For Peace in Sri Lanka
For the right to self-determination for the Tamil people
Against chauvinism and communalism
For international workers’ solidarity against capitalist war and exploitation
Tonight the Oxford Union Society is to host the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, apparently to talk about his 'Strategy towards empowering the rural economy in Sri Lanka'. The official web portal of the Sri Lankan government boasts that he will be the first Sri Lankan statesman to be granted this platform who had not previously held office in the elitist debating club that has developed something of a record for boosting the reputation of fascists, He has been granted this apparent privilege at a time when he has abandoned any political resolution to the civil war in Sri Lanka that has cost over 70,000 lives over the last 30 years.
Just last week a coalition of 20 NGOs wrote to the member states of the UN opposing Sri Lanka’s candidacy for the elections to the Human Rights Council. They detail the widespread extrajudicial killings, abductions, disappearances, use of torture, long-term detention without charge or trial, the forcible returning of internally displaced people to unsafe areas and complicity with the recruitment of child soldiers to the Karuna Army, now known as the Pillayan group. Just today, as the Sri Lankan representative is in Geneva and the President in the UK, reports are coming through from a Tamil National Alliance MP of 68 Tamils detained by the Terrorism Investigation Department who on Saturday were verbally abused, tortured and subjected to sexual abuse at the notorious Boosa Prison in Galle.
Those that have stood up for human rights in Sri Lanka, including leading UN personnel, have received threats and denunciations from the Sri Lankan government for being the spokespeople of terrorists. This is the standard refrain used to justify the censorship of the press; over a dozen mainly Tamil journalists have been killed since Rajapaksa has been in power with impunity and even media workers in the main state-run broadcaster have held protests of late against heavy handed behaviour by a government minister. Several others journalists have been abducted and other media outlets blocked and suppressed, Several Tamil MPs have been killed in recent years without anyone being brought to justice and leading members of the Civil Monitoring Commission (including Tamil parliamentarians) which investigates the government’s hand in killings and kidnappings have been killed and threatened by paramilitary forces and pro government thugs.
Last Saturday elections took place in the Eastern province and delivered a majority to the ruling party through a rotten alliance with a split from the Tamil Tigers, the TMVP led by military commander Pillayan, also known for human rights abuses and child soldier recruitment. While Rajapaksa claims the result as a ‘mandate’ for his ‘strategy’, the TMVP remained armed throughout the electioneering process and harassment of opposition was rife with over 48 major incidences of violence recorded. The TMVP may not be the Tigers but they represent a continuation of the communalist and terrorist politics that have dominated the country whether led by the state or by rebel groups, Sinhala or Tamil.
Rajapaksa hopes that by formally de-merging the North and Eastern territories that are the basis for a Tamil homeland on the island, with a temporary ally in the TMVP in the East, he will be able to wipe out the Tigers militarily in their remaining strongholds in the North.
He has blocked the only highway that connects the South and North of Sri Lanka thereby preventing distribution and supply of food, medical supplies and other essential goods to Tamil areas. This has resulted in hunger and starvation in those areas. While delivering widespread carnage and displacement, the government has faced determined resistance from the Tigers and has not made any significant gains in the North.
Inflation in Sri Lanka runs at around 30% and food price hikes and government policy that exacerbates this are further impoverishing the working class of the island. Depressingly, most of the trade unions have refused to make the link between the warmongering of the ruling party and the degradation of living standards for workers, in favour of a poisonous chauvinist patriotism that continues to deny the right of self-determination to the Tamils.
While Sri Lanka faces growing isolation in the West with the US and many EU member states freezing arms sales to the government, China, Iran, Pakistan and Slovakia have stepped forward to bolster the war with loans, arms and investment. Meanwhile, on May 9th, in a major setback for human rights in Sri Lanka, the UK Crown Prosecution Service found there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to charge the notorious former Tiger leader Colonel Karuna for human rights violations after he was jailed last year for possessing illegal documents. Because his armed group has fought the Tigers in recent years he did not face prosecution in Sri Lanka and he is unlikely to on his deportation from the UK (he was probably provided with false travel documents with the aid of the government). Attacks on civilians carried out by the Karuna army with government complicity are routinely blamed on the Tigers.
The conflict in Sri Lanka has complex origins, not least the legacy of colonial divide and rule. However, Sri Lanka also has to its history a proud chapter of working-class solidarity and militant struggle against various imperialist forces, Sri Lankan capitalism, and communalism. Socialists in Sri Lanka and other defenders of human rights deserve our support in a situation that continues to deteriorate. Immediately that means denying the legitimacy of a war monger and despot tonight. Over 30 political organizations internationally signed a statement of solidarity launched earlier this year in Amsterdam, demanding that the Sri Lankan government stop imposing its will militarily on the Tamil people.
If students want to defend freedoms and are interested in Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans they would do well to show solidarity with those workers in a food processing factory in west London which was raided at the end of April, with maybe a dozen undocumented workers facing deportation to Sri Lanka. In the longer term students and workers in the UK need to build links with their counterparts in Sri Lanka who are struggling to build a politics of working-class unity against communalism and capitalist exploitation, which should include the potential realization of Tamil aspirations to independence, up to and including separation. Socialists believe the working class has no country and we maintain an internationalist perspective in struggle; this means defending the right to live, work and study here and the right to self-determination as a basis for future unity of workers against capitalism there.
Please get in touch if you want to learn more about the politics of Sri Lanka or engage in real debate and positive activity in the student and labour movement.
In solidarity
Robin Sivapalan, Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, brent@workersliberty.org, 07974 331 053
Sashie Peiris, Solidarity 4 Peace, sashiegsp@msn.com, 07950 267 677