english

By Nandana Nannetti 

The Socialist Equality Party, Sri Lanka, released three special documents on the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) (Sinhala) last Friday,  06 May 2023. They are about the expulsion of the two comrades who worked in the leadership of the party, Sanjaya Jayasekera and Nandana Nannetti.

Among those articles, one is under the caption, “SEP Central Committee Resolution on the anti-Party Activities of Nandana Nannetti and Sanjay Jayasekera” and  another document by SEP General Secretary, Deepal Jayasekara  is captioned, ‘Letter to SEP members regarding the expulsion of Nandana Nannetti and Sanjaya Jayasekera’.  I am forwarding to publish herewith,  the letter that I sent to the party leadership in early January 2023, clarifying the issues arising from the above-mentioned Central Committee resolution, passed in November 2022, and exposing the true nature of the allegations therein. This reply of mine  was concealed from the membership by the party regime.

We are publishing this letter of reply in order  to expose the cheap scheming behavior of the party bureaucracy and to open the space for the necessary discussion to reverse these negative developments.

The regime’s suggestion that what has arisen is a disciplinary issue is an attempt to divert the cadre and the working class from the essential task of political preparation. In fact, on the contrary, there were prologed political differences between the party regime and the Left faction.

Chief among them are as follows:

1. Rejection of the left group’s request for a political assessment about party cadres  deserting the party even under the most favorable conditions within the class struggle.
2. Not taking forward the struggle to solve the problems related to the growing disregard for principles, anti-intellectualism, backwardness, theoretical and political poverty in the articles of the Sinhala section of the World Socialist Web Site and pragmatism.

Examples:

• Aligning the party with the Rajapaksa government’s reactionary racist campaign, disregarding the SEP left faction’s opposition to the forced cremation of bodies of Muslim victims of Covid-19.
• Derailment from issues of principle and revolutionary tradition: For example, the regime subverted the political position proposed by the Left faction that the party should oppose the persecution of Ranjan Ramanayake (the whistleblower and then a  Member of parliament from the United National Party) by the government supported by the Buddhist establishment, stating that such a stance is  pandering to the middle classes. 

3. The leadership’s  role in confusing  the perspective of the International Committee that the self-determination of the oppressed nations could only be achieved under the dictatorship of the working class, and the far-reaching cosequence of these distortions to the unity of the woring class across ethnic divisions. 
4.  The leadership’s position that the party or the class was not ready for a political general strike during the teachers’ struggle.
5. Backing off from the campaign, initiated by the international committee, that the schools should not open until the safety of students is assured during the Covid period.
6. Endeavours of the Left faction to base the party on the policy of the International Committee in respect of genuine action committees. Also, the left faction objected to the party deceiving themselves by writing reports about non-existing action  committees, instead of taking a genuine struggle forward within the working class to build action committees; the left faction raised objections when the bureacracy  knowingly worked to disband the once vibrant and genuine action committee, the ‘Action Committee for the Defence of Freedom of Art and Expression’, and for the bureaucracy misusing  its name. 
7. The turn of the bureaucracy, in building the party and developing the website (WSWS) to meet that end, to propagandist substitutes like collecting social media ‘likes’, instead of actively engaging in developing the theoretical and political analysis and persuading the working class into accepting it.
8.  The art sub-committee of the editorial board has been dissolved for many years, thereby preventing the discussions on art criticism and cultural essays by the Sri Lanka section and, thus, negecting  the contributions  by the party in those areas.
9. Suppressing political, theoretical and organizational disagreements in party councils from locale councils and political committee to membership meetings in an authoritarian and bureaucratic manner, contrary to the principles of democratic centralism. Prohibiting party comrades from discussing political and organizational issues between party regional locales. The opposition of the left faction to the party’s submission to the needs of an undemocratic bureaucracy which ignores the party’s constitution and traditions.
10. Rejection by the Left faction of the leadership’s tendency to ally itself with the pseudo-left on several occasions.
11. The left faction’s  opposition and  taking actions against the party bureacrcay’s sectarian and destructive practice  in making room for the middle class and the pseudo-left to take over the command of the mass struggles, without actively intervening in giving a revolutionary socialist leadership to the massive workers’ and popular struggles that arose in Sri Lanka in 2022, as a peak in the phenomenon of the resurgence of the class struggles globally.

Our faction is ready to discuss the political content of these issues in detail in the future.

Therefore, we believe that the document that follows contains important lessons for the workers and the oppressed. This is because the entire working class is faced with the critical historical challenge of solving the crisis of the revolutionary leadership of the world working class, especially that of  Sri Lanka and South Asia.

***

Dear Comrade Jayasekara,

Regarding your letter dated November 19, 2022 informing that I have been expelled from the party.

The party leadership has taken a decision which is politically and morally unacceptable, which ignores the principles of the Fourth International and the constitution of the party itself. I express my objection regarding this decision and, demand for taking steps to correct it.

You have accused me of openly violating the Bolshevik principles upon which the party is based and stated that I have been expelled accordingly. As stated in your letter, “..political theoretical or organizational differences should be discussed only within the party.” Can you say that you, who is hurling this accusation at me, was the one who is responsible for preventing such a discussion? The leadership did not allow a discussion. My letters were not discussed. There were no replies to them. No. The PC said that it was a shame to discuss them. In the last CC that I participated in, I requested to schedule a discussion on this and requested that I should be given 45 minutes to forward my opinion. No one except Comrade Sanjaya approved it. To answer a mountain of accusations, I was given only the 5 minutes time which was given to all the others. You introduced it to the membership as democracy. Earlier, the International Committee intervened and adjourned the conference, but the leadership deliberately prevented the development of a discussion. Only a single membership meeting was held during the 3 months. It too was filled with distortions, insults and slander.

The letters I wrote were concealed from the membership and, certain facts in those letters were misrepresented to try and mislead the members. finally, you banned my membership on June 18, 2022 in a very conspiratorial manner. After squandering five months without any investigation or discussion, I was expelled from the party. This is a result of a conspiracy.

I informed you, when the conspiracy was launched in Ambalangoda Local. Refer the letter I sent you on May 19, 2022. Instead of looking into it and solving the problem, you implemented a plan to ban my membership. On June 18, my membership was suspended because I stated that machinations were used in the 3rd Congress and in its preparation. All I asked for was a discussion.

You have completely ignored the struggle that Sanjay, myself and other members waged unceasingly demanding in writing and verbally for a discussion. You consciously worked to isolate us by spreading among the members that we are not ready for a discussion.

