Sri Lanka: The JVP’s cynical posturing as a defender of democracy

(*) The Democratic National Alliance (DNA) held a protest in Colombo last week demanding the release of its leader former general Sarath Fonseka and the restoration of democracy in Sri Lanka. The demonstration was another attempt by the DNA’s main component, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), to exploit rising anti-government sentiment by cynically posturing as a defender of democratic rights.

The JVP formed the DNA with Fonseka just prior to Sri Lanka’s general election in April. The common ground for this alliance was Sinhala supremacism and support for the protracted communal war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam that ended with the LTTE defeat in May 2009. Fonseka, who as army chief was directly responsible for prosecuting the war, fell out with President Mahinda Rajapakse and stood as the common opposition candidate against him in the presidential election in January.

Concerned to prevent Fonseka from becoming the focus for continuing political opposition, Rajapakse had the defeated candidate arrested just two weeks after the election on trumped-up allegations that he was plotting a coup. He is being held in military custody and faces five cases in courts martial and civilian courts—none of which have anything to do with the initial coup claims.

About 7,000 people took part in the DNA rally and march on July 21—overwhelmingly JVP supporters mobilised from its rural support base. The central thrust of the DNA’s campaign is to “Free Fonseka”. The general’s wife, Anoma Fonseka, briefly addressed the gathering to explain the rigid conditions of her husband’s detention. “They [the government] can never stop us in our victorious march to our goal [of releasing Sarath Fonseka],” she said.

The JVP is also calling more broadly for the abolition of the executive presidency, the independence of the judiciary and the withdrawal of emergency regulations. At the rally JVP general secretary Tilwin Silva called for support for the democratic rights “not only of Sarath Fonseka but political opponents, journalists and artists.” Noting Rajapakse’s plans to change the constitution to extend his term of office, Silva declared: “We say go back to abolish the executive presidency and strengthen the parliament to implement the democracy.”

The witchhunt against Fonseka should certainly be opposed. If it can arbitrarily arrest and prosecute the presidential candidate and former top general, the government will use far more draconian measures against working people as they seek to defend their rights and living standards. After the LTTE’s defeat, Rajapakse announced an “economic war” to “build the nation” and has begun to impose austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund including a wage freeze on public sector workers, increased taxes and cutbacks to welfare. The government has already begun to use its wartime, police-state methods to intimidate and suppress opposition to its economic plans.

No one should be under any illusion, however, that the DNA will defend democratic rights. Along with the Rajapakse government, Fonseka was centrally responsible for the military’s war crimes and gross abuses of democratic rights. In the final months of the war, the army killed tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in relentless aerial and artillery attacks on LTTE-held territory. In the face of overwhelming evidence, the government has flatly denied that the army killed any civilians—a lie that Fonseka has never challenged because he was intimately involved.

Fonseka, together with the government, was responsible for hundreds of abductions, “disappearances” and murders carried out by pro-government death squads acting in collusion with the security forces. Following the LTTE’s collapse, Fonseka also directed the detention of more than a quarter of a million civilians—men, women and children—in military-run “welfare villages” that were operated as internment camps surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by heavily armed soldiers.

As for the JVP, it actively campaigned for Rajapakse in the 2005 presidential election and subsequently pressed the president to renew the communal war against the LTTE. It fully supported the military and denounced anyone who criticised its actions, even in a limited way, as traitors to the country. Its campaign for “democracy” has nothing to do with defending the rights of ordinary working people. The JVP is concerned only with its own rights and more broadly preventing the growing hostility of workers and youth becoming a threat to the political establishment and capitalist rule.

The JVP has a long record of abusing democratic rights. It was formed as a guerrilla outfit among Sinhala rural youth in the 1960s on the basis of a mixture of Maoism, Castroism and Sinhala chauvinism. With the eruption of civil war in 1983, the JVP openly turned to jingoism in support of the military. In the late 1980s, JVP death squads murdered hundreds of workers, trade unionists and political opponents who refused to support its “patriotic” campaign against the Indo-Lanka accord that inserted Indian troops as “peacekeepers” into northern Sri Lanka.

