Sri Lanka: Lionel Bopage, former JVP general secretary, on new left party, Tamil rights and state repression

April 17, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) was launched in Colombo, Sri Lanka, amidst international media outcry about the illegal abduction of four of its activists in the lead up to the launch by security forces. Two of these abductees, Premakumar Gunaratnam (an Australian citizen) and Dimuth Atygalle (a prominent woman leader of the group) have since been released. Gunaratnam, who has been deported to Australia, says he was tortured before being released. Two other FSP activists are still being illegally detained.

The FSP comes from a major split from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (Peoples’ Liberation Front, JVP), a group which led two bloodily repressed insurrections in 1971 and 1987. Socialist Alliance's Peter Boyle interviewed Lionel Bopage, a former general secretary of the JVP (1979-1984) who left the party because of the JVP's opposition to the Tamil minority’s right to national self-determination.

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As a former general secretary of the JVP you are familiar with the type of repression being used by the Sri Lankan state against leftists, Tamil nationalists and other dissidents, but are you surprised at the continuing operation of secret death and torture squads after the total suppression of all armed oppositions?

No. I am not surprised at the continuing operation of death and torture squads by the state. Several major factors have contributed to this situation.

It is less well known that death and torture squads were originally formed during the 1988-89 period, when about 60,000 people were said to have been killed. Death and torture squads continued to operate during the war against the Tamil militancy. These squads are currently being used to suppress any active political opposition to the state. Opposition and human rights organisations allege that during the past six months at least 56 political activists and journalists have been abducted by armed men mainly in white vans; 29 of them occurred during February and March 2012. It is an open secret that these squads operate hand in glove with the government security forces. In addition, a huge military machine is being maintained and expanded. One cannot challenge the selective and discriminatory application of law according to the regime’s whims and fancies.

The main challenge facing sovereignty of developing countries such as Sri Lanka is neoliberalism. Neoliberal forces are waging a ruthless war on resource-rich countries the world under the pretext of combating terrorism and promoting democracy and human rights. In this environment, the Sri Lankan government received the full political, economic and military backing of almost the entire world. Apparently, the United States (which recently sponsored the UNHRC resolution) and India (which voted for the US resolution) provided their political and military backing on the understanding that at the end of the war, structural reforms will be made for addressing the political roots of the conflict.

The economic growth rate has declined. The Gini coefficient indicates that income disparities have grown significantly in the urban and estate sector and income has remained relatively static in the rural sector. The increase in consumption and service provision distribution is skewed in favour of the affluent in the land, in particular, geographically towards the western province. The burden of the current economic crisis is being placed on the shoulders of working people with public services being gradually cut down through privatisation policies following demands of the International Monetary Fund to reduce the budget deficit.

Recently, to avert the balance of payments crisis in Sri Lanka, the IMF released a loan instalment of about US$0.5 billion (as part of its $2.6 billion standby loan). As a result of the loan, there has been an 18% cap on credit growth, electricity and petroleum price hikes, devaluation of the rupee and a pledge to cut this year’s budget deficit to 6.2% of GDP. In addition to the recent tax increases made on alcohol, cigarettes and all imported vehicles, social services and jobs are expected to be axed, and fuel prices are to be raised once again.

The war [against the Tamils] has created additional disadvantages in the region of the North and East in terms of economic infrastructure, livelihood, health and education. The state’s cultural policies towards non-Sinhala people are designed and implemented to build the majoritarian support for discrimination and exclusion of non-Sinhala people so that the attention of the working people can be diverted from the significant socio-economic issues that prevail at the time.

It is in the best interests of the ruling elites for Lankan society to remain fragmented so that no united effort on the people’s part will threaten their power, control, interests and privileges of the regime. When a crisis looms, as our own historical experiences indicate, such layers and individuals will do everything at whatever cost to safeguard their regime.

Therefore, the Sri Lanka regime needs to have a public enemy both locally and internationally to divert the attention of the working people. The syndrome of a "new public enemy" that needs suppressing through a new insurgency seems to have been created soon after the termination of armed conflict in May 2009. In 2010, the state, its intelligence services and the government declared that they were aware of another insurgency to be launched soon using university students. This declaration was made in an environment of a crackdown targeting the university students across the country, aimed at suppressing opposition to its planned measures for privatisation of education.

It will be interesting to compare the repression the state launched in the 1988-89 period, which developed into a massive spiral of violence leading to the insurgency, killing about 60,000 people. Incidentally, several political and military personalities, who had been involved in serious human rights abuses such as disappearances, death and destruction on their political opponents at the time, continue to hold responsible positions under the current status quo.

It is in this light that one can understand the process of autocratic militarisation of all sectors of the island, heavy-handed measures used against the working people and the rural poor, and the dogmatically chauvinist ideological campaign carried out against the non-Sinhala people. So any protest against the government would become unpatriotic and traitorous based on the claim that there is a so-called western conspiracy against Sri Lanka.

So, the continuing operation of secret death and torture squads after the total suppression of the progressive forces in the country will continue.

What do you think brought about the release of Sri Lankan-born Australian citizen Premakumar Gunaratnam and his comrade from the newly formed Frontline Socialist Party? What is the fate of the two still in detention?

As far as I know, two out of the four persons of the newly formed FSP abducted are still in detention. FSP full-time political activists, Lalith Weeraraj and Kugan Muruganandan, were abducted on December 9, 2011. Despite the Sri Lankan state denying having anything to do with their abductions, certain news reports allege that they are being held and tortured on the 6th floor of the Police Welfare Building, located opposite the Manning Market in Colombo. This abduction, torture and disappearance phenomenon is allegedly implemented under the supervision of a certain deputy inspector general (DIG) of police in-charge of Colombo. It is also alleged that this torture chamber is being managed by a police inspector loyal to this DIG, who enjoys special privileges under the current defence establishment.

