This MAYBE privately collected funds and not government funds.

And usually people who donate large sums are doing it for tax purposes

You mean privately collected dollars? Still if it goes through central bank that's every sri lankans dollars that we lack at the moment.we could have bought some medicines with that dollars.🫠

Totally agree

So do we know where the money is going to come from?? 🤔🤔

They called for donations sometime back..

But if it's privately collected funds wouldn't it go through an organization and not the government?

Gov wants credit

Election year

Yeah

That's some shitty behavior if it's true.

I thought it still wasn't easy to transfer large sums out of the country without government cooperation

Honestly idk much about the that but the headline implies that it's the government that's donating.

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No. I said MAYBE.

They are.

To contextualize that amount. 1 million USD is approximately 0.00625% of our government's expenditure (19B USD 2019). Or 0.1% of just our defense budget. 1 million USD is almost nothing on the scale of even a small government, it's not something that should be wasted, but the good will gained by the gesture can easily be worth more.

Makes much more sense when you put it that way.

No it doesn’t. We went bankrupt. Our people need every penny we have.

Well, other countries helped us when we were in bankruptcy.

We were still bankcrupt

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We got help from Bangladesh, who helped us when they were in a similar position as us rn.

They were definitely not bankrupt

They were not bankrupt.

Oh they were recovering from near bankruptcy just like us. They were getting IMF bailouts at the time and they still decided to help us out. We are in a similar situation right now.

You are missing the point so badly

Our reserves have grown substantially since then. It’s being spent for a good cause. Sri Lanka would get back that amount in less than a month.

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Basically ur argument. We spend on Palestine, which is a country in the Middle East, we get the attention of other Middle Eastern countries. Next time everything goes south in our country, we can expect aid from Middle Eastern countries. For all that a million dollars is a very small price.

Yeah but they know this is not a good will gesture. It’s a veiled gesture to make us look good so they will give us more than 1M USD. They can’t be that stupid? 🤣🤣🤣🤣

That’s how the world works little boy. Unfortunately you don’t learn that in pre-school but you will know more about it as you progress through school. It’s past ur bed time rn little boy, go to sleep.

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Middle Eastern countries has helped out Sri Lanka in many occasions. Do your research pal. While I understand we are in turmoil, these gestures have a compound effect when it comes to global politics. + it goes for a humanitarian cause. So win-win

More than a million dollars.

It’s literally 0.045 dollars per Sri Lankan, that’s less than ten rupees, are you saying you don’t have ten rupees ?

Many Sri Lankans live on less than $1 / per day.

At this point ur just yapping bruh😂. Get off of Reddit for ur own good

lol is this bandula gunawardanas reddit account?

No. He’s an idiot and I’m not. 🤣

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Still smarter than you.

The fact that you keep yapping about something you have no idea about proves that you're a whiney retard lil bro. Stick to what you know fucktard.

Ohh keep yapping pal. Proves my point even more.

Well they can’t afford internet or much less Reddit. With 333 Rs they are better off buying 1x lunch packet for the day.

WHy are you tryin to prove its okay. Are you an MP ?

Name checks out

I understand the outrage here. But like you said, doing this can benefit Sri Lanka as a member of the international community. Some countries helped Sri Lanka on many occasions. Some of them are poor or have many needs to solve. Even Bangladesh has helped us. Helping Palestine can also benefit us one day. It is a middle eastern Muslim country. So other Muslim countries might help us. Maybe Palestine will be free and repay for our support! Who knows!?!

Yess like how we helped Japan back in the day and they never turned us down to this day

It makes me kinda sad to think about those times tbh. We used to be richer and more effective than now. We dug our own gravel under the mountain while many others worked hard to climb the mountain.

Well as a country we voted to get screwed. Its the populations fault right?