Therefore, your allegation that I have publicly criticized the comrades in the party leadership ignoring the Bolshevik tradition of discussing internal issues, is extremely fraudulent and hypocritical. You cite as an example the defensive measures I took against the attempts of comrades Marlon and Rohantha to implicate Sanjay and me with the CIA. But you have nothing to say about making those implications. No inquiry was held. You are now trying to defend this sinister act.

The “News Atlas” had argued that Gotagogama activist Chamara Jeevantha Dedduwage, who had worked as a volunteer at PAFFREL between 2009-2020, and had CIA connections because of his service to the above organization. So the “News Atlas” argued that, the Gotagogama was an American regime change scheme. Dedduwage was a Sanjay’s FB friend. Marlon distributed the relevant video to the local members through WhatsApp and used it to spread the predatory propaganda that Sanjay had CIA connections. Sanjay put a stop to this effort with a very clear analysis on 17th July 2022 on this video.

However later, Rohantha spread these allegations against both Sanjaya and myself. I had no space to answer, not just because of the party ban, but also because that I was convinced by experience that these actions would be approved by the party leadership. For example, in the 3rd Congress, Rohantha made an absurd and conspiratorial statement, that I was chasing away those who are joining the party, accusing them of being police spies. This absurd conspiratorial statement against me was defended by the leadership by its silence.

So, the FB was the only alternative available to me to explain matters to party members and workers to protect myself from this dangerous witch hunt. Now you continue the witch hunt from the other side. You say that Nandana has made false accusations against these comrades and exposed them and the party to a witch hunt. I wrote that people who do such things can even kill me. Now you are distorting that statement too and making it seem like I am exposing the party to a witch hunt.

However, comrade Jayasekera, truth cannot be concealed forever. Especially under the present conditions of the class struggle, if the party leadership is not prepared to be corrected, it is unavoidable that the truth will stand up against it. But this is what you are saying: “We will destroy you in every way, you must allow it. That is what discipline is.” For the working class, discipline is the understanding gained through genuine democratic discussion to act on the perspectives needed to liberate itself from capitalism. It is the way to open space for that.

You don’t accept this. When allowed to speak (only 5 minutes! We asked for time to explain things!) you angrily say that you are talking about a democracy instead of the issue. That’s what you say to the members, but you don’t see the damage the lack of democratic discussion has done to the party. 

Your letter further says that I condemned the party for publishing the statements made by party comrades on the World Socialist Web Site, as statements made by workers. Are you saying that I should approve your actions when you are presenting a Central Committee member of the party as an ordinary plantation worker, or when you are posting a photograph of hundreds of workers of another organization introducing it as a photograph of the Health Action Committee, to deceive the World Socialist Web Site, the Party and society and risk tarnishing the reputation of the WSWS and the movement? How many reports have you written to WSWS about action committees which have never been in existence on the earth? Should the damage to the site be tolerated? Can you explain the role of these actions in the development of the class consciousness of the working class? 

Do you think that, instead of struggling to win over the workers, what you are doing in your search for unprincipled survival strategies, foreign to Marxism and the International committee is justifiable?

I can clearly say that these disregards were behind the party’s passive policy during the days of the struggle that emerged from April, were flowing from ignorance of the policies that the ICFI has called forth for the fifth phase. This needs to be discussed. According to you, such a discussion is possible in the party only under one condition. That is to justify whatever the leadership is doing or not doing. There is no room to discuss these issues based on the policy of the International Committee. You do not present a single political reason for the expulsion of Sanjay and me. That is, behind our expulsion is the need to avoid discussion of political issues needed to achieve objectives. 

You say that the expulsion was done purely on disciplinary issues. From what political issues, are these disciplinary issues have erupted? 

We are the revolutionary political party of the working class. A person who accepts that the profound problems arising in such a party are divorced from politics, is a very poor revolutionary. It is necessary to discuss and resolve these issues in a very fraternal and genuine manner. Avoiding such discussions is the easiest and most destructive path. Therefore, I suggest a proper investigation and a full discussion with the assistance of the ICFI representatives. I am ready to explain these issues in depth to the international committee. Besides, I request you to not to assume that you will be able to avoid these issues by keeping me out of the party. Allow me to state that even if I am kept out of the party, I will use all my strength to uphold the perspectives of the international committee.

You have said that “According to the International Committee, we have entered a period of uprising and that the 4-month long struggle from April was betrayed by the pseudo-left.”

You worked to stay away from it right from the beginning of the ‘struggle’. Despite the intervention of the International Committee, the leadership continued to respond in a tepid manner. As you did not believe that such a struggle could arise, you did petty work without any preparation or discussion. Now you refer to them as a Great Interventions.

The party now says the ‘Struggle’ was betrayed by the pseudo-Left. What did it gain from it? And, is it enough? Is it the maximum or the minimum? What should have been done? What needs to be improved and corrected? What was missing? You do not have an assessment and, this dismissal is a proof that you are not ready to have this essential discussion.

In the events of 2012, comrade Dave said that if there were as many cadres as in Sri Lanka, the situation would have changed. Events similar to the events in Egypt unfolded here as well. Comrade Dave mentioned that our Congress is similar to the Bolshevik Congress of 1917 in the same sense. You took the meaning of it as to mean that, ‘we had worked like Lenin’s Bolshevik Party, and received a certificate for that from North’. But you have saved only a trifle of a lesson like, “we worked, but the pseudo left betrayed “.

If we had not intervened and formed the Colombo Action Committee, I firmly say that the party would not have a powerful example of the practical validity of the perspectives compiled through the intervention of the International Committee. 

SEP presented an important perspective and programme under the direction of the International Committee. However, We missed the opportunity to intervene in Gotagogama and discuss these perspectives with hundreds of thousand people by maintaining the position that we are not intervening without our party name. It is not through a miracle that Sanjaya got the opportunity through a small left-wing group that expected the party’s intervention to the ‘Aragalaya’ (struggle )- as the mobilization was popularly known- for a discussion and we were able to win a group from them soon. It was a result of the principled struggle that the party has been leading for a long time. We won them over by intervening in the ‘Aragalaya’ for the perspectives developed by the party. Some of the comrades among them had known the party for decades and had come across its literature.

As Sanjay and Nandana represent “an expression of hostile class pressure exerting on the party that has percolated through middle class sections to divert the party away from the struggle to build revolutionary leadership of the working class and for weakening the party”, in your letter, you are calling for a ferocious fight against it. This is an unexplained provocative statement. You have not given thought as to how this fight will be fought by expelling both of them from the party without any discussion or disciplinary investigation. The party should be freed from this policy which misleads the membership and thereby weakens the party. You continue to distort the party constitution in a very dangerous way. It confuses the membership and jeopardizes the future of the party. At times you completely ignore the constitution and at other times use it in a way to mean what you want when you feel it is in your favor.

