By Harischandra Gunaratna

GMOA President Dr Anuruddha Padeniya has warned that the signing of the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India will be inimical to Sri Lanka’s interests.

Dr. Padeniya, addressing a gathering of scholars, intellectuals and professionals in Colombo on Wednesday said: “The agreement is clearly a political one and the architects of it are not patriots. If they are patriots they will not even imagine signing such an agreement.”

The GMOA President said that before entering into such agreements the government should study them fully.

From the outset it had been clear that the agreement would be advantageous to India only, the GMOA chief said. “The standards of some Indian doctors are so poor that they are little better than quacks and some of the patients operated on by them including a Sri Lankan Minister died as they didn’t know even the basics.”

Dr. Padeniya flayed the Indian High Commissioner Y. K. Sinha for the latter’s remarks on Prof. G.L. Peiris and others. He said former President Ranasinghe Premadasa had had the backbone to expel the then British High Commissioner David Gladstone, who tried to interfere in the internal affairs of our country.

Prof. Lalithasiri Gunaruwan said the government should have looked into the flaws in the existing free trade agreement with India before entering into a new one. “We would have welcomed the ECTA if it had ben beneficial to the country.”

India was constructing 65,000 houses in the North and the East and building a railway line from Talaimannar to Trincomalee, Gunaruwan said, adding that there was an ulterior motive. “If the proposed bridge is built across the Palk Straits there will be an influx of Indians here.”

Courtesy:The Island