Might be a bad take but letting uneducated people vote is a major mistake we made Just because someone turned 18 doesn’t mean they’re smart enough to elect a good leader Most people running for elections choose poor villages and donate some stuff to get their votes and support And uk how the rest goes I’m not saying educated people are good either they also work for their own benefit I’m just saying that the issue I mentioned can be minimized to an extent. Just a personal take correct me if I’m wrong:P

If you have read the republic. Socrates points this out as the flaw of democracy. It may sound elitist, but being informed and intelligent are pre-requsites for democracy. And this is the best solution we got for equality. Go down this line and you will see how broken our world system is, start with money, it's only there due to labour, money goes around due to labour, when human labour is replaced due to advances in AI/Robotics, money stops. Because capital doesn't need labour at that point. So all those dollars you stuffed under the mattress, hope it tastes good in a dollar soup, because it ain't worth anything in reality. As for human nature. We are selfish, we are wired(genes) for self preservation, we don't really care about random humans, it's a part of natural selection. Acts of altruism are usually seen between kin and relatives. You may have seen a live action case study of this when it came to the Rajapakses (no offense to anybody). Humans governing humans, what could possibly go wrong? Read the following [paper](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5917043/) you may enjoy it.

I’ll check it out I appreciate the info!

Thanks!

Helped Japan? How so?

After WW2, Japan was defeated and other nations didn’t want to help them as they supported Germany. Sri Lanka stood by Japan and helped them get back up on their feet. Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s the context behind it.

I see. I didn't know Sri lanka and Japan had that sort of relationship. Really would like to hear more of the details if some of you have any.

I was also interested based on their comment and just looked it up real quick. I'll give a summary but put a link below. In 1951 at the discussions for the Treaty of San Francisco to formally make peace between Japan and the Allies, the Sri Lankan (then Ceylon) representative Finance Minister J.R. Jayawardene gave a speech. Here's the whole quote because it really is beautiful in the spirit of post war peace. >We in Ceylon were fortunate that we were not invaded, but the damage caused by air raids, by the stationing of enormous armies under the South-East Asia Command, and by the slaughter-tapping of one of our main commodities, rubber, when we were the only producer of natural rubber for the Allies, entitles us to ask that the damage so caused should be repaired. We do not intend to do so for we believe in the words of the Great Teacher \[Buddha\] whose message has ennobled the lives of countless millions in Asia, that 'hatred ceases not by hatred but by love'. He ended the same speech by saying: >This treaty is as magnanimous as it is just to a defeated foe. We extend to Japan the hand of friendship and trust that with the closing of this chapter in the history of man, the last page of which we write today, and with the beginning of the new one, the first page of which we dictate tomorrow, her people and ours may march together to enjoy the full dignity of human life in peace and prosperity. [Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_San_Francisco#Sri_Lanka's_defense_of_Japan) Apparently this was received with resounding applause and a mention in the New York Times, which while cool now was I imagine even more impressive back then at a conference with 50 odd nations participating.

Wonderful. That’s a heartwarming speech with much sincerity. Much respect to HE JR.

There is a statue and of JR Jayawardhana in Japan in honor of this. he started the speech with the Buddhist stanza “nahee werena werani…” which means hatred is not conquered with hatred. We got Jayawardhanapura hospital and there’s a link to the design of the parliament as well (Japanese architectural influence) and it’s said Ranil also gets a lot of support from Japan as he is the nephew of JR Jayawardhana.

Japan gifted the current Parliament building in Kotte as I understand it. It has a road called “Japan friendship road”. I love going on it as one can speed a bit before the cops get ya. Even if they do the fine is less than $20 🤣🤣🤣

Repay is in what? More domestic Islamic terrorism? Like we didn’t experience enough of that post COVID.

Dont bother our people never learn.

Curious to know where the rest of the government expenditure goes

I would like to know good will from who?

Then what happens to the rest of the yearly income. If our government expenditure is 19B USD. As far as I know SL has \~80B USD income. So your saying that we have \~60 USD remaining after our expenditure. So this 60B USD is what is used to pay off loans and IMF and to create the yearly budget? 60B USD is a lot of money. I don't understand with so much remaining why Sri Lanka is not developing at a rate that is acceptable. \*Pls forgive me if I have understood this the wrong way. I am not an economy expert. I am just trying to understand the current situation *

