Petition updateDevelop a National Policy on International Trade Agreements prior to signing any AgreementGMOA Petition: Media Eye
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Jun 17, 2016 — http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=147042 IT professionals join docs in opposing ETCA ... blame some SL academics with links to India for promoting controversial pact By Harischandra Gunaratna Society of IT Professionals yesterday announced that it would join hands with the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) to conduct a signature campaign opposing the proposed Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA). Secretary of the Society Lasantha Wickramasinghe, addressing a news conference in Colombo, said the government was hell bent on signing the agreement and if it was signed the country would the risk of large scale brain drain. Wickramasinghe said, "India with its hegemonistic attitude is attempting to bulldoze it way through and achieve its sinister goals and the Sri Lankan government has become a lame duck giving in to India." The SITP secretary said some Sri Lankan academics with links to India were behind the moves to make the ETCA a reality. "Only those with vested interests will support an agreement of this nature which is against the national interest," he said. Wickramasinghe said earlier there had been an eight-page document on the agreement and due to strong opposition from various quarters to ETCA, the government had reduced it to a single page to mislead the masses. Kapila Perera, the President of the society said, "We urge the government to formulate a national policy before going ahead with the agreement. India has already formulated a national policy." Perera said earlier the government was riding roughshod over professionals, academics and politicians who opposed the ETCA and had gone to the extent of calling professionals ‘Padadayo" (vagabonds), but today it had softened its stand as there was strong opposition to the proposed agreement. Anjana Brahmana, Vice President of the Society, said that already there was a surplus of IT graduates in Sri Lanka. He asked what their future be if ETCA was signed and half-baked Indian professionals started coming here to work for lower salaries. Brahmana warned that India was not going to sit back and watch what was going on, but would pressure the weak Sri Lankan government to sign the agreement.
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