Since dropping its guerrillaism in the early 1990s, the JVP has jettisoned its empty socialist phrasemonging and integrated itself into the Colombo political establishment. Central to its program has been trenchant support for the ongoing communal war and opposition to any power sharing deal to end the war through concessions to the Tamil ruling elites. In pursuing this agenda, the JVP has had no scruples about supporting anti-democratic methods.

The JVP now calls for the abolition of the executive presidency, but it has not hesitated in the past to support the use of the president’s autocratic powers. In 2003, the party actively campaigned for President Chandrika Kumaratunga to oust the United National Party government in order to scuttle the 2002 ceasefire with the LTTE and to block peace talks. Kumatunga dismissed three key UNP ministers in November 2003, threw out the elected government in 2004 then formed a coalition with the JVP after winning general elections.

The JVP’s opposition to the country’s continuing state of emergency is also completely hypocritical. During the war, the JVP routinely voted in favour of the state of emergency. Even after the LTTE’s defeat, the JVP continued to support the parliamentary motion each month to continue emergency rule. Only recently has the JVP begun to criticise the measures and abstain on the vote. Only in June and July this year did it openly vote against the emergency’s renewal.

As part of its latest posturing, JVP has expressed “sympathy” for Tamil civilians whose lives have been devastated by the war. JVP leader Silva has declared that there is no “freedom for people in the country, there is no freedom for the northern [Tamil] people. They are still in the camps.” The JVP, however, backed the establishment of the detention centres last year even though the basic constitutional rights of the inmates were being blatantly breached. Significantly the JVP has not called for the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, under which thousands of Tamils continue to be detained without trial in undisclosed locations as “terrorist suspects”.

At the same time, the JVP has opposed any, even limited, international investigation into war crimes and human rights violations. In June when UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon appointed a panel to investigate the final stages of the war, JVP leader Silva responded by declaring that “protecting human rights is difficult at times of war”. The Colombo political establishment as a whole is responsible for ruthlessly prosecuting the civil war for more than a quarter of a century. All of the main parties have blood on their hands and are determined to block any scrutiny of the military’s crimes.

This filthy record is testimony to the fact that the Sri Lankan ruling class as a whole has proven organically incapable of meeting the aspirations of working people for democratic rights and decent living stands. For more than 60 years, successive governments have time and again whipped up anti-Tamil chauvinism to divide the working class and bolster capitalist rule. While the DNA now declared that it is fighting for democracy, Fonseka and the JVP would have been just as ruthless as Rajapakse in implementing the agenda of big business. In the course of his presidential election campaign, Fonseka boasted of his military record and thrust himself forward as the “strong man” reviving the country.

The only social force capable of fighting for genuine democracy is the working class as part of the struggle to abolish capitalism and establish a workers’ and farmers’ government to implement a socialist program. The elementary precondition for such a struggle is the rejection of all forms of nationalism and communalism to establish the basis for fight for the unity of workers in Sri Lanka, South Asia and the globe. The Socialist Equality Party is the only organisation fighting for this internationalist and socialist perspective in Sri Lanka. (WSWS)

(*) NB: Please do not trust this article fully, as there are many wrong ideas and concepts. This article is just an information for further Islamic & Academic research! Says; The Theoretician of Sri Lanka Think Tank – UK & The SCHOOL of Political & Economic Thoughts-Sri Lanka

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50 years ago: Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike becomes PM of Ceylon

Sirimavo Bandaranaike was appointed prime minister of Ceylon on July 21, 1960, after national elections in which the LSSP (Lanka Sama Samaja Party), which had abandoned the perspective of Trotskyism, refused to oppose her nationalist grouping, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), or its electoral partner, the Stalinist Communist Party.