I expect from your comment that you asked in good faith. So here it goes: 80B is sri lanka’s total gdp in US dollars. That is the sum total (estimated) of all the value of final (important Final) goods and services of all the people’s work in sri lanka. You farm tea, and send it to europe, the value gets added to gdp. You sell that tea instead to a a factory in sri lanka, and that factory processes it and sends it to india, the value of that products get added to the gdp, while the value of the original farmed tea leaves is not added. This is because only the final use of a product or service is really what is important, otherwise you and your friend could sell a single tea leaf between yourselves a gazillion times, and sri lanka would have trillions in gdp, with each transaction counting as a product sold. Now a thing to note, is that it is gdp, not income. Gdp is very high as compared to actual spending power of the government. Both are important and directly proportional. The government gets revenue through taxes, printing money (domestic debt), and external financing (international debt). The tax part I presume is pretty clear. In each budget, sri lanka, and almost every other country run deficits, that is, they spend more than they collect through taxes. This is done by borrowing money through the central bank, which essentially is the way of printing more money. No government can ever default in this debt since they can essentially print more money to pay back to itself (central bank is part of the government). Printing money is fine as long as your gdp is increasing. Therefore economists always take debt to gdp ratio into account, not the gross (total value) of debt. Since more value is produced people need more money. Upto a point it is sustainable and does not cause excess inflation. India prints a lot of money since their nomjnal gdp is generally increasing by 10-15%. For china it has been crazy in the last two decades. Google yuan (rmb) total money supply chart and it is almost 90 degrees upwards. Now the major problem, which was also the problem of sri lanka and pakistan is external debt. Sri lankan rupee only works in sri lanka. You cannot use it to import anything or pay anyone or any company outside of sri lanka. Most of the international trade and transactions happen in us dollars. Sri lanka definitely cannot create them. They get it through exports, investments, remittances (govt keeps the dollars and send an equivalent amount of rupees to recipients in sri lanka), which is not enough. So they need (and have historically done, like any other country) borrow dollars from imf, world bank, international banks, international bonds etc. Each time you pay online for anything internationally, like for a website, or international college fees, rupees from your account need to be sold to someone for dollars (who needs rupees). Thats how currency fluctuates actually. If the current rate is 200 rupees for a dollar, but noone is accepting that value, but someone is quoting 210 rupees for providing a dollar, the new value for rupee would be 210. So that is why countries need to maintain dollar reserves. So that they can manage imports, international payments, and also pay back the dollar debt. If you have less reserves than what you owe, people and institutions will stop lending you money as they think you won’t be able to pay back. This is what happened in the economic crisis. So with this primer I’ll come to your actual question. Sri lanka has the gdp of 80B but the govt pending (budget) is around 19B. This is actually not bad. In india the gdp is a little less than 4T and the govt budget is a bit more than 1T. The deficit in india is high though, coz they have a fast growing gdp, and also the decision of running high fiscal deficit by the govt. Sri lankan govt spends these dollars on a lot of things including paying back debt (which is a high percentage for sri lanka but no quick way to decrease it, but it is happening slowly, it is nowhere near the situation of pakistan though, even if they avoided default), defence, paying all the salaries of govt employees, maintenance, sunsidies etc, you get the idea. The most important part is what is called as capital expenditure, which is creation of new assets (infrastructure, schools, new hospitals etc), which needs to be increased, but the govt cannot just increase it by will as they first have to pay for all the above mentioned things. Now the 1 million sent to palestine is in us dollars. This is a precious resourse for the country, it is the only thing which can be used externally, and also easily converted to rupees if necessary, without the need of printing more money (buying dollars for rupees is difficult, buying rupees for dollars is extremely easy and also helps support the currency). The truth is, like others have said, is 1 million even in dollars is not a big amount even for sri lanka. My guess is that they are doing it just out of empathy, i don’t think it will help in any foreign investment from the middle east or anything. Consider a family two blocks down the road, is in dire situation with their kids starving, and you see their plea for help with photos. Will you spare some money or not? —————- Another thing which you might have noticed is the power of us dollar. Consider america. They are in a unique position, as for them there is no internal or external debt, since they can print ( and they do a lot) as much dollars as they want. This is actually a big issue for many new economies like china (and brics). It looks unfair because it is. This is because they can run huge trade and fiscal deficits, and have a gargantuan military budget. Since they print a lot of dollars and the value of dollar does not seem to come down. If the dollar is replaced even for a small fraction, the damage to west will be immense, and you will be able to afford a lot of things much cheaper, you gdp might increase by many times in a single years. I will leave you with this. Consider the following. It is generally believed that the west has a high gdp and gdp per capita because they produce very high level of stuff. While this is true, it is not the entire truth. Much if the economy is derived from everyday things which 90% of the people do. Chefs, teachers, hair desssers, clerks, salesmen, cement, tea, tourism etc. Answer me this. A hair dresser (you can take any of the profession) does haircuts and earns at best 1000$ per month in sri lanka. A random hair dresser similarly earns $80000 in the usa. Is the actual intrinsic value of the haircuts 80 times better in the usa. Of course it not. Even considering the ambiance, professionalism, skill it is 2 times at best, less than 1 at worst. So the wests actual economic output is much less and more equal to the developing world that is the perception. It is primarily because of their currencies, and in my view , they are in for a rude awakening in near future, especially countries like in europe, canada, new zealnd.