Quoting paragraph (b) of the section 10 of the party constitution, your letter says that it includes, “..if a member has violated the decisions of a ..board of which he is a member, or has acted in a manner that can be considered harmful to the interests of the SEP and the working class… censuring and suspension for a period not exceeding three months or expulsion from the membership”. I accept this.

However, according to paragraph (d), a disciplinary investigation must be conducted and the member must be informed in writing that an investigation will be conducted. A member has the right to appear before the board to defend himself against all charges before the disciplinary decision is made. You have put all this in the rubbish bin and have concealed this passage from the members. Thus, I say that you are violating the provisions of the constitution regarding the protection of the interests of the party and the working class. A cadre trained in this way would not understand the tasks of the party. Not only the membership but also the working class have the right to know from which political interests you are resorting to such scams.

I would like to end this letter with a warning given by Comrade Dave to the Political Committee of the Sri Lankan section on 8th March, 1990.

“If we examine the problems of the Revolutionary Communist League, it will become clear that the dangers we have identified within the party’s recent experiences generally arise from the failure to base itself firmly on the experience of the national and international movement, including its own party.

“You develop practice without examining their relationship to the overall prior experience of the movement. To the extent that the RCL fails to take root within these historical experiences, it is being driven away from the International Committee by class pressure. We are by no means saying that this is an irreversible continuum or a dominant feature of RCL work.”

“But, as Trotsky said 50 years ago, shortly before his death, ‘Every scratch has the potential to fester. If we don’t disinfect the wound early, there is a danger of festering and spreading and even death. If we think that the party is 98 percent correct and only 2 percent is wrong, it is a mistake. … “…for the Marxist, in so far as his policy conforms to the profound historical continuities by constantly seeking to influence the course of objective historical development, these efforts can achieve considerable success.” (Chronology) 

Fraternally, 

Nandana Nannetti. 

13.01.2023

Months after the politurbo of Socialist Equality Party (SEP) Sri Lanka expelled Comrades Nandana Nanneththi and Sanjaya Jayasekera from the Party, the Party leadership has, on 06 May 2023, released, along with the statement posted below, two other documents in this regard, to the Sinhala section of the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS).

We request all workers, all those who are sympathetic to the Party and the International Committee and have progressive interests,  to read these documents carefully.

After ‘purging’ these comrades undemocratically and against the principles, the Party bureaucratic regime took every effort to wipe them and the left faction within the Party out from the galaxy of revolutionary internationalist politics. Upon the failure of all such efforts, these desperate steps taken by the leadership in an unhinged manner create an open platform for the defense of Trotskyist principles against the party bureaucracy, which is intensifying the crisis of revolutionary leadership in the working class.

Hence, we are certain that the discussion that starts with this would be very crucial in the development of the class struggle today.

The SEP leadership’s statement only mentions the expulsions of comrades Nandana and Sanjaya. But, it fails to mention that, subsequently, the bureaucracy removed comrade Sunil from Ratmalana, expelled Comrade Migara from Kolonnawa, and dropped Comrade Amaratunga from Ambalangoda Locales. The membership of Comrade Ananda Wakkambura, who participated in the decisive Gotagogama lecture mentioned in the statement, was suspended for the same reason. Earlier, comrade Dimuthu from Gampaha was sacked. Comrade William, who is amongst the most experienced members of the Party, was referred to the local Council of Bandarawela, about 300 km from his residence in Bulathsinhala, in order to isolate him from the Party activities. Furthermore, a number of other comrades from the left faction, which includes comrades Sanjaya and Nandana, are under the threat of expulsion from the Party.

About 20 comrades either left or were expelled during the proximate period before and after the last congress of the Party. This number is a huge percentage for a cadre-based Party. The Party bureaucracy has not made any political evaluation of these developments within the Party, under the conditions in which the workers and youth of Sri Lanka are gaining a revolutionary potential in the midst of the massive resurgence of the class struggle on a global scale.

The Party congresses in 2015 and 2022, which were called suppressing democratic discussion and disregarding the constitution, were postponed for a few months, amid the concerns raised by the members of the left faction, and, due to the intervention of the International Committee (ICFI), who advised that the political issues be resolved through political discussion within the Party. The Party bureaucracy turned their back on this advice. Having done so, there is no legitimacy in their uttering gibberish against Nandana/Sanjaya for violating the democratic centralism of the Party.

The bureaucracy has been careful not to utter a word about the long political struggle these two comrades and the left faction had with the Party bureaucracy, within different Party forums, on various political issues. The bureaucracy worked to distort the meaning of the documents submitted by those comrades and, not bothered to, at least present them to the Party members.

This letter itself, bearing witness to the descent into highly subjective personal vilifications, shows that this bureaucracy is appealing to the backward layers that the party has attracted. This is demonstrating the danger of the Party bureaucracy pushing the movement away from the Party’s working-class base towards reaction and nationalism.

The baseless accusations made for the first time in this article against Comrade Sanjaya’s career are shocking. Does this not nauseatingly expose the mentality which unconsciously led the middle-class stratum of the Party bureaucracy in their  relationship with this comrade?

They should explain what kind of international Marxist discipline it is to publish these subjective and nationalist statements in the Sinhala section of WSWS, without any recourse or even a notification to the International Committee.

Exposing these actions of the Party’s unprincipled bureaucracy, we will continue with the discussion in respect of these published articles, and about the struggle led by the left faction of the Party, along with the relevant documents. This short note is a prelude to it.

Our translation of the SEP statement released in Sihalese is published below:

Statement of the Socialist Equality Party of Sri Lanka on the expulsion of Nandana Nanneththi and Sanjaya Jayasekera

Socialist Equality Party – Sri Lanka

06 May 2023

On 12 November 2022, the Sri Lankan branch of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), expelled Nandana Nanneththi and Sanjaya Jayasekera from the party on specific justifiable grounds.

The resolution for their expulsion, passed unanimously at a meeting of the party’s central committee, detailed the indisciplined and politically hostile actions of these two individuals. SEP General Secretary Deepal Jayasekara sent a copy of the central committee resolution informing Sanjaya and Nandana in writing about their expulsion.

The expulsion followed a series of calculated violations of party discipline over months.

Since entering the legal profession, Sanjaya believed that he deserved special treatment within the Socialist Equality Party due to his high social status as a lawyer. He was convinced that his law degree would absolve him of all responsibility for upholding party rules. Sanjaya believed that such rules only affect ordinary party members but not lawyers like him.

From the moment he got his law degree, Sanjaya, held himself in high esteem for his own genius and began to behave in a lofty manner, like an overfed peacock with its tail feathers spread in display.

