Statement of the Colombo Action Committee for People’s Struggles
It is already clear that the state terror unleashed in the name of Operation Yukthiya is one way the government is intensifying its repression against the youth and the rest of the oppressed. Its goal is the protracted class struggle.
The government suddenly jumped on to the crackdown on drugs as one of the measures to forcefully maintain the much hated capitalist state; to keep the society terrorized with violence and to garner the support of a backward social stratum. This has already given way to allow the police to act beyond the limits of the existing law and making that situation the norm in the country. What the country has is a police force that has a long history of being warrented and been operating to kill persons outside the judicial procedure.
A complaint made to the Police Commission by Aruna Indika Wijesuriya, a professional photographer based in Madapatha, Piliyandala, exposes the repressive drama, hence bringing us a picture of what is happening right now across the country. According to the complaint, on December 6, the police raided the young man’s house at night, searched it thoroughly and found nothing suspicious, but arrested the young man and demanded a ransom of 10,000 rupees for his release. It is alleged that Sergeant Alwis and police driver Madushanka have requested the bribe and Indika’s friends gave them the requested amount. He was released on police bail the next day.
Aruna’s father, Shanta Wijesuriya, who is a well-known journalist and political activist, came to know about this later and went with his son to Kesbewa police station to complain about this, but the police avoided accepting the complaint. The police hunters were furious because the father and son tried to complain against the police for taking bribes.
On December 13, a group of plain clothed police officers assaulted Aruna, searched his house and arrested him again. When the youth made a phone call to his cousin, the police surrounded the relative’s house as well. Again, around 3 am, On December 17, a police team including Alwis, who was accused of taking bribes, surrounded the youth’s home. There, a young man named Shehan was also with the police, and the police showed Shehan something that appeared to be a pack containing the illegal drug called ‘Ice’ and asked, “Shehan, did Aruna give you this?” But, facing protests from those present, the police retreated with the following warning: “Aruna Oya Adath Dinum( (Aruna, you have won today too)”.
Later, on February 2, the police officer, identified as Paul, had threatened Wijesuriya – the father of the youth – at Kesbewa courts premises saying that he would “shoot him if he tries to be smart”. On the same day at around 5 pm, the police raided a place where the young man was taking photographs and arrested him. The next day, his girlfriend, who went to visit him, was arrested on the charge that she had recorded the conversation of the police officers, beaten and harassed by removing her clothes forcibly, checking for illegal drugs. The cousin who visited the youth was also arrested and later released. The court rejected the request of the police to send the young man for rehabilitation, alleging that the boy who was brought to the court with ‘ice’ had used the substance. Allegations that he had used it were nullified by the medical evidence. There is no place to complain about these injustices. The institutions which claim to be investigating and redressing such grievances continue to ignore complaints. The response received from many such institutions was that there is no evidence to prove the allegations.
On February 6, social media reported an incident where the father of two was arrested by the Baddegama Police. The victim, Jeewantha Kumara of Ganegama, within the jurisdiction of the Baddegama Police was arrested with 2 grams and 350 milligrams of “ice”. Police assaulted Jeewantha and his brother, and their sister, a school-girl, video-taped how the police team in plainclothes assaulted her two brothers. She watched and taped how one of the police team tried to put a black parcel in her brother’s pocket. The police assaulted her, snatched her phone, arrested Jeewanta and filed a case. The phone which recorded the incident was never returned and has disappeared with all the evidence. The girl and her other brother had to be admitted to Karapitiya Hospital and receive treatments. There is no reason to think that the complaints made to the Elpitiya Senior Superintendent of Police and Galle Assistant Superintendent of Police will bring justice to these oppressed people.
The case of shooting down a carpenter at Narammala is a well-known crime among hundreds of such incidents. On January 18, police personnel in plain clothes ordered him to stop the lorry he was driving. When he did not stop, the vehicle was chased and he was shot dead. This is the way the so-called Operation Yukthiya is being carried out and the Public Security Minister Tiran Alas has assured in Parliament that the operation will continue irrespective of any objections such as concerns of human rights.
This attempt by the state repressive apparatus to pose itself as the agents of morality against immorality, is deceitful, evil, and despicable. It is a desperate attempt to curb the resistance of the working and oppressed people, arising from the implementation of austerity dictates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), hence imposing the crisis of capitalist class rule on the oppressed masses.
The root of all crimes is the rule of the bankrupt capitalist class. It is not limited to Sri Lanka. These rampant economic, political and social problems are not caused by illicit-drug users. The drug business operates through politically supported transnational and domestic parasitic crime networks. Addiction to drugs itself is the result of social unrest flowing from endless economic, political and social problems. Under these circumstances, the daily operations by military and police, establishing military police roadblocks at every other inch and conducting search operations are nothing but setting up the mechanism to subjugate the lives of the workers and oppressed people to the conditions of the police state. These operations have nothing to do with eradication of illicit drugs.
The statistics of the World Bank show how the poverty in the society is increasing day by day. Poverty, which was 11.3 percent of Sri Lanka’s population in 2019, has increased to 12.7 percent in 2020; and then from 13.1 percent in 2021 to 25 percent in 2022, and to 27.9 percent in 2024. This is a manifestation of the bankruptcy of capitalism on a global scale. World Bank reports show that between September 2022 and March 2023, world poverty increased by 11 million from 648 to 659 million. That’s by calculating the income below $2.15 per day. But, taking into account the lower middle income level and upper middle income level countries, i.e. the levels of $3.65 and $6.85, this figure rises by another 28 million. The poor are consumed by hunger, disease and discomfort. On the other hand, the income of the top 1% supre-rich is increasing by leaps and bounds.
The results of this level of inequality include the escalation of social tragedy, from drug addiction to various crimes and suicides. There was a recent incident where a 14-year-old boy jumped to the fast approaching train and committed suicide near Tambalagamuwa railway station on February 11. Following the sound of the train’s horn, the other children moved out of the way, but this child spread his hands and was smiling while waiting for the train to go over him. The train driver has stated that he had never seen anything like this in his entire life. Later, the child’s guardian aunt told the media that the child was suffering from acute malnutrition.
Attention of the masses is, and should be, focused on these issues. The world is gripped by the struggles of workers, farmers and youth. Anti-democratic measures and terror-mongering displayed by governments bringing social media censorship laws, anti-terror laws are not at all manifestations of the strength of capitalist governments, which are largely discredited among the masses, so lacking popular support, but manifestations of their organic weakness. Those governments cannot fulfill even a single economic or social need of the people. Anywhere in the world, such regimes have been enabled to persist because trade unions and pseudo-left fronts have infiltrated every instance of class struggle, to disrupt, control and compromise mass struggles. We workers, peasants and other oppressed people must realize that self-defense does not come at all from official capitalist institutions, and that freedom and security cannot be guaranteed except through the formation of an independent mass movement against the capitalist establishment under the working class revolutionary programme.
We, the Colombo Action Committee for People’s Struggles, request all progressive people opposed to capitalist attacks to come forward to build and unify action committees at workplaces and residential areas, which can ensure the safety of the oppressed people. Only such a mass movement can really wipe out capitalist rule and all the tendencies that block the path of social progress.
Abolish all repressive laws!
Forward towards a Workers’ and Peasants’ Government!
[This statement was originally published here in Sinhales on February 17, 2024]
