english

Poster

Denounce the Trade Union leaders’ thuggery against the members of Sri Lanka Socialist Equality Party

class struggles, Democratic Rights, english, politics, Trade Unions /

Statement of the Colombo Action Committee

The Colombo Action Committee (CACPS) vehemently denounces the physical attack unleashed on two members of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), Dehin Wasantha and Lakshman Fernando,   by the President and Secretary of the Moratuwa University branch of the Podujana Progressive workers’ Union – a trade union affiliated to the Sri Lanka People’s Front – on 30th November. We call upon the entire working class and the oppressed people, including the university workers, academics, and students, to rise to defend the rights of the SEP members to engage in their political activities.

SEP members were attacked while they were distributing leaflets to announce the public meetings to be addressed by Joseph Kishore, the national secretary of SEP, USA. When they were engaged in the campaign near the University of Moratuwa, Indika Perera and Suranga Piyawardene, leaders of the above-mentioned two trade unions, arrived armed with long clubs and brutally attacked the SEP members. Wasantha suffered a fractured bone on his left hand in trying to protect his head from the attack.

It is also reported that the thugs threatened to kill Wasantha, who has been working as a non-academic employee at Moratuwa University for more than 25 years, and accused him of “supporting the Tigers” (a reference to the LTTE). This is a despicable call to incite communalism against the party and a call for state repression. Thus, they have directly threatened not only the members of the SEP, the working class, but also the oppressed sections of the population.

This barbaric attack is an expression of the bourgeois fascist frenzy of the People’s Front, which is completely detached from the people. Their hatred towards the principled fight of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and its predecessor Revolutionary Communist League (RCL) over half a century, is no surprise to us. What runs under the hatred towards Wasantha is their mortal fear at the type of struggle he conducted for socialist principles, and for the rights of the workers and students of the University over a period exceeding 25 years, as a member of the Sri Lanka Industrial Officers’ Union. This incident tacitly brings us the lesson that the working class, facing a serious class war against capitalism, has to face not only the capitalist state, but also these union bureaucrats – which is an integral part of the capitalist state – in organizing its counter-attack.

This attack has once again proved that the reactionary role of trade unions has been raised to a higher level, at a time the capitalist system, immersed in a world scale crisis, is planning to deliver a critical defeat on the working class. While the ruling class burdens its crisis on the shoulders of the working masses through inflation, job cuts, snatching welfare etc., trade unions are aligning with the state to crush the growing counter-attacks of the working class, and stepping forward to carry out physical attacks on its organizations.

It is not a Sri Lankan experience only. Many incidents of such trade union thuggish attacks against the working class have been reported from all over the world in the recent past. We quote below from a statement of the Colombo Action Committee, protesting against an incident when the trade union officials attacked its own members inside the union office at Cankaya, Turkey in last August:

“Under the conditions of the working class encountering the deadly attacks of the capitalist system, which is deeply engrossed in a crisis of international proportions, the trade union movement is unable to provide any leadership to the working class. The trade union movements around the world, which were leading struggles to win reforms for the working class, acting as mediators between the capitalist class and the working class, thereby serving as mediators of the class struggle, in an era when production was relatively confined to national boundaries, have gone into complete crisis with the globalization of production. Under the conditions in which, the role of winning concessions for the working class has been objectively unviable, as there is no national perspective whatsoever to face the attacks on the working class by the capitalist class; now the trade unions work directly as a garrison of the capitalist class in response to the present global scale capitalist crisis. Thus, in the desperate effort of the capitalist system engrossed in a global crisis, for its very survival, the experiences all around the world confirms the readiness of the unions to go all the way as its partner.”  [Defend the Turkish workers from the thuggish attacks of the trade union bureaucracy! August 20, 2023, theSocialist.LK]

Such is the reality behind the physical attacks on the working class organizations by the Trade Union bureaucracy.

Our statement on the Turkish incident also added:

“The Colombo Action committee understands that, not only in Turkey, but also in every country, the way to protect the rights of workers including safeguarding their jobs and wages is through the struggle against the capitalist system and its protectors; the trade unions. It recognizes that, it has become crucial to build up independent organizations of the working class in which working class democracy is practiced, by exposing the reactionary alignment of trade unions and middle-class movements with the capitalist state and corporations. In those working-class organizations that represent the economic, political and life needs of the workers and oppressed people, and operate on their democratic will, there is no room for capitalist agents including trade union bureaucrats, who tie the workers to the capitalist class and its state and put the burden of the capitalist crisis on the shoulders of the working class. Such independent, genuinely democratic organizations of the working class, which arrive at decisions democratically through discussion, are essential to carry out the struggle to a final victory, cutting off betrayals.

Colombo Action Committee supports the call issued by the ICFI through the WSWS, for building up independent action committees of the Working class and establishing the objective unity of the working class by creating an international organization of such committees around the world. In the recent interventions made by SEP activists presenting this program, there were incidents of physical assaulting and verbal threatening and obstructing by the trade unions. CAC has always defended SEP and independent workers against those attacks.” (-ibid-)

The fact that, not only the capitalist state, but also the trade unions acting as an instrument of the state, have started resorting to physical attacks against the independent class actions of the working class highlights the decisiveness of one of the democratic principles established by the legacy of the RCL-SEP struggle itself. That is, the principle of the necessity of fighting against the capitalist repression unleashed on any organization of the working class and oppressed people – despite their political differences – with all their might. The working class has no other way but to fight without retreating from this principle, which is constantly maintained by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI).

Colombo Action Committee (CAC) appeals to all workers to join hands in the struggle to take control unto their own hands, building their own political institutions, and unifying them nationwide and internationally, independent of the trade unions that act as a police force within the working class, aligned with the corporations and governments. That is the only path of freedom for the working class.

Workers, defend the democratic right of the Socialist Equality Party to engage in political propaganda and campaign!

Step forward to defend the organizations of workers and the oppressed!

Build independent action committees!

Build the Democratic and Socialist Congress of Sri Lankan workers and the oppressed!

Forward to an international alliance of workers’ action committees!

[This statement was initially issued in Sinhalese on December 10, 2023]

Featured image: A poster of the CACPS campaign against the attack

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Ahnaf

Poet and teacher Ahnaf Jazeem, victim of Sri Lanka government racist campaign, acquitted

art & culture, art and culture, class struggles, Democratic Rights, english, lead article, News, politics /

By Sanjaya Jayasekera

The High Court of Puttalam last Tuesday (12) acquitted poet and teacher Ahnaf Jazeem of the charge against him framed under draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), three and half years after his wrongful arrest. The acquittal is  based on the failure of the State to prove the alleged offence, as none of the State witnesses testified against the poet. In spite of the established fact that the whole case was concocted, the Court refused to declare the prosecution as “frivolous and vexatious” and denied awarding any State costs to Ahnaf.

Ahnaf
Ahnaf Jazeem

Ahnaf was arrested, at his home at Mannar, by the police Counter Terrorism and Investigation Division (TID), on May 16, 2020,  in the climax of the anti-Muslim racist campaign of the government of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as part of a broader onslaught on the democratic rights of the working people. The government endeavoured to link Ahnaf to Easter Sunday terror attacks of April 21, 2019, and to the “Save the Pearls” organization, one of the patrons of which was the human rights lawyer Hejaaz Hizbullah, who was also wrongfully arrested, detained for months and prosecuted in connection with the Easter Attack. 

In view of the severe economic crisis the then administration of former president Maithripala Sirisena was confronted with and the presidential elections scheduled for November 2019, the post-Easter Sunday arrests, detentions and prosecutions of hundreds of Muslim youth and political leaders, and the continuous surveillance of Muslim community areas, heightened under Rajapaksha government, were intended to humiliate and intimidate Muslims and fan racialist sentiments within a section of vulnerable Sinhalese majority of the island. 

With the subsequent revelations of the facts behind the Easter Sunday Attack and of the complicity of the ruling elite in the attack or in not preventing the attack well-known by the intelligence apparatus,  people largely came to cognize the true nature of the racist crack-down upon Muslims, intended to divide the working class on ethnic lines. These revelations along with the unprecedented economic and financial crisis and corruptions widely discredited Rajapaksha government, leading to the mass struggles (also called “Aragalaya” in Sinhalese) of the April-August 2022, that toppled the regime in last August. 

The eldest son of a poor farmer’s family, Ahnaf was 26 years old when arrested, and was employed as a Tamil language teacher in a private international school named, “School of Excellence”, whose dormitory, where Jazeem stayed with about 15 students, was housed temporarily in a building owned by the “Save the Pearls”. Ahnaf had by then published a poetry anthology titled Navarasam (Nine Moods). The arrest notice alleged him for “publishing books and teaching students on (Muslim) extremism and racism“. This reference to the book was to Navarasam. 

Ahnaf was unlawfully detained under the hand of Rajapaksha for 13 months and remanded for another 6 months, until he was bailed out by the High Court in mid December 2021. During the period of detention, he was kept incommunicado for several intermittent weeks, denied meeting with parents or lawyers for months, physically and mentally tortured and forced to confess and admit allegations which TID leveled against him in Court reports. TID kept the poet tied to a table in handcuffs, day and night, for over five months.

