Features
Sri Lanka Back as Donor Darling Ignores the BRICS
France’s Macron and the US Fish in the Indian Ocean
By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake
COLOMBO. 23 August 2023 (IDN) —Sri Lanka continues to swing wildly between being a ‘Donor Darling’ flooded with foreign ‘aid’ and ‘advisors’ on the one hand to a ‘bankrupt’ pariah or outcast on the other.
Last year, the strategic Indian Ocean Island went from South Asia’s wealthiest nation with the best social and human development indicators to a beggar—humiliated and shunned by the ‘international community.’ This was after staging its first-ever Sovereign Default due to a Eurobond debt trap and purported lack of US dollars.
The default triggered rapid rupee depreciation and instantly beggared citizens amid a distracting trans-nationally networked, remote-controlled ‘Aragalaya’ protest operation led by social media influencers. Ironically, there was a blockade on fuel shipments to the country amid the United States Marine’s ‘Sea Vision’ training program for the Sri Lanka Navy.
Only India, the South Asian regional hegemon and good neighbor, was willing and able to help at the time. The narrative in the local and global corporate media echo chamber was that there was no fuel, food, fertilizer, medicines, or tourists to generate exorbitantly privileged and copiously printed US dollars to buy necessities. As the rupee plummeted, newly appointed US-backed President Ranil Wickremesinghe promised famine and 15-hour power cuts by promoting fear, out-migration, and brain drain from the country.
Yet, miraculously, like the Phoenix risen from the ashes a year later, Sri Lanka is back, having taken mana from heaven in the form of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan of just $2.9 billion to be disbursed over four years, that enabled the magical US dollars to flow again!
Last week, the island hosted the Indo-Pacific Environmental Security Forum (IPESF) at Colombo’s Shangri La Hotel, which faces South Asia’s busiest Port. More than 140 senior officers from foreign defense forces and top-level environmentalists from 28 countries in the Indo-Pacific took part at the confab overlooking Galle Face, the Aragalaya protest site. The four-day Environmental Security conference was hosted by the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), and Sri Lanka Coast Guard (SLCG).
Although described as an ‘environmental security’ conference, the IPESF did not discuss the environmentally devastating impacts and economic costs of the global military business industrial complex, including 750 plus US military bases worldwide, their carbon emissions, and military exercises.
Environmental impacts of military exercises and war, like the Nordstream pipeline destruction or stranding and death of Pilot Whales and Dolphins due to war games as sonar systems of aircraft carriers disorient large sea creatures, were NOT on the agenda.
Climate Hypocrisy
The environmental impact of the NATO war machine and ongoing wars in Ukraine and Africa were the elephant in the room at Colombo’s Shangri-La Environmental Security Forum. Instead, trendy topics like Debt for Nature Swaps (DFNS), also called Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) bonds based on opaque carbon credit calculations, urbanization, ocean plastics, partnerships for climate resilience, data science in climate risk management, etc. were agenda items.
Two weeks before the IPESF, on July 28, French President Emmanuel Macron paid a midnight visit to Sri Lanka, where the OECD’s Club de Paris, represents Eurobond holders who were primarily responsible for the default, was involved in ongoing IMF debt restructuring negotiations and Numbers Game that are set to deepen the country’s debt bondage.
Macron, attempting to Greenwash Odious Debt and the most corrupt, opaque, and crime-ridden sector of the Western global financial system—Bond trading and derivatives—had been promoting the ‘New Global Financing Pact,’ launched last month in Paris. Based on opaque Carbon Credit calculations, the ‘Anthropocene’ climate catastrophe narrative was used to market DFNS, or Green and Blue Bonds.
Predatory bond traders, principal among them BlackRock, have debt trapped over 55 countries in the Global South during COVID-19 lockdowns. Hence, anti-corruption activists in Sri Lanka had called for an outright ban on government borrowing on private bond markets, which caused the Sovereign Default worst economic crisis, and for the country to seek membership in BRICS and the New Development Bank.
Macron, facing a rout in West Africa, was fishing in Sri Lanka’s troubled waters and promised to set up an office of the French Agency for International Development (AFD) in Colombo.
French fisheries fleets stationed in the Seychelles have been accused of over-fishing and Ocean Grabbing and impoverishing Indian Ocean littoral fisheries communities for decades. Indeed, a Brookings Institution report pointed the finger at French fleets for depriving Somalian Fishers of their livelihoods and forcing them into piracy.