As usual, the state and the government immediately denied any role in the abductions of Premakumar Gunaratnam and Dimithu Attygalle. The inspector general of police claimed that the police had deployed several teams to investigate. The foreign minister issued a statement after Gunaratnam’s release, saying the disappearances had occurred with the deliberate intention of causing embarrassment to the government and it was grossly unfair to point the finger at the state.

The debut of the new party, the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) was to be held on April 9, two days after the abduction of Gunaratnam and Attygalle.

This new party emerged out of the old JVP and it seems to have wanted to make Gunaratnam, its leader. The state was aware of his involvement with the group and wanted to stop this new group from coming out. Last December, when his wife was visiting Sri Lanka, she had been followed by the state agents, and when she was leaving Sri Lanka, she was arrested, detained and questioned at the airport about her husband. Therefore, there is nothing surprising that he had to work clandestinely and under different names. Rohana Wijeweera, Podi Athula and Wimal Weerawansa are such well-known acquired names, while, internationally, Ho Chi Min, Lenin, Mao are also well-known acquired names.

Apparently, Gunaratnam fled to Australia in the 1990s and became an Australian citizen. It seems that he changed his name and returned to Sri Lanka in late 2011 to participate in FSP activities. Having heard of the abduction of their son, his parents requested the Australian High Commission to intervene. According to Gunaratnam, following the intervention by the Australian government, his abductors dumped him near a Colombo police station and told him to go there and surrender. The police then informed the Australian High Commission in Sri Lanka, which supervised Gunaratnam’s deportation.

Gunaratnam and Attygale seem to have been detained at separate covert locations in Kiribathgoda (close to Colombo), they have been brought together for questioning and collaborating each of their responses by the abductors. Hence Gunaratnam knew that Attygale was held by the same agents that abducted him.

The questioning was about if the FSP had any links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) remnants, and if the FSP was readying itself for an armed struggle. As such, to deport Gunaratnam and to make Attygalle disappear would have been a political and diplomatic risk that the Sri Lankan state wanted to avoid at any cost, in particular, after the recent UN Human Rights Council Resolution. This may explain the release of Attygale, after deporting Gunaratnam.

In my opinion, the first factor that led to their release was the urgent international publicity that the abduction of Premakumar Gunaratnam and Dimuthu Attygalle received. Particularly, in the current international environment Sri Lankan state has encountered, the Australian High Commission’s intervention would have placed the Sri Lanka state in an awkward position. Thus, the course of action taken by the Sri Lankan state would have been to avoid a diplomatic embarrassment.

The second factor is that there was information leaked regarding where Gunaratnam had been detained taken after kidnapping. Such information would have come from certain individuals in the ranks, who either would have really been concerned of what the regime is doing in terms of kidnapping people violating their rights to freely engage in conducting their political activities democratically, or would have been disgruntled by the undemocratic behaviours of politicians and the top brass of the security forces.

The exact nature of what happened leading to their release is not clear. I believe it will take some time and those reasons will become known in due course.

For a certain time, after you left the JVP, that party supported the Sri Lankan government’s war against the Tamil independence movement but now it is seen as an opposition party. Why is this? And what are the politics of the FSP split from the JVP?

Though I can express my opinion regarding this situation, the best person to respond to this question would be Premkumar Gunaratnam himself.

In fairness to the newly emerging FSP, I need to say that at its first congress, it issued a new policy declaration and a self-criticism of the JVP past, which is not yet available here in Australia, so it is too early to make a critical assessment of its current political positions.

Gunaratnam’s visit to Sri Lanka has been to work with his former colleagues in the JVP who thought that the party’s strategic political approach needed a complete overhaul: mainly, regarding the use of violence as a means of social change, to actively engage in changing the authoritarian rule in Sri Lanka through democratic means, and changing its previous chauvinistic approach towards the national question.

I would characterise the JVP as a semi-proletarian movement of the rural youth, landless peasants, the unemployed and other oppressed sections of the Sri Lankan society. The main aim of the JVP was achieving social justice for the oppressed and equitable resource and income distributions. However, petty-bourgeois thinking, vacillation and opportunism have prevailed in its ideological positions.

In its history, the JVP has gone through several different policy positions regarding the national question. Between 1971 and 1983, the JVP recognised, in principle, the Leninist position on right of nations to self-determination. However, it continuously rejected agitating for the rights of non-Sinhala people. In the face of discrimination and repression against the Tamil people, the JVP central committee remained deadly silent. At the beginning of 1983 there was no difference between what the JVP was advocating and what an orthodox parliamentary party would have been advocating on the national question.

In July 1983 by concocting a conspiracy, the UNP government proscribed the JVP and drove it underground. In 1985, the JVP decided to build an underground organisation and to use the national question in an opportunistic manner to gain political power. Instead of relying on people power, in late 1985, the JVP had based their hopes on arms. 1986 saw a major shift in the JVP’s approach towards the national question. The JVP terror campaign in earnest appeared to have begun in 1987, with the Deshapremi Janatha Vyaparaya's (DJV, Patriotic Peoples’ Movement) decision to declare curfew and kill civilians who do not abide by its orders. The government sponsored July 1983 pogrom against the Tamils had exacerbated the Tamil militancy in the north-east which by then has become a full scale civil war. In mid-1987 India airdropped supplies over the north east to prevent a full-scale invasion of the Jaffna Peninsula by the Sri Lankan state.

Since the 1990s, the JVP was traversing the right-wing route. It made a major shift towards class collaboration with the bourgeois leadership of the PA, thus taking a comparable route traversed by the old left in the 1960s. The JVP agitation was based on the claim that Sri Lanka’s, national independence and sovereignty were in grave danger. They opposed negotiations with the LTTE unless they drop the demand for separation and disarmed, which was politically equivalent to a complete surrender.