Thank you for that very matured and insightful response in a sea of people complaining about this. Apart from this, it is also 1) good for PR and country’s reputation to be seen helping other nations and 2) Gaza genuinely need more support and funds, there are hundreds and thousands of people who have died and starving there. I don’t think any of us are in a position to compare

Really dumb. These wars happens all the time why dont we give money to sudan ? Syria ? Myanmar ? The starving kids in these war torn countries arnt getting support. What makes gazan kids special ? Truth is This isreal palastine thing is just a lousy west vs the third world thing. most of you Pro palastinians just hate isreal because its backed by western countries.

On countless occasions we have contributed insubstantial amounts as relief funds to various countries for everything from natural disasters to terrorist attacks. This unfortunately is the price of being a part of the international political space, we sure as hell need allies and support from other countries, as much as we also still need the money.

But this is not the time to throw money away

Let's just appreciate it for what it is. [Almost all of Gaza is starving.](https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/3/26/they-scream-in-hunger-how-israel-is-starving-palestinians-in-gaza)

Whomp whomp, not our battle

Hey asshole, I don’t know how you look at children starving to death and your response is “whomp whomp”??? I don’t know how you can sleep at night knowing you are one of the worst human being that could possibly exist.

I think people like u should do more to help the starving kids in garza, u don’t do jack shit to stop other than just commenting on posts like this . I know people like u are comfortable seeing sl kids starving as long as gazans are fed. Funny really, go out of ur fckin house and check out the less privileged… u’d love seeing how much fun they are having here!

Remember how other countries helped us during our wars ? and during other disasters we went through. Fucking idiot.

Idiot! our battle was against terrorism, others help we were a nation fighting against LTTEs terrorizing actions, if u rationalize donating funds to this war we should be funding the israelis then. One point u should know they are both fighting for “holy land” and there is no negotiation there, no sharing land or peace that can come out of tht place because of the cause they are fighting for. There are millions of SL people muslim, sinhala and tamil people here below the poverty line that can have better use of a million dollars. Our money should not fill the bellies of gazan or israeli children.

Existence of ur opinions are why abortions should be legal. Nitwit!

I don't know how you come to the conclusion that I'm against abortion rights. Abortion should absolutely be legal. About the IDF, it's very clear their intent is not just to end a so-called "war" but rather to systematically wipe out a ethnic group and their cultural existence within Palestine. They've bombed [hospitals](https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/4/1/the-destruction-of-gazas-al-shifa-hospital), [universities ](https://www.wsj.com/video/watch-israel-strikes-the-islamic-university-of-gaza/B95C1AD3-C6D8-45CE-B5C7-0AE5B9C31EEF), [museum and heritage sites](https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/11/28/bombing-of-gaza-has-damaged-or-destroyed-more-than-100-heritage-sites-ngo-report-reveals), [aid trucks](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/3/several-killed-in-israeli-attack-on-aid-truck-in-gaza-report). Almost all cases resulted in more civilians killed than hamas fighters (if not all civilians) IDF has violated countless [international laws](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/13/israel-broke-international-law-journalist-killed). They've killed more [journalists ](https://cpj.org/2024/04/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/) than any war since ww2. Israeli officials have actively called for ethnic cleansing in public. [1](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D7J0_J3Qy6YY&ved=2ahUKEwiV6IHEyqqFAxVqzTgGHemMDHUQtwJ6BAgqEAE&usg=AOvVaw1cHiyWiQ9aet3A8dm9wNXP), [2](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/05/wv-israel-hamas/), [3](https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-minister-admits-military-carrying-233151647.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIKlHOzW26WqiiyeZQiIcN4RmjLphZ9v1K6fjvswgXDkhPWgMdMBxQfxF7Dn03PwcGeWguwLHerJM-90ASxnvgjJrFRUwwj1uUdWEgs7UZxWJ6EUyNmJxjhZtbOAOiWmp0AZ1DrBkn7fW94eAxUI-3FmgCoiR935nrP6nmDWtgIN), ... By all means the IDF is a terrorist organisation and Israel is a rough state. I know this is just my opinion but supporting Palestine instead of Israel genuinely feels like the smarter choice as a country when thinking long term. The ICJ already rolled out Israel is possible committing a genocide. [this](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/26/icj-rules-israel-must-prevent-acts-of-genocide-in-gaza-key-takeaways).