Hot on the heels of departing Macron, a Japanese Government team arrived in Colombo to shower aid on the Ranil-Rajapaksa regime and restart a rapid rail project. A couple of months before Macron’s visit, CIA chief William Burns had paid a top-secret visit to the country, and the United States Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy, Nathaniel C. Fick, was expected in Colombo from 17 to 23 August 2023, according to the Department of State. The Chinese were in the country earlier.
Aid Dependence and a Corruption Pandemic
Is Sri Lanka, which sits on major global trade, energy, and Submarine Data Cable routes, back again as a ‘donor darling’? The strategic island, long deemed an “unsinkable aircraft carrier in the middle of the Indian Ocean,” clearly suffers from a geostrategic ‘Resource Curse,” as well as aid-induced Dutch Disease and de-industrialization:
The Island, although rich in valuable marine resources and minerals including Graphite, Zircon, Titanium, etc., now depends on European Union GSP plus handouts to export underwear stitched by women and girls, who are working long hours in Free Trade Zone factories and servicing tourists to earn foreign exchange.
Since Independence in 1948, ‘Aid’ dependency has permeated and penetrated the government, military, business elite, policy-making, and civil society institutions, impeding industrialization and development, particularly the leveraging of valuable marine and mineral resources, including Graphite and Phosphates for fertilizer.
So, too, national law and order and investigative agencies and institutions have been penetrated and compromised due to dependency on foreign aid and experts and politicization. This has left the country vulnerable to trans-nationally networked crime, corruption, and being pumped, dumped, and de-stabilized during staged exogenous economic shocks sans proper investigations, analysis, and research.
Policies of promoting brain drain and skilled out-migration have exacerbated dependency on foreign aid, advisors, and consultants in a country already reeling from two years of COVID-19 lockdowns that had debilitated institutions and oversight mechanisms and enabled Digital Colonialism also visible in the IMF and World Bank debt numbers games.
Middle-Income Country Trap to “Make the Economy Scream”
In 2019, the country was also pumped and dumped by World Bank ‘experts’ when Sri Lanka was upgraded to an Upper Middle-Income Country (MIC). MIC status rendered the island ineligible to access concessionary loans available to less developed countries.
During two years of economically devastating COVID-19 lockdowns, successive incompetent and corrupt Ranil-Rajapaksa regimes related business cronies borrowed from private capital markets and hedge funds like BlackRock that charge predatory interest rates because of the World Bank’s MIC trap—leading to the first-ever default in 2022.
Early in its post-colonial history, Ceylon/ Sri Lanka, caught in Cold War regional refractions, was subject to various exogenous political and economic shocks; the country’s first socialist Prime Minister, who set about nationalizing ports, airports, and plantations, was assassinated, and his successor faced a coup. Insurrections in the shape of ’Jakarta Method’ operations, followed by a 30-year globally networked ‘ethnic conflict.’
Then came the mysterious 2019 Islamic State (IS)-claimed attacks at Easter Sunday on tourist hotels and churches and Chinese investments to make the ‘economy and society scream’ and encourage the obdurately independent natives to accept the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), compact and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), to enable US boots on the ground.
Amid the Aragalaya protest drama, default, and regime change operation last year, there were shades of President Nixon’s instructions to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to make Chile’s ‘economy scream’ as a prelude to the overthrow of democratically-elected Leftist President Salvador Allende and the installation of dictator General Pinochet in 1973 during the Cold War.
As protests unfolded, the newly installed pro-Washington Ranil-Rajapaksa regime predictably promoted the myth that “there is no alternative to the IMF” and further Eurobond borrowing and debt colonialism –seemingly in preparation for an IMF Firesale of assets (prime coastal and highland lands, energy, transport, and telecom infrastructure) to benefit Eurobond traders.
Resilient in the Asian 21st Century?
However, once again, the resilient island appears to be back in business and humming along, but this time, the pumping and dumping of Sri Lanka as a new hybrid Cold War ramps up in the Indian Ocean with remote Over the Horizon (OTH), cyber and economic war operations for Full Spectrum Dominance (FSD), by a crashing superpower seems different.