Ahnaf’s lawyers filed a fundamental rights case in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in April 2021, along with authoritative translations of the poetry book. The Attorney General filed the indictment against him in mid August 2021 under Section 2(1)(h) and 2(2)(ii) of the PTA. The charge had dropped the TID’s allegations made in respect of the poetry book, as by then it was widely known that the poetry book contained nothing advocating racial violence or Muslim extremism. Ahnaf was charged for “indoctrinating” his students with ideas “to arouse feelings of racialist or religious or communal ill-will or hatred between different races or religions”, during a two-month period at the end of 2019. If the offense  was proved, Ahnaf would have been subjected to imprisonment upto 20 years.

During the trial, State led evidence of the principle of the School of Excellence and 4 of Ahnaf’s students. One of the students was even declared by the State counsel to be an adverse witness. Most revealingly, another student testified to the fact that the statement obtained from him was not read out to him before his signature was taken on the statement. Sri Lanka police, especially the TID and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), are notorious for obtaining forced confessions/statements from arrestees, which would be used against them in court under the PTA. Thus, the acquittal  was made under Section 200(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which dispenses with the requirement of the defence opening its case. 

Ahnaf
Second from left is Ahnaf’s father, third his mother. First from the right is his brother, third Ahnaf and fourth is this writer. Two other lawyers are standing next to Ahnaf and this writer. They pose for the photo just after Ahnaf’s acquittal.

While knowing very well that the case against Ahnaf is a frameup, as a cover-up, the ministry of defense enlisted Ahnaf in a list of designated persons related to terrorist financing for two consecutive years since 2022, and confiscated his bank accounts, where  there was no penny. In spite of appeals, Ahnaf still remains in the blacklist, and so, is unemployed.

Ahnaf’s freedom was secured by the masses. The campaign, “Defend Poet Ahnaf” initiated early 2021 by the Action Committee for the Defence of Freedom of Art and Expression (ACDAE) and the World Socialist Web Site for the immediate and unconditional release of Ahnaf gathered widespread support from academics, journalists, artists, working class youth and other sections of the middle class, cutting across ethnic divisions. A number of local and international organizations, including the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, supported the defence campaign and called for the poet’s immediate release. 

The betrayal of the unprecedented mass struggles of 2022 by the trade unions and the pseudo-left  paved the way for the parachuting of Ranil Wickremasinghe as the President following Rajapaksa’s ousting. Committed to saving the crippled financial system, Wickremasinghe entered into a loan deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and launched severe austerity measures which included import restrictions, price hikes, drastic lowering of the income tax threshold, privatization, commercialization, pension aimed domestic debt restructuring and large subsidy cuts.

To suppress the anti-austerity protests by the working people and students, Wickremasinghe brutally deployed military and the police, arresting several hundreds. Social media activity was highly censored and activists and journalists were attacked, arrested and prosecuted. Far right racist elements were given a free hand to contain social unrest. The whole parliament has been largely discredited among the working class, farmers and a significant section of the middle class. 

This greater unpopularity of the whole ruling establishment and the constant watch by the masses of the development of Ahnaf’s prosecution prevented the government interfering with the witnesses, so that the truth finally prevailed. History is witness to the fact that, in a different political climate, “truth” would have been shown to be proven otherwise.  

Few weeks back, another victim of the same anti-Muslim campaign, activist Ramzi Razeek was discharged from the  case filed by the CID. Arrested one month prior to Ahnaf, Razeek was kept in remand for five months. Later, in mid November,  the Supreme Court declared that his fundamental rights had been breached by the government and awarded rupees one million compensation. Learned from recent mass struggles, the court has stepped in to save the system, not taking the risk of the people losing its last bit of trust in every organ of the parliamentary democracy. 

The ruling class is well aware that it sits on a social powder-keg. As with other right-wing governments of the world, the Sri Lanka government  has no option but resorting to military police measures to face the rising militant class struggles. Defence of the democratic rights is a task of the working class, and that requires the uprooting of the rotten capitalist political system. This needs the independent mobilization of the working class  and all those who defend democratic rights around committees of action that will unite the working class across ethnic lines and organize industrial power to win political power to implement socialist policies. 

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Meeting

Public Meeting: Stop Zionist-Imperialist Genocide against the Palestinian Oppressed!

class struggles, english, Events, lead article, War /

Colombo Action Committee & theSocialist.LK

The Colombo Action Committee (CAC) and theSocialist.LK will hold a public meeting on November 19, at 19:15 hrs [Sri Lanka Time] to call upon and mobilize the working class in Sri Lanka, in Israel and around the world to immediately stop the imperialist-backed Israeli carnage of the oppressed Palestinian people in Gaza and in the West Bank.

With the full backing of the Joe Biden administration and other imperialist powers, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has unleashed the most barbaric slaughter of innocent children, women and men, that reminds the world of the crimes of the Nazi Holocaust. Close to 10,000 civilians have been killed, out of which more than 4000 are children.  Thousands are trapped under the rubble of residential buildings, refugee camps and hospitals that have been bombarded continuously for four weeks since October 07. More than 25000 tons of explosives have been dropped on the highly populated Gaza Strip, which equals to almost double the power of the atomic bomb laid on Hiroshima at the end of the World War II by the United States (US). Zionist regime is aiming at total annihilation.

A full scale genocide is being carried out before the eyes of the working class around the world, who have come forward to stand forcefully againt Israel and the US-NATO axis that support it.  In spite of police repression and despite false propaganda, millions of people have been rallying in US, Canada, Australia, Germany, UK, Japan, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malysia and around the world to denounce the genocide and demand an immediate ceasefire, which was approved by 120 countries of the United Nations. Netnayahu has rejected any halt to the bombardment. The US has confirmed that there are no “red lines” for Israel’s actions “to defend itself”.

This genocide should be stopped and only the working class can do that. No appeal to the US-NATO states or impotent UN would end Zionist plans of ethnic cleansing. Working class has come to the fight, but they need to be armed with a revolutionary political programme and leadership, which only the  International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Website provide: “The war is a war on the working class, and it is the working class that must lead the fight against it.”

The CAC and theSocialist.LK stand with the perspectives presented by the ICFI. 

Ending this genocide means not only a fight against Netanyahu government, but also against  American imperialism, the US-NATO axis, and the national governments around the world that are part of this alliance. 

Sri Lanka’s Ranil Wickremasinghe government has sided with Israel, demonstrating its allegiance to imperialism on the one hand, and its fear of growing mass working class struggles at home against its oppressive austerity policies. Wickremasinghe, like India’s Modi, knows very well that the Hamas attack represented a genuine mass revolt against longtime oppression. 

The online meeting will discuss the political programme to end the genocide, along with historical and political foundations of the Zionist oppression against the Palestinian people.

We invite workers, students, youth, intellectuals and those who stand with the  Palestinian people to join the meeting.

Zoom ID: 890 4844 1531

Passcode: 057521

Meeting

Public Meeting: Stop Zionist-Imperialist Genocide against the Palestinian Oppressed! Read More »

Exodus

Defend the people of Palestine against Zionism!

class struggles, Democratic Rights, english, Fascism, lead article, politics, War, World War /

For a United Socialist State of Jewish-Arabic working classes opposed to the dual state-ruse of the imperialists!

Statement of the Colombo Action Committee

Exodus
Exodus of a million Gazans from north to south within the course of 30 hours, on Friday October 13th, AP Photo/Hatem Moussa

We demand to immediately stop the Israel Emergency Unity Government’s genocide carried out by air and missile attacks over two million oppressed Palestinians, trapped inside Gaza, while preventing them from receiving their most essential needs such as water, electricity, fuel and medicines, and call all workers, youth and progressive sections of the masses to line up for the protection of the Palestinian people.

On the 13th, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime forced over one million people to evacuate from the Gaza Strip brazenly violating international laws.  By morning today (16), according to the BBC reports, half a million Palestinians have evacuated. Even those tens of thousands fleeing with their children and possessing only their wearing dresses are also being attacked. Even the refugee (IDP) camps have been attacked. Patients die in hospitals due to the lack of fuel to run the ventilators.

A monumental crime, comparable to those committed by the Nazis, is now unfolding before our eyes. A population of over two million, comprising majority women and children have been wilfully forced to starvation and dehydration. UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini remarked on the situation in the Gaza Strip as follows: “Gaza is running out of water, and Gaza is running out of life. Soon, I believe, with this there will be no food or medicine either. There is not one drop of water, not one grain of wheat, not a litre of fuel that has been allowed into the Gaza Strip for the last eight days.”

“The siege in Gaza, the way it is imposed, is nothing else than collective punishment. So, before it is too late, the siege must be lifted and aid agencies must be able to safely bring in essential supplies such as fuel, water, food and medicine. And we need this NOW,” Lazzarini stated.

Already by now, the number of deaths caused by Israel Army attacks on Gaza has exceeded 2600. The purpose of positioning the United States naval forces on the Mediterranean is to support these racist and barbaric attacks. The support of the imperialist forces and capitalist states like India is for Israel, the oppressor. Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremasinghe, threatened by the deepening economic and political crisis in the country, joined imperialist masters in strengthening provocations against the Palestinians.

