United Socialist Party (VSP) from Ger- VICKRAMABAHU is the general secretary of the Nava Sama many; the United Left from the ex-GDR; Samaja Party, a Sri Lankan Trotskyist party. He was recently and a socialist organization from South Africa. The Communist Action Party of interviewed by Colin Meade. Syria (PACS) and the National Liberation Movement (MLN) from Uruguay sent messages of greeting to the Congress.
The NSSP, one of the main workers organizations in Sri Lanka, asked to affiliate to the Fourth International during the Congress, which will take effect in a few
The greetings from French writer Gilles Perrault, who repeated his condemnation of the imperialist war in the Gulf, and the intervention of Christine Serfaty, who denounced the repression in Morocco, were among the most moving moments of Congress reflects changes in
Eastern Europe
The change of the situation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was reflected in the participation of a significant number of observers from these countries, including Alexander Buzgalin, one of the leaders of the Marxist Platform in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and a member of this party's central committee since its last congress, and Kolganov, a member of the central committee of the Communist Party of Russia.
Also taking part in the Congress were Jozef Pinior from Poland, one of the historic leaders of Solidarnose in 1981, and Petr Uhl, a deputy in the Czechoslovak parliament and former leading activist in Charter 77, who spent nine years in prison under the bureaucratic regime. As mili-
Fourth International they made contributions illustrating the problems facing revolutionary currents in their
The Congress noted the historic fact of the near complete rehabilitation of Leon Trotsky in the Soviet Union, where his works are being published in big editions. The Fourth International will continue the campaign for his rehabilitation to be completed on the judicial level.
The Congress recognized that at the present time the revolutionary movement confronts serious difficulties. However it also recognized that possibilities for development exist.
The Congress outlined measures to strengthen the leading bodies of the International, while at the same time reaffirming our determination to consolidate and extend links with other 26 menis. anti-imperialist and anti-Stalinist cur
AN vou tell me someOur origins lie in a party called the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, which was a Trotskyist party and which became a powerful movement at the time of the struggle for national liberation in Sri Lanka, struggle for democracy and against feudalism. But in 1964 this party went into a coalition government with Mrs. Bandaranaike's Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). After that the LSSP went into crisis and there were breakaways, but we remained within the party and tried to fight against the coalition policy. After 25 years we have emerged as the New Sama Samaja Party; we are not as strong as the old party in terms of support but we are a substantial party now — we can say we are the largest working class tendency in Sri • Is there a strong LSSP tradition amongst the masses in Sri Lanka? Is it something to which you refer?
Yes. Sama Samaja means "equal society" or communism, it is known as a Trotskyist tradition, and Trotsky and the Fourth International are known about by more or less all educated people here Sama Samajaism was really the force behind the national liberation struggle against the British, and also the kind of democracy we have - human rights, the welfare state and so on - was due to the struggle of this party. It has a rich tradition of mass struggle, and everybody thought there was going to be a revolution and a Trotskyist government by the 1960s. But our leaders wanted to take a short cut so they went into the coalition, which of course like any coalition went against the workers, and finally they were thrown out after getting the work
That led to a real collapse in the workers movement and for the last 25 years, from 1965 onwards, there was defeat after defeat, and the vacuum created by the collapse of the revolutionary tradition led to desperation amongst both the Tamil and Sinhalese people, particularly the youth. They couldn't see a way out with economic conditions collapsing, and in 1971 there was an insurrection led by the
JVP (Janata Vikmukti Peramuna). The JVP developed from a youth movement
Maoist breakaway groups. They claimed to be Marxist but they were based amongst the educated unemployed youth.
The insurrection resulted in the murder of 10,000 young people by the coalition government in which the LSSP participated. Recently, in the last five years we have had a second tragedy both in the south with the JVP leading another revolt, and in the north around the struggle for the liberation of the Tamil people. In the south the JVP took up a Sinhala chauvinist [anti-Tamil] stance this time, but nevertheless due to the poverty and the appalling conditions many young people were drawn to the struggle, and this time ove 40,000 Sinhala youth and nearly 25,000 Tamil youth have been murdered.