He saw the party as a vehicle for his personal political ambitions. But to his surprise, the SEP was not intimidated by his professional qualifications. The SEP emphasized that the rules applicable to party membership affect Sanjaya as well as other members. In particular, the SEP leadership warned him that Sanjaya had no “right” to organize his own political meetings without the party’s permission.

In the midst of last year’s mass protests against Rajapaksa, Sanjaya decided to hold his own public meeting and speech at the Galle Face grounds  in Colombo. He justified this serious violation of party discipline by stating that the speech was an opportunity “was offered to and arranged for me and only me in my personal capacity and not to the Party”*.

Sanjaya aligned himself with Nandana who had already started publishing public statements on his Facebook page showing his differences with the SEP regarding the party’s programme and perspective on various issues. This practice of Nandana was a violation of party discipline. Nandana refused to retract his public statements despite the SEP leadership clarifying how his views expressed openly on Facebook go against the party’s long-established positions, through internal documents circulated among the party membership.

Taking these anti-party activities to a new high, Nandana published a series of statements on his Facebook page last September, publicly denouncing the party leadership in general and a number of core comrades in particular. Despite the written advice sent to him by the SEP General Secretary asking him to stop such open anti-party activities and to withdraw his public attacks against the party, as per a unanimous decision of the party’s political committee, he continued to make such public criticisms against the party on Facebook  and continued his practice.

In all these anti-party activities, Nandana closely and openly collaborated with Sanjaya, maintaining an unprincipled clique relationship. Nandana also participated in the aforementioned public lecture by  Sanjaya delivered at Galle Face grounds.

With Nandana and Sanjaya refusing to accept party discipline, the SEP Central Committee was left with no option but to terminate their membership. The party decided not to publicize their expulsion, hoping that they would reconsider their increasingly destructive behavior and refusal to abide by party decisions. But, later this hope proved to be in vain.

Instead, Nandana and Sanjaya have stepped up their open anti-party activities. Treacherously exploiting the SEP’s reluctance to publicly denounce them, they have attempted to create confusion among SEP supporters by presenting themselves to the public as representatives and spokespersons of the International Committee.

The so-called Colombo Action Committee (CAC), which was formed under their initiative, is being used as a means of attacking the SEP by Nandana and Sanjaya. They also claim that the SEP has diverged  “sectarianly” from the International Committee/SEP’s call for workers to form their own action committees by refusing to cooperate with CAC.

CAC is not a genuine action committee formed by workers and rural poor. It has nothing to do with the SEP’s call for a Democratic and Socialist Congress of Workers and Rural Poor. Through a number of party statements and other articles published on the World Socialist Web Site on Sri Lanka’s political development, the SEP’s call for workers was to form their own action committees in every workplace, factory, farm and neighbourhood, independent of trade unions and capitalist parties. The SEP has also called upon the rural poor to form such action committees in their areas.

In contrast, CAC is a collection of individuals, including some political activists, drawn from different parts of the island. Nandana and Sanjaya are using CAC as a front organization to publicly attack the SEP.

Since their expulsion from the party, Nandana and Sanjaya have used social media to portray themselves as victims of an oppressive party bureaucracy and heroes fighting for personal freedom. Their appeal is aimed at motivating the angry petty-bourgeois and pseudo-leftists who will immediately give approval and publicity to any attack on the International Committee. But this campaign serves to expose how alien they are to the principles and traditions of the movement.The SEP follows the concept of party discipline, clearly defined by James P. Cannon, in an April 1940 resolution adopted by  the membership of the Socialist Workers Party of America, at the end of the struggle against the petty-bourgeois minority, led by future Cold-War anti-communist ideologues James Burnham and Max Shattman:

“With party rights, the membership has also certain definite obligations. The theoretical and political character of the party is determined by its program, which forms the lines delimiting the revolutionary party from all other parties, groups and tendencies in the working class. The first obligation of party membership is loyal acceptance of the program of the party and regular affiliation to one of the basic units of the party. The party requires of every member the acceptance of its discipline and the carrying on of his activity in accordance with the program of the party, with the decisions adopted by its conventions, and with the policies formulated and directed by the party leadership.

Party membership implies the obligation of 100% loyalty to the organisation, the rejection of all agents of other, hostile groups in its ranks, and intolerance of divided loyalties in general.”

The resolution further decisively states as follows: 

“The rights of each individual member, as set forth above, do not imply that the membership as a whole, namely, the party itself, does not possess rights of its own. The party as a whole has the right to demand that its work be not disrupted and disorganised, and has the right to take all the measures which it finds necessary to assure its regular and normal functioning. The rights of any individual member are distinctly secondary to the rights of the party membership as a whole. Party democracy means not only the most scrupulous protection of the rights of a given minority, but also the protection of the rule of the majority. The party is therefore entitled to organise the discussion and to determine its forms and limits.

The party in general not only has the right, therefore, to organise the discussion in accordance with the requirements of the situation, but the lower units of the party must be given the right, in the interests of the struggle against the disruption and disorganisation of the party’s work, to call irresponsible individuals to order and, if need be, to eject them from the ranks.” (James P. Cannon, The Struggle for a Revolutionary Party)

Sanjaya and Nandana are such irresponsible individuals. In response to their unprincipled actions, the SEP, fittingly, expelled them from their membership.

With this public statement, the SEP is making it clear to the working class that the statements and actions of these two fraudsters are not endorsed by the party and should not be given any recognition.

In addition to this statement, the party also publishes the November 12 SEP Central Committee resolution explaining the reasons for the expulsion of Nandana and Sanjay. We  also publish the letter sent by SEP General Secretary  to the party members on December 05, 2022, which further elaborates on the political issues.

*For better clarity, the whole paragraph from the relevant 20-paged long self-defensive letter of objection of 15 August 2022, by comrade Sanjaya, against his suspension, addressed to the General Secretary of the SEP, Deepal Jayasekara, is given below: 

“The chronological facts aforementioned clearly proves that Comrade Marlon [Secretary of the Locale to which Comrade Sanjaya was attached ] distorts and misrepresents the facts and decisions of the PC and the Locale. It was not “an opportunity for a party member” to “deliver a public lecture at Gota Go Gama”, as comrade Marlon states in the letter, but was an opportunity I myself got with the help of Comrade Wakkumbura, through my contacts who conducted Public University of GotaGoGama. The lecture was offered to and arranged for me and only me in my personal capacity and not to the Party. The distortions made in the rest of the letter are quite obvious when compared with the correspondence laid down above.” 