Destriction
Destruction caused by Israeli air attacks on Gaza on October 10th, 2023, ( Courtesy of Reuters, Mohammed Salem)

Principal dividing lines are getting clearer. Millions of people worldwide are rallying around the oppressed Palestinians’ cause. Protests carrying placards calling to end “Israel terrorism“ and “Free Palestine“ have spread from the United States to Japan. Protesters in England did not yield to the police threats to arrest those in support of the Hamas Organization. French imperialism has warned that such protesters would be subjected to up to 5 years of imprisonment. People in all countries cannot be contained by the threats of the ruling classes. The Gulf Region is getting enveloped by the mass protests. Under these conditions, the Saudi Arabian ruling class that has assured a bargain with Israel towards a steady transition to restructure the Middle East, has been unable to accept the request of the United States to denounce the Hamas Organization. For the first time, Mohamed Bin Salman has been forced to take a call to his adversary, Iranian President Ibraham Rasik.

For the Palestinians, who have been forced to live as prisoners on their own land, there lies no other alternative than fighting. At the 78th General Assembly of the United Nations, held between September 19-26,  Palestinian President Mohammad Abbas stated, 

“[O]ur people are defending their homeland and their legitimate rights through peaceful, popular resistance. This is our policy. It is a strategic option for self-defense and to liberate the land from a colonial occupation that does not believe in peace and has no regard for the principles of truth, justice and human values.”

Except by forcing an end to this brutal occupation, the Palastinians will have no freedom. All oppressed peoples in all countries headed by the international working class must fight to end this brutal occupation and to build a United Socialist State of Palestinian and Israeli working class.

Let all reactionaries be counting the pieces from the rubble of the attack on the 7th by the Hamas organization in Israel! Hamas fighters were able to intrude and attack quite unexpectedly on Israel, which is named as one of the most powerful Defense Forces in the world, only with the support of the larger Palestinian population. What would have been the situation, had it emanated as a genuinely organized revolutionary uprising by the United Jewish and Arab working class,  employing their highest industrial force?

The State of Israel that exists today was a result of a strategy employed in 1914 during the First World War, by the British Imperialist War Cabinet to win over the support of the Jewish people towards them. Based on this Cabinet decision, in 1917, Sir Rothschild, a Zionist leader of the British-Jewish community, was assured by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour that his government would support the establishment of a “National home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, which was then under the Ottoman Empire, with a small minority of Jewish people. The strategy employed by the British to maintain their imperialist, bourgeois rule and to crush popular uprisings that emerged at the end of the Second World War was to divide and partition certain states on racial and religious lines.

No one should forget the fact that in the creation of the Zionist state in Palestine in 1948,  it was British imperialism’s intention to retain the oil-rich Middle East under their domination.

Today, the entire imperialist system is being dragged towards a third world war, under an economic and political crisis, that judders in its very depths. That is the exact reason why the current developments in Israel represent a new stage of the long-rooted contradictions in the global capitalist system.   While the working class needs freedom, imperialist capitalism wants it buried. Exactly because of this reason, defending the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom is an unavoidable class obligation of the working class in every country, including that of the Israeli working class.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS.org) have taken the lead in this struggle by developing the necessary international perspectives of the working class and the programme necessitated by that struggle. The Colombo Action Committee for People’s Struggles  stands with these perspectives and programme to defend Palestinian people and calls upon all progressive masses to rally round that struggle.

Workers, the oppressed and the progressive masses, and youth in Sri Lanka, South Asia and around the world, let us fight for the following demands:

Stop all military support provided to the Netanyahu regime by the United States and all European governments!

Lift the siege of the Gaza Strip now!

Provide the besieged people of Gaza with water, medicine, electricity, food and all essential supplies immediately!

End the occupation of Palestinian lands!

Withdraw invader Zionist armies immediately!

[This statement was originally published here in Sinhalese on October 16, 2023]

Defend the people of Palestine against Zionism! Read More »

Palestine

Stop Israeli genocide!

Democratic Rights, english, Fascism, lead article, News, politics, War, World War /

By David North

Palestine
Israel has already dropped more bombs on Gaza in six days than the U.S. dropped on Afghanistan in a single year. Israeli military ordered over one million Palestinian civilians to flee their homes. They are dehydrating and starving. This is genocide and ethnic cleansing. Image courtesy X

The following statement appeared originally on X/Twitter.

A crime of monumental dimensions, comparable to those committed by the Nazis, is now unfolding before the eyes of the world. More than two million people are being deliberately subjected to starvation and dehydration.

The international working class must come to the defense of Gaza and demand the following:

1) The US and European governments must be compelled to end their support for and complicity in the Gaza genocide!

2) Food, water, electricity, medical care and all other necessities must be made available immediately!

3) The siege must be lifted!

4) All military attacks must stop!

5) The Israeli IDF must be forced to demobilize at once and withdraw all its forces from the border with Gaza!

[This statement was published originally by WSWS here today]

Read the following essential statements and articles too:

Tens of thousands protest Israeli war crimes across US

US, European powers fully implicated in Israeli mass murder

French President Macron endorses Israeli war on Gaza

German parliament in a war frenzy

Spontaneous protests in solidarity with Palestinians in German cities

Oppose the outlawing of solidarity protests in defense of Gaza!

Oppose the outlawing of solidarity protests in defense of Gaza!

Israel: Gantz joins Netanyahu in National Unity government to wage war on Palestinians

Ocasio-Cortez says pro-Palestinian demonstrations should be “shut down” as opposition to Israeli war crimes grows

Biden proclaims unlimited support for Israeli onslaught on Gaza

Canadian politicians and media rally behind Israel’s murderous response to Palestinian uprising

Who is responsible for the violence in Israel and Gaza?

Israeli army lays siege to Gaza

Down with Netanyahu’s government! Stop the imperialist-backed Zionist onslaught against Gaza!

Netanyahu regime staggered by Palestinian uprising

Stop Israeli genocide! Read More »

Palitha

Caricature of Reporting: How the WSWS Sri Lanka correspondents reported the EPF protest in Colombo

class struggles, english, politics /

By Nandana Nanneththi.

“The report published on the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) on September 1, under the title “Over 1000 workers protest in Colombo against Sri Lanka government’s attacks‘, has yet again demonstrated the  gross negligence of the Sri Lankan editorial board, hence undermining the historical credibility of the website. 

The report was on a protest organized by a multitude of trade unions and civil organizations, and held in front of Colombo Fort railway station on August 28, against the subsuming of Employees’ Provident Fund under the government’s move to restructure the domestic debt. The Organizers, comprising about 40 organizations, could only manage to gather far less than 300 to participate in this demonstration. The number included the representatives of trade unions, capitalist parties, pseudo-left organizations and non-governmental organizations . (See the short video from the CACPS Facebook page)

The World Socialist Web Site, the publication tool of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), is the only authentic global socialist publication with a reputation as the theorist, the propagandist and the organizer of the global working class. Read daily by hundreds of thousands of readers all over the world, it is respected even by its adversaries for its integrity, scientific analysis and authenticity. It is the only international media for the working class to know the truth. Even In the past, on several occasions, we have raised objections when the Sri Lankan Editorial Board Published distorted reports on the web site.

The report claimed that, “about 1,200 workers and retirees participated in a Monday lunchtime protest at Colombo Fort Railway Station on August 28 to oppose the Wickremesinghe government’s attacks on pensions and new anti-democratic amendments to the country’s existing labor laws,” hence blaming the trade unions for the poor participation, allegedly due to the timing of the campaign, held at the one hour lunch break. The reason proffered for the poor attendance is the lack of such intent on the part of the trade unions and their commitment to dissipate the struggle.

This is a distortion in which the reporters forced the insertion of what they called the “lunch hour” into the report. It is thus argued that the agitation was restricted to the duration of the lunch hour to prevent the workers from participation, and had it been a call for a strike, the workers would have gathered by their  thousands in response. Then, the report goes on to say that the workers of the Katunayake Free Trade Zone outside of Colombo also participated in the campaign. Needless to say, given the limited numbers participating, the percentage of FTZ workers’ participation would be in the decimals of a percentage. But, In actual fact, was it not the failed tactic of the organizers who hoped to get a better participation by  making the opportunity for the workers in the neighborhood areas to participate without much difficulty or sacrifice during their lunch break? Objective factors exist as proof. For example, the Ceylon Bank Employees’ Union’s member participation in the protest could be counted with the fingers in one’s hands. It goes without saying that the area near the railway station would not have got enough space if only the employees of the banks around the Colombo Fort participated in the campaign.

Anyone with common sense should realize that the workers do not look for ‘free hours’ to take part in  struggles and, sometimes, they risk their own lives in struggles. This ‘lunch hour’ fantasy is imposed only in order to build up the story as per the subjective expectations of the reporters. The trade unions expected the participation of about 5,000 people. They wanted to deceive and rally the workers around them, upon whom their grip was slipping, by using this opportunity to call a ‘struggle’ against the EPF issue. Hence they wanted to demonstrate to the ruling class that they still had influence over the workers, and to prove their worthiness to strike a bargain. Many workers are disillusioned about their treacherous role resulting only about 5% of the numbers expected by the union leaders actually participated in the campaign.

