The Minister of Finance Basil Rajapaksa told the media yesterday that black money was used to buy military equipment during the Sri Lankan civil war. This has attracted the attention of many countries in the world and today the foreign media has reported about this as follows,
Sri Lanka finance minister Basil Rajapakse has admitted that the government bought weapons from North Korea during the height of the Sri Lankan civil war, which started in the early 1980s, using money which was sourced from the black markets.
In 2009 the year the war ended Wikileaks had issued a report on Sri Lanka negotiating with North Korea and Iran of military equipment. a private company Lanka Logistics and Technologies was under the U.S for getting the military aid
From North Korea for the Sri Lankan government . The report also noted , that Sri Lanka had been involved in getting lethal military equipment since 2006.
Newspaper report suggest that Sri Lanka was interested in fantasy of rocket – propelled grenades and multiple rocket launchers which North Korea were increasingly supplying in August 2016. Egyptian officials had intercepted a North Korean ship which carried nearly 30,000 rocket propelled grenades and ammunition several reports had indicated that North Korea was supplying arms to the terrorist outfit LTTE . as well as per an earlier Wikileaks report, the weapons would be transferred to trawlers in the Indian ocean, but there was no confirmation of LTTE vessels entering the region .
The finance minister also said that when the war was going on Sri Lanka needed U.S dollars to pay for the fuel shipments, detailing the transaction he said he would visit the Pettah, along with other officials where he spoke with traders to secure dollars from the black market .
Finance minister Basil Rajapakse made controversial statement to Sunday newspaper yesterday , saying that Sri Lanka during the height of it is civilian road did in fact purchase military equipment from North Korea by purchasing it with black market US dollars. that is not all the finance minister also said , that during the same time period petrol for the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation was also purchased with the use of black market US dollars. now this statement is made at a time where Sri Lanka is facing and acute shortage of forex reserves here in Sri Lanka and where officials have continued to impose sanctions on those who continue to use black market US dollars in the country.