#theSocialistLK #WSWS

By Colombo Action Committee 

This May Day is celebrated by the working class all over the world, in the midst of the great danger of an emerging World War III – a nuclear war threatening a mass extinction – and the counter attack of the international working class fighting out the dire conditions imposed by the capitalist class rule all over the world.

The super rich elite is endeavoring to cope with the contradictions of their own world order with catastrophic consequences. 

They have no choices left, other than continuing their drive towards war and destruction. Over last three decades, US imperialism was continuously waging aggressive wars in the  middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe, without an exception of even a single day. May it be in Balkan Peninsula, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Syria, they had their own reasons to kill innocent civilians and had bogus justifications, which they were not even bothered to
maintain over the years. The proxy war launched by the NATO against Russia in Ukraine is threatening a nuclear war and mass extinction. US provocations against China has been increased recently with senior US officials openly declaring that a military conflict with China is inevitable.

After three quarter centuries of the defeat of Nazism, the working class is confronted with the danger of fascism, which is showing its ugly face again over Europe, America and many parts of the world. The main capitalist parties are competing with each other in proving their fascistic potentials and trying to impress the ultra-rightist chauvinistic elements in the society. Democratic rights are being suppressed and the so-called ‘saviors of democracy’ are openly defending its ultimate violations.

The international working class is battling the dire consequences of austerity measures which is added to the still bleeding wounds of the Covid-19 pandemic, that has claimed over 21 million lives as of today. The capitalist governments have maintained a criminal recklessness towards
the pandemic, and allowed this massive loss of life willingly, for the sake of profits and glory of a tiny layer of individuals, belonging to the elite
super-rich. This barbarous attitude was not limited to Covid-19, but was common towards the lives of the poor, and towards war.

In Sri Lanka, it is a common knowledge that there is a pathetic scarcity in some critical medicines, for number of critical illnesses. But, this is not a phenomenon limited to Sri Lanka, or the ‘developing’ countries, but even the most powerful nations of the world are also going through the same
fate. According to the Director of the division of molecular imaging and therapeutics at the University of Alabama, Jonathan McConathy, even in US, “People,” are going to “die from this shortage, for sure” (reported in World Socialist Web Site on 26 April 2023)       

Whilst imperialism is moving towards a catastrophic nuclear war and suppressing the democratic rights, the international working class has been steadily moving towards counter action. The following quote from David North describes this phenomenon vividly:

“During the past decade there has been a steady escalation of the class struggle. A striking characteristic of the class struggle has been its international character. The revolutionary advances in communications technology are dissolving the barriers between the workers of different countries. Regardless of where it begins, the social conflict in any particular country almost immediately acquires an international audience and becomes a world event. Even the age-old barrier of language is being overcome by the application of translation and transcription programs that make documents and speeches, regardless of the languages in which they were written and spoken, easily comprehensible to a global audience.” (WSWS, 08 April 2023)

Accordingly, the working class is responding to the attacks of the ruling classes, surpassing the national boundaries. They are armed with new
developments of communication technologies and, challenging the prevailing world order of national governments and global economy.  The capitalist profit system and imperialism  are directly obstructing the development of technology, science, culture and human development, dividing people over their nationality, race, religion and skin colour. What is essentially required is their unavoidable organizational tool, which unites them independently, against the capitalist class and all of its agents promoting politics of class collaboration among the workers to misguide them against the vicious attacks the capitalist class is preparing for them.  

The Colombo Action Committee is calling workers all over the country and around the globe, to build organizations of their own independent action committees (rank-and-file-committees) to counter the vicious attack of imperialism –the world order of the super-rich and financial oligarchy – to discuss, debate and fight for their own solution to the ongoing social crisis of starvation, death and destruction.

Commemorating the May Day 2023, we call upon our class brothers and sisters in the country and around the world to rise, build their own independent rank-and-file-committees, factory and neighborhood committees, to discuss the actions and programs of countering the capitalist attacks on them as well as the drive towards the world war, and to unite with their international comrades to build the International Workes’ Alliance of Rank-and-File-Committees (IWA-RFC) against these attacks.

We fully support and stand together with the call of the World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Forth International (ICFI) to build such an alliance and, insist the Sri Lankan branch of the ICFI, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), to respond our request for unity and common action, in convening the Democratic and Socialist Congress of Workers and the Rural Masses (DSC).

Down with imperialist war drive!

Workers of the world, unite!!

Image courtesy of WSWS 

@PK #CACPS #theSocialistLK 

By Colombo Action Committee

The letter published here was sent by the Colombo Action Committee to the General Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), Comrade Deepal Jayasekara and the editor of the Sinhala section of the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), Comrade Ratnayake on March 22, 2023. It has been irresponsibly ignored by those comrades.

This leadership has even rejected the interventions made by the Colombo Action Committee (CAC), in defense of the SEP’s democratic rights, against the attacks on the party on two previous occasions. Despite the above rejection, CAC, which regarded these attacks on the party members by the trade union leaders in front of the Fort railway station and on the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) and SEP comrades at Sri Jayewardenepura University, with the graveness they deserved, campaigned against the attacks by distributing leaflets among the workers and students. This is because the CAC has always been based on working class revolutionary principles.

CAC was built in the struggle for the perspectives presented by the Socialist Equality Party on July 20, 2022 during the mass movement that unfolded from April 2022. That perspective leaves no room for this kind of sectarianism. Sectarianism is a sign of no confidence in the working class. Action Committees are not formed by mere inducement of any party or organization. These committees,  as an objective necessity of the masses, should be built by engaging in struggle within the struggle of the workers and the oppressed. Nothing could be won without uniting a mass movement of action committees. For that, the widest democratic discussion within and among the action committees is extremely decisive. Those who do not believe in these principles, bureaucratically announce Action Committees and expect workers to join them. This is an illusion. They have forgotten that the language of the worker is the struggle.

We hope this letter will attract the attention of workers and other anti-capitalist masses. We do so just because it leads to a necessary discussion on the building of a mass movement against capitalism. 

General
Secretary

Socialist
Equality Party (Sri Lanka), and

Chief Editor

World
Socialist Web Site (Sri Lanka)

22 March 2023

Comrades,

Re. the
“Joint Statement” of the Action Committees of Sri Lanka

We write this letter to inform you that the statement published on the Sinhala section of the World Socialist Web Site  on 14 March 2023,  calling for a “united struggle against the government’s austerity measures”, was discussed by the Colombo Action Committee (CACPS) and to convey the conclusions made.

CACPS is committed to providing full active support to the said call.

The plan to organize the working class outside the trade unions, which are a major obstacle
to a united struggle, is a critical class requirement.