Worst was their statement that there has been no ethnic problem in Sri Lanka. With regard to the national question they joined hands with Sinhala chauvinist groups. Condemnation of terror by the JVP was one-sided. While condemning the terror campaigns conducted by the LTTE, they praised the terror campaigns conducted by the security forces as patriotic.

The JVP became pawns in the hands of reactionary political forces of the worst kind in the history of Sri Lanka. Sadly, many in the left have helped and are still helping bourgeois ruling elites in diverse ways to implement their neoliberal agenda. No wonder the left is in crisis in Sri Lanka.

It is in this light that we need to critically look at what the emerging FSP is attempting to do. There are lot of antagonisms regarding what [its members] have done in the past. However, we of the left need to welcome and encourage any positive change in their political direction, even if we do not agree with their political agenda and line of action in their entirety. It is only through the united action of those in the left in collaboration with those who value democratic and human rights and rule of law, that Sri Lanka will be able to come out from its current precarious situation.

[The Lionel Bopage Story: Rebellion, repression and the struggle for justice in Sri Lanka by Michael Cooke
(Agahas Publishers 2011), 566 pp, A$25.00 is available from Resistance Books. A review of this book by Ben Courtice can be read here. A review by Dr V. Suryanarayan can be read here.

[See aslo “Will the Frontline Socialist Party revive the left?” by Niel Wijethilaka and K. Govindan (Nava Sama Samaja Party).]

• Asia
• Frontline Socialist Party (Sri Lanka)
• JVP
• Socialist Alliance
• Sri Lanka
• Tamils

International Communist Solidarity Prorest Against for World Economic Forum

A protest against the World Economic Forum was held in St Gallen, Switzerland on 22. 91. 2011 by many polotical parties and groups under the Red flags.

Alle Jahre wieder findet im Landwassertal, genauer gesagt in Davos, das World Economic Forum (WEF) statt. Auch in diesem Jahr lädt der Ziehvater des WEF, Klaus Schwab, die selbsternannten Wirtschaftskapitäne, Ministerpräsidenten und Young Global Leaders nach Davos ein. Das 41. Annual Meeting des World Economic Forums (WEF) findet vom 26. bis 30. Januar unter dem Motto "Shared Norms for the New Reality" statt.

Der Widerstand gegen das WEF äussert sich auch in diesem Jahr in verschiedenen Formen. Mit dem Ziel "Lassen wir uns nicht spalten" gehen wir dieses Jahr auf die Strasse.

Für Interessierte gibt es neben den Demonstrationen am 22.01.2011 in St. Gallen (14 Uhr Bahnhofplatz) und am 29.01.2011 in Davos auch viele verschiedene Veranstaltungen in der ganzen Schweiz.

Political activists and journalists attacked at airport

Supporters of the General Secretary of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), Vickramabahu Karunaratne and some journalists were attacked at the Colombo airport by a mob while the police were looking on. MTV Katunayaka correspondant Prema Lal and Lankaenews journalist Shantha Wijesuriya who went to cover Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratna's arrival from the UK have been assaulted. Activists attacked NSSP party members, Journalists, trade union leaders, lawyers and human rights activists were among the victims of the attack. Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratna who returned to Sri Lanka after a visit to the UK accuse deputy minister for ports and aviation Sarath Kumara Gunaratne for organising the attack. During his visit, the NSSP General Secretary addressed several public meetings. He was one of the main speakers at the Tamil remembrance day 2010 held on 27th of November. Bahu to be investigated The government of Sri Lanka has accused Dr. Karunaratne and opposition parliamentarian Dr. Jayalath Jayawardena of organising the protests in London in collusion with Tamil Tiger supporters. Lakshman Hullugalle, the Director General of Media Centre for National Security who said that it is too early to name suspects alleged that the attack was instigated by people who were discontented by Dr. Karunaratne's anti government activities in the United Kingdom. "Dr. Jayalath Jayawardhana and Vickramabahu, both will be investigated and will be taken in to custody if necessary for their anti government activities abroad", said Lakshman Hullugalle.

Sri Lankan Govt's Thugs attack to Comrade Bahu and his Supporters- Sri Lankan Airport

Political Situation in Nepal

[Gaurav, a member of the Central Committee of the leading Maoist party in Nepal, the UCPN(M), gives his thoughts on the current political impasse as it has continued since the 2006 strategic turn (with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement) and the subsequent rise and fall of UCPNM leadership in the process of forming a coalition government. Can this strategy be re-envigorated? Or is a strategic turn now required? His thoughts follow....-ed.]

Red Star. June 2010

Present political situation and policy of the Party

by C P Gajurel ‘Gaurav’

Present political situation is marked by various twists and turns and ups and downs. After the abolition of autocratic monarchy ruling over Nepal since last two and a half centuries, the contradictions of Nepalese are in the process of changing. This change in the contradiction has brought some new changes in political alliances and new conflicts. The political parties which made repeated commitments before the people of Nepal and at the international sphere, proved futile when the tenure of the Constituent Assembly(CA) nearly ended without accomplishing its job of writing a new constitution.

Though the term of CA has been extended for another one year, making new constitution is still a tuff job, because the diff erences among the major political parties remain unresolved and new issues of diff erences have cropped up regarding many questions related and unrelated to the constitution. This article has been prepared based on such political circumstances.

Why the Constituent Assembly?

Though the slogan of Constituent Assembly was first coined by then Nepali Congress during 1950’s when it was leading anti-Rana mass movement, but it was completely left out for the last half a century. Th is slogan was raised by C P N (Maoist), but at the different circumstances. The party identified the existing monarchy as the main obstacle for the development of the Nepalese society and worked out a tactical line of making alliance with all the political forces who wanted to get rid of the monarchy. Major slogan to forge such an alliance was Constituent Assembly.
The slogan of Constituent Assembly was coined by the party in its National Conference held in 2001. Efforts were made to forge alliance with the parliamentary parties. It did not materialize, because the parliamentary parties were moving around the king and vying to get better portfolios in the king’s cabinet. These parties had the policy of making united front with the king and wipe out the Maoists.

