Forward to a workers and small farmers government in Sri Lanka
rab
Forward to a workers and small farmers government in Sri Lanka
AFTER an exhausting, genocidal war, hugely costly in lives and
resources, and in the face of a working class movement that is now
demanding wage rises to keep pace with a cost of living that is
galloping out of sight, and millions of young people demanding jobs,
the Sri Lankan military-police regime has split at its core, with the
resignation of General Fonseka.
He is the top commander who justified the murder of the Tamil Tigers
leadership, which was seeking to surrender under a white flag, as
previously arranged with the Sri Lankan president Rajapakse, with full
assurances of safety.
Fonseka has now broken with Rajapakse.
Under the Rajapakse regime, Sri Lankans saw journalists who were
critical of his regime murdered by thugs transported in white vans,
large numbers of people jailed without either trial or charge, as well
as the murderous campaign against the national rights of the Tamil
people.
However Rajapakse did not stop there. He openly called trade
unionists, who fought for trade union conditions and trade union rates
of pay, ‘terrorists’, and under his regime trade unionists were
amongst the ‘disappeared’, and the corpses that were found.
Now the bloody regime has split in the face of a mighty advance of
workers and their trade unions, who are being forced into action for
wage rises and jobs by the massive increases in the cost of living,
and the joblessness that is the price of a massive IMF loan, that was
used to finance the war against the Tamil people.
Now, the opposition political parties will be uniting around Fonseka
to persuade him to stand against Rajapakse for the presidency next
year.
This will be a choice between two butchers, and therefore no choice
for the working class and small farmers at all.
Meanwhile the class war is raging in Sri Lanka and uniting Sinhalese,
Tamil and Muslim workers against the employers and the government,
with the armed forces already attempting to strike break.
The country’s workers running essential services – water, electricity,
fuel and ports have organised a work-to-rule campaign which began
Tuesday.
Workers are sticking to their contracts, refusing overtime and shift
work and not standing in for absent colleagues.
The unions’ wage demands vary from a 6,000-rupee (£30) per month
allowance to a 50 per cent wage increase.
A last-minute government offer on Tuesday to increase salaries by 22
per cent at the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corp was rejected.
The navy has already attempted to strike break operating tug boats at
Colombo port, but had to give up.
The government has already accused the trade unions of a political
conspiracy, and are getting ready to arrest trade union leaders.
Rajapakse stated yesterday that he will not allow anyone to ‘destroy
the country and a nation that was liberated by the armed forces’
accusing the trade union leaders of a conspiracy. Trade unionists will
be treated in the same way as the Tamils.
The trade unions must develop their struggle and mobilise workers and
the millions of youth who want jobs, to build up the struggle to an
indefinite general strike.
This must bring down the military police regime and bring in a
workers’ and small farmers’ government.
This will expropriate all the foreign-owned garment factories and tea
and rubber plantations as well as nationalising the banks and the
major industries, putting them under workers’ control.
It will carry out socialist policies, including resolving the national
question, by allowing the Tamil people to hold a referendum on whether
they wish to be part of a Workers and Small Farmers Sri Lanka, or have
their own separate bourgeois state in the north and east of the
island.