The governments and the ruling classes of all countries cannot tolerate parliamentary democracy too, any longer. The Sri Lankan government has already proven, time and again, by ignoring even its own superior court orders and relentlessly attacking public agitations and protests, that there is nothing left of the relatively peaceful coexistence.

Under these conditions, workers’ action committees have become a condition of  the very survival of the working class. They must be built and they can be built.

The CACPS was built upon the SEP-SL Statement dated 21 July 2022, after a long series of discussions. In establishing the CACPS, we studied in depth the lessons of the relevant history and the programme that is being implemented in the Auto Industry and in a number of other sectors with the support and guidance of the Socialist Equality Party of the United States. It arose out of the conscious
intervention into the intense class struggles that developed in Sri Lanka from April 2022.

We understand that the results of the CACPS campaigns for this programme among the anti-capitalist, working class and oppressed middle class groups are not the fruits of just CACPS’s work. The intensity of the class struggle and the necessary guidance provided  by the training gained from the long-term theoretical political work of the International Committee and its Sri Lanka section led to it.  All those who joined the CACPS at its inception were aware of and respected the struggle of the party.

It is with great regret that we have to remind you that every effort made by our committee to work in open solidarity with the struggle of the SEP has been arbitrarily thwarted by you. This time too, you have consciously worked to keep CACPS out, when issuing the joint statement of the action committees. What you have done thereby is to confirm that the assurance that you proclaimed in the said joint statement that “we are ready to give you our utmost support to form your own action committees” is also fake.

As soon as the Fisherfolk Action Committee of the Kytes Island in the North was established, we extended our arms of brotherhood and sent a congratulatory message to that committee. By refusing to publish it on the world socialist web site, you also rejected your proclaimed invitation made in your statement calling for a Democratic and Socialist Congress of the workers and rural masses. 

We believe that you have the honest intention to build Committees of Action. But the policies you are following are contrary to that need. Especially, while distancing the CACPS, which has already demonstrated its capability to fight very actively and firmly based on principles, you have chosen to refer in your statement to non-existent action committees and to ones that are still on the drawing boards but have not yet been built, and also have named loose relationships as action committees. It appears that,  while deceiving yourselves, you think that mentioning the names of  such fake action committees would serve as a ploy to win over workers.  You simply think that it is not a political crime because it would help foster the revolution against capitalism. This approach is wrong. According to Trotsky, it is a bureaucratic maneuver. Action committees can be formed primarily when the (working) class feels the  need for such a new tool. Objectively, it is now an essential requirement for the workers.

But, it is not possible to be convinced of and convince what the workers need, without intervening in the struggle. You missed that opportunity in the mass struggle that spread since last April. Your claim in the above statement about the non-existing action committees  “being  part” of the mass
uprising involving millions of workers and rural people is false to the core.  You knowingly fell into the trap of the hypocritical movement led
by reactionary gangs and parties that, “political parties are prohibited”, by declaring  bombastically , “even if others come
without names, we will come only with the name, not otherwise”, and thereby  missed the opportunity to intervene among the masses.

In behaving so, you allowed  the right-wing and pseudo-left to exploit the public anger and discontent at their own will and, thereby, you have betrayed the workers, oppressed youth, students and the urban and rural poor to these reactionary tendencies. You did not appreciate the strength of the party’s glorious history and the opportunity it was presented. We have realized that, today, your move to present fake action committees as real ones, instead of fighting to build genuine action committees, is the necessary consequence of these evasions. The
forerunners  of the Colombo Action Committee intervened in order not to let the opportunity presented by the class struggle go wasted, intending to
minimize, to the extent possible, the damage caused by your sectarian policy.

What is needed is not to stop at just blaming the pseudo-left, but to develop programmes and take actions against the programmes and actions of the pseudo-left. Instead, you call action committees a tactical tool for party recruitment, robbing the space for real action committees to emerge, and thereby create the conditions that prevent the growth of a broad mass movement. On top of the fact that this is a tactic of lying, it is a theoretical deviation and weakens the struggle for real action committees. 

However, we know that late party General Secretary, Comrade Wijay Dias, who opposed the suggestion of a section of the political committee that action committees should be formed only with the workers who have accepted the party’s perspective, questioned, if so, why not they be recruited directly into the party,  rather than form action committees.

The problem is that, instead of developing the struggle within the working class for the perspective needed to build workers’ action committees, you look for easy tricks. As we know very well, teacher groups that would have participated in the formation of action committees soon abandoned them because of these factors. The Action Committee for the Defence of freedom of Art and Expression, which was functioning successfully, was subjected to natural death by not convening meetings and not holding elections for officer bearers. This is a
criminal omission.

History punishes missed opportunities. If we do not correct mistakes as soon as possible and prevent omissions, we will be responsible for a historical mistake. Once again, we request that you find a way to work together to speedup and efficiently build a Democratic and Socialist Congress of action committees for the sake of essential and decisive unity of the working class. Let us also mention that CACPS is not sectarian and will not give up the struggle to build the Congress  for any reason whatsoever. We hope for a  prompt  response.

Fraternally ,

Shantha
Wijesuriya, Secretary,

Sanjay
Jayasekera,
Chairperson,                                       

Colombo Action
Committee for People’s Struggles.

Colombo Action Committee.

By Sanjaya Jayasekera.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved on Monday (20) the 48‑month extended arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with an amount of SDR 2.286 billion [395 percent of quota or about US$3 billion. The Special Drawing Rights (SDR) is an international reserve asset, created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement its member countries’ official reserves] to ‘support Sri Lanka’s economic policies and reforms’, in a bid to bail out the ailing Sri Lankan capitalist economy.

As in the previous 16 occasions of such arrangements made with the international financier, the disbursement of the fund will be made in tranches within a period of four years, during which the Sri Lankan Government will be overseen as to its progress in implementing IMF austerity and its pro-market dictates. 

In the IMF statement issued on Monday, it  states, “[t]he objectives of the EFF-supported program are to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability, safeguarding financial stability, and stepping up structural reforms to unlock Sri Lanka’s growth potential.”

In more clearer terms , the IMF head, Kristalina Georgieva stated what these in fact means:  “Ambitious revenue-based fiscal consolidation is necessary for restoring fiscal and debt sustainability“, and that “[i]n this regard, the momentum of ongoing progressive tax reforms should be maintained”. She said, “[f]or the fiscal adjustments to be successful, sustained fiscal institutional reforms on tax administration, public financial and expenditure management, and energy pricing are critical.”

In concrete terms these reforms refer to extensive economic restructuring that opens domestic production and service markets to international investors, unhindered labour exploitation, painful austerity, privatization, more tax and price hikes.