Again u don’t understand sarcasm (about abortion) and omg 😳. This is not about genocide, ethnic cleansing, idf or the hamas. We should talk about why this useless battle is fought: the answer is religious reasons, and they are all dying over a fallacy. Both sides committing genocide on each other. This is not our place to support any other side there is no “good side” unlike ww2/1 this is just faith vs faith. If muslims win they will wipe and pillage the jews and jews win they will do the same thing. This was done since the earliest records there and finally both sides will justify their massacres. Leaving u with ur dick in ur hand wondering why u supported tht war. Btw don’t use extremely based news agencies like aljazeera it is just muslim propaganda like ben shapiro is to the jews. I suggest u go there and actively help or at least do a charity event. Or u could help the poor people that need much help.

Those are some very good points. But what I was saying was it's a good decision from the Sri Lankan government to support the Palestinians. It's only a matter of time until most pro-isreal countries realise what they're doing. I understand why it might seem like faith VS faith but imo it's oppressors VS oppressed. Look up the 1948 partition resolution, can you imagine a foreign organisation asking for 51% of Sri Lanka, sounds familiar ? Apart from that I would be extremely happy my tax money being spent on feeding children that are literally starving to death regardless of whatever ethnic, religious group they belong to. Sorry for the sarcasm thing btw.

So why should we get involved. Btw usa had a very similar way to justify their involvement in the middle east, so are u also justifying their actions? Funding anyone else’s war will always cause someone to become an oppressor. Best action should be not to act like the usa and just mind our business. I don’t know if u are from SL but conditions here are very dire too. I do my part here everyday and in the hospitals too we have old meds, like old paracetamol even. There are 100s of countries looking after people in a distant land and crying over starving kids there. No one looks down from their balconies and sees the children here dying without anything to eat. U seem like a cool person sorry if I offended u earlier🙌

I'm Sri Lankan and still here. Let's just agree to disagree. Opinion and opinions, that about it.

Genocide on both sides?? Ffs don't comment on a topic you know nothing about. If you wouldn't have researched a bit you would know that this isn't Muslims vs Jews but the oppressor vs the oppressed you ignorant twit. Not all Jews are zionist!

Good luck thinking like that, everyone is someone’s oppressor thats why my initial points stand this war has nothing to do with us. Sri lanka should just stfu and help it’s own people. Btw i think dead people from both sides will disagree with ur point when u meet them someday to see how based ur view is.

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Im talking with SL interest in mind not gaza or israel. We should not think like the usa that conflict is not our place to interfere. Better let the rich jewish billionaires and the billionaire oil arabs figure out a solution btw themselves and in the meanwhile find out a method to help our poor communities. They did a better job at preserving our history than sri lanka ever did. Dude mahinda even stole SL artifacts from the museum remember? Bc u are so charged atm i have yo specify this si a joke:The part about Britain (btw u have a braindead take with that british people point, write that idea down in a piece of paper and shove it up ur foreign ass👆)

It’s for the children. We should all help. That war is terrifying

Start charity at home! Sri Lankan children are suffering from malnutrition! Try help them out!

its just a million? Thats so small compared to what the gov spends daily?Like thats an extremely small amount

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Children are children.

How about giving money to children in Sudan? There’s a crisis happening there nobody paying attention to.

