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Speech of the Leader of the Opposition, Mahinda Rajapaksa MP, at the opening ceremony of the World Congress on 'The Cause of Independence in the 21st Century', held at the BMICH, Colombo at 9.00 am on 19th June, 2002.

I am honoured to have been invited to address the opening session of the World Congress on 'The Cause of Independence in the 21st Century', I believe this is the 24th World Congress that is being held by you in the last 25 years or more. The Congress this year is being co-sponsored by the 'International Institute of Juche Idea' of Tokyo, the 'Sri Lanka Society for Self Reliance Studies' and the 'Sri Lanka Organizing Committee for the World Congress'.

I thank the organizers for inviting me to address you. I congratulate the organizing committee and its co-chairmen, Amarasiri Dodangoda MP and Reggie Ranatunga MP, for successfully organizing such a big event in Colombo.

Sri Lanka is indeed honoured to have been selected as the venue for such an important event. You have over 125 foreign delegates from as many as 86 countries. All of them are learned scholars, distinguished political figures, famous academics, well-known government personalities, distinguished party men or prominent public personalities. I wish you all not only a successful conference but also a happy, pleasant and fruitful stay in our country.

Ideology of self reliance

Juche ideology, otherwise known as the 'Ideology of Self Reliance' evolved in the 1950s in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It was used by President Kim Il Sung and after him by President Kim Jong Il with great success to mobilize local potential for improving the well-being of the people. Local potential includes a country's human, natural, financial, psychological and cultural resources that can be mobilized both at local community level as well as at national level. The potential is mobilized by the community, be it at local, district or national level, and deployed by the community itself for the benefit of its own members. Local, district and national communities then interact with one another right up to the global level to exchange and share their different products and services. This is what I understand by 'Self Reliance'. I believe it is not very different from the North Korean concept of Juche.

A community centric economic system

What is to me important in the concept of 'Self Reliance' is that it is the Community which is at the centre of all activity. It is the 'Community' - be it local, district, national or global - that mobilizes the other resources such as land, water, technology, finance, skills, raw materials, labour, cultural values and so on - and decides what to produce, how to produce, how much to produce, where to produce, how to exchange and with whom to exchange their products and services. In short, the 'People' living in 'Communities' are at the centre of the economic system. This is also our dream for a new world order. A world order in which communities speak and communities decide. A world order in which communities use all the available modern information technologies such as the Internet, the E mail and the telephone, and modern travel facilities to communicate, exchange and share with one another across the world while maintaining one's own cultural identity and integrity.

People centric or finance centric

Our dream is for a 'People Centric Process of Globalization' in which people decide and people matter. But the transformation of the world towards. People-Centric Globalization will unfortunately have to be slow. And, to be realistic, the transformation will have to be planned not by any single country or region but by the 'Global Community' as a whole, networking through the use of modern information technology.

The reason for this is that especially after the Oil Crisis of 1973 and 1979 and the debt crises that followed, the world economic order was transformed through a process of 'Finance Centric Globalization' into what it is today.

The process is associated with the names of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan and with the economic philosophy known as Monetarism.

To put it in simple terms, in the World Economic Order under which we function today, the central player is not the 'Community' or the 'People' but it is 'Finance' or 'Money'.

In the present world economic order 'Finance' decides what to produce, where to produce, how to produce, where to exchange, how to exchange and with whom to exchange. It is not 'Communities' but 'Finance' or 'Money' that mobilizes the other factors of production such as land, water, technology, natural resources and labour in order to serve the interests of 'Finance', which is 'to create more finance' by bringing the 'highest possible return to finance'. In the monetarist world order, 'Finance is King'. Communities and Human-beings are subordinated to the interests of Finance.

The market is king

There is another aspect of the present world economic order that we need to note. In order that Finance is able to earn the highest possible return, the system has to allow Finance to freely flow in and out of all countries.

And, so that Finance can mobilize the other factors of production to create more finance, the system has to also permit the other factors of production such as technology and skills to freely flow in and out of all countries.

Furthermore, so that the goods and services produced by this process can be sold in the best available markets and earn the best possible profits, the system has to allow Free Trade.

All these factors together constitute what is known as 'Neo-liberalism'.

In the neo-liberal economic order, the 'Market is King'. No longer do communities decide how they want to order their markets. Instead, markets how human beings should be ordered.

Disempowering the people

All this means that the world as a whole, including the developed and the developing countries, is drifting towards an economic order that is known as 'neo-liberal' and 'monetarist'. In this system, 'People' and 'Communities' lose their power. They are disempowered. Likewise, the institutions through which they exercised their power, such as Community Organizations, Community Movements, Trade Unions, Local Government Institutions and National Governments are also disempowered in all countries of the world.