Bandaranaike’s was a victory for Ceylonese capitalists who favored the promotion of a local, overwhelmingly Sinhala and Buddhist elite, with a nonaligned foreign policy, as opposed to the pro-Western elites tied to Washington, London, and multinational corporations, who tended to back the right-wing United National Party (UNP). Her victory in no way benefited the island’s working class, which soon found itself at loggerheads with the Bandaranaike government in a major strike wave.
The LSSP adopted a “no contest” policy towards Bandaranaike and the CP that was, for all intents and purposes, an endorsement. It marked a new stage in the degeneration of the party, which had sided in 1954 with the revisionist faction led by Michel Pablo and Ernest Mandel against the orthodox Trotskyists who founded the International Committee of Fourth International. In an unprincipled quid pro quo, the LSSP did not criticize the pro-Stalinist maneuvers of Pablo and Mandel in exchange for a free hand to engage in opportunist tactics in Ceylon—including tacit alliances with chauvinist Sinhala political forces.

The LSSP’s support proved critical in propping up the Colombo regime, which had weathered a series of crises, beginning with the mass “hartal” demonstrations and strikes of 1953 that brought down the UNP government of Dudley Shelton Senanayake, the assassination of Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike, husband of Sirimavo, in 1959, and the collapse after just four months of another UNP government in 1960. (WSWS)

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Military above the law?

Yesterday, July 15 my father was supposed to be at Parliament at 9.30am for a Health Ministry advisory Committee meeting.

Despite a clear order by the courts that this Colombo District MP should be allowed without any hindrance to attend Parliamentary meetings, committee meetings, group meetings and other discussions relating to Parliamentary matters - the Military Commander didn't allow him to leave the navy head quarters where he is detained.

This is a direct and contemptuous violation of the court order by the Army Commander.

It is also the second violation of this kind.

My father is under civil law and the military is not allowed to dictate such terms as these to him. They provide him security but his daily routine and his constitutional rights are all under civil regulations and civil legislature.

This just goes to show that now the military, and those commanding the military deem themselves to be higher than the Sri Lankan legal system.

Are we now at a stage where, we are reverting to being subjects, surfs and slaves? Perhaps we should not even call our nation a Democratic Socialist Republic, but simply a Kingdom. For, we have no rights or freedoms anymore.

Will they now unilaterally "hang' my father, as threatened by the Defence Secretary, even though the courts say no?

If this is happening to an elected Member of Parliament - what rights will the general people of Sri Lanka have? What rights for the minorities?

On one hand they pile case upon case on my father. On the other, they stand in blatant violation of all court orders and even go further to harass and intimidate the legislature.

What happens when a trained military equipped with weapons, thinks it does not need to follow the laws of the land?

My father believes in accountability and the fairness of the legal system (when it is free from coercion might I add) - this is why he says time and time again that he will prove his innocence in any court of law. That he can stand up to any allegation. That he will face any accuser.

The military is not anyone's personal attendant - and the legal system is not simply a polite request.

The sooner we Sri Lankans understand this the sooner we can stop this horrible tide from drowning us all.

Sincerely,
Apsara Fonseka

Ends/

Mass roundup in Sri Lankan capital: a sharp warning to the working class

The July 3 military-police attack on thousands of slum dwellers in the Colombo suburbs is a sharp warning to the working class in Sri Lanka and internationally. The brutal assault, followed by the roundup of the entire adult population in the Mattakkuliya area, has demonstrated the police-state methods being brought forward against ordinary working people in the “economic war” declared by President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government.

The police launched the provocation against local residents by forcibly arresting and badly beating a young three-wheel taxi driver. When hundreds of people protested in front of the area’s police station, defence authorities immediately sent the police riot squad and soldiers to attack them. The police and the army went on a rampage, smashing houses and vehicles, and physically attacking and terrorising local residents.

The following day, some 8,000 residents were marched to an open field where hooded men pointed out more than 200 people, who were then taken into police custody. Unable to provide any justification for these mass arrests, the police were ordered by the courts to release 176 people, but 31 were detained for “further investigation”.

The attack came just five days after the government presented an International Monetary Fund-approved budget to parliament, pledging to slash the deficit at the direct expense of workers and the poor by increasing taxes on essentials, extending a wage freeze on public sector employees and slashing subsidies to government enterprises, including the electricity, oil and port corporations. These measures will mean large-scale job losses. Moreover, despite soaring prices, no additional funds were allocated for the government’s meagre welfare schemes, such as cash-for-work.