Over the past period the workers and masses engaged themselves in the struggle against the ruling classes not on anybody’s invitation or direction, but voluntarily. However, as a result of the continuing betrayals of these struggles- one after the other – the working class is temporarily trying to catch its breath back. If this had not been the case, there were objective grounds for workers to participate in this campaign, whether or not there was a calling. The said report tries to convince the reader that thousands would have participated if not for the technical error of limiting it to a ‘lunch hour’ demonstration, hence pushing true facts under the rug.

On the same morning, a meeting organized by the Electricity Consumers Association involving some of these leaders, and led by MDR Athula Of the Federation of Democratic State Employees’ Unions, was held at the Colombo Public Library Auditorium. The speakers of the meeting accused the Ceylon  Electricity Board (CEB) of making emergency purchases (to make up for the shortfall in the national grid) and thereby discouraging investors of renewable energy resource development, causing them huge losses. The meeting seemed to be held under the auspices of the companies involved in renewable energy development, and the audience consisted of people who were ‘encouraged’ to participate by those companies. The leaders of that union, after making an appeal to the President Wickremesinghe to intervene to correct this situation, then joined the EPF agitation in front of Fort Railway Station. These leaders did not have any effective program that could be presented to the electricity consumers or to the EPF members, except for making stage-shaking speeches and whining appeals to the President to solve the problems. Is it a surprise that the workers and the poor do not give any attention worth two cents to these leaders?

There is no reason that, to the people of Sri Lanka who rejected all the political parties and their representatives in Parliament only less than a year ago, not to feel the long-run of betrayals of the trade unionists. The problem of the people consists in their inability to put these betrayals in a correct class perspective, having  no alternative course of action and a  leadership to guide it. A genuine working class organization can take over the leadership of the working class under these conditions. A struggle without indecision and hesitation is necessary to be developed against opportunism to realize this task. It is, therefore, a task bound with a relentless struggle against the practice of submitting to  the subjectivity of glorification of the desire of the working class for a struggle to defend its living conditions, which is a form of backdoor acceptance of the familiar mantra, ‘the workers are not yet ready’, in the lethargic practice of imposing already known abstract truths on the live class struggle. 

The above report in the WSWS announces the generalized truth of “this limited protest was called to assuage the growing anger of the working class against the government’s attacks”. It is also such a truism that the unions “have no intention of mobilizing workers in a real political and industrial struggle against the Wickramasinghe government”. But nevertheless, none of this, without a proper investigation within the frame of objective f

acts with which we are confronted with at the moment, and instead,  shaping the descriptions of real events to suit ideas of one’s imagination and trying to impose them on the public, is completely hostile to the Marxist method followed by the WSWS.

The title of the article published in ‘The-Socialist.lk’ about this same event was, “Petty-bourgeois farce staged in front of the Colombo Railway Station on Monday”. That is the conclusion drawn from the analysis of the facts we gathered. As pointed out in that article, the union leadership is facing difficulties in getting the workers involved. “Duminda Nagamuwa, a leader of the Frontline Socialist Party, was complaining about the non-participation of the workers even before the event . He expressed his belief saying, ‘the workers numbering about 2.2 Million should think about this at least now’. The general concept that’s peddled by the  union leaders is that “the working class is a stupid and backward lot that is not interested in protecting  its own rights.” In that article, we confirmed with facts that the workers do not have faith in these unions and leaderships, not without reason, and that the bureaucracy works to demoralize the workers and to incite the petty bourgeoisie against them.

The show staged in front of the Fort railway station was a petty bourgeois farce; A comedy staged by the trade Unions. The union leaders, who threatened to topple the government if their demands were not met, proceeded a small distance forward as if they were going on a demonstration to the Central Bank. When the police announced that they, “are Ordering the crowd to disperse under Section 95(1)”, the union leaders vowed to the police, “We don’t want to go on in a demonstration as such, if a statement is issued saying this will not be done today, we will not proceed”. When some in the crowd demanded a promise that the Provident Fund would not be restructured, Ananda Palitha, one of the leaders in charge of campaign operations, the convener of the Samagi Trade Unions United Front ( the umbrella trade union front of the SJB, a  break-away political party from the UNP and the main opposition party in the parliament), instead asked emphatically several times  for a  promise on “not doing it today”. “We need to win the people’s trust,” he stated the stark truth. Everything happened according to the pre-arranged script.

As reported by ‘The-Socialist’, the Central Bank postponed the decision on the restructuring of the fund until September 21, as a related case is pending in the Supreme Court. Union leaders Boasted showing this postponement too, as a victory. (see the real event, in the short video from the CACPS Facebook page)

Meanwhile, the police brought forth a promise for a discussion with the Central Bank. The union leaders declared victory and announced the end of the day’s proceedings. The discussion held with the Central Bank on September 5 failed as expected. According to the unions, what is now necessary is to bring in a new capitalist government, and to have new discussion. It’s so unfortunate that the restructuring would be complete. As The-Socialist pointed out, this campaign was entirely a reactionary operation against the workers, which was called for the sole purpose of providing the capitalist state an opportunity to constrain them, isolate them and attack them. Nothing else can be expected from these trade unions, which have demonstrated their impotence and anti-worker. pro-capitalist nature in every case; for example as in the case of privatization of the Eastern Terminal of the Colombo Port, and in the sale of important sectors of the Petroleum corporation to the private sector.

Palitha
Ananda Palitha in negotiations with the police

The WSWS article ends with a statement from a former employee of the Fertilizer Corporation. “We must continue to apply pressure. Ranil (Wickramasinghe) wants to continue the dictatorial rule but we want him out.” The same was said by the capitalist and pseudo-left party leaders who led the campaign. As The-Socialist report pointed out, the campaign of the trade unions was directed to infuse to the broad society the capitalist point of view – that the only options available are either concessions or another capitalist government. The most important thing we see here for us to simply report is that, if any report on revolutionary media is spreading the same stance, there is no point in that coverage. One can simply follow the capitalist media. 

Bolshevism, upon which the WSWS bases itself, was extremely concerned with the accuracy of data:

“The data supplied by the Bolshevik press of 1917 are proving, in the light of historic criticism and the documents of the epoch, incomparably more correct than the data supplied by all the other newspapers. This correctness was a result of the revolutionary strength of the Bolsheviks, but at the same time it reinforced their strength. The renunciation of this tradition has subsequently become one of the most malignant features of epigonism.” (The History of the Russian Revolution, Volume II, page 356)

Our calling to the workers should be directed to overthrow the unionism which has become a major obstacle in the struggle against capitalism and, to establish a mass movement against capitalism through the formation of Action Committees on the basis of working class democracy.

Addressing the campaign, Athulasiri Samarakoon, a university lecturer, shamelessly declared the pseudo-left and trade union preparations to protect the anti-worker capitalist state. See the video from the CACPS facebook page

Instead, the WSWS article’s principal objective seems to be announcing that, even the trade unions and the pseudo-left leaderships are still possessing the capability of drawing the workers of Sri Lanka into struggles, if not for their tactical érrors’. This attitude implies the adaptation to a backwardness inherited through the historical roots and expressed within the working class, instead of a relentless struggle to solve it.  

We will not turn our backs to the partial demands of the workers. Since its inception, the EPF fund has been governed by a monetary board headed by the Governor of the Central Bank. Although the fund belongs to the workers, it is not accountable to them, but to the capitalist governments. This should be changed. The demand of trade unions and other capitalist agencies which had called this ‘struggle’, was that the union leaders too should participate in making decisions about the provident fund as it is a workers’ fund. But the reality is that these unions represent less than approximately 15 percent of the country’s working class, and they do not budge even an inch  away from capitalism. The workers should not fight for these empty demands, but to get the full control of the fund to a board of their own choosing, the members of which they can elect and recall at any time. A prerequisite for realizing this, is the displacement of trade unions by workers’ independent Action Committees in every workplace, against all the delusive bluff of pseudo- left organizations.

[This article was earlier published in Sinhalese here on September 09, 2023.]

Caricature of Reporting: How the WSWS Sri Lanka correspondents reported the EPF protest in Colombo Read More »

books

In defence of SEP: The call to build on historical lessons of the Trotskyist movement for intra-party democracy

english, politics /

By Nihal Gikianage for SEP-SL Left Faction

books
Revolutionary Handbooks

The letter posted below was sent on October 28, 2022 by the comrades of the Left Faction of Sri Lanka Socialist Equality Party (SEP), Chilaw branch, to its General Secretary Deepal Jayasekara, to defend the party from the anti-democratic and conspiratorial activities of the party leadership.  Such efforts by the members were frowned upon by the party bureaucracy and led to the party leadership’s disastrous decision that there was no other option but to expel a large number of comrades.  It should be noted that the first time even the party members were reading this letter was when this was published originally in Sinhala language here on August 7, 2023.  Dozens of letters sent by the SEP-SL left faction to the party leadership were thrown into the dustbin without any discussion within the membership.

***

Deepal Jayasekara, 

General Secretary, Socialist Equality Party- Sri Lanka.

Dear Comrade,

Three months have passed since the membership of comrades Nandana, Sanjay and Ananda Wakkumbura has been suspended, but up to date no political issue has been raised regarding these three.

There must be political reasons for a dispute in the revolutionary party. They must be irreconcilable class antagonisms, not mere ‘reasons’. We categorically state in all seriousness that you have no such reasons to offer.