Instead, power which should be enjoyed by the 'People' and by 'Communities' passes into the hands of international institutions that control Global Finance, Global Production and Global Trade. These institutions include the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the giants known as Transnational Corporations (TNCs). None of these global institutions that determine the destiny of mankind under the Neo-liberal, Monetarist Economic Order are controlled by the 'People' or by 'Communities' in either the developed or the developing countries of the world.

It is true that many of the institutions mentioned earlier through which the People exercised power were inefficient, wasteful, corrupt, exploitative and lacking in transparency and accountability. But neither can the international institutions that now decide the fate of the People claim to be better in any of these respects.

NEO liberal globalisation - its adverse impact

Thus, Finance on the one side and the Market on the other - the two corner-stones of neo-liberal Globalization - together exploit all factors of production so that Finance can create more Finance or Money can create more Money.

As a result, there occurs a destruction of the environment, a de-humanization of society, a breakdown of human communities, a commercialization of all aspects of life including values, religion and spirituality, a destruction of cultural identity, the spread of greed and consumerism, the increase of poverty at one end of society and the growth of a small and highly consumerist international middle class at the other. You can see all this happening around us today.

It is therefore important that civil society in all the developed and developing countries should organize themselves, network with each other across the globe and build-up a mass movement of human communities to transform, step by step, the current process of 'Finance-centric Globzliation' into a new process of 'People-centric Globzlization'.

The new process needs to be carefully worked out, step by step, through global level dialogue, and it will surely take a long time to achieve.

Eminent persons like those of you who have come to this World Congress have an important role to play in this transformation of the world.

Re-negotiating a better deal for the people - 12 basic policy guidelines

Meanwhile, as practical politicians who have to respond to the day to day problems of the people and are challenged with the task of improving their well-being in the short term, we may propose that third world governments such as ours should continuously re-negotiate our position with the institutions of 'Finance-centric Globzalization' on behalf of our peoples and communities, with commitment to the following broad policy guidelines:

Common good above profit motive

1. The common good of society should always be placed above the interests of finance, profit and the market.

Increasing productivity through state intervention

2. Productivity of local agriculture and industry should be increased through government institutional interventions in research, infrastructure, credit, marketing support and access to factors of production.

For a national small and medium sector

3. The growth of a national small and medium scale industrial, agricultural and service sector based largely on the mobilization of local potential should be encouraged through government institutional interventions. This sector could act as a counter-weight to the domination of local markets by a handful of corporate giants.

Privatization of management not ownership

4. Privatization of the management of government-run enterprises that are not run at a profit should be considered in place of the privatization of ownership. It must be remembered that in a country like Singapore, more than 50% of State revenue comes from State-owned enterprises.

Not for the private sector.

5. Food Security, Public Health Services and Education should not be handed over to the Private Sector.

Where the state should intervene in the market

6. While the State promotes open, free markets, it should also intervene in those markets to the extent necessary to prevent market failure, ensure fair competition and ethical conduct, and remove market irregularities and monopolies and to integrate social with economic development.

Free trade on a selective basis

7. Free trade should be applied on a selective basis. For instance, food production, local agricultural, manufacturing and service enterprises with growth potential should be protected from import competition.

State responsibilities that should not be marketised

8. Active intervention through the deployment of State resources for Poverty Reduction should be considered a primary obligation of the State. In Sri Lanka, at present 50% of all families live below the Poverty Line.

9. National interests such as those relating to the integrity and sustainable use of the Environment, Labour Standards or Conditions of Work and Food Security should not be compromised in order to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

10. A fully-fledged rather than a selective free market economy regulated only by the laws of supply and demand should not be entertained in countries having a high proportion of families falling below the Poverty Line. In such countries, it is not socially viable to do away with the principle of citizens relying on public goods and public welfare and replace it wholesale with a neo-liberal principle of individuals depending on free markets. A non-selective opening up of local markets will further increase poverty and lead progressively to frustration, criminality, violence and terrorism.

State responsibility towards vulnerable groups

11. The State, rather than the market, should take responsibility for the welfare of vulnerable and disadvantaged persons and groups, such as old people.

12. The State should intervene to empower women to strengthen their own capacities and to broaden their participation in all spheres of economic, social and cultural life as equal partners and to improve their access to resources. I think I have already dealt on the subject for too long. I thank you once again for inviting me to talk to you. I wish you all success in the two days to follow. I shall look forward to receive the outcome of your deliberations.

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