During the first Cold War, there was still space for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to declare the Indian Ocean as a “Zone of Peace,’ free of nuclear weapons and foreign military bases—led by the world’s first female Prime Minister and a Socialist, Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
However, since the Sovereign Default last year, Sri Lanka has not only lost Economic Independence and Policy autonomy to the Washington Twins and colonial Club de Paris, ironically on its 75th year of so-called Independence after being pumped and dumped by the World Bank into an MIC Eurobond debt trap in 2019.
Sri Lanka has lost its voice and independent thinking due to an ill-conceived policy of Brain Drain promoted by the foreign ‘Force’ backed by the Ranil-Rajapaksa government. This, in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns and hacking of national institutions and oversight mechanisms, is promoting (Digital) neo-colonialism, also apparent in the debt restructuring Numbers Games being played by the IMF’s experts and consultants, including Lazard, Clifford, and Chance.
While Sri Lanka is being carved up for an IMF Firesale of strategic assets, by IMF’s chosen accounting and legal firms, few among the remaining local intelligentsia have thought to question the adequacy of the exorbitantly privileged and copiously printed US Dollar to measure the ‘wealth of nations’ as the world de-dollarizes. After all, the US has a deficit of $32 Trillion and counting and was downgraded by one of its own rating agencies recently.
Perhaps Sri Lanka’s resilience and the quick turnaround this time also has to do with being flanked by Asian Giants, China and India, in what has been termed the ‘Asian 21st century,’ as the BRICS emerging economies overtake the traditional G7 economic heavyweights while de-dollarizing fast.
Ironically, while France’s Macron sought an invite to the BRICS party in Johannesburg, South Africa, this week, Colombo’s Ranil Wickremesinghe has turned a blind eye to calls that Sri Lanka join the BRICS and New Development Bank.
*The writer is a social and medical anthropologist with international development and political-economic analysis expertise.
[IDN-InDepthNews]
It could be quite premature to claim that the US has closed ranks completely with the world’s foremost fascist states: Russia, China and North Korea. But there is no denying that the US is breaking with tradition and perceiving commonality of policy orientation with the mentioned authoritarian states of the East rather than with Europe and its major democracies at present.
Increasingly, it is seemingly becoming evident that the common characterization of the US as the ‘world’s mightiest democracy’, could be a gross misnomer. Moreover, the simple fact that the US is refraining from naming Russia as the aggressor in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its refusal to perceive Ukraine’s sovereignty as having been violated by Russia, proves that US foreign policy is undergoing a substantive overhaul, as it were. In fact, one could not be faulted, given this backdrop, for seeing the US under President Donald Trump as compromising its democratic credentials very substantially.
Yet, it could be far too early to state that in the traditional East-West polarity in world politics, that the US is now squarely and conclusively with the Eastern camp that comprises in the main, China and Russia. At present, the US is adopting an arguably more nuanced approach to foreign policy formulation and the most recent UN Security Council resolution on Ukraine bears this out to a degree. For instance, the UN resolution in question reportedly ‘calls for a rapid end to the war without naming Russia as the aggressor.’
That is, the onus is being placed on only Ukraine to facilitate an end to the war, whereas Russia too has an obligation to do likewise. But it is plain that the US is reflecting an eagerness in such pronouncements to see an end to the Ukraine conflict. It is clearly not for a prolongation of the wasting war. It could be argued that a negotiated settlement is being given a try, despite current international polarizations.
However, the US could act constructively in the crisis by urging Russia as well to ensure an end to the conflict, now that there is some seemingly friendly rapport between Trump and Putin.
However, more fundamentally, if the US does not see Ukraine’s sovereignty as having been violated by Russia as a result of the latter’s invasion, we are having a situation wherein the fundamental tenets of International Law are going unrecognized by the US. That is, international disorder and lawlessness are being winked at by the US.
It follows that, right now, the US is in cahoots with those powers that are acting autocratically and arbitrarily in international politics rather than with the most democratically vibrant states of the West, although a facile lumping together of the US, Russia and China, is yet not possible.
It is primarily up to the US voting public to take clear cognizance of these developments, draw the necessary inferences and to act on them. Right now, nothing substantive could be done by the US voter to put things right, so to speak, since mid-term US elections are due only next year. But there is ample time for the voting public to put the correct perspective on these fast-breaking developments, internationally and domestically, and to put their vote to good use in upcoming polls and such like democratic exercises. They would be acting in the interest of democracy worldwide by doing so.