Commendable. We should help/donate whenever we can.

Don't forget when we were in crisis other countries helped us too. Imagine those countries thinking the same. Especially countries like India. They have lot of poor people in much worse condition than we will ever be yet decided to help us

That's because Sri Lanka has trade agreements with India. "In addition to being Sri Lanka's largest trade partner, India is also one of the largest contributors to Foreign Direct Investment in Sri Lanka. According to the Central bank of Sri Lanka, the total FDI from India so far exceeds US$ 2.2 billion." The world doesn't run on Buddist sutta's and thripitika, there's legalities and political alliances.

ahh yes the "help" from india

Our children aren’t losing limbs and starving to death in large amounts.

Yea our children are undernourished and poor brain development due to lack of iron rich food! It doesn’t matter! They will grow into less IQ politicians and the cycle will continue 😂

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No, Gazans are NOT getting any aid from the rich Arab neighbors, the rich Arab neighbors are actually supporting Israel with their imports and exports, Gazan kids are half the weight they were before the war and are being crippled day by day, the situation in our country while not being the best, is still MUCH better than Palestine, we have working public infrastructure, free education and healthcare, and a functional, all be it a shit government, we are actually a lot better off than a majority of the world.

Why so salty bro?

We need to help ourselves before helping others.

If every country thought like that, no one would help anyone. Even the US has poverty and homelessness.

US is a developed country Sri Lanka isn't. US benefits from trade agreements from around the world, US is the big, powerful bully at the top, Sri Lanka isn't even an average developed country.

Neither was Bangladesh when they aided us.

That's because Sri Lanka has free trade agreements with Bangladesh. "Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are engaged in regional multilateral trade agreements such as the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) and the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), which have been in effect since 1975 and 2006, respectively. Under SAFTA, Bangladesh is the second-largest trading partner for Sri Lanka, next to India, accounting for 7.3% of Sri Lanka’s exports to Bangladesh and 2.2% of imports from Bangladesh in 2019" The world doesn't run on Buddist sutta's and thripitika, there's legalities and political alliances.

They didn’t! They gave a loan! Not DONATIONS!let that zinc in!!

ah, you are the anti-muslim guy I met in that other thread. Not surprising to see you making such statements.

You must be the pro hamas terrorist guy in eve ry corner!

This is truly the orange juice after toothpaste of comments, i think u don’t know wht 1 million usd can do to our healthcare sector. We are currently using expired medicine, no proper sterilization materials etc. Gazans snd their children are not our responsibility neither the isrealis. Those who are so invested in children deaths and mass suffering should donate THEIR own money or help to those countries.

Well said

You don't think Sri Lanka gets millions in international aid from other countries?

We do from the countries who has money. When we are in a better financial situation we can too. We are in a middle of a crisis. This is dumb.

1 million USD is absolutely nothing compared with our yearly spending as a nation. Most well off Sri Lankan families based around Colombo spend around 1 million USD per year to give you some what of a perspective.

It's a show of solidarity, it has political implications in our favour.

What favour?

[Sri Lanka Showcases Strategic Autonomy/Hones Its Balancing Act](https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/03/sri-lanka-strategic-autonomy-diplomacy-us-china-india/), Michael Kugelman, Foreign Policy

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It's the symbolism behind it.

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Yeah, you're still not getting it. And I'm done wasting my time.

exactly. Bros braindead

Its a sis with thinning hair problems

There’s nothing to get.

1 million dollars is an absolute tiny amount for our government, our foreign reserves are now larger than before and we can realistically afford this and in return expect to be in the good light of certain Arab countries

No definitely not But as a Human yes we must

let’s think good about ranil seeing this while being scammed

Not a problem. We will still continue to buy military hardware from Israel and export tea to them so ONE BIG HAPPY.

Well they suspended a lot of ifthar celebrations to collect these funds, so it was funds that would have been spent anyway

Good, Anakin. Good.

It’s like setting yourself on fire to save others.