So the entire period has been drownec in blood. During this period we manage to slowly but steadily fight against the broken tradition of the old LSSP leader ship, against coalition politics, agains opportunist politics, and revive the Trots kyist tradition. In 1977 we managed to organize a conference coming out of the old LSSP, and we called ourselves the Sama Samaja Party, but we called our selves the New Sama Samaja Party to dis tinguish ourselves. In the last elections we contested both the parliamentary election and the provincial council elections, we have one parliamentary member and five provincial council members, and we also have a municipal councillor. We have trade union work in the private and public sectors, and we have a nationwide organi zation including Sinhalese, Tamils and
We have stood up for the right of sell determination of the Tamil people, and in fact because of our defence of the rights of the Tamil people we have been under attack from the JVP during this recent period of violence. Seventeen of our members have been killed during this period, one of our leaders had his house burned down and many people were emerged out of this crisis as a fairly strong
• When you talk about the organized working class, what propor-
tion of the population are you talking about? How big is the unorganized working class? 80% of our population is still rural, so we are talking about an urban population of 20% and within that we have organized labour. But in the rural areas there are plantations, with a predominantly Tamil workforce, although in the rubber and tea areas there are Sinhala workers. We have some organization in these areas, but our trade union work is concentrated in the urban areas. Even though we are a working class party we have substantial support in the rural areas - most of the provincial council members are from rural areas and even our MP comes from a district which has a very large rural popula-
• Are trade unions in Sri Lanka connected to political parties?
Yes, trade unions are divided along party lines and we control two federations. These federations and together in a joint council which includes 30 odd unions and federations. There is a council elected as the secretariat of this joint committee which has five members, we have one, another is from the SLFP, one from the Communist Party, one from the LSSP and one from one of the other organizations.
• How many workers does this organize?
15,000 out of 100,000-200,000 workers.
There are trade unions which are progovernment and which are not involved.
But, although they nominally have large memberships, there is no activity in these unions.
• Does your support in the rural areas represent a repudiation of the
The JVP had militant educated youth in the rural areas. But there was a division amongst these youth, between the left organizations and the JVP. Because the
LSSP repudiated its hegemonic role in
1964, there was not a tradition beyond
Sama Samajaism at that period; there was room opened up for a radical youth movement, so there was a split in the rural areas. There were those who remained with the radical youth movement, which was a minor current at that stage, and those who went into the JVP.
We were struggling to win young people, but since we didn't have a strong social base we could not attract as many young people as in the 50s and 60s.
Now, we are in a position to address a larger audience, a larger section of the youth and definitely those who are turning away from the JVP. That we can see because in the recent period we have had very successful meetings in all the campuses in the south.
• You seem fairly optimistic that the crisis which has occurred is being overcome.
We have gone through a series of defeats after the coalition perioa, but we have emerged trom it as a political party gaining in membership and in authority and prestige, so while there is a general defeat in the country as far as the mass movement and the working class is concerned, from the point of view of our party there is a certain victory. We have shown that we mean business, and that we stand for certain principles and that we are prepared to struggle. People are turning to us, they realise that there is a party that is taking a different line and is prepared to make a real challenge to the system. We can see that because, when we had our 13th anniversary celebrations in Colombo, we expected 5,000 people but we got more. People came from many areas, remote areas, including many young people.
• What about the government repression?
The repression which started under the pretext of fighting the JVP and the LTTE Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - the main guerilla force in the Tamil areas) is continuing. In the south over 40,000 young people have disappeared, many others are in prison camps, and still the disappearances are taking place.
Even three days before I left Sri Lanka, in a suburb of Colombo in the middle of the day, a young person who was teaching at the Buddhist school was taken away in a van by three people in police uniform.