More specifically it is up to Donald Trump’s Republican voter base to see the damage that is being done by the present administration to the US’ standing as the ‘world’s mightiest democracy’. They need to bring pressure on Trump and his ‘inner cabinet’ to change course and restore the reputation of their country as the foremost democracy. In the absence of such action it is the US citizenry that would face the consequences of Trump’s policy indiscretions.
Meanwhile, the political Opposition in the US too needs to get its act together, so to speak, and pressure the Trump administration into doing what is needed to get the US back to the relevant policy track. Needless to say, the Democratic Party would need to lead from the front in these efforts.
While, in the foreign policy field the US under President Trump could be said to be acting with a degree of ambivalence and ambiguity currently, in the area of domestic policy it is making it all to plain that it intends to traverse a fascistic course. As has been proved over the past two months, white supremacy is being made the cardinal principle of domestic governance.
Trump has made it clear, for example, that his administration would be close to ethnic chauvinists, such as the controversial Ku Klux Klan, and religious extremists. By unceremoniously rolling back the ‘diversity programs’ that have hitherto helped define the political culture of the US, the Trump administration is making no bones of the fact that ethnic reconciliation would not be among the government’s priorities. The steady undermining of USAID and its main programs worldwide is sufficient proof of this. Thus the basis has been adequately established for the flourishing of fascism and authoritarianism.
Yet, the US currently reflects a complex awareness of foreign policy questions despite having the international community wondering whether it is sealing a permanent alliance with the main powers of the East. For instance, President Trump is currently in conversation on matters in the external relations sphere that are proving vital with the West’s principal leaders. For example, he has spoken to President Emmanuel Macron of France and is due to meet Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the UK.
Obviously, the US is aware that it cannot ‘go it alone’ in resolving currently outstanding issues in external relations, such as the Ukraine question. There is a clear recognition that the latter and many more issues require a collaborative approach.
Besides, the Trump administration realizes that it cannot pose as a ‘first among equals’, given the complexities at ground level. It sees that given the collective strength of the rest of the West that a joint approach to problem solving cannot be avoided. This is particularly so in the case of Ukraine.
The most major powers of the West are no ‘pushovers’ and Germany, under a possibly Christian Democratic Union-led alliance in the future, has indicated as much. It has already implied that it would not be playing second fiddle to the US. Accordingly, the US is likely to steer clear of simplistic thinking in the formulation of foreign policy, going forward.
by Upali Gamakumara,
Upali.gamakumara@gmail.com
The Clean Sri Lanka (CSL) is a project for the true renaissance the NPP government launched, the success of which would gain world recognition. It is about more than just cleaning up places. Its broader objectives are to make places attractive and happy for people who visit or use services in the country, focusing more on the services in public institutions and organisations like the SLTB. Unfortunately, these broader objectives are not apparent in its theme, “Clean Sri Lanka,” and therefore there is a misconception that keeping the environment clean is the main focus.
People who realise the said broader objectives are excited about a cleaner Sri Lanka, hoping the President and the government will tackle this, the way they are planning to solve other big problems like the economy and poverty. However, they do not see themselves as part of the solution.
From the management perspective, the CSL has a strategic plan that is not declared in that manner. When looking at the government policies, one can perceive its presence, the vision being “A Prosperous Nation and a Beautiful Life,” the mission “Clean Sri Lanka” and the broader objectives “a disciplined society, effective services, and a cleaner environment.” If the government published these as the strategy, there would have been a better understanding.
Retaining the spirit and expectations and continuing the ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ project is equally important as much as understanding its deep idea. For this, it needs to motivate people, which differs from those motivators that people push to achieve selfish targets. The motivation we need here is to evolve something involuntarily, known as Drivers. Drivers push for the survival of the evolution or development of any entity. We see the absence of apparent Drivers in the CSL project as a weakness that leads to sporadic hiccups and free flow.
Drivers of Evolution
Drivers vary according to the nature of envisaged evolution for progress. However, we suggest that ‘the force that pushes anything to evolve’ would fit all evolutions. Some examples are: ‘Fitting to survival’ was the driver of the evolution of life. Magnetism is a driver for the unprecedented development of physics – young Einstein was driven to enquire about the ‘attraction’ of magnets, eventually making him the greatest scientist of the 20th century.