It is inevitable that workers will resist these attacks and class struggles will erupt. The Mattakkuliya attack is aimed at intimidating and terrorising working people, starting with the most oppressed layers, by bringing into Colombo the methods of repression developed in the island’s north and east during the 26-year civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Throughout the war, Tamil villagers were regularly rounded up for mass arrests, and thousands still remain in military-run camps, more than a year after the LTTE’s defeat.

Following the government’s operation in Mattakkuliya, the state-owned Daily News published a vicious editorial backing it, under the title “Mob rule.” The editorial declared: “The storming of police stations by angry mobs has now become common in this country… It is therefore time that the authorities view this phenomenon with the seriousness it deserves before matters get out of hand and anarchy rules society.”

As the newspaper admitted, there have been numbers of cases where ordinary people have demonstrated against police brutality, not only in Colombo, but throughout the island. These protests reveal the depth of hostility and opposition to the Rajapakse government’s police-military repression, in both the north and south. The government-orchestrated events in Mattakkuliya are aimed at sending a message to workers, youth and rural poor everywhere that no social protest will be tolerated.

Expressing its support for the government’s methods, the right-wing Sinhala weekly, Irida Divaina published a July 10 article under the headline: “Mattakkuliya operation of Summitpura drug peddlers.” It claimed: “[T]he whole police department was shaken up by the exciting incident of taking over the police station by a group of drug dealers and underworld criminals who attacked the Mattakkuliya police.”

The media and the government are vilifying these downtrodden people, who were exercising their democratic right to demonstrate outside the police station, as “mobs”, “drug peddlers” and “underworld criminals”, simply because they have demanded an immediate end to police repression. Likewise, during the war, the government repeatedly sought to intimidate striking workers and anyone else who fought against the lowering of living conditions by branding them as “terrorists” or “terrorist supporters”. Similar labels are now being attached to protesters in the slums of Colombo.

Driving these developments are powerful economic interests. Mattakkuliya is one of the areas targetted by a government plan to evict more than half a million shanty dwellers in Colombo and hand over their land to investors and big property developers. Significantly, Rajapakse has placed the Urban Development Authority under the command of the defence secretary, his brother, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who was one of the key figures leading the final four years of bloody war against the LTTE.

The silence of all the opposition parties on the Mattakkuliya assault is highly significant. Neither the right-wing United National Party (UNP) nor the Sinhala extremist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has opposed it. They will take the same position as the government steps up its attacks against the working class. These parties have no fundamental difference with its pro-market economic program or its police-state methods, just as they supported the war in the north and east.

The ex-radicals of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) and the United Socialist Party (USP) have likewise remained completely silent about the police-military violence in Mattakkuliya and the government’s assault on basic legal and democratic rights. Instead, they are busy working with the trade unions to divert and derail working class opposition to the budget attacks on wages, jobs and living conditions.

While the war concluded more than a year ago, the Rajapakse government is strengthening its military machine—defence still accounts for 15 percent of budget expenditure. At the same time, nearly all the emergency regulations remain in force, handing sweeping powers to the security forces. Rajapakse is openly moving toward increasingly autocratic forms of rule, assuming powers to appoint key officials and proposing constitutional changes to allow him to re-contest presidential elections indefinitely.

The emerging police-state rule in Sri Lanka is an advanced expression of processes underway internationally. Driven by the dictates of the major banks and corporations, governments in every country are increasingly resorting to state repression in order to unload the burden of the global economic crisis onto working people.

Symbolising this shift, during the G20 summit in Toronto last month, the Canadian government mobilised thousands of police to crack down on protesting youth, trade unionists and social and environmental activists. The annual summit had been called to coordinate the austerity measures being imposed to repay the massive public debts incurred in the bailouts and stimulus measures that propped up the financial system in 2008-09.


Working people must recognise the dangers developing around them. Decades ago, they would not have tolerated the kind of attack on defenceless people witnessed in Mattakkuliya. Today, all the old parties and organisations, which previously claimed to defend democratic rights, have lined up with the government. Workers and young people must come forward themselves, against the shameless cowardice and collaborationism of the unions and ex-radicals, to oppose the attacks on the slum dwellers, as part of the struggle to defend the essential democratic rights of the entire working class.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) urges workers to demand the release of all those arrested in Mattakkuliya and the payment of compensation for the damage caused to homes and belongings throughout the neighbourhood. Resolutions should be issued from workplaces, and meetings should be convened to discuss the political significance and implications of this attack.