Waiting for this approval, since his appointment as the President of the country, Ranil Wickremasinghe has been preparing the grounds at home, implementing harsh austerity measures dictated by the IMF on the one hand and, unleashing anti-democratic witch-hunt and military-police repression against protesting workers and youth on the other hand. 

These attacks started with brutal dispersal of the ‘Aragalaya’ protesters last year from the protest site at Galle Face Greens, and continued with arrests and prosecution in courts.  Several times, Wickremasinghe declared no protests that will hamper his economic restructuring programme including subsidy and welfare cuts, privatization and commercialization of state owned enterprises, tax hikes and increasing the prices of  fuel and services such as electricity, water and telecommunication, will be tolerated.

Wickremasinghe, refused by his electorate and having no popular mandate, was appointed first as prime minister by former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa weeks before he was ousted by popular protests, and then, in last July, was ascended to the executive presidency in an in-house operation of the type of a constitutional coup against the people, chosen by members of parliament who were highly deplored and refused by the masses. 

Wickremasinghe declared recently in parliament that his government has put in place all the fifteen recommendations of the IMF to get the approval for the fund facility.

By April last year, the economy was hard hit by a depleted foreign reserve crisis that prevented import of essential consumer items including fuel, and by a balance of payment crisis which had forced exorbitant excessive money printing to compensate for the loss of government tax revenue, which caused high inflation and a severe recession. The crisis was aggravated by loss of foreign remittances and tourism earnings and export drops due to COVID-19 and, then by the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine from February 2022. The country declared historic bankruptcy in mid April, in respect of its bilateral sovereign loans. 

Established in 1947 by the Bretton Woods Agreement, as part of the post-war financial order dominated by US imperialism, restoring the economis devastated by the war, the IMF is now the global agent of the international capital, overseeing the operations of the open market economies particularly of the so-called developing and emerging countries, guiding, dictating the respective governments and ensuring that the rich resources and the cheap labour platforms in these countries are placed open for free and unrestrained exploitation by the International capital.  

With the debt sustainability certificate issued by the IMF with this approval,  the government expects more loans from other financial institutions including the Asian Development Bank. These will add up to the debt burden of the island. 

The government is hell bent on implementing IMF dictated austerity measures continuously against the working people, the lower middle class, the peasants and the urban and rural poor. Last year, during this time, the government was liable to pay a sum of US$ 52 billion as foreign loans, $ 6 billion of debt servicing by the end of the year and $ 25 billion till 2026. 

Now, the government will commence debt servicing, as Wickremasinghe stated that the country would no longer be regarded as ‘bankrupt’ and would  resume normal transactions.

The IMF and the ruling class, including the Governor of the Central Bank who once openly stated it, are well aware that its measures are harsh enough to prompt intense agitation by the working class, and, therefore recommends that “social safety nets should be strengthened and better targeted to the poor” and “protect the most vulnerable“,  referring to shoddy welfare concessions, in a bid to preempt  class struggles. Its concern about the poor or  “the most vulnerable” is a sham. 

Soon after the IMF approval was declared,  Wickremesinghe confirmed his commitment to abide by IMF dictates: “we look to get the economy back on track for the long term through prudent fiscal management and our ambitious reform agenda“. 

Just the previous day, his cabinet approved divestment of the two state owned enterprises, Sri Lanka Telecom and Lanka Hospitals Corporation. 

All the trade unions in Sri Lanka supported the IMF programme and some were vociferous, particularly those controlled by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). These official labour organizations that once pretended to safeguard the interests of the working class have shown their utter bankruptcy and organic inability even to pressure governments and gain the petty concessions, and have openly become the mediators between the state, the companies and the workers, betraying one struggle after the other. 

Various middle-class, privileges-oriented, fake left organizations such as FrontLine Socialist Party and Inter University Student Federation, which are hostile to any independant working class mobilization against the capitalist state and for political power, have been fixing political traps of class collaboration and clean parliamentarianism as the way to democracy and economic recovery. 

All these parties have above all taken the working class as their hostages, preventing them from taking matters into their own hands and waging a revolutionary fight against international finance capital and their agents in the capitalist state, in order to reorganize society on socialist lines.

The working class cannot prevent the Wickremasinghe government or any of his successors continuing with these class war measures and social counter revolution without arming themselves independently of these traditional organizations and joining their hands with international class brothers and sisters who face similar cuts and living conditions throughout the planet. 

Workers of all tiers and industries, urban and rural,  rallying peasants and youth, need to build their own action committees to unite these struggles ahead, cutting across petty ethnic divisions. 

Leading the masses under that perspective, the Colombo Action Committee has called upon workers and the oppressed to join this fight, organize themselves and decide to determine their destinies themselves. 

#CACPS #theSocialistLK

Image of IMF courtesy of Reuters

Colombo Action Committee

Yesterday (15) public sector workers and professionals including doctors across the island went on strike and protested against the government’s new tax levy, interest rate hike and electricity tariff hike and other attacks.  Thousands of public office workers, including teachers, participated in demonstrations and picket campaigns even in distant towns like Badulla, Mahiyangana, and Monaragala. The Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation employees applied for half a day leave and held a picket in the center of the city.

Electricity and postal workers did not work. Schools were closed and in many places the scheduled term tests had to be postponed. Most of the state-owned banks were inactive. Due to the train drivers’ strike, only 11 or so of the scheduled 400 trains could run, 20 according to the Presidential Media Division. But the department could only muster the services of only the three DIM officers and a few retired drivers on contract basis. The Port Authority’s president, who went to Colombo port to instruct the port workers to call off the strike, was hooted at and chased away by the workers.

Non-academic workers also joined the university teachers’ strike that was launched a few days ago, and the universities became inactive. Employees of Peradeniya University were engaged in picketing at Galaha Junction, shouting slogans and inviting people to join them in winning democratic rights. “This time, no one can stop our fight, we will pledge to protect what we have won, our rights,” they expressed their determination.

The government spokesperson, Transport, Highways, Public Administration and Media Minister Bandula Gunawardena announced the day before, that if the employees engaged in the government services named as “essential services” such as transport, traffic, harbour, port, postal services and  electricity, violate the law of the country by engaging in industrial action, the law will be strictly implemented against them. The workers entered the fight not without the knowledge that they were fighting a government that would use tear gas and baton charges and  would shoot and kill them.

The government, thus, brought political issues into the struggle from the outset. What the workers wanted was a political general strike. But what was called by the trade unions was a simple strike. It was not a conscious struggle where the unions gave space to the workers to express their views.