Leadership is a Driver. It is essential but do not push an evolution continually as they are not sprung within a system involuntarily. This is one of the reasons why CSL has lost the vigour it had at its inception.
CSL is a teamwork. It needs ‘Drives’ for cohesion and to push forward continually, like the Quality Improvement Project of the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Their drivers are outlined differently keeping Aims as their top driver and saying: Aims should be specific and measurable, not merely to “improve” or “reduce,” engage stakeholders to define the aim of the improvement project and a clear aim to identify outcome measures.
So, we think that CSL needs Aims as defined by NHS, built by stakeholder participation to help refine the project for continuous evolution. This approach is similar to Deming’s Cycle for continual improvement. Further, two more important drivers are needed for the CSL project. That is Attitudinal Change and Punishment. We shall discuss these in detail under Psychoactive Environment (pSE) below.
Aside from the above, Competition is another driver in the business world. This helps achieve CSL objectives in the private sector. We can see how this Driver pushes, with the spread of the Supermarket chains, the evolution of small and medium retail shops to supermarket level, and in the private banks and hospitals, achieving broader objectives of CSL; a cleaner environment, disciplined behaviuor, efficient service, and the instillation of ethics.
The readers can now understand the importance of Drivers pushing any project.
Three Types of Entities and Their Drives
We understand, that to do the transformation that CSL expects, we need to identify or adopt the drivers separately to suit the three types of entities we have in the country.
Type I entities are the independent entities that struggle for their existence and force them to adopt drivers involuntarily. They are private sector entities, and their drivers are the commitment of leadership and competition. These drivers spring up involuntarily within the entity.
Type II are the dependent entities. To spring up drivers of these entities commitment of an appointed trustee is a must. Mostly in state-owned entities, categorized as Boards, Authorities, Cooperations, and the like. Their drivers do not spring up within or involuntarily unless the leader initiates. The Government of a country also falls into this type and the emergence of drivers depends on the leader.
Type III entities have neither independent nor dependent immediate leader or trustee. They are mostly the so-called ‘Public’ places like public-toilets, public-playgrounds, and public-beaches. No team can be formed as these places are open to any, like no-man-land. Achieving CSL objectives at these entities depends on the discipline of the public or the users.
Clean Sri Lanka suffers the absence of drivers in the second and third types of entities, as the appointed persons are not trustees but temporary custodians.
The writer proposes a remedy to the last two types of entities based on the theory of pSE explained below.
Psychoactive Environment (pSE) –
The Power of Customer Attraction
Research by the writer introduced the Psychoactive Environment (pSE) concept to explain why some businesses attract more customers than others who provide the same service. Presented at the 5th Global Conference on Business and Economics at Cambridge University in 2006, the study revealed that a “vibe” influences customer attraction. This vibe, termed pSE, depends on Three Distinct Elements, which can either attract or repel customers. A positive pSE makes a business more attractive and welcoming. This concept can help develop Drivers for Type II and III entities.
pSE is not an all-inclusive solution for CSL, but it lays the foundation for building Drivers and motivating entities to keep entrants attractive and contented.
The structure of the pSE
The three distinct Elements are the Occupants, Systems, and Environment responsible for making a pSE attractive to any entity, be it a person, institution, organization, or county. Each of these elements bears three qualities named Captivators. These captivators are, in simple terms, Intelligent, Nice, and Active in their adjective forms.
pSE theorizes that if any element fails to captivate the entrant’s mood by not being Intelligent, Nice, or Active, the pSE becomes negative, repelling the entrant (customer). Conversely, the positive pSE attracts the entrants if the elements are Intelligent, Nice, and Active.
For example, think person who comes to a Government Office for some service. He sees that the employees, service, and environment are intelligent, nice, and active, and he will be delighted and contented. He will not get frustrated or have any deterioration in national productivity.
The Significance of pSE in CSL
The Elements and the Captivators are universal for any entity. Any entity can easily find its path to Evolution or Progress determined by these elements and captivators. The intangible broader objectives can be downsised to manageable targets by pSE. Achievements of these targets make the entrants happy and enhance productivity – the expectation of Clean Sri Lanka (CSL).
