Premadasa's one-man show runs into trouble
SRI LANKA Mahajana Party (SLMP) — she subsequently disowned that party after her husband's assassination by the JVP in 1989 and its tilt to the right, and formed the Bahujana Nidhahas Pakshaya (BNP People's Freedom Party) - is on the verge of rejoining the SLFP, ostensibly to rescue it from the right wing elements, but really to prop it up from total collapse.
A RESOLUTION for the Impeachment of the president of Sri
Lanka, Ranasinghe Premadasa, has been presented to the Sri
Lankan parliament on the initiative of senior members of his own government and party. The dissidents claim that the president has become a dictator, ruling without respect for parliament. They demand that the system of Executive
Presidency be abolished and powers removed from parliament in 1979 restored.
The following article explains the background to the crisis and retlects the point of view of the Trotskyist Nava Sama Samaja
Party.
V. THIRUNAVUKKARASU
D
URING the local government elections in May this year, minority President Premadasa
— elected with a mere 25% of the vote — appealed to the people to strengthen his hand in order to find a solution to the vexed national question which has been threatening to tear the
His ruling United National Party (UNP)
scored a substantial victory. Addressing the annual convention of the Sri Lanka
Muslim congress three months later, President Premadasa said that he had not pledged in his 1988 election manifesto, nor during the election campaign, to propose a solution to the "ethnic question"
and that no one should expect him to fulfil a promise he did not make.
Bloody war with Tigers continues
Meanwhile, a bloody war which has claimed thousands of lives continues between the government forces and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
in the north and east.
This war has gone on for 14 years, apart from a 14-month long break during the abortive talks between President Premadasa and the LTTE which ended in June
1990, and now costs about 15% of the country's GDP.
At the same time a veritable economic blockade imposed on the people in the north and east has caused unprecedented hardship, including emaciating malnutrition.
The government has grabbed an opportunity presented by a motion put forward by a right wing MP from the Sri Lanka
Freedom Party (SLFP — the main bourgeois opposition party) for the appointment of a Select Committee of Parliament (SCP) to devise ways and means of resolving the national question.
The motion gives the regime the possibility of buying time; Premadasa already presides over another futile exercise called the All-Party Conference (APC) which is supposed to resolve the same problem. The SLFP and the ex-Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), both of which now boycott the APC, are ready to take part in the proposed SCP deliberations.
Only the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), which boycotted the APC from the beginning, has also decided not to participate in the SCP unless the government calls for a ceasefire and starts talks with the LTTE while pursuing ongoing talks with the other parties.
### Divisions within SLFP deepen
In recent weeks the divisions within the SLFP have deepened, with the powerful National Organizer, Anura Bandaranaike, being restrained by his mother and SLFP leader Mrs. naike from pursuing discussions with district and peripheral organizers.
Anura leads the right wing group that advocates a liberal market economy. ExUNPer and present SLFP general secretary, JRP Suriyaperuma, is one of the leading elements in this group, as is Mangala Moonesinghe MP, the initiator of the motion for the appointment of the
Meanwhile, Chandrika Kumaranatunga (Mrs. Bandaranaike's daughter), who broke away earlier from the SLFP, with her late husband and film star turned politician Vijaya, to form the Sri Lanka
The old left parties, the LSSP and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) are in a state of political bankruptcy, as has been the case ever since they took the path of coalition and collaboration with the bourgeois parties in the 1960s.
The left wing and progressive masses feel demoralized. While the LSSP seems to have learnt the hard way the futility of any alliance with the SLFP, the CPSL is bent on tail-ending the latter regardless of its liberal pro-market economic programme, which is no different to that of
Privatization of state corporations and even government departments is going on apace under the guise of "peoplization". Nationalized and state ventures hitherto accounted for 60% of the economy, including its commanding heights such as the plantation sector which brings in 40% of the country's foreign exchange earnings.
Privatization of transport services
Transport services, which were the first to be nationalized in 1959, have already een privatized. Most state corporations including steel and cement, are in the pro cess of being privatized.
It goes without saying that privatization means big layoffs and a freeze on recruitment of labour with a corresponding increase in exploitation. Around a third of the workforce will be retrenched. The banking sector is the next to be privatized.
On the one hand, the government is unwilling to devolve powers and grant a reasonable measure of autonomy to regional political structures, which might, among other things, provide a semblance of a solution to the national question.
On the other, it is content to entrust virtually the entire economy to the private sector. Despite Premadasa's boast that those who "lend money to us should not lay down conditions", in fact the IMF/ World Bank dictates are being carried out to the letter.
The working class, groaning under the weight of inflation, is restive. The opposition parties however are unable and unwilling to direct the discontent towards the overthrow of the Premadasa regime.
The garment industry, which today brings in a substantial part of the country's foreign exchange, is confined to the so-called free trade zone, employing mostly female workers who are subjected to rapacious exploitation with sut basic 25
Night of the generals
International Viewpoint #215 • October 28, 1991
SRI LANKA / HAITI trade union rights to fight for the most elementary requirements such as adequate toilet facilities in factories. The tea industry, still considered the mainstay of the country's economy, continues its decline. It is claimed by bureaucrats in the tea industry that private
FOLLOWING the September 16 coup in Haiti (see IV 214)
holdings contributed 37% of the national output in 1990, whereas the two giant
Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, elected president of the state corporations, the Janatha (People's)
country by an overwhelming majority in December of last
Estate Development Board (JEDB) and year, remains in exile and the military continue to hold the the Sri Lanka State Plantation Corporation (SLSPC), contributed only 4.4% of reins of power. The putschists have nominated a member of value added to GDP.