We went to the police station, to the police superintendent, and they denied all knowledge. The government has this apparatus for attacking people illegally and in the north the war is continuing.
There is a terrible war against the Tamil people, there is almost near starvation in the Tamil areas and every day there are scores, if not hundreds, of people dying.
• Are the Tamil Tigers a genuinely hegemonic force amongst the
Tamil people?
They do not participate in elections and they terrorize other organizations. They killed our most popular Tamil leader, even though we as a party have defended the rights of the Tamil people, simply because his name was on the list put forward for elections. It is clear that they don't have popular hegemony; they impose their will by ruthless terror. They have maintained hegemony in the Jaffna area, but in other Tamil areas they don't have the same kind of hegemony even after using ruthless terror.
• So does the government control most of the island?
Yes, except the Jaffna area. In the other
SRI LANKA Tamil areas the government controls the towns but not the rural areas, except in the night. But in the Muslim areas the Tamilspeaking Muslims are completely opposed to the Tigers. They are about 7% of the total population and out of this maybe half live in the easter province. There are Muslim organizations, including the Muslim Congress and also self-defence organi-
• Are there other Tamil groups apart from the Tigers?
Yes, there are a number of other groups which are left and claim to be Marxist. They are opposed to the Tigers because their leaders were murdered by the Tigers, indeed they hate the Tigers so much that some of them have joined the government. They are getting arms from the government and fighting against the Tigers in many areas, and they have supplied manpower to the government. Because of that you can see a clear division among the Tamil people. The most important organization outside of the LTTE is the EPRLF (Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation
Front), which was the party which ruled the north easter province after the elections - of course that election was not democratic in the sense that everybody could participate — and also in the parliament there are EPRLF representatives. In the parliamentary elections the non-LTTE forces won. But the Tigers don't allow any democratic process to take place, so there is no argument for them to say that they are the sole representatives of the Tamil
• Do the main bourgeois parties or governing parties organize in the
Tamil areas?
They were organized earlier; even in the provincial elections they won a certain 27 percentage of votes, but many of their March 18, 1991 • #202 International Viewpoint
NSSP deputy attacked in Parliament
A VERY grave Incident took place on February 21 in which Vasudeva
Nanayakkara, a supporter of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) and a member of the Sri Lankan Parliament, was attacked during a session of parliament by government members, including senior ministers. During
SRI LANKA always had a policy of Sinhala only. However in 1957 Mr. Bandaranaike proposed a very democratic solution, as a result of a pact with a very popular Tamil leader of the time. The pact offered a substantial level of autonomy, reasonable use of the the Incident, one minister pulled out a knife. Subsequently, the security facilities provided to cde. Nanayakkara as a member of parliament have
An NSSP statement issued after the attack characterized it as part of
"the desperate attempt by the UNP (United National Party) regime to reduce the Parliament to a mere rubber stamp for the IMF dictated pollcies". Following the incident the Opposition Group in its entirety condemned the "barbaric and ugly behaviour" of the government thugs and decided to boycott Parliament until the Speaker resolves the problems
Facing enormous problems because the Gulf war has reduced worker remittances from and exports to the Middle East, the Premadasa regime is seeking assistance from the IMF under very harsh economic condi-
Opposition to government repression is also gathering pace, particularly with the launching by the Mothers' Front of a campaign against the disappearance and killing of thousands of youth. The NSSP has played a big role in this latter campaign.
The NSSP has appealed for urgent action to launch the widest possible international campaign against the UNP government. It is demanding an
Immediate end to Illegal arrests and disappearances in Sri Lanka; an end to the repression of the Tamil people and the immediate supplying of sufficient food and medicine to Tamil areas; and the Immediate release of
Raymond Perera and A. B.M. Ratmalana of the United Federation of
Protests should be sent to;
1) President R. Premadasa, Presidential Secretariat, Colombo 1, Sri Lan-
2) Minister of state for defence, Ranjan Wijeratne, Defence Ministry,
Colombo 1.