The coup staged by king Gyanendra in February 2005, in which he declared emergency and became head of the government, caused a new political situation. Many leaders of the main stream political parties were either imprisoned or under the house arrest. So the parties were compelled to struggle against the monarchy. India, which was main external support to the monarchy to fight against the Maoist led People’s War was not happy with the latest step of the then king directed also against its allies, the parliamentary political parties.

The other point that caused anger to the Indian government was that the Gyanendra regime bought arms with China which India conceived as a challenge to its authority and gross violation of the tradition of making arms deal only with India.

Our party, the CPN(Maoist) using these newly emerged contradictions as opportunity to forge alliance with the parliamentary parties against the monarchy which was the representative institution of feudalism, bureaucratic and comprador capitalists and the party took initiative to achieve this aim. It was thus finally materialized with 12 point agreements between Maoist party and seven parties.

Differences crop up

The autocratic monarchy ruling over Nepal for the last two and a half decades formally came to an end when fi rst meeting of the constituent assembly declared Nepal a Federal Democratic Republic with almost unanimous vote on May 28, 2008.

The king and the parliamentary parties represented the interest of almost the same classes. In absence of the monarchy these parliamentary parties started to play leading role in fulfi lling the interest of these classes which was reflected in all spheres– politics, making alliance, formation of the government etc.

The exploiting classes are always dependent on international forces of their character. In this era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, the exploiting classes such as comprador and bureaucratic capitalists and feudals are dependent on imperialist and expansionist forces or both. In case of Nepal, India is the external power which interferes in Nepal in many areas like—politics, economics, culture, territory etc.

This is the reason why it is considered as expansionism. India’s role as expansionist power has been more expressed during last couple of years. It is known to many people in Nepal that India creates parties, India causes splits in the parties, India makes accesses in parties and makes them unable to implement their own line and plan, India plays determining role in making, sustaining and bringing down governments. Therefore Nepal is considered as a semi-colonial country.

Many agreements, understandings, negotiations have taken place among seven parties versus Maoist party in the past. In the election of constituent assembly held in 2008, the UCPN(Maoist) has emerged as the single largest party securing majority (123 seats out of 240 total seats of the CA) NC and UML have been reduced to second and third ranking parties. All these parties were co travelers during anti-king mass movements. When the monarchy came to an end the political chemistry has been changed. NC and major section of UML represent the interest of comprador, bureaucratic capitalist class and remnants of feudalism. So they are unable to go beyond statusquo.

They are against bringing about fundamental and revolutionary transformation in the society. They collaborate with Indian expansionism and contribute in continuing the semi-colonial character of the country. Thus their role especially aft er the abolition of monarchy has been changed.

Because of the class nature of NC and UML as mentioned above they are bound to confront with the agenda put forward by Maoist party for the qualitative transformation of the Nepalese society. In this way contradiction between Maoist party and mainly with other two parties, NC and UML is sure to come up. In course of time this contradiction can even be sharper in the future.

Practice of the last two years has clearly indicated that the NC and major portion of UML are not going to soften their stand, they are trying to harden their stand against Maoist. Th eir collaboration with Indian state is further deepening and they are taking more antinational stands.

Contradictions in a process of changing

During the period of monarchy also the Nepalese society was characterized as semi-feudal and semi-colonial. Our party formulated that the principal contradiction of the Nepalese society was between feudalism, bureaucratic and comprador capitalism supported and backed by Indian expansionism versus the Nepalese masses. Feudalism was the principal aspect, because monarchy represented institution of medieval feudal society.

In the question of safeguarding the national interest of the country, the kings always tried to use the question of nationalism or patriotism as a mask to cover their anti-people character and autocratic rule. It was impossible to safeguard Nepal’s national interest or nationalism under the rule of a king, because there are several instances in history in which kings have surrendered in front of the foreign powers and lost the sovereignty of the nation. Sugauli Treaty is one of the worst examples.

It is also true that if the whole country goes under complete control of foreign power the monarchy would be nowhere. So the nationalism advocated by the king was confi ned to fulfill the interest of monarchy. Abolition of the monarchy which was ruling over Nepal since last 250 years is definitely a historically significant event. It is a victory against feudalism.

This historic event is sure to influence the political situation of the country and also the contradiction of Nepalese society. So far the domestic contradiction is concerned feudalism still exists but it is no more principal aspect. Contradiction against bureaucratic capitalism and comprador bourgeoisie is principal aspect. Thus the domestic contradiction can be defined as –comprador bourgeoisie, bureaucratic capitalism and feudalism versus Nepalese masses.

External intervention in Nepal has increased unabated. Indian expansionism which played supportive role in favour of the ruling class in the past has started to play direct role. It has executed all other forms of intervention except direct military invasion. Thus the contradiction of Nepal and Nepalese people with India is heading to principal contradiction.

The recently held Central Committee of our party has made serious evaluation of the recent development in the contradictions of the Nepalese society and has arrived at a conclusion that the principal contradiction is changing rapidly. At the present situation, the domestic and external contradictions have so intertwined that it is hard to separate. Thus the principal contradiction is heading to– bureaucrat capitalism, comprador bourgeoisie and feudalism and Indian expansionism on the one hand and the Nepal and the Nepalese people on the other.

United front policy

Given the change in the principal contradiction it will have reflection in the policy of making united front, alliance and unity in action with different classes and class forces. Our party is leading mass struggles and mass movement with concrete slogans. Since one year we are putt ing the slogan of National independence at the fore front. It does not mean that the domestic contradiction has ceased to exist.