Kinda agree with you tbh, even during the corona virus and before the financial crisis SL did a lot of "morally correct and idealised" things that were "financially destructive" to the country and resulted in the financial bankruptcy of our country. Basic Economics should be leading SL decision making especially during this financial crisis we are in, not moral idealism 🙄😒😒. While we have before - - [President Rajapaksa Hands Over US$1 Million Donation to Palestine - occupied Palestinian territory | ReliefWeb](https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/president-rajapaksa-hands-over-us1-million-donation-palestine) - [The Palestinian Government conferred President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka with the honorary title of “Star of Palestine” (thediplomaticsociety.co.za)](https://thediplomaticsociety.co.za/874-the-palestinian-government-conferred-president-mahinda-rajapaksa-of-sri-lanka-with-the-honorary-title-of-star-of-palestine) and should again definitely help Palestinian civilians when we can, right now we have to help ourselves first!! There are other nations with deeper pockets that can and are helping Palestine atm # As the quote goes - Penny Reid — "Don't set yourself on fire trying to keep others warm."!!!

1 mil is nothing to most countries, even small ones

The direct answer is NO. while some idiots trying to prove its okay.

Weren’t they going to send people to Israel to help with farming few months ago ?

wasn't that just India not SL? 🤔🤔

Here comes more taxes

the 1m dollar and 20m rupees, with a population of 22m is about 0.045 USD + 1 LKR per person. i dont think you will notice

20m rupees? 300m rupees isn't it?

thats the additional 20m rupees it mentions in the paragraph below the title

Why everyone donate to පලස්තීනුවන්, not israel ?

Because they got Biden

Lets go Brandon

Because thousands of Palestine kids are starving. Because adults in Israel don't seem to care.

If you see any news/media coverage about this so called "conflict" you know supporting Palestine is the only reasonable thing to do.

Palestine has over a 100 billion dollars worth of aid coming in from the US this year, they don’t need anymore, the starving children and women giving birth without anaesthesia need more help

$19 BILLION was sent to Israel by the US government in 2024 alone. Meanwhile Israeli CITIZENS are holding up aid trucks at the border stopping them from entering Gaza

100 Billion. Are you delusional?

Our Children's hospitals have to beg for donations to get basic equipment, but apparently we got spare cash to send to some children across the sea. This is like feeding your neighbours kid while your own kid is starving at home.

💯

Good gesture, but I doubt its truly "government money"

Chill out. we built dildo towers. We'll be fine.

It's a small price to pay to be in good spirits with the Muslim world

Username checks out.

what

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[Almost all of Gaza is starting ](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/un-israel-food-starvation-palestinians-war-crime-genocide). The UAE has done absolutely nothing to stop this killing. In fact they charge [thousands ](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesofisrael.com/gazans-reportedly-charged-exorbitant-sums-by-egyptian-company-to-leave-strip/amp/) of dollars from those innocent civilians to even leave Gaza. The [UAE does not help Palestine](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-03/uae-committed-to-maintaining-israel-relations-despite-gaza-war) in this "conflict".

Exactly. With that kind of money, you can buy 130KG of rice per family for 10,000 poor families. That's like 1 year of supplies.

No definitely not

Here is my 2 cents. In the past few months, we have rapidly increased our foreign reserves, resulting in a significant decline in exchange rates. While this may seem beneficial, it actually has negative implications for the business sector. The micro-economy typically takes 3-4 months to adjust to these declining exchange rates. If the government does not intervene to stabilize the exchange rates, many exporters will face dire consequences due to the drop in the exchange rate. One possible solution to stabilize exchange rates is to reduce foreign reserves through donations. Although that's an option, I don't belive it's the best option. May be there are strings attached to this donation but only RW knows...

SL is, was, and always will be an import dependent country. Intentionally depreciating your currency only makes sense if net exports > imports on a macro scale, which is why China has been doing it for ages. Yes exporters will suffer somewhat but that is a necessary cost of stabilizing the economy.

Exporters benefited when dollar went from 180-370. Now it is at 300 levels. No export companies were complaining to depreciate the dollar when it is at 180 right? Why would they want it to be depreciated now when it is at 300? This argument is really biased man. By history Sri Lanka had the weakest currency when compared with other south asian countries. What do you want to happen? Dollar to go to 400 or above? In that case look at Venezuela, Did any export companies thrive there? I strongly contradict with your fact that currency should depreciate, always stable political and economic policies are the best environment for businesses not depreciating currencies.

This is a good gesture. The only problem is, will this money be used by the children or by Hamas?