We are engaged in a continuous struggle in our branch opposing the undemocratic suspension of the party membership of these comrades. The branch leadership says that raising this issue itself is against the centralism of the party. Establishing centralism against democracy is the practice of the party regime. As against this, every effort made to examine the historical experience of the world Marxist movement was opposed by the party regime including the branch leadership. It is a sign that the political health of the party has deteriorated.

In analyzing the issues that arise within the party, the policy based on dialectical materialism is to call upon the historical wisdom of our movement. But it is difficult to get the majority of the membership towards this approach. Even under these circumstances, we the undersigned, Wijesinghe, Punyawardena and Nihal in the Chilaw branch are fighting without let up against this anti-democratic action taken by the party.

Engaging in political struggle or trying to develop discussions for political clarity are the real reasons for suspending the membership of these comrades. The leadership has worked to carry out their actions without facing serious opposition in the party membership although they were done without any discussion with the three comrades and without giving them an opportunity to present the facts. This was achieved by a campaign of lies and accusations against these comrades. For example, the propaganda that they have rejected the party’s invitations to negotiate. Another one is the propaganda that comrade Nandana chases away those who come to join the party saying they are police spies.

Nihal raised this question in his intervention at the members’ meeting last attended by Comrade Wijay in last July.

He quoted this passage taken from the Declination of the Bolshevik Party from Trotsky’s brilliant work “Revolution Betrayed” ” The inner regime of the Bolshevik party was characterized by the method of democratic centralism. The combination of these two concepts, democracy and centralism, is not in the least contradictory. The party took watchful care not only that its boundaries should always be strictly defined, but also that all those who entered these boundaries should enjoy the actual right to define the direction of the party policy.

Freedom of criticism and intellectual struggle was an irrevocable content of the party democracy. The present doctrine that Bolshevism does not tolerate factions is a myth of epoch decline. In reality the history of Bolshevism is a history of the struggle of factions. And, indeed, how could a genuinely revolutionary organization, setting itself the task of overthrowing the world and uniting under its banner the most audacious iconoclasts, fighters and insurgents, live and develop without intellectual conflicts, without groupings and temporary factional formations? The farsightedness of the Bolshevik leadership often made it possible to soften conflicts and shorten the duration of factional struggle, but no more than that. The Central Committee relied upon this seething democratic support. From this it derived the audacity to make decisions and give orders. The obvious correctness of the leadership at all critical stages gave it that high authority which is the priceless moral capital of centralism.” (Chapter 2: The Degeneration of the Bolshevik Party; 2nd Paragraph – Revolution Betrayed)

After this long quote, he asked Comrade Wijay to re-assess the decision taken against these comrades who are well experienced and very close to the International Committee, placing it in this context.

Taking this struggle forward when Comrade Nihal raised the question about these comrades in the Chilaw branch, Comrade Quintin threateningly requested the local secretary Kapila to call for a vote and throw him out, Kapila said that he would not hesitate to do so.

It was the Ratnasiri leadership of the Ambalangoda branch who first conducted this vote taking. Comrade Nandana accused the party leadership of using gimmicks during the recent party congress. He requested a discussion about the congress to solve these problems. Solely on this matter, when three members of the committee including Nandana were absent, Ratnasiri the local secretary, a member of the party’s political committee, confirmed the allegation by Nandana’s that the party leadership is resorting to gimmicks, by calling for a vote and banning Nandana’s membership. The political committee suspended his membership without any discussion.

We allege that there are threats to implement the same policy in other branches in which, there are members fighting for the suspended comrades. ie. Ambalangoda, Kandy, Kolonnawa and Chilaw.

In the Chilaw branch we continuously fought to consider these questions based on the historical knowledge of our own Trotskyist movement. But the branch leadership always declared that this is a petty bourgeois tendency and will be purged from the party. The party has not made any political explanation up to date of this so-called petty bourgeois tendency. Even if we accept that this is such a tendency for a moment, we cannot agree to the behavior of the leadership at all.

Comrade Nihal brought forth an example from Trotsky’s ” In Defense of Marxism” to inform the branch members about how the Trotskyist movement fought with petty bourgeois tendencies. This was not regarding a bogus charge of ‘petty bourgeois tendency’ that is thrust upon on Nandana, Wakkumbura and Sanjay by the leadership, but of an actual petty bourgeois tendency that arose in the Socialist Workers Party in 1939. “The following question can be posed: If the opposition is a petty-bourgeois tendency does that signify further unity is impossible? Then how reconcile the petty-bourgeois tendency with the proletarian? To pose the question like this means to judge one-sidedly, undialectically and thus falsely. In the present discussion the opposition has clearly manifested its petty-bourgeois features. But this does not mean that the opposition has no other features. The majority of the members of the opposition are doubly devoted to the cause of the proletariat and are capable of learning. Tied today to a petty-bourgeois milieu they can tomorrow tie themselves to the proletariat. The inconsistent ones, under the influence of experience, can become more consistent. When the party embraces thousands of workers even the professional factionalists can re-educate themselves in the spirit of proletarian discipline. It is necessary to give them time for this. That is why comrade Cannon’s proposal to keep the discussion free from any threats of split, expulsions, etc., was absolutely correct and in place.”

(https://www.wsws.org/en/special/library/in-defense-of-marxism-leon-trotsky1939/11.html)

Trotsky’s attitude towards the Burnham, Shatman and Abern group, which clearly showed petty bourgeois characteristics in the Trotskyist movement, is clear.

Moreover, let us consider by a short excerpt, how Comrade North used Trotsky’s explanations in ‘In defense of Marxism’ in the work, ‘how did the Workers Revolutionary Party betray Trotskyism’, in his struggle. “To make matters worse, the political differences raised by Thornett, to the extent that they had been developed in the autumn of 1974, had not reached the level at which a split could be justified in front of the working class. It was not sufficient for Healy and Banda to have a hunch, no matter how astute, that Thornett was functioning as an agent of the OCI. In 1940 Trotsky had warned Cannon not to take premature organizational measures against the minority, insisting that “you must act not only on the basis of your subjective appreciations, as correct as they may be, but on the basis of objective facts available to everyone” And he cautioned that organizational impatience “is not infrequently connected with theoretical indifference.” (In Defense of Marxism, New Park, p. 198)

(https://www.wsws.org/en/special/library/how-the-wrp-betrayedtrotskyism/06.html )

It is clear that the party has resorted to a policy of those who turned their backs to Trotskyism instead that of Trotskyism. It is a matter that needs to be examined. We are working on it and we think the party leadership will consider it seriously.

For that, we suggest that the party leadership, including you, should re-assess this organizational step in this historical context.

Over the past period, the entire party revolved around secondary issues, and as a result, the party failed to anticipate the class struggle that started in Sri Lanka in April and is still going on, and to make a successful intervention in it. In order to cut through the party’s past political setbacks and make a revolutionary intervention in the class struggle implementing the perspective of developing Action Committees and proceeding towards a congress of Action Committees in keeping with the perspectives of the International Committee, the internal problems of the party must first be resolved. This is because the International Committee has very clearly and brilliantly identified that this decade as the decade of revolutions and wars, and identified this as a unique period for the world Trotskyist movement. The political setback of our party is taking place in this context.

The leadership did not undertake the task of understanding the idea of building Action committees through a serious discussion within the cadre. In a discussion about action committees in the Chilaw branch, we presented a quote from Trotsky’s ‘Death agony of Capitalism’. ” Soviets are not limited to an a priori party program. They throw open their doors to all the exploited. Through these doors pass representatives of all strata, drawn into the general current of the struggle. The organization, broadening out together with the movement, is renewed again and again in its womb. All political currents of the proletariat can struggle for leadership of the soviets on the basis of the widest democracy. The slogan of soviets, therefore, crowns the program of transitional demands.” (The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International; Chapter 14 – The Soviets – Paragraph 3) On these occasions, the branch secretary Comrade Kapila said, “We are not building them so that each and every person could walk through these doors.” This exposes the party leadership’s idea about working committees.

These differences of opinion call for a genuine democratic discussion to consider the responsibilities our party in facing the current class struggle.

In the book “The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century”, Comrade Noth’s explanation about internal party democracy, ” The importance of inner-party democracy was not simply one of abstract principle, nor was its practical significance limited to its direct impact on the field of economic policy. What was ultimately at stake in the struggle waged by Trotsky in defense of Soviet democracy was the fate of the entire heritage of socialist culture and revolutionary thought as it had developed in the international workers movement over the previous century. The bureaucracy dealt with Marxism as it did with Lenin’s corpse: it was mummified and made the object of ritualistic and semimystical incantations. After 1927 Marxism, for all intents and purposes, ceased to play any role whatsoever in the formulation of Soviet policy. The defeat of the Opposition sounded the death knell for the development of critical thought in virtually every sphere of intellectual and cultural activity.”

(https://www.wsws.org/en/special/library/russian-revolution-unfinishedtwentieth-century/04.html )

Drawing your attention to the points we explained in this letter, the suspension of the party membership of the three comrades should be removed, and this discussion should be resolved within the party. If there is a reason for not doing so, please explain. 