The WSWS and SEP have consistently warned that the Rajapakse government, having won the war in the north and east, would turn on working people and the poor in the south with its enormously strengthened military capacity. The SEP was the only party to consistently oppose the war and demand the withdrawal of the military from the north and east.

The struggle to defend democratic rights and living conditions necessitates a political struggle against the government and its props, including the trade unions and ex-radicals. A workers’ and farmers’ government must be brought to power to reorganise the economy for the benefit of the vast majority of society, instead of the wealthy few.

This requires the development of an independent political movement, uniting the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim working class across ethnic lines, fighting for the program of socialist internationalism in Sri Lanka, across South Asia and around the world. (WSWS)

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Sri Lankan military takes over urban development

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s self-proclaimed “economic war” to “build the nation” took on a new meaning last weekend when the Urban Development Authority (UDA) utilised soldiers and police to crack down on street hawkers, evict families from shanties in the Slave Island area of central Colombo and demolish 45 “illegal structures.”

Significantly, the operation took place under the defence ministry, which took control of the UDA last week following the installation of the new Rajapakse government. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, one of the president’s brothers, declared the shanties to be “eyesores” that had to be removed. Last weekend’s eviction is part of broader plans to oust large numbers of slum dwellers and free up 1,000 acres of lucrative real estate in central Colombo for development.

While the eviction itself has been reported, the media has been virtually silent on the government’s unprecedented move to place what has previously been a civilian function—urban development—under the control of the defence ministry. The decision is part of the steady militarisation of society and the government’s use of military methods to impose its policies against any opposition or resistance.

President Rajapakse plunged the island back to civil war in mid-2006 and ruthlessly prosecuted military operations against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) resulting in thousands of civilians deaths. Following the LTTE’s defeat last May, the government has maintained the country’s huge defence apparatus, which acts as an army of occupation in the North and East and is now taking on civilian functions in the rest of the island. The military has around 300,000 personnel, making it one of the largest per capita in the world. Last year it consumed 21 percent of the government’s budget.

While ending some wartime emergency regulations, the government has foreshadowed the indefinite continuation of the state of emergency. Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapakse, another of Rajapakse’s brothers, told a Central Bank forum on May 9: “The president used his executive powers in the last three years to finish the war … Now he wants to use his powers to economically develop the country …” Among the key emergency powers that remain in force are a policing role for the military, detention without trial and the president’s ability to ban industrial action by workers.

The defence ministry already controls the police along with the three military services. Now it has assumed control of the UDA which is responsible for planning and construction in urban areas, including Colombo and other cities such as Galle and Kandy. Already the defence ministry has announced that property in Colombo city can only be sold with its prior permission.

The defence ministry was also handed other civilian functions last week, including control over the Land Reclamation and Development Board, which supervises the sale of government land, and the registration of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In the course of the war, the government and defence ministry repeatedly denounced local and international NGOs for their limited criticism of the military’s abuses of democratic rights.

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse revealed last week that the military would also play a role in foreign affairs. He told the state-owned Daily News that “the government has decided to appoint senior high-ranking military officers as ambassadors… [to countries] where LTTE activities were prominently in action.” As far as the government is concerned, any criticism of the Sri Lankan military or official discrimination against the island’s Tamil minority is tantamount to “LTTE activity”.

It is worth noting that Gotabhaya Rajapakse is not an elected politician, but an appointed state bureaucrat. As the top official in the powerful defence ministry, he wields considerably more clout than most government ministers. He is part of the presidential cabal that consists of top advisers, generals and other members of the Rajapakse family and has increasingly determined government policy with scant reference to cabinet or parliament.

In the six decades since independence in 1948, Sri Lanka has previously had autocratic governments that trampled on basic democratic rights. However, the creeping militarisation of society under the Rajapakse government is without precedent. The Sri Lankan military is currently taking on powers that are only to be found in countries that are either currently under military dictatorship like Burma, or were previously, like Pakistan and Indonesia.