There is still remnant of feudalism dominating in the society. But feudalism is not the principal aspect. Comprador bourgeoisie and bureaucratic capitalism is becoming the principal aspect. It is quite evident that when the question of National Independence comes at the fore front, it demands that the party should forge the policy of making united front with the patriotic forces.

It shows that the nature of friends and foes has been changed according to the
changed situation. The real patriotic forces have to become the allies of revolution. It is obvious that that when there is change in the principal contradiction, the policy regarding the united front should be changed accordingly. There should be a broad united front among the working class, peasantry, oppressed nationalities and tribes, women and dalits and patriotic forces.

In the given situation of the principal contradiction, the major slogan of the united front is—All the patriotic, left ist and republican forces should unite!

This policy of united front has also been refl ected in making new constitution. Our policy regarding the new constitution is very clear. Nepal should have a constitution of People’s Federal Republic. Only the constitution with such content can address the demands of the oppressed people and all sections of the people of Nepalese society—working class, peasantry, dalits, women, jatis, janajatis and can safeguard the national independence and national sovereignty.

Based on the new line of the united front our party is going to make a concrete tactical line and concrete plan of action. As explained by Mao, line decides everything. The correct line formulated by our party will be definitely able to accomplish the revolution.

August 14, 2010 - Posted by Ka Frank | Nepal, Nepal Party Statements | constituent assembly, CP Gajurel, Gaurav


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/cp-gajurel-on-the-political-situation-in-nepal/

War is over. Are you comfortable now?

War is over. Are you comfortable now?- Can you wash your hand

(Under the above title written this article written by Inter University Students Federation is very sensitive and crucial at the time, but it is very controversial ideological approach done by the pro supported JVP Unionist today though is a tragedy as there was no political view with humanist and Marxist philosophy, so they always choose the very cheaper way to get power and to go to the people’s mind.
In that sense they already become the situation of a prostitute and even now don’t understand the reality and round of the Sri Lankan politics.
Finally we here publish this article as an important point in one hand and as a tragedy in the other hand of Sri Lankan leftist representatives)