3) Sri Lankan envoys in all countries.
organizers have been killed by the Tigers.
What is important is not the UNP and
SLFP but the bourgeois Tamil parties, which had big support mostly amongst elderly people, the middle classes and the peasantry, and the left leaning organizatons, that had support among the radical peasantry and the working class. So even if you leave out the support for the UNP and SFLP there was significant support for the Tamil bourgeois parties, and the
LTTE was trying to compete with them and become the sole representative by eliminating other groups.
• Have they succeeded?
Yes, some groups are not operating at all, but the EPRLF is maintaining a certain level of activity, while other organizations are supporting the government.
• So has it been possible for you to do any political work in the Tamil areas?
Only secretly; we have been publishing our paper monthly and sending it where we have contacts in the area, but open politics is out because of the LTTE.
• Is the present government hegemonic among the bourgeoisie?
28 the SIFP, but the comprador bourgeoisie
No, there is a national bourgeois party,
International Viewpoint #202 • March 18, 1991 connected with the multinationals are represented by the United National Party
(UNP) irrespective of the community, it is not a party connected to the Sinhala bourgeoisie alone. But in terms of policy they take a Sinhala chauvinist position, ruthlessly try to suppress the Tamil demand for autonomy.
In the present war Tamils are dying like flies and the LTTE's sectarianism is no way out, because it antagonizes potential allies. If they abandoned that a massive movement could be built. They put hope in the Indian bourgeoisie for some time but the latter have betrayed them totally.
The Tamil Nadu state government in India, for opportunistic reasons, tried to give some sort of refuge to them but the central government in India has dismissed the state government and put it under presidential direction, and now they are hunting for Tiger camps and safe houses and so on. The Tigers support base in India has been eroded substantially, so only Sinhala-Tamil unity can win now. • What is the position of the SLFP on the repression? They give indirect support as far as the Tamils are concerned. They would prefer the government to do the repressing so that they can come to power and wash their hands of it. Actually their party has
Tamil language and so on, but at that stage the UNP, then in opposition, agitated against the solution and did not allow it to be implemented. Thereafter the SLFP policy has been racist but in the coalition period, under the influence of the LSSP and the Communist Party a degree of restraint was exercised. On their own, they take a more Sinhala chauvinist line, and they are influenced by the Sinhala petit-bourgeoisie.
• What is the Communist Party's position on the national question?
Does the CP have significant support?
In 1987 we entered into an alliance with the Communist Party and also the LSSP and the Mahajana Party — the latter was a breakaway from the SLFP opposed to their chauvinist policy against the Tamils on autonomy and language. It broke from the SLFP as a social democratic party, tak ing the working class layers of the party
We formed the United Socialist Alliance
(USA) — we stood for devolution to the provincial councils, secession rights and language rights, that is, the use of Tamil as a national language. The general policy of the CP at that stage was for autonomy and devolution and other rights.
But in the recent period the USA has broken up, because the CP and the LSSP want to join in coalition with the SLFP, and the Mahajana Party want to have a tactical agreement with the UNP in defence of democratic rights. So the CP and LSSP positions are now the same as the SLFP, undermining the interests of the Tamil people. Whatever the differences of policy, we are fighting for all opposition forces to come together on the issue of repression, of rising prices and privatization, either on all three or on any one of
The CP and LSSP have failed, it seems, in their overtures to the SLFP, and the latter seems to recognize that the best way to bring the opposition together is to agree these three issues. We have also appealed on a common agitation on the basis of to the Tamil and Muslim organizations to come together.
All the Tamil groups except the LTTE have agreed nominally to participate in common action, as have the Muslim groups. Only the LTTE has held back because of their sectarian policy. If we establish a common agitation it will have the possibility of mobilizing people We are against coalition in government of course; it is unity in action we propose - meetings, demonstrations, strikes, to build up a mass movement to defeat the government. There is some hope here and already a common meeting is planned. *