Fraternally, 

Nihal Geekianage, 

Punyawardena, 

K. Wijesinghe 

28.10.2022

In defence of SEP: The call to build on historical lessons of the Trotskyist movement for intra-party democracy Read More »

amarathunga

In defence of SEP: Countering the purge of Comrade Amaratunga from Ambalangoda Local

english, politics /

By L.P. Udayaprema, for SEP-SL Left Faction 

amarathunga
Amaratunga at a SEP May Day demonstration 

The letter posted below was sent on November 16, 2022 by Comrade Udayaprema of the Ambalangoda branch of the Sri Lanka Socialist Equality Party (SEP) to its General Secretary Deepal Jayasekara to defend the party from the anti-democratic and conspiratorial activities of the party leadership.  Such efforts by the members were frowned upon by the party bureaucracy and led to the party leadership’s disastrous decision that there was no other option but to expel a large number of comrades.  It should be noted that the first time even the party members were reading this letter was when this was published originally in Sinhala language here on August 7, 2023.  Dozens of letters sent by the SEP-SL left faction to the party leadership were thrown into the dustbin without any discussion within the membership.

***

Comrade Jayasekara,

Regarding the expulsion of Comrade Amaratunga of the Ambalangoda Local Council by Comrade Ratnasiri, the secretary of the Local, abusing his authority

Comrade Ratnasiri, claiming that comrade Amaratunga has left the party, has barred comrade Amaratunga’s participation in the Local meetings since 7th July 2022. Comrade Ratnasiri considers a statement made by comrade Amarathunga protesting the arbitrary suspension of the three comrades Nandana, Sanjaya and Wakkumbura as the reason for this criminal act, which was carried out arbitrarily without any discussion in the Local assembly. What Comrade Amaratunga said was, “If things are being done this way, there is no point in being in this party any longer”.

As reported to the local council, Ratnasiri’s action was approved by the political committee without any inquiry!

The conflict between Amaratunga and Ratnasiri arose out of Ratnasiri’s continuous wrong political practices in the Local. To understand these differences of opinion, let us bring to your attention of 3 incidents.

It is unconstitutional for the Political Committee to suspend Comrade Nandana’s membership while he was a member of the party Central Committee. Comrade Udayprema cited our constitution and raised these issues in the local assembly. Ratnasiri making a phone call to Amaratunga specifically for this purpose said that there is no such paragraph in the constitution. Later at a subsequent discussion of the Local, Ratnasiri had to admit that what he said was a lie. Amaratunga intervened on that occasion condemning this irresponsible act.

Despite the fact that there were many issues that needed to be resolved, the leadership’s attempt to hold the party conference, without allowing for a discussion, in violation of the constitution, led to a controversy in the Ambalangoda Local committee. 

Ratnasiri said that the constitution is not decisive. To confirm this, he lied that Lenin did not implement the April thesis following a decision in a congress. He further argued that the October Revolution would not have happened if conferences had to be held like that. We pointed out that the above thesis was presented to the Bolshevik Central Committee on 6th April, 1917 and to the Party Congress on April 10 and was adopted by the Congress, but Ratnasiri continued to defend his incorrect position.

Three members, including Comrade Nandana, requested that the Local commitee, which was to be held on 15 th June, be convened on another day as they were not in a position to attend. Despite this , secretary Ratnasiri assembled the Local commitee without the relevant comrades and proceeded to pass a resolution to suspend Comrade Nandana. Condemning this anti-democratic act, Comrade Amaratunga insisted that he is against holding this vote and therefore will not participate in it. Later, he informed the political committee that the Ratnasiri’s resolution was approved by a majority vote and that Amaratunga was neutral and the political committee implemented that decision. Amaratunga was not neutral, but was opposed to holding the vote.

Amaratunga, like many other comrades, was confused by this provocation which the party leadership consciously implemented. Amaratunga suggested to the committee to take steps for political clarity in order to correct these mistakes. Under these circumstances only, came Amaratunga’s remarks that he could no longer continue under this leadership. But Ratnasiri took this as an opportunity to advance the current situation in which actions are being taken to hunt down the party members who do not support anti-democratic, anti-tradition and anti-theoretical actions.

Through the intervention of Udayaprema and Geetha in the local committee, a consensus was reached that the problem should be resolved by discussing with Amaratunga.

Accordingly, Udayaprema was assigned to meet Amaratunga. Amaratunga told Udaya that there is no solution (politically speaking) other than the party; and that he is waiting for the date of the local committee meeting to be announced. It was reported to the local assembly, but Ratnasiri did not agree to invite him. He said that Amaratunga should make a written request to join the party as a new member. Ratnasiri rejected that Amaratunga did not leave the party.

Our party had a tradition of trying to solve problems such as this by sending a representative of the political committee to participate in the local committee. Such practices have been abandoned since many years. Now this is another example of uprooting the traditions and accepted practices needed for gaining political clarity. An important fact here is that the leadership worked to sweep away like dust a worker with a continuous history of 46 years in the party. When Amaratunga was working as a miner, he came forward to oppose the betrayal by the LSSP trade union and, the union leadership and the employers conspired together to sack him. He lost his job. He turned to RCL with this experience. The party has now given him the same treatment as the leaders of that trade union. He was greatly shocked and it affected his health. If not for our intervention and explanations made at the request of his family members, even his life would have been endangered.

He fought tirelessly against the 30-year war and against the JVP’s tyranny. He is a much respected and loved fighter in the area as well as within the party. He has a record of being true to the International Committee and the Party at all times. Since 1989, he has been suffering from a severe heart disease and he did not consider this condition as an obstacle to any of party work. Neighbors regard him as a leader because of the life he spent as a man who does not bow down to backwardness and always standing by principles.

When in 1978 Basil Fernando and Siriwardena rejected party perspectives outright, the RCL discussed with them for 6 months and tried to get political clarity. Such actions were

based on the decisive lessons of the struggle that Trotsky and Cannon had with Burnham Shatman group. When we raised these issues, Ratnasiri denounced this historical experience as mistakes made during the time of Healy. These statements, and the dismissal, shows the petty bourgeoise disregard for the history of the movement. This fact has been confirmed by the way in which the comrades Nandana, Sanjaya and Vakkambura have been treated as well as Amaratunga. What is important is to develop the party and thereby intensify the class struggle by raising the issues regarding perspectives and programme and clarifying them. Instead of that, such behaviors open the doors of the party to petty bourgeoise opportunism. We insist that it is necessary to realize this without delay.

In the first local meeting after 3rd Party conference (on 25.5.2022), Comrade Ratnasiri tried to appoint office bearers, keeping Comrades Nandana, Geetha and Udayaprema away. This has been informed to you by Comrade Nandana in his letter dated 29.5.2022, but you have chosen to ignore it.

Comrade Ratnasiri had informed the above comrades that the meeting would be started at 7.30 PM and, started it at 7 PM informing only the other members of the branch. After that, officials were appointed before the political discussion with an anti-traditional haste. Comrade Nandana’s opposition in this regard was introduced as sabotage. Comrade Amaratunga and the above three comrades left the meeting opposing the suppression of discussion and threatening of the local leadership. 

We warn that it is extremely dangerous for the leadership to continue to disregard the old traditions and constitution of the party in the current intense class struggle, and to expel the comrades who have been members of the party for a long time without any discussion  is opening the door to the reaction.

Comrade Missaka, who was a member of the Central Committee until he left the party, and a young Comrade Hirun, who demanded a discussion about the arbitrary actions of the party leadership have left the party, because even the 3rd Party Congress last year too defended these actions. Even though they have made written submissions to the leadership, no discussion whatsoever had been held within the party regarding them up to this date.

Dismissal of political, theoretical and organizational issues emerging within the acute situation of the contemporary class struggle, without any assessment or clarification is a clear indication that the party is being driven by pragmatism. For this reason, we understand that, it is required to have a genuine democratic discussion on the problems that have arisen regarding the comrades who have been kept away from the party including Amaratunga, which would be an essential requirement in order to understand the tasks of the party at a higher level and to create the necessary organizational preparations in implementing them. For that, we propose all four comrades mentioned here should be reinstated as members immediately.

We suggest that this letter should be shared among the party membership and a discussion should be commenced. 

Fraternally, 

Udayaprema, Geeta 

Local Council, Ambalangoda. 

16.11.2022

In defence of SEP: Countering the purge of Comrade Amaratunga from Ambalangoda Local Read More »

amarathunga

In defence of SEP: Countering the purge of Comrade Amaratunga from Ambalangoda Local

english, politics /

By L.P. Udayaprema, for SEP-SL Left Faction 

amarathunga
Amaratunga at a SEP May Day demonstration 

The letter posted below was sent on November 16, 2022 by Comrade Udayaprema of the Ambalangoda branch of the Sri Lanka Socialist Equality Party (SEP) to its General Secretary Deepal Jayasekara to defend the party from the anti-democratic and conspiratorial activities of the party leadership.  Such efforts by the members were frowned upon by the party bureaucracy and led to the party leadership’s disastrous decision that there was no other option but to expel a large number of comrades.  It should be noted that the first time even the party members were reading this letter was when this was published originally in Sinhala language here on August 7, 2023.  Dozens of letters sent by the SEP-SL left faction to the party leadership were thrown into the dustbin without any discussion within the membership.