War is over, war is over, war is over. That is the chant moaned by the government and its associates through the last 11 months. But we would like to ask one question. Is it all right now? Or is it comfortable now? The simple meaning of this is “you think it’s all over after the war is over?" We clearly remind you about one thing. Though the war is over, the problem is not over. It’s in its primary stage, or it is worse than that.
People made many commitments to defeat the separatist terrorist front. All the people from north and south queued up together for that. Tamil people from north left Prabhakaran alone and fled, trusting the government army. At that time the Muslim people from the east trusted the government too. All the Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim people from the south put up with a bunch of ministers extending to hundreds, their thefts, their rowdyism, with the price of goods, many kinds of defense taxes and also the so called strength of the government doing war. How did the government pay them back? What did the government do for the people who queued up for patriotism, and who thought of the country rather than their tummies.
Now the people of the east sigh as they look at foundation stones and light posts abandoned all over the place. The people of the south watch on television the way the next prince of the Rajapaksha generation is being dressed with kurahan satake by using the votes looted from them by hammering the dead tiger skin.
Today the people of north have been put into misery that cannot be explained in words. They have been made into beggars. They have been made into a situation where they are worse than the dust of the A-9 road.
Take this road….
We would like to request you to come walking along the A-9 road consciously if you want to see with your own eyes the sufferings faced by the people of the north. We especially have to refer “consciously”, because we have seen many times the ridiculous things done on trips by people who have been lost because of the synthetic dreams of government, like Uthuru Wasanthe. Our mothers who pose for photographs in many gestures beside the
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devastated Kilinochchi water tank would not think for a moment that because of the broken water tank, the children in Kilinochchi are without water to drink.
Think of when the female devotees who are overjoyed with Buddha’s enlightenment because of the opportunity to worship Nagadeepaya travelling to Jaffna through A-9 on their noses’ directions, and it would not come to their minds of the 15 year old mothers in the slums on both sides of the road who feed their children of three years with their under-grown breasts.
This is not a fault of our country’s people. This is the result of the hypnotism carried out on the people by the government. The Uthuru Wasanthe is on one side. The train for your hearts is on another side. An advertisement on the North showing massive developments is on one side. The news on the kethumathi reign is on another side. We would like to request from you again to come walking along the A-9 road not in dreams, but in reality. The government boasted of finishing the resettlement of the people in the IDP camps of the north by January in the election times. But all of IDPs who still remain our brotherly people are still suffering in the IDP camps including Settikulam. Their children do not have even the lowest facilities needed to study. And also many schools haven’t been opened. Or they are used as school IDPs. And also the devastated schools haven’t been built yet. And they are also used as schools for rehabilitation camps.
As an example, Periyakulam college of Kanagarayankulam is still a collection of four white walls. It hasn’t been built. And also Omanthai central college is still a rehabilitation centre rehabilitating LTTE suspects. Therefore school children have to study in the nearby slums made with coconut branches.
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The Periyankulam college of Kanagarayam Kulam still only has four walls.
The students of Omanthai central college who study under trees and slums of coconut branches for a year because of their schools have been maintained as rehabilitation camp.
Re orphaning alias resettlement
Resettlement is a mere bunkum. It is not a resettlement. It is re-orphaning. What the government did as resettlement is to leave the people of slums on the two sides of the road. They are given only 9 corrugated metal sheets and 10 pieces of wood in this so called resettlement. Some houses haven’t been given even that much. They have been given only a tent sheet by the NGOs.
Can you ever imagine the lives spent by these Tamil people in these small huts just like children’s playing huts. No economic mechanism is made related to their families. The protection of the children and women, and their confidentiality are still critical problems. The student called “Krishna” who met us in Kilinochchi said that some person entered into her camp many times in night and ran his hands on her body.
Both mother and child are children
A critical problem in these IDP camps is that many under aged children became mothers. “Sharmila” who we met at Mankulam was 15 years old. She has a daughter aged 2.5 years. Her husband and the father of child is 16 years old.
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This is not a misery inherited only to her. The reason is that they had been prompted to marry with somebody and make children, to prevent LTTE from taking them to their organization. The reason is pregnant women or women with small children were not taken by the LTTE. The result of this social conflict is visible in front of our eyes. There is a critical need of implementing a brisk mission related to them on education and health. But this problem has not even been identified properly by the government.
IDP camps without rehabilitation.
And also there are many centres introduced as rehabilitating centres of LTTE suspects are in Vaunia. Among them there are Pampalu, Punthottam, Nellukulam, Marambikulam, Vavuniya Muslim College and Omanthai central college. Especially many Tamil children still have been imprisoned in Pampamadu camp for 12 months.
University of Jaffna Government launched a big advertising process during the presidential election that about 1750 students in these camps had been released. But on April 8th, less than 500 had been released. Among them there were few students. Although there were more than 200 students of Jaffna University in the Pampamadu camp, only 43 female students were released. Not even one male student of the Jaffa University was released. Today there are still more than 150 male students who are imprisoned in Pampamadu camp. And no information was even revealed of those students.
The facilities in those camps are below standard. The students were sent to those camps from IDP camps. We asked those students what were the steps taken for rehabilitation in those camps. They said that they were trained to how to make rings using coconut shells. We asked what were the reason for giving training on making rings of coconut shells to people who have bee selected to universities to study commerce, arts, medicine and engineering degrees. The government should explain the rehabilitation coming out of it. Shouldn’t we go against the wrong doing of the government which is imprisoning, wasting and destroying young Tamil lives?
And also there are 12 disabled female students among those female students. Among them some are critically disabled who have lost their hands, legs. But no facility was provided by the university. A building is provided as the only facility to them for their living.
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But it is strictly forbidden for anybody of them to go outside university premises. They weren’t allowed to go out even on New Year days. Therefore they have been imprisoned in the university in addition to their imprisonment of a year.
Among the female students imprisoned in the Jaffna University, there are female students of other universities. As an example, a female student called “Peter Sathgunarasan Anusha” was chosen for Kelaniya University according to A/Ls. Her course was Peace and Conflict Resolution. But she is in a hostel of Jaffna University. Her course is not conducted in Jaffna University. Likewise there are female students who have been chosen for eastern University and south-east University.
Ranked 2nd in the district but the university is prohibited.
We got to know of better examples of lives of Tamil students being destroyed in this Pampamadu camp. She is Puwanenthitan Thasmida. She faced her A/L in 2009 in maths stream. Results came and she was ranked second in the Mullaitivu district. Therefore she was chosen for the engineering faculty. But she was not allowed to register in the university by the Pampamadu authorities. She is still in her camp.
All the factors show the misery faced by Tamil people. Many Tamil students have become victims of this misery. 5 students have died since the war in Jaffna district. 4 out of them are students of Jaffna University. And three of them died by hanging themselves.
Balasingham Karunanidhi who committed suicide on 2010/04/02 was a third year student of the management faculty of Jaffna University. The reason for his death was the harassment faced by him in the past wartime and after wartime. He and his nine family members had been suffering for months in IDPs and in those camps; Balasingham was not treated for his illnesses. After that he came back to Jaffna University and was not treated. And also his nine family members spent a worse life. All of them had been given only 07 tin roof sheets. That pressure affected them too. The last result was his death by hanging himself.
A male student of the management faculty of Jaffna University Ravindradasan Victor Aruldas and a female student called Velayandan Piruwali jumped to Kopali lagoon and suicide on February 10th. They were lovers. Ravindradasan was shot in the wartime and had a neural illness. But he was not given any treatment. At last they wrote letters and commit suicide themselves together.
And also Tiruchelvam Kapilanath of Jaffna was abducted for a ransom of 30 millions and killed on 14th of March. An LTTE cadre of Jaffna has been accused for that. And also three months ago a female student of Jaffna University died having Dengue flu. These suicides show the pressure faced by north and east Tamil people today. They happened because of the pressures got critical more than they could bear. The government should be responsible for this. These show that the government does not care about the Tamil people. And also about 10000 Tamil people are still detained in government prisons as political prisoners. It is a critical situation and also about 140 Tamil students in Jaffna and east universities have
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vanished. That is since the war but the government doesn’t reveal any information on that. Because of these conditions, Tamil people have to suffer many pressures. The pressure is so high that some persons choose suicide themselves. Therefore their rights should be given immediately. The development should be taken forward briskly. Devastated schools, buildings, houses, transportation should be restored.
But the government is playing the fool. The former transport minister Dallas Alahapperuma’s frauds like “A ticket to heart” to build a railway track to Jaffna should be stopped. Because they are deceived the Tamil people again.
In the last year minister Dallas couldn’t build a railway any kilometre beyond Vavuniya. The results will be terrible if no brisk intervention is made. The reason is the pressure among Tamil students before the year 1983 ended with a terrible terrorism. The prime minister is talking nonsense of terrorism’s three phase arrival. The youth problems should be solved to prevent youth conflicts from emerging. People’s rights should be given to prevent people’s rise. Therefore to prevent armed conflicts again, the problems of Tamil people should be solved by giving their rights.
Otherwise, the rise of the youth cannot be prevented by accusing all the Tamil youth in the prison camps that they are LTTE terrorists and keeping them in prisons or by addressing false arguments of keeping and curbing laws such as the law of emergency. The people should be given rights. The people should be given democracy. The people should be given freedom. That is the way to build real national harmony.
Udul Premarathne (0777-357124)
Convener, Inter university students’ federation
Email: udulpremarathne@yahoo.com

