Reactionary terror in Sri Lanka -
On Friday, July 29, events took a new
The worst seemed to be over by Statement by Bureau of the Fourth International Thursday evening. The government had announced a relaxation of curfew regula-
However, a small news item in the Island reported that on Thursday a group of six people had tried to attack the Fort railway station and had been killed. This small item had grown into something much bigger by Friday afternoon, when word got around that "Tigers" had come to Colombo and that they were shooting at security forces from roof tops.
Very quickly, Colombo was plunged into another paroxysm of hysteria. the early afternoon people were pursuing every Tamil still living amidst the Sinhalese, supposedly in order to destroy the
It is still difficult to get an accurate wounded in this second government figures are that thirty people were killed. Most of those who perished
The following statement was issued by the Bureau of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International on August 1, now, an unprecedented wave of terror has been unleashed against the Tamil minority on the island of Sri Lanka [formerly called Ceylon]. Tamils make up 20 percent of the population.
Hundreds of Tamils have been massacred in what can only be described as pogroms. Many men, women, and children have been burned alive. Others have been tortured to death. More than 50 Tamil political prisoners were savagely killed inside the prisons.
These massacres and the self-defense measures taken by sectors of the Tamil minority in these conditions have been used by the conservative government of
J. R. Jayewardene as a pretext to launch an out-an-out witch-hunt.
The majority of the Tamil nationalist organizations, and three left organizations - the Communist Party, the People's Liberation Front (JVP), and the New Equal Society Party (NSSP), which is a left split from the
Equal Society Party (LSSP) - have been banned.
More than 150 leaders and figures in the workers movement have been detained. The left is accused of having systematically organized the riots, and looting in Colombo. This is a com
This wave of reactionary terror has to be placed in the more general context of political, social and economic develop-
Lessons of the ments in Sri Lanka over the last few years.
Mrs. Bandaranaike's coalition government of the reformist parties (LSSP and
CP) and the bourgeois-liberal Sri Lanka
Freedom
Party
(SLFP)
had deeply divided the working
Liege general strike repression of the masses
[1971] JVP youth insurrection, its anti-
Tamil policies, and its austerity measures.
This paved the way for the return of the conservative United National Party (UNP),
After fourteen weeks on strike the employees of the city of Liege have suffered a led by Jayawardene, to power in 1977.
Their trade-union leaders reached agreement with their employers on a new
This government carried out a systematic
This agreement would mean at minimum a wage cut of 17 per political attack on the organized workers cent, if inflation runs at 4.5 per cent over the next three years — while it could well strikes, limited below, from the August 26 edition of La Gauche, paper of the
Revolutionary Workers League, Belgian section of the Fourth International, assesses constitution in order to stay in power.
the role of the political parties, who as the ruling group on the council constituted
The workers were members of the ALR, the local the defensive and disoriented by its discouncil employees section of the union for the whole of the public sector, the credited and bankrupt traditional leader-
Confederation Generale de Service Publique.
ships, was increasingly weakened, not just
General du Travail de Belgique, the socialist trade union confederation.
in parliamentary terms (where representareduced to one member of parliament from the CP) but also on the trade union
The conservatives hoped that by doing this they would encourage imperialist capital to invest in the island and get the economy moving again after the stagnation of the Bandaranaike period.
But the international economic crisis was to hit the debt-ridden Sri Lankan economy shortly afterwards. The Inter-
Monetary stepped-up austerity measures, especially subsidized food prices, free against education, and the social security system.
The living standards of the masses began to slide.
People were becoming politicized again.
In the October 1982 presidential elections, 47 percent of the electorate, and the absolute majority of voters in the industrialized zones in the south and southwest and in the Tamil north, voted for the opposition according to official figures.
It is clear that today the reactionary terror aims to stop this politicization, to step up the repression and the trend toward banning workers organizations, and the maintenance of a strong the employers, and the unions.
This union belongs to the Federation to ensure state increasingly based on the bourgeois army. After fourteen weeks of strike the rubbish piles up (DR)
The Fourth International denounces the bloody crimes of the Ceylonese semi- The plan which has been forced on the In the end this wonderful fund of comcolonial bourgeoisie against the Tamil minority and the toiling masses of Sri Lanka.
It calls on the workers and democratic organizations throughout the world to defend the victims of repression in Sri Lanka and to demand the restoration of democratic rights without restriction.
It calls on all anti-imperialist and anticapitalist militants to come to the aid of their brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka.
Free all political prisoners in Sri Lanka!
Lift the ban on all the Tamil and workers organizations!
Full democratic rights for all the masses in Sri Lanka!
For the right of the Tamil nationality to self-determination!
city workers of Liege constitutes a very serious defeat of the workers by the government.
It is particularly serious given the high level of combativity shown by the thousands of workers during the fourteen weeks of the strike. Through the battle the workers increased their demonstrations, occupations, other exemplary actions, attempts to popularise the struggle among the other sectors and the steel workers, attempts towards the self-organisation of the struggle. They stood firm against the campaigns of the right wing, the threats of Nothomb (Minister of the Interior), the provocations by the police, financial difficulties and the pressure from the ruling council group.
bativity has been wasted.
The LRT, which had several members centrally involved in the dispute, will make a detailed assessment of the