Sri Lankan opposition MP and Pivithuru Hela Urumaya General Secretary Udaya Gammanpila warned that the Sri Lankan government had agreed to sign the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with India next year, in an address to a Young Entrepreneurs’ Conference in Colombo.
Mr Gammanpila claimed that an agreement had been reached for the trade deal to be signed in May 2016, and warned that Sri Lanka would “definitely become an Indian colony”.
“It is clear that everything has been arranged to finalise the CEPA though the government previously rejected reports that they would not be signing the agreement with India,” said Mr Gammanpila.
“We urge the President not to make Sri Lanka another Fiji where Indians had made up a majority in population,” he added. “If the CEPA is signed, Sri Lanka will definitely become an Indian colony. We request the Yahapalana government not to let it happen”.
Numerous Sri Lankan political parties and Sinhala nationalist groups have declared their opposition to such a deal.
See our earlier post: Opposition to CEPA mounts (13 Sep 2015)
However, in September Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe denied discussing the CEPA trade agreement during his visit to India.
Also see our earlier post: Sri Lanka’s Indophobia (07 Aug 2015)