Great Salute for Nepal Maoist

This may 1th is unavoidable start for Nepal as a one and new step of the revolution. Our comradely saluation for the struggle.Mels


Nepal: Bracing for `high noon' after May 1

By Jed Brandt, Kathmandu
April 21, 2010 — JedBrandt.net —

There are moments when Kathmandu does not feel like a city on the edge of revolution. People go about all the normal business of life. Venders sell vegetables, nail clippers and bootleg Bollywood films from the dirt, cramping the already crowded streets. Uniformed kids tumble out of schools with neat ties in the hot weather. Municipal police loiter at the intersections while traffic ignores them, their armed counterparts patrol in platoons through the city with wood-stocked rifles and dust masks as they have for years. New slogans are painted over the old, almost all in Maoist red. Daily blackouts and dry-season water shortages are normal for Nepal’s primitive infrastructure, not the sign of crisis. Revolutions don’t happen outside of life, like an asteroid from space – but from right up the middle, out of the people themselves.
Passing through Kathmandu’s Trichandra college campus after meeting with students in a nearby media program, I walked into the aftermath of bloody attack. Thugs allied with the Nepali Congress party student group had cut up leaders of a rival student group with khukuri knives leaving one in critical condition. Hundreds of technical students were clustered in the street when I arrived by chance. The conflict most often described through the positioning of political leaders is breaking out everywhere.
Indefinite bandhs [strikes] are paralysing large parts of the country after the arrest of Young Communist League (YCL) cadre in the isolated far west and Maoist student leaders in Pokhora, the central gateway to the Annapurna mountain range. The southern Terai is in chaos, with several power centres competing and basic security has broken down; banditry, extortion and kidnapping are now endemic. Government ministers cannot appear anywhere without Maoist pickets waving black flags and throwing rocks.
With no central authority, all sides are claiming the ground they stand on and preparing their base. It’s messy, confused and coming to a sharp point as the May 28 deadline for a new constitution draws near with no consensus in sight. The weak government holding court in the Constituent Assembly can’t command a majority, not even of their own parties. Seventy assembly representatives of the status quo Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) party signed a letter calling on their own leader to step down from the prime minister’s chair to make way for a Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) -- UCPN (M), known simply as the Maoists -- national-unity government. He refuses, repeating demands that the Maoists dissolve their popular organisations and return lands seized by the people who farm them.
The Maoists have more pressing concerns than the legalism of the parliamentary parties. If they can’t restructure the state, by constitutional means or otherwise, the enthusiasm that brought their revolutionary movement this far may turn to disillusionment. With no progress in the assembly, the leaders of the status quo parties now say there will be no resolution on time. The Maoists have rejected any extension as a stalling tactic and are turning to the people. With now-or-never urgency, they are mobilising all their forces for a decisive showdown in Kathmandu.
Nepal braces for May 1
Posters for May 1 appeared overnight announcing the Maoist call for workers and villagers to converge on Kathmandu for a “final conflict”. The Maoists are calling for a sustained mobilisation, with the hope that an overwhelming showing can push the government out with a minimum of bloodshed and stay the hand of the Nepal army.
May 1 is International Workers' Day, the traditional day of action for communists around the world, but the mobilisation has already begun.
Thousands of recruits are being trained by YCL cadre in districts throughout the country, drilling with bamboo sticks in place of rifles. With threats from Nepal army commanders to put these protests down with force, the Maoists are preparing to defend their mass organisations, the marches, the party and the people from attempts at counter-revolution. Their meetings include political orientations and anti-disinformation training to combat the confusing fog of manufactured rumours and lies that are already in the air.
National assemblies of radical students, artists, intellectuals, ethnic federations, women, unions and trade organisations convened widely during the month of April. All sectors are receiving the same message: the Maoists will not return to the jungle, or replay a guerilla struggle. They will not retreat. The conflict will be decided frontally in the cities.
Dual power – class struggle at the tipping point
Nepal has two mutually exclusive power structures: one is the revolutionary movement led by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which has a powerful mass base among the people, a disciplined political militia in the YCL and its People’s Liberation Army. The other is the apparatus of Nepal’s state — held over from the monarchy, unreconstructed, backed by the rifles of the Nepal army and the heavy weight of feudal tradition.
Land seizures co-exist with plantations. Old judges still sit in their patronage chairs dispensing verdicts to the highest bidder while revolutionary courts turn off and on in the villages. The deposed king Gyanendra lost his crown, but retains vast tracts of land, a near monopoly on tobacco and a “personal” business empire. Large-scale infrastructure like hydropower remains largely under foreign ownership, but only operates when, and how, the Maoist-allied unions let them. In short, the semi-feudal, semi-colonial system of Nepal is in place but the organised workers and Maoist-led villagers hold a veto.
In Nepal, people were taught that the poor would always be poor. They long believed it. There would always be kings, lords, myriad deities and foreign patrons to look over them. Caste dictated behaviour and expectations for most, justifying dull cruelty and vast human waste. The tolerance and fatalism so beloved by British travel writers were also consigning the people of Nepal to isolation, ignorance and the lowest life expectancies in Asia. But the world doesn’t actually stand still, or turn in circles, as some would have it. Things do change.
When urban civil uprisings wrested a parliamentary system from King Birendra in 1990 nothing changed for the people, save those whose hands got greased for government services. When rising expectations crashed into the closed doors of realpolitik of elite “democracy” – the Maoists blew it open, building an army up from the people themselves. From bases of support in Rolpa and Rukum, the People’s War spread to 80% of the country in 10 lightening years. More than 10,000 people lost their lives in the greatest uprising in Nepal’s history.
Yubaraj Lama, a prominent actor/director thrust into radical politics by the movement against the king, put it simply: "It was the failure of the political parties to bring democracy, any real social change for the masses of people that fueled the People's War. This is what the Maoists changed. People were very fatalistic, looking up to politicians like princes. That is over."
