this threat, the Embassy imposed a travel restriction on Embassy personnel for Arugam Bay effective immediately until further notice. US citizens are strongly urged to avoid the Arugam Bay area until further notice.’

Though meant for its own citizens, when the US Embassy says to avoid a certain area, the locals tend to take to their heels from the spot. And for good measure, too. Often the ground situation supports and makes credible the forecasted threat. The government braced itself for an attack to take place in the area and took countermeasures to prevent it from transpiring. So did visitors to Arugam Bay avoid it like the plague.

But the latest travel advisory issued this week was different. Nothing rhymed with realities existing on the ground. US Ambassador Julie Chang confirmed the 9 October advisory as genuine, stating, ‘The US State Department regularly issues travel advisory updates to make informed international travel decisions. The Travel Advisory issued on October 9 remains at Level 2. There was no change to the advisory level.’

Why then, for God’s sake, paint a picture of Lanka as if it were on the brink of imminent economic collapse with political unrest rife, with protest on the streets met with police teargas, and the air rent with sounds of exploding landmines as if the country were on the brink of revolution?

Why paint Lanka as one simmering with violence with anarchy on the boil? Why dig up from long-buried graves, on which lilies now bloom, the spectre of terrorism and showcase it as stalking the island again?

But Lankans took their cues from it, as they still do. So does the rest of the travelling world hold it as their compass to tell them where it’s safe to go. Why dish up this meaningless drivel and post it on the world’s notice board, warning American tourists it still remains an unsafe place to go, rife with political turmoil, with terrorist activity liable to erupt at any time?

When they are further warned in the October 9 travel advisory that since ‘terrorist attacks have occurred in Sri Lanka, with little or no warning’, to shun

• Tourist locations
• Transportation hubs
• Markets and shopping malls
• Government buildings
• Hotels, clubs, and restaurants
• Places of worship
• Parks
• Major sporting and cultural events
• Schools and hospitals
• Airports
• Other public areas

what sane American tourist or any tourist, for that matter, from any other country in the world, except, perhaps, Palestine, will place Lanka on his or her itinerary unless they have a death wish?

Or is there something ominous, of which neither the people nor the government has the foggiest idea? Beneath the seeming calm that precedes the oncoming storm, is there something poised to break upon this island to shatter the prevailing peace and foil economic recovery?

Rather than be sorry later, it is best to play safe and watch for any developing signs of suspicious activity. For what’s applicable to the American goose is doubly applicable to the Lankan gander.

Tourists from any part of the world can stay away from Lanka. Lankans have no option but to remain grounded or take a leap of faith into the sea that surrounds them. It’s best to remember, for whatever it’s worth, the US Department of State does not issue travel advisories to its own citizens for a lark.

International vulture pack eye isle for nuclear plantLike a herd of international vultures swooping on a vulnerable prey, it seems Russia, France and China, with now India joining the opportunistic ‘scavenger pack’, have long eyed Lanka’s enfeebled state to wrest from her the massive arrearage they need to get the energy requirements on the cheap while passing on all the hazardous risks involved to the expendable, poverty-stricken people of Lanka.The brazen way the world treats Lanka merely because she has fallen on hard times is indeed downright shocking. THE VULTURE IS A PATIENT BIRD: A pack surround a weaken prey Having learnt the lessons of Russia’s Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Japan’s Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, and fully cognisant of the danger of radioactive material carried far and wide by drifting winds to nearby countries and terminally affecting their citizens, India, Russia, China and France found no qualm to inflict on the Lankan people a fate worse than death and to leave a land made barren in the event of a nuclear catastrophe. Is this why the French Ambassador met with JVP party secretary Tilvin Silva at his Pelawatte office and issued an invite to visit France, assuring him, ‘Not to worry, there is no hidden agenda’? Is this why India suddenly ‘sees rupee bonds as next in deepening Sri Lankan ties?’ And, just for amusement’s sake, is this why China gave a project loan last month to resume constructing the Kadawatha highway at concessionary terms? The unsourced report published in the Daily Mirror on Thursday states that the government has decided to review the legal and regulatory groundworkinitiated by the previous government to facilitate nuclear power development. The report also quotes an unnamed SLAEA source stating, ‘The Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha had met with the Authority and conveyed India’s readiness to cooperate if Sri Lanka decides to pursue nuclear power generation. The source added that a Japanese delegation, too, recently made inquiries about Sri Lanka’s future plans in this regard.’ Funny that India should have no phobia of having anchored at Lanka’s northern ports Chinese warships parked outside India’s doorstep? And funnily enough, Japan, which had experienced the nightmarish horror of two atomic bombs falling on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, doesn’t seem to mind entertaining a nuclear holocaust again. Lanka need not resort to a nuclear way out to emerge from her economic mess. Blessed with monsoon winds and kissed by the sun throughout the year, with her reservoirs filled to the brim with water, Lanka need not barter her present and future wellbeing in exchange for a mess of nuclear pottage, merely to keep the wolves from her door.

JVP MP Lakmali tells officer: ‘Don’t implement court order’JVP’s much-talking MP, the Honourable Lakmali Hemachandra, seems to have been elevated to the supreme bench of judges.Cloaked in the majestic aura of a small-time provincial hack, Lakmali seems to have arrogated to herself the judicial powers of a higher court’s judge.This week, at a Colombo District Coordinating Committee meeting, the discussion turned on an eviction case where a judge had already issued a court order last year. It had, as it must, been enforced. But since the residents were still occupying the land at Dabare Road – off Baseline Road, Colombo 5 – Road Development Authority officials were seeking a new motion to get them evicted. TALKATIVE MP LAKMALI: In a hot legal soup That’s when MP Lakmali Hettiarachchi butted in like a bull in a China shop. In her newfound position, in her newfound influence and power, she intervened to say: ‘We discussed this last week, didn’t we? I said NOT to implement the court decision. Didn’t we arrive at such an agreement? NOT to implement the court decision? In what grandiose world of self-delusion did she think she existed when she dared say those words in the public domain? Everyone has the right to show empathy with the residents. Everyone has the right to think the court decision was unfair, unjustified and unreasonable. Only by appealing to a higher court can the legal order be reversed. Not by shedding buckets of sentimental tears to win, perhaps, the votes in the area. As philosophical poet Omar Khayam declared: ‘The moving finger writes and having writ moves on, nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.’ With reason taking flight before her fiery arrogance, Lakmali seems to have gone beyond the pale of judicial redemption.