Evicting Mahinda, arresting Ulugetenne, becoming India’s Macau: Anura as Yeltsin

AN authentically non-elitist leader who broke the caste-class barrier in 1988, President Ranasinghe Premadasa, (AKD doesn’t meet the first criterion), together with his elitist minister Ranjan Wijeratne, literally smashed the Colombo empire of casino king Joe Sim.

- By Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

Now, under Anura Dissanayake’s presidency and in his presence, Lawrence Ho, a Hong Kong born Canadian and CEO of Melco, recommends that Sri Lanka be to India what Macau is to China, and indicates that is our goal and trajectory. (https://www.dailymirror. 1k/business-news/SL-poised-to-become-Indias-Macau-says-Melco-chief-at-JKHs-City-of-Dreams-launch/273-315867

India’s Macau

Mr Ho should stick to the excellent investment he has made in the outstanding JKH project the City of Dreams, and not provide gratuitous advice to countries about what they can or should be. He’s a very successful businessman, not a thinker of any repute—unlike Kishore Mahbubani who has just given us far better advice. (https://www.ft.lk/top-story/ With-biggest-markets-at-doorstep-Sri-Lanka-in-a-sweet-spot-KishoreMahbubani/26-779899)

A country is not a company, let alone a casino. Not only is Macau a gambling/gaming hub, it is also an autonomous administrative region of China, which is natural because it was a Portuguese colony seized from China which reverted to Chinese sovereignty. Does Lawrence Ho recommend we become an administrative region of India? Is that what we are actually becoming under AKD?

Gambling hubs run counter to this island’s multi-religious ethos. They also attract criminality. Sri Lanka doesn’t have anything like China’s ability to crush criminality let alone cartels. On AKD’s watch there’ve been an unprecedented 76 shootings this year so far.

Instead, we shall become like pre-revolutionary Cuba, a gambler’s paradise for Mafiosi from Florida, across 90 miles of water. Players will flood Colombo from Chennai. In Cuba too, a once-elected, subsequently despotic, non-elitist son of impoverished was ruler: Fulgencio Batista.