***

Comrade Jayasekara,

Regarding the expulsion of Comrade Amaratunga of the Ambalangoda Local Council by Comrade Ratnasiri, the secretary of the Local, abusing his authority

Comrade Ratnasiri, claiming that comrade Amaratunga has left the party, has barred comrade Amaratunga’s participation in the Local meetings since 7th July 2022. Comrade Ratnasiri considers a statement made by comrade Amarathunga protesting the arbitrary suspension of the three comrades Nandana, Sanjaya and Wakkumbura as the reason for this criminal act, which was carried out arbitrarily without any discussion in the Local assembly. What Comrade Amaratunga said was, “If things are being done this way, there is no point in being in this party any longer”.

As reported to the local council, Ratnasiri’s action was approved by the political committee without any inquiry!

The conflict between Amaratunga and Ratnasiri arose out of Ratnasiri’s continuous wrong political practices in the Local. To understand these differences of opinion, let us bring to your attention of 3 incidents.

It is unconstitutional for the Political Committee to suspend Comrade Nandana’s membership while he was a member of the party Central Committee. Comrade Udayprema cited our constitution and raised these issues in the local assembly. Ratnasiri making a phone call to Amaratunga specifically for this purpose said that there is no such paragraph in the constitution. Later at a subsequent discussion of the Local, Ratnasiri had to admit that what he said was a lie. Amaratunga intervened on that occasion condemning this irresponsible act.

Despite the fact that there were many issues that needed to be resolved, the leadership’s attempt to hold the party conference, without allowing for a discussion, in violation of the constitution, led to a controversy in the Ambalangoda Local committee. 

Ratnasiri said that the constitution is not decisive. To confirm this, he lied that Lenin did not implement the April thesis following a decision in a congress. He further argued that the October Revolution would not have happened if conferences had to be held like that. We pointed out that the above thesis was presented to the Bolshevik Central Committee on 6th April, 1917 and to the Party Congress on April 10 and was adopted by the Congress, but Ratnasiri continued to defend his incorrect position.

Three members, including Comrade Nandana, requested that the Local commitee, which was to be held on 15 th June, be convened on another day as they were not in a position to attend. Despite this , secretary Ratnasiri assembled the Local commitee without the relevant comrades and proceeded to pass a resolution to suspend Comrade Nandana. Condemning this anti-democratic act, Comrade Amaratunga insisted that he is against holding this vote and therefore will not participate in it. Later, he informed the political committee that the Ratnasiri’s resolution was approved by a majority vote and that Amaratunga was neutral and the political committee implemented that decision. Amaratunga was not neutral, but was opposed to holding the vote.

Amaratunga, like many other comrades, was confused by this provocation which the party leadership consciously implemented. Amaratunga suggested to the committee to take steps for political clarity in order to correct these mistakes. Under these circumstances only, came Amaratunga’s remarks that he could no longer continue under this leadership. But Ratnasiri took this as an opportunity to advance the current situation in which actions are being taken to hunt down the party members who do not support anti-democratic, anti-tradition and anti-theoretical actions.

Through the intervention of Udayaprema and Geetha in the local committee, a consensus was reached that the problem should be resolved by discussing with Amaratunga.

Accordingly, Udayaprema was assigned to meet Amaratunga. Amaratunga told Udaya that there is no solution (politically speaking) other than the party; and that he is waiting for the date of the local committee meeting to be announced. It was reported to the local assembly, but Ratnasiri did not agree to invite him. He said that Amaratunga should make a written request to join the party as a new member. Ratnasiri rejected that Amaratunga did not leave the party.

Our party had a tradition of trying to solve problems such as this by sending a representative of the political committee to participate in the local committee. Such practices have been abandoned since many years. Now this is another example of uprooting the traditions and accepted practices needed for gaining political clarity. An important fact here is that the leadership worked to sweep away like dust a worker with a continuous history of 46 years in the party. When Amaratunga was working as a miner, he came forward to oppose the betrayal by the LSSP trade union and, the union leadership and the employers conspired together to sack him. He lost his job. He turned to RCL with this experience. The party has now given him the same treatment as the leaders of that trade union. He was greatly shocked and it affected his health. If not for our intervention and explanations made at the request of his family members, even his life would have been endangered.

He fought tirelessly against the 30-year war and against the JVP’s tyranny. He is a much respected and loved fighter in the area as well as within the party. He has a record of being true to the International Committee and the Party at all times. Since 1989, he has been suffering from a severe heart disease and he did not consider this condition as an obstacle to any of party work. Neighbors regard him as a leader because of the life he spent as a man who does not bow down to backwardness and always standing by principles.

When in 1978 Basil Fernando and Siriwardena rejected party perspectives outright, the RCL discussed with them for 6 months and tried to get political clarity. Such actions were

based on the decisive lessons of the struggle that Trotsky and Cannon had with Burnham Shatman group. When we raised these issues, Ratnasiri denounced this historical experience as mistakes made during the time of Healy. These statements, and the dismissal, shows the petty bourgeoise disregard for the history of the movement. This fact has been confirmed by the way in which the comrades Nandana, Sanjaya and Vakkambura have been treated as well as Amaratunga. What is important is to develop the party and thereby intensify the class struggle by raising the issues regarding perspectives and programme and clarifying them. Instead of that, such behaviors open the doors of the party to petty bourgeoise opportunism. We insist that it is necessary to realize this without delay.

In the first local meeting after 3rd Party conference (on 25.5.2022), Comrade Ratnasiri tried to appoint office bearers, keeping Comrades Nandana, Geetha and Udayaprema away. This has been informed to you by Comrade Nandana in his letter dated 29.5.2022, but you have chosen to ignore it.

Comrade Ratnasiri had informed the above comrades that the meeting would be started at 7.30 PM and, started it at 7 PM informing only the other members of the branch. After that, officials were appointed before the political discussion with an anti-traditional haste. Comrade Nandana’s opposition in this regard was introduced as sabotage. Comrade Amaratunga and the above three comrades left the meeting opposing the suppression of discussion and threatening of the local leadership. 

We warn that it is extremely dangerous for the leadership to continue to disregard the old traditions and constitution of the party in the current intense class struggle, and to expel the comrades who have been members of the party for a long time without any discussion  is opening the door to the reaction.

Comrade Missaka, who was a member of the Central Committee until he left the party, and a young Comrade Hirun, who demanded a discussion about the arbitrary actions of the party leadership have left the party, because even the 3rd Party Congress last year too defended these actions. Even though they have made written submissions to the leadership, no discussion whatsoever had been held within the party regarding them up to this date.

Dismissal of political, theoretical and organizational issues emerging within the acute situation of the contemporary class struggle, without any assessment or clarification is a clear indication that the party is being driven by pragmatism. For this reason, we understand that, it is required to have a genuine democratic discussion on the problems that have arisen regarding the comrades who have been kept away from the party including Amaratunga, which would be an essential requirement in order to understand the tasks of the party at a higher level and to create the necessary organizational preparations in implementing them. For that, we propose all four comrades mentioned here should be reinstated as members immediately.

We suggest that this letter should be shared among the party membership and a discussion should be commenced. 

Fraternally, 

Udayaprema, Geeta 

Local Council, Ambalangoda. 

16.11.2022

In defence of SEP: Countering the purge of Comrade Amaratunga from Ambalangoda Local Read More »

PURGE

Sri Lanka Socialist Equality Party regime expels seven more members from the Party

english, politics /

Statement of the SEP-SL Left Faction

PURGE
Stalin’s Great Purge 1936-38

Extending their bureaucratic policy of “purge”, the leadership of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), Sri Lanka has announced the expulsion of 07 more members from the Party. The respective members have been informed through a letter that states that the Central Committee which met on August, 2 2023 has taken the decision for the expulsions, due to their “continued indiscipline, while repudiating the recommendations of the Political Committee.”  

The Political Committee of the Party is claiming that the members have violated the PC recommendation to abstain from continuing any relations with Sanjaya Jayasekara and Nandana Nanneththi who had been Expelled from the party earlier; and to refrain from supporting the Colombo Action Committee (CAC) – the Colombo based action committee which unanimously adopted the July 20, 2022 resolution of the SEP, during its inauguration meeting held on September 11, 2022. Sanjaya was expelled for publicly representing the revolutionary perspective of the SEP in ‘Gota-go-gama’ (Galle face Greens protest site) during the mass uprising last year, and for establishing CAC and sharing its facebook posts. Nandana was subjected to a systematic and provocative mudslinging campaign amongst members of the party on various bogus charges. When the repeated requests for a discussion was denied and Nandana started responding through his facebook page (while his membership was under suspension, depriving him to defend himself in branch meetings), he was charged with violating the party discipline. Their responses to the charges levelled against them were never taken up for discussion among the members, nor any disciplinary inquiry was ever held. The party leadership has not explained to the membership the political reasons for the expulsion of these two leading members, except for publishing three documents in Sinhalese, which are full of nothing but subjective allegations without political substance, demonstrative of its nationalist orientation on the issues.  The party leadership has also, so far, failed to give any political reason as to why they are hostile to the CAC. 