Not only did the trade unions had no intention to march toward victory in the face of inevitable state repression, the trade unions’ goal was to somehow end the struggle. A prominent leader of trade unions controlled by People’s Liberation Front (JVP), K. D. Lal Kantha clearly said in a meeting held in Colombo on the 13th with the participation of trade unions and other organizations under the title  ” Oppressive Tax Revision and the country’s tomorrow”: “We fully support the strike on the 15th. We are not ready at this moment for the talk about a continuous strike.”

Ranjan Jayalal, another trade union leader in the JVP leadership, also said, about the restructuring of the Electricity Board, that “Even though the Minister (for Electricity)… did not talk about the restructuring so far (with us), he said that he will talk to us even daily, monthly, week to week from now on. We agree with that. The minister said that he will not sell. Therefore, there is no need to go to a conflict.”

Other unions too have reasons not to go into conflict. The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), which started a strike on Monday 13th,  saying that it will go on a continuous strike until the demands are met, yesterday gave up the strike saying it is temporary and forwarded  ‘reasons’ for the same. They have issued a press release based on a written promise they claimed has been made by the government. Accordingly, 1) the government’s desire to continue discussing alternative proposals was announced. 2) From March 20, 2023, the implementation of the International Monetary Fund’s proposals will begin and the government has indicated its   agreement to implement amendments to the tax. 3) The willingness of the government to provide an opportunity for trade unions to negotiate directly with the International Monetary Fund for tax amendments has been indicated. 4) presentations have been  made about the possibility of giving a special allowance to the government employees in the last quarter of 2023 taking into account the  state fiscal trends.

In the end, the medical union says, “The GMOA’s executive council, which considered the indications  given to us through the letter, decided to temporarily stop, at 8 tomorrow morning,  the continuous trade union action that had been planned”

It is already clear that the trade unions have no capacity whatsoever to lead a struggle against the attacks of the Wickremesinghe government. If they have any concern, that is to give way to the current government’s policy of placing the entire burden of the crisis on the working people, without harming the trade union bureaucracy and the privileged such.

Trade unions are organically unable to drive a general strike in the strict political sense. Yesterday’s rail strike is a notable example. The drivers went on strike. Unions of station masters, guards, clerks, and other railway workers did not support it. There are many types of unions. They represent the interests of different capitalist parties or groups. It is a historical fact that in the end they are unanimous only in the case of the betrayal of the struggles of the working class.

This time too, leaving alone  winning the demands, the unions signaled to the government in advance, by calling a one-day strike, that it should not be afraid of. Shouting of a ‘continuous strike if the demands are not met’ is part of the game of throwing sand in the eyes of the workers, with the mutual understanding of the ruling class.

That is why the Colombo Action Committee (CACPS) stands for the organization of the real people’s movement to defeat the capitalist attacks by building worker-peasant action committees in every workplace, neighborhood area. The right to take decisions should be in the hands of those committees. A joint struggle for a program that represents the interests of the oppressed people of the entire island should be taken forward by a conference of their representatives.

16 March 2023

*This statement was originally published in Sinhalese on 16 March 2023

@NN #CACPS #theSocialistLK

Addressing in a ceremony held yesterday (19) at Rantambe National Cadet Training Centre for the awarding ‘Colours’ to the National Cadet Corps, President Ranil Wickremesinghe has stated, “to take on the future requires discipline and commitment”. 

“The people needed for the country’s future are trained by this Cadet Corps”, he has stated. 

“Today the Cadet Corps operates in many schools…Cadet Corps should be established in every Central College. We must continue to develop this further. I believe that this will produce the disciplined citizens that this country needs.”

He has further stated, “we must build both a strong economy and a new society for the benefit of the country’s youth. To build such a new social system, a disciplined leadership is required. I am hopeful that the Cadet Corps will provide the required leadership.”

These statements are clear. What discipline does  Wickremesinghe mean?

Military discipline. Who should be disciplined? The youth and the students. The cops who have received military training and thereby having received military discipline, he says, are “the people needed for the country’s future”.

The militarization of the society is so promoted and government schools are to be used to “produce the disciplined citizens”  whom, according to Wickremesinghe, “this country needs”.

This call goes in line with and appeases ultra-nationalist elements who have repeatedly advocated military training for all youth in the country. Racist monk Athuraliye Rathana was recently vociferous in this regard.

These plans echo those of ousted president Gotabaya Rajapaksha who, in 2020, declared  a Presidential Task Force, comprised entitely of military, intelligence and  police officers,  to build a ‘secure country, disciplined, virtuous and lawful society’, aimed at suppressing political dissent.

Wickremesinghe’s plan – the conspiracies of the ruling class of the country, and to that matter in any other capitalist State – is for the military trained corps and military personnel  to provide the required “disciplined leadership” to build a “strong economy and a new society”. 

This strong economy, Wickremesinghe has been so clear, is the pro-imperialist, neoliberal economy discharging all dictates of the international financial capital, including IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.

He has already stated that democracy is subject to a strong economy and therefore elections should be postponed. Such an anti-democratic governance should be subjected to military training and discipline, and the nationalist indoctrination propaganda machine should be operated. 

The independence day celebrations, the Kandy Janaraja Perahera and similar nationalist propaganda are aimed at fortifying nationalist sentiments in order to prepare an army of ultra-nationalist and racist regiments against the working class, youth and student protest movements that Wickremesinghe has taken oaths to ruthlessly crush.  

Wickremesinghe is warning that students and youth should be “disciplined” and commit to his programme of  “strong economy and a new society”, or else meet military, police repression.

Wickremasinghe confirmed this approach toward the new generation of youth who wants a “system change” that they should succumb to his plan for the society and economy. In addressing a group of young people – who have no representation in any of the left-wing youth fronts who are politically active in the country-  on 16 February, Wickremesinghe conveyed that youth should bow down to his austerity programme to “develop” the country by 2048 and that the working people and the oppressed should be ready to “pay” for “the past sins” that they have committed. 

Wickremesinghe’s reference to the “past sins” is to mean the limited social welfare programs, free education and healthcare and subsidies that the labor movement of the country and world won over a period of more than a century especially during the post-WWII period. Capitalism cannot afford any of these concessionary welfare anymore. 

Wickremesinghe has been issuing these statements often taking much time to emphasize and to be very clear that suppression of dissent and opposition to his pro-market programmes would be his only response. He is well aware that his and his parasitic clique’s rule is weak, and an enormous resentment is growing within the entire population of the working people and the oppressed, which would pose an existential threat to the capitalist establishment, unless the same is contained by the Corporate-State-Union alliance. The specter of class struggles haunts the ruling class, and Wickremesinghe is shooting desperate threats. 

Sanjaya Jayasekera

Colombo Action Committee 

20 February 2023

#CACPS