The Sri Lankan regime has emerged in response to the country’s deepening economic and social crisis. While the government boasts of its economic achievements, the protracted civil war has ravaged large areas of the island and left the economy heavily in debt. Last year Rajapakse was compelled to take out a $2.6 billion International Monetary Fund loan to stave off a balance of payments crisis. Now the IMF is demanding that the government’s huge budget deficit be slashed from 9.7 percent of GDP last year to 5 percent in 2011.

Given the depth and sweep of the global economic crisis evident in Greece and Europe, the Colombo government has no alternative but to accede to the IMF’s demands. Rajapakse, who is also the country’s finance minister, will be compelled to increase taxes, sell off state-owned enterprises or make huge cutbacks to public sector jobs, conditions and essential services such as education, health and welfare. The government will depend firstly on the trade unions and ex-lefts, and secondly on police state measures, to suppress the inevitable opposition of working people.

Last weekend’s eviction of urban poor in central Colombo is a warning of what is to come. Rajapakse’s “economic war” is not just a war in the metaphorical sense, but involves the use of the army and military methods to ram through economic measures against the opposition of the working class. Just as the shanty dwellers were denounced as “criminals” for opposing the destruction of their homes, so too workers will be branded as economic saboteurs and traitors for seeking to defend their jobs and living standards.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) insists that the working class can only defend its basic rights by breaking completely with all factions of the capitalist class and building an independent political movement fighting for a workers’ and farmers’ government based on socialist policies. The resort to the military to defend the interests of the corporate elite starkly demonstrations that capitalism has no future to offer workers and youth. Society must be reconstructed from top to bottom to meet the needs of working people, not the profits of the wealthy few. By Nanda Wickremasinghe (Ends/)

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Sri Lanka: Government-backed protesters besiege UN office over war crimes investigation

The Sri Lankan government of President Mahinda Rajapakse blatantly assisted protesters who, led by a cabinet minister, took more than 120 UN office staff hostage in Colombo for up to seven hours on Tuesday. A protest blockade of the office was still continuing yesterday.

Housing Minister Wimal Weerawansa, the leader of the Sinhala extremist National Freedom Front (NFF), called the siege to demand the abolition of a panel appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to conduct a limited probe of war crimes committed during the final stage of last year’s military offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Weerawansa led about 2,000 supporters, including Buddhist monks, shouting communal slogans and burning effigies of Ban Ki-moon. The group broke into the UN office complex and blocked the entrance, preventing the UN staff from leaving. Police provided no protection for the UN, even though its office is located in an official “high security zone” where all protests are banned.

Police later escorted several UN staffers through the blockade. However, according to reporters, Weerawansa phoned the defence secretary, the president’s brother, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who ordered the police to leave the site. Eventually, foreign affairs secretary Romesh Jayasinghe asked NFF leaders to allow UN officials to leave.

The provocative protest is an expression of the nervousness and opposition within Sri Lankan ruling circles and among communalist groups over any investigation into human rights violations during the war. The siege was called amid developing rivalry between the major global powers for influence over Sri Lanka. The US and EU have backed the UN panel, while China and Russia have opposed it.

Between January and May last year, indiscriminate bombing and shelling by the military killed and maimed thousands of Tamil civilians. The UN itself estimated that about 7,000 were killed. On the basis of eye-witness accounts, the International Crisis Group concluded there was credible evidence that the military intentionally shelled civilians, hospitals and humanitarian operations, and that 30,000 to 75,000 civilians had been killed or were still missing.

Rajapakse’s government has vehemently rejected the UN panel, refusing to cooperate with it or issue visas for panel members. Weerawansa declared that the siege was called to defend the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, President Rajapakse, other leaders and “war heroes” (soldiers) from being dragged to a war crimes tribunal, and accused UN Secretary General Ban of “taking the side of extremist and terrorist forces”.

On Tuesday the government claimed it had “dealt with the protest … in compliance with both domestic as well as international obligations”. However, the president later further incited the protesters by declaring that “various international forces are obstructing the country when it is fully geared for development after the eradication of terrorism”.