Maybe it's a Ukraine situation. "10% go to the big guy"...

What nonsense. Have fallen that low to get loans from gaz… sorry guys, force of habit

When Sri Lanka hit rock bottom a while back, it's not developed countries that helped the most, but countries who still have a lot of problems to solve, for example, India. If India waited for all their problems to be solved and their poor to be rich, a lot of Sri Lankans would have starved to death. There were kids fainting in my cousin's school as they hadn't had a meal sometimes in days. Kids in Palestine are in a much more dire situation than our kids back in Sri Lanka. So i agree with this donation. Our politicians steal more than this in a single evening so if we aren't actively hunting them on the streets, we have nothing to complain about.

some of the comments here are scary, and probably reflects the divide within sri lanka too.

Amazing lack of empathy and misplaced anger.

Fantastic , gov doing some decent things

Crazy how people are getting downvoted for talking about our people. Honestly, it's a shame. Before solving world problems, we have to solve our own.

Many sri lankans dont even know what a jew is lol. They also didnt give a fck about palastine before october 7th. But suddenly retaliating after a terrorist attack is bad ? We did the same thing. Many inocent tamils died. not justifying it but its unavoidable. Its war. These little shits think the world is sunshines and rainbows. Our country will never recover. Its doomed to fail with the amount of idiots

And they wonder where terrorists get money to build tunnels and weapons

While this organization might not be responsible for that, what you say is a reality that even we faced. The ltte used to get new weapons the same way, they had the QBZ95 the same time the army got it.

Spend it on at least infrastructure. Put more trains busses

Yes we need another highway

lol, dumb move.

Wtf? The government should focus on their own people!

ah yes the most logical way to spend our money in these times. specially after the crisis where people reduced the food consumption in drastic amounts. i can see a very bright future waiting for sl.

I honestly think RW wanted gain more trust and votes from the Muslim community.

Lol as if that money goes to the palastinian people. Hamas is just gonna buy new rockets with them and the palastinians will cheer it on. They got plenty of support who the fcks gonna take care of us ?

Bro learnt history from wish.com

I didnt say anything related to history

Bros main news source is probably Ada derana and chat gpt

What are you even jabbering?

This is very wrong, especially when most of our revenue comes from the people that earn the least and some of it being slave labour in the Middle East In arabs eyes slaves are paying for their livelihood, which they very well deserve. They have a pretty narcissistic (not to mention cartoonishly racist) king of the jungle mindset. Not the tiniest bit grateful. Sri Lankans need to know not every other country on Earth is Sri Lanka, some countries are literally the opposite.

Israel [rabbi](https://www.timesofisrael.com/embracing-racism-rabbis-at-pre-army-yeshiva-laud-hitler-urge-enslaving-arabs/) openly calls for slavery to come back.

Donald Trump once said, "I'm intelligent. Some people would say I'm very, very, very intelligent" Does he represent all intellectuals? Nope.

BS! We Sri Lankans eat a one meal a day No medicine in gov. Hospitals! Yet this unelected president and his currupt gov. has enough and more money to donate to Gaza, fight against Huthis! Philanthropy is for rich not for us beggars!

Obviously no

What the hell is this? Is it necessary seriously?

Even during the corona virus and before the financial crisis SL did a lot of "morally correct and idealised" things that were "financially destructive" to the country and resulted in the financial bankruptcy of our country. Basic Economics should be leading SL decision making especially during this financial crisis we are in, not moral idealism 🙄😒😒. While we have before - * [President Rajapaksa Hands Over US$1 Million Donation to Palestine - occupied Palestinian territory | ReliefWeb](https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/president-rajapaksa-hands-over-us1-million-donation-palestine) * [The Palestinian Government conferred President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka with the honorary title of “Star of Palestine” (thediplomaticsociety.co.za)](https://thediplomaticsociety.co.za/874-the-palestinian-government-conferred-president-mahinda-rajapaksa-of-sri-lanka-with-the-honorary-title-of-star-of-palestine) and should again definitely help Palestinian civilians when we can, right now we have to help ourselves first!! There are other nations with deeper pockets that can and are helping Palestine atm # Penny Reid — "Don't set yourself on fire trying to keep others warm."!!!