From the perspective of pSE, now we can redefine the Clean Sri Lanka project thus:
To make the Elements of every entity in Sri Lanka: intelligent, Nice, and Active.
How Would the pSE be A Remedy for The Sporadic Hiccups?
We have seen two possible reasons for sporadic setbacks and the discontinuity of some projects launched by the CSL. They are:
The absence of involuntary Drivers for evolvement or progress
Poor attitudes and behaviors of people and leaders
Remedy for the Absence of Drivers
Setting up a system to measure customer or beneficiary satisfaction, and setting aims can build Drivers. The East London NHS principles help build the Aims that drive type II & II entities. The system must be designed to ensure continual improvement following the Deming Cycle. This strategy will create Drivers for Type I & II entities.
This process is too long to explain here therefore we refrain from detailing.
Attitudinal Change
The most difficult task is the attitudinal and behavioural change. Yet it cannot be postponed.
Punishment as a strategy
In developed countries, we see that people are much more disciplined than in the developing countries. We in developing countries, give credit to their superior culture, mitigating ours as rudimental. The long experience and looking at this affair from a vantage point, one will understand it is not the absolute truth. Their ruthless wars in the past, rules, and severe punishment are the reasons behind this discipline. For example, anyone who fails to wear a car seatbelt properly will be fined 400 AUD, nearly 80,000 LKR!
The lesson we can learn is, that in Sri Lanka, we need strong laws and strict punishment together with a type of strategic education as follows.
Psychological Approach as a Strategy
The psychological theory of attitude formation can be used successfully if some good programmes can be designed.
All attitude formations start with life experience. Formed wrong or negative attitudes can be reversed or instilled with correct attitudes by exposure to designed life experiences. The programmes have been developed using the concepts of Hoshin Kanri, Brainstorming, Cause-and-Effect analysis, and Teamwork, in addition to London NTS Quality Improvement strategies.
The experience and good responses we received for our pSE programs conducted at several institutions prove and have built confidence in our approach. However, it was a time, when governments or organisations did not pay much attention to cultural change as CSL expects in the country.
Therefore, we believe this is a golden opportunity to take the CSL supported by the pSE concept.
Although they are visually impaired youngsters, under the guidance of renowned musician Melantha Perera, these talented individuals do shine bright … hence the name Bright Light.
Says Melantha: “My primary mission is to nurture their talent and ensure their sustainable growth in music, and I’m thrilled to announce that Bright Light’s first public performance is scheduled for 7th June, 2025. The venue will be the MJF Centre Auditorium in Katubadda, Moratuwa.”
Melantha went on to say that two years of teaching, online, visually impaired youngsters, from various parts of the island, wasn’t an easy ride.
There were many ups and downs but Melantha’s determination has paid off with the forming of Bright Light, and now they are gearing up to go on stage.
According to Melantha, they have come a long way in music.
“For the past few months, we have been meeting, physically, where I guide them to play as a band and now they show a very keen interest as they are getting to the depth of it. They were not exposed to English songs, but I’ve added a few English songs to widen their repertoire.
Melantha Perera: Invented a notation
system for the guitar
“On 7th June, we are opening up for the public to come and witness their talents, and I want to take this product island-wide, giving the message that we can do it, and I’m hoping to create a database so there will be a following. Initially, we would like your support by attending the show.”
Melantha says he didn’t know what he was getting into but he had confidence teaching anyone music since he has been in the scene for the past 45 years. He began teaching in 2015,
“When I opened my music school, Riversheen School of Music, the most challenging part of teaching was correcting tone deaf which is the theoretical term for those who can’t pitch a note, and also teaching students to keep timing while they sang and played.”
Melantha has even invented a notation system for the guitar which he has named ‘MelaNota’. He has received copyrights from the USA and ISO from Australia, but is yet to be recognised in Sri Lanka.
During Covid-19, Melantha showcased MelaNota online and then it was officially launched with the late Desmond De Silva playing one of his tunes, using MelaNota.
Melantha says that anyone, including the visually impaired, can play a simple melody on a guitar, within five minutes, using his notation system.
“I’ve completed the system and I’m now finalising the syllabus for the notation system.”
Melantha has written not only for the guitar, but also for drums, keyboards, and wind instruments.
For any queries, or additional information, you could contact Melantha at 071 454 4092 or via email at thebandbrightlight@gmail.com.
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