The open display of mob violence, backed by the government, the police and Sinhala extremists, was also aimed at intimidating working people. By agitating against the UN panel, the government is trying to whip up communalism as it prepares to implement IMF austerity measures. It is trying to use the war panel issue to divert growing opposition to its attacks on living conditions.

Despite the protest, UN panel chairman Marzuki Darusman told the Daily Mirror yesterday that his committee would meet later this month and begin its work. His announcement came as US pressure on the Colombo government increased.

Commenting on the UN siege, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the US supported “people’s right to free expression” but added that a “robust accountability process” was needed “to help the island reconcile after decades of war”. He reiterated that the US welcomed “Ban’s announcement of a panel of experts to provide advice on relevant best practices for investigations into alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law”.

The US supported the Rajapakse government’s war, along with the EU and other Western powers. They only began criticising human rights violations as China developed closer relations with the Colombo government. These powers have no concern whatsoever for the democratic rights of the Sri Lankan people, including Tamils. Rather, they are vying for strategic influence in South Asia.

In a further move to intensify pressure on the Rajapakse government, the US announced on June 30 that it had accepted a petition filed by the AFL-CIO, the US trade union body, on behalf of Sri Lankan unions, seeking a review of workers’ rights in the country. This is linked to an annual review of US tariff concessions for Sri Lankan garment exports. The US is the second largest market for Sri Lankan garments and the current 12-month agreement expires in December.

The AFL-CIO has no sympathy for labour rights in Sri Lanka or any country. It is mounting its own nationalist and protectionist efforts to divert the discontent of American workers over mass unemployment, while helping the Obama administration prosecute the interests of American imperialism.

The EU, which is Sri Lanka’s biggest export market, worth $1.56 billion annually, is already withdrawing similar concessions to the country. On Monday, the European Commission announced that Sri Lankan imports to Europe would lose GSP+ tariff concessions from August 15. Garment and fisheries products will be most affected as the tariff rises from zero to 18 percent.

The EU cited 15 counts of Sri Lankan rights violations, including the non-implementation of constitutional provisions guaranteeing human rights, the retention of emergency regulations related to detention without trial, and non-cooperation with UN human rights bodies.
The Sri Lankan government immediately rejected the EU’s demands. Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said: “We are not accepting the EU conditions. Our position is very clear. We have already made alternate arrangements to help the exporters who may be affected by this.” Nevertheless, business circles have expressed concern over the loss of crucial markets.

By contrast, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang last week conveyed support for Sri Lanka, saying: “China believes that the Sri Lankan government and its people are capable of handling various issues.” He added that Beijing hoped the UN and international powers would help Sri Lanka to “stabilise its internal situation and accelerate economic development”.

Earlier, the Russian foreign ministry issued a statement questioning Ban’s right to appoint the UN panel. It added: “What also makes us cautious is the fact that this decision was taken without regard to the position of a sovereign state and a member of the UN—Sri Lanka.”

These statements indicate intensifying great-power rivalry in South Asia. Members of the US foreign relations committee last year warned that Washington could not afford to “lose” Sri Lanka, which is strategically located in the Indian Ocean.
While the Rajapakse government recently tried to smooth relations with Washington, a stalemate persists. Foreign Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris went to the US to lobby Ban and to hold talks with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, in an unsuccessful bid to head off the UN panel plan. The Rajapakse government is now seeking the support of China and Russia to block the panel.

There are, nevertheless, differences within the Sri Lankan elite. Former army commander General Sarath Fonseka, after falling out with Rajapakse and deciding to contest the presidency, expressed his willingness to patch up relations with the US and EU. Sections of the business establishment rallied behind Fonseka during the presidential election, concerned by the prospect of losing markets and geo-political backing in the West. After being defeated in the election, Fonseka was arrested and is still in detention, facing a military court-martial, despite being an elected member of parliament.

On Monday, Fonseka told parliament that he was prepared to testify before the UN panel and “uphold the reputation of the military”. He claimed that he was not afraid of the panel, because “the war was waged in line with international covenants and conventions”. (WSWS)

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