Following are the seven party  members victimized on the latest round:

  1. Ivan, Kandy Local –A retired government clerk, a member of Kandy Committee since 1972;
  2. Nihal Geekiyanage, Chilaw Local – a member since July 1980 and former Central Committee member; 
  3. Ratne alias Punyawardena, Chilaw Local – worker in fisheries sector, a member since 1990;
  4. Wijesinghe, Chilaw Local – health sector employee, a member since 2008; 
  5. Karunasena, Rathmalana Local – Factory level Union activist in early 1980s, who actively participated in forming an action committee under the guidance of Revolutionary Communist League (RCL) during the Rowlands Factory strike – a member since 1982;
  6. Udayaprema, Ambalangoda Local – Cartoonist, a member since 1988 and former Central Committee member;
  7. Geetha, Ambalangoda Local – a member since 1990, a full-time party activist in ’90s, campaigning among workers in the Free Trade Zone, Katunayake. 

Under circumstances in which nothing was politically explained, never given any opportunity to have a discussion to clarify issues, and contravening the party constitution by not allowing them to prove their innocence at a disciplinary enquiry, these comrades took a principled stance in refusing to submit to these edicts presented in a dictatorial manner. 

The SEP’s third national congress, held from May 14-16, 2022, was a congress almost exclusively prepared to carry out these expulsions, and directed through covert machinations. Earlier It was attempted to be held in March 2022, giving only a few days’ notice to the members, such that the membership would have no chance to prepare for the congress. The purpose of this plan was to avoid all discussion about the political, theoretical and organizational retreats of the party and anti-democratic tendency taking shape in the party. However, following the intervention of the International Committee (ICFI) upon being informed of this attempt by the members of the left faction of the party, the effort was defeated.

Although the purpose of postponement was to allow necessary time for pre-Congress discussions, the actual mannar the things took place was disgraceful. The documents forwarded by members for the pre-Congress discussions were not distributed among the membership. Even in the limited cases where some discussions were held, the party regime acted to suppress the opposing views and eliminated every possibility of a deep going discussion on the issues. The Congress was held online due to the COVID-19 epidemic situation and the regime used the situation to its advantage even to the extent of rigging the vote. Some members were denied the right to vote. Members who fought for principles were forced to leave the party or to become inactive. For example, comrade William of the Bulathsinhala Local, who is a long-time member of the party, was assigned to the Bandarawela Local, a locality more than 100 miles away from his home or work place. Comrade William had no connection with this area and there was no reason what-so-ever for this decision, which was taken purely at the discretion of the leadership. Considering the extensive travel time under the prevailing poor transport facilities and costs in Sri Lanka, this decision – which added to the party leadership’s ban on so-called ‘cross-connections’ (banning the members of different locals discussing with each other) – was nothing but forcing him to be inactive in party politics. The only logical reason one can derive on this decision is that it was because he dared to question the leadership based on his long experience in the party. Principled members who opposed the regime’s anti-Bolshevik actions were removed from the leadership and replaced by backward and economically well-to-do petty-bourgeois individuals, such as businessmen.

Two members, who were very much frustrated by these events, left the party ranks within two weeks following the Congress. They claimed that, as their all efforts to clarify the situation were not allowed, they would have no further relationship with the party. They had submitted written statements to Vilani Peiris who was the secretary of the Colombo Fort Local and to the Political Committee, with supporting evidence on the issues they raised. One of these two members was Missaka, who was a member of the Central Committee until the Third Congress. 

When the Ambalangoda Local Committee met for the first time after the Congress, the local secretary and political committee member, Ratnasiri Malalagama acted in contravention of the long-standing tradition of conducting a political discussion and assessment of the Congress. When Nandana Nanneththi opposed this practice and requested a review discussion about the Congress, the newly appointed General Secretary, Deepal Jayasekara decided to ban Nandana Nanneththi’s membership. Comrade Amartunga, a member of Ambalangoda Local and an active member since 1976 – a mining worker who joined the party having fought against the bureaucratic witch-hunt by trade union leaderships – was de facto expelled for his opposing views on the expulsion of comrade Nandana. 

On November 19, 2022, comrades Nandana and Sanjaya were permanently expelled from the party membership. Afterwards, comrade Migara of the Kolonnawa local committee was expelled for opposing this move. Comrade Sunil of Ratmalana Committee, who had been with the party since the ’70s, too had to face the similar fate. Thus, within a period of little more than one year after the Congress, the regime led by the new General Secretary, Jayasekara has ‘purged’ (the word historically closely associated with bureaucracies, is often used by SEP leadership to mean to administratively suppress dissenting views) twelve members from the Party. Thereby, the party leadership may justly lay claim to a special infamous record in the history of the Fourth International! The list of defectors runs longer than that. More members, although not having expressed any opposing view prior to or during the Congress have left since the third Congress, proffering various reasons for leaving; or, there are others who ran away without as much as a word. Among those who left after the 2022 Congress are Dhanapala (a member since the early days of RCL) and Niluka from the Kandy Local, Mahesh from Chilaw Local, and Sathish Kumar from Ratmalana Local. Several Dozen left the party between the last two Congresses. The Avissawella local committee was disbanded. The irresponsible response from the leadership to those who questioned this serious erosion and its political implications was, “they come and they go… there is nothing to discuss about it”.

Significantly, the Party has also lost another Political Committee Member, Prageeth Aravinda, who decided to leave the party, yearly this year. Aravinda was re-appointed to the Central Committee at the Third Congress, and was a member of the Sri Lanka Editorial Board of WSWS. He was employed by the unclean hands of the party bureaucracy to destroy the Action Committee for the Defence of Freedom of Art and Expression (ACDAE), which had been operating successfully. When the pertinent issues were raised in the open letters addressed to him by Comrade Nandana on November 19, 2022, and by the committee’s former Chairperson, Comrade Sanjaya on January 30, 2023, he ran away failing to answer them. 

Ananda Wakkumbura, a founding member of the SEP, as well as a leading founding member of its predecessor, the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), had to spend several months under suspension of membership, due to his intervention, with the ICFI Perspective, in the last year’s mass uprising at the Gota-go-gama protest site. Bowing down to the bogus allegations, he was lately able to regain his membership, but is being treated as an invalid coin in the organization, which he devoted his entire life to build. The regime is demanding the Left faction to follow his example.

Generally, a congress is an opportunity, which provides space for a party’s issues to be debated, clarified and finally resolved, thus laying the groundwork for the party to begin work with a renewed vigor as a theoretically, politically and organizationally stronger, unified organization. Although the party developed and published a Perspective under the supervision of the International Committee, the leadership has only treated it as just another formal ‘document’. The Congress concentrated on taking the focus away from its Perspectives through slander and mudslinging. This example alone is sufficient to understand that the party regime pays only lip service to the perspectives, while adopting pragmatism in practice.

In contrast, Comrade David North, Chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), at the beginning of the third Congress, brought ICFI’s greetings for the Congress and assessed it as follows:

“In the present circumstances, the Congress is not an occasion merely for commenting on the events happening outside of it. The party leadership, every delegate, must clearly understand, as I am sure you do, that all the discussions are invested with an immense and immediate political and historical content. Therefore, the fundamental challenge that this Congress confronts is to clearly define the attitude of the Sri Lankan section of the IC to the immense and decisive global events, and, of course, to the developing revolutionary crisis within Sri Lanka. In this sense, the Congress that you are holding has many similarities to the Congress of the Bolshevik Party in April 1917, the first Congress held following the return of Lenin to Russia amid a revolutionary crisis.”

The party regime treated this objective historical assessment as a laurel conferred upon it, and a license from comrade North to do as it pleased for holding a congress similar to the one held by Lenin! Indeed, North’s emphasis was on the historical responsibilities of the party. It was an emphasis on politically preparing to confront the developing world war situation and on the challenge of facing the growing revolutionary crisis in the country itself. Despite this insistence, the regime turned its back on the revolutionary crisis as it escalated and, conspired against and ousted the members who resisted the evasion. The meaning of alienating itself from the genuine mass movement of April-August 2022, the rejection of genuine action committees such as the CAC and maintaining the position that true action committees are only those approved by the party, is that the bureaucracy wants mass struggles to seek its approval, and suppressed, as, being politically and organizationally unprepared, it is unable to face the challenge posed by unprecedented mass struggles. According to the bureaucracy, the independent Action Committees are to be dictated by the programmes of the International Committee and are not viewed as instruments of mobilizing mass movement. 

We assure the working class that the SEP-SL Left Faction, which opposes this anti-Marxist tendency within the party, cannot be silenced and numbed by expulsions and all kinds of witch-hunts. Members of the Left Faction will fight to protect and safeguard the ICFI  programme and its best traditions and, in that regard, will not hesitate to stake their lives.  It will fight any attempt by the Party to derail the Party from those policies. We reject the SEP regime’s claim that the CAC is Identical to the Left Faction and it hides behind it. The Left Faction does not seek shelter in CAC and fights within the working class with a revolutionary perspective. We have successfully fought for the ICFI perspective within the CAC to adopt it and, we carry forward this struggle more intensively within the working class. We, the Left faction, are determined to break all bureaucratic barriers placed between us and the ICFI and fight for the unity of the working class and for the perspective of World Socialist Revolution under the banner of ICFI.  

[A statement with the similar content was published in Sinhala here on August 07, 2023]

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