People who had never thought social change was possible now believe they can end their poverty. Kings are not gods and their crown can fall. Women and girls are more than a way to have male children. The heavy hand of foreign domination and its imposed backwardness can be challenged. The Maoists changed the concept of politics from appeal-if-you-dare to revolution from the ground up.
Everyone isn’t happy with the way the wind is blowing. It is easy to find haughty conservatives who think any hope from the poor comes at their expense and who want to see the Maoists crushed.
Talking with the owner of an English-language bookstore, an outspoken supporter of the CPN (UML)’s embattled prime minister, he insisted that people only attended the Maoist rallies because they were forced to. This plainly isn't true, but I asked why they won the elections. He told me “these people are stupid” and “believe the Maoist lies that they can live in the big house”. When I noted that all the unions in the neighbourhood were Maoist and they hardly seemed forced into it, he laughed. “Of course they are, they want to take all the money from people who own them.”
With all the paranoia of the United States’ white-fright militias, Nepal’s reactionaries conflate rudimentary democracy, let alone the communist program of the Maoists, with the very end of the world.
Nepal’s embattled elites also can’t simply be brushed aside or nuanced into reform. They to have an army, the former Royal Nepal Army, renamed but unreconstructed. The officer corps is steeped in caste ideology and disdain for the common people, supplied with modern weapons and not-so-secret Indian and US advisers.
The PLA is training and waiting within UN-supervised cantonments – military bases scattered across the countryside. The YCL, led by former PLA commanders, is training new militias throughout the country. And for its part, the Nepal army is confined to its barracks, concentrated in and around Kathmandu.
The politics of this moment are intricate. Many forces parry and maneouvre for advantage. But the basic situation is this: dual power has produced a highly unstable stalemate between a revolutionary people and a weakened regime – a paper tiger with real claws — and the moment of decision is fast approaching.
Democracy is just a word
Over the last 20 years, passion has only grown to see the people decide Nepal’s future, to have some form of genuine popular democracy. It erupted first in the 1990 Jana Andolan civil uprising. It fueled the People's War that started in 1996 and animated the powerful mass movement that toppled the king in 2008.
One of the fruits of that sustained struggle was the current Constituent Assembly – where elected representatives of the grassroots were supposed to craft a new framework for a new society, with both open election to seats and sectoral representation to ensure that women, minorities and workers had direct representation. The very idea of such a constituent assembly comes from communist demands – it was their answer to bourgeois democracy.
Maoists made 40 demands of the king in the mid-1990s before launching their guerrilla war. Despite consistent flexibility on almost everything, a constituent assembly was the only demand that was never negotiable. It’s profound, the idea of an empowered assembly drawn from every corner – including elected representatives of the poor, women and minorities – for the purpose of remaking the very basis of government and society. This was to be the workshop of a New Nepal.
In a short-lived alliance with the parliamentary parties brokered in 2006, a popular uprising in Kathmandu forced the king out and secularism was established. Elections where held in 2008, and the Maoists emerged the largest party, with more delegates than the old standbys CPN (UML) and Congress combined. The rest of the seats went to a score of minor parties.
This unprecedented assembly has been gridlocked since it convened. On one side, the old political parties want an Indian-style parliamentary system that is quite compatible with rural feudalism and caste oppression. And opposing those parties, stand the Maoists who speak of a radical new people's democracy where those excluded from politics will now set the terms.
The Maoists have used their days in this assembly to flesh out their plans for a New Nepal. They drafted and popularised constitutional provisions for a future people’s republic – including land reform, complete state restructuring, equality for women, autonomy for oppressed minorities and an end to Nepal’s stifling subordination to India. Ambitious plans to redirect government investment in basic infrastructure like roads, sanitation and vastly expanded public education were all scuttled when the Nepal army refused to recognise civilian control after the Maoist victory. Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda resigned, leading the Maoists out of government and leaving the Constituent Assembly in gridlock. They are the largest party, the legal and extra-legal opposition.
The same callous ruling classes, who ignored the bitter poverty of people for decades, now claim to be Nepal’s only “democratic” alternative to the Maoists.
Yet everyone knows it was those Maoists who went deep among the people, who fought with guns, braved torture and sacrificed many lives for constitutional elections — winning a popular mandate in that voting. Who, then, are the true democrats here? Who really speaks for the people and their aspirations for power?
Time itself is accelerating
All the political forces in the country have now spent the last years in slow-motion maneouvreing. They have revealed their programs and exposed their natures – before a closely watching population.
The Maoists are refusing to wait any longer. Leaders of Congress party and CPN (UML) admit a constitution can't be delivered by May 28. The Maoists reject any postponement of that May 28 deadline. No more stalling, they say.
Hundreds of thousands have been mobilised in peaceful mass marches over the last months. Such marches have been a vehicle for intensive mass organising. They have been used as a gauge of growing partisan strength. The logistics of moving people through the streets to each of the main government offices is practice for seizure. In short, they can be understood as dress rehearsals for a revolution.
On April 6, 2010, Maoists held powerful rallies in all of Nepal's 75 districts demanding that the unelected prime minister resign to make way for a new Maoist-led government. Further rallies are scheduled leading up to May 1.
The Maoists' program is unlikely to be met by parliamentary procedure and they know it. Maoists have discussed a double-barreled approach: build on the base areas and social transformation of the People's War to launch popular insurrection in the city. Nepali revolutionaries have been incredibly patient, refusing to over-extend their hand. They are seeking to apply one of Mao Zedong’s most famous principles, the mass line:
It often happens that objectively the masses need a certain change, but subjectively they are not yet conscious of the need, not yet willing or determined to make the change. In such cases, we should not make the change until, through our work, most of the masses have become conscious of the need and are willing and determined to carry it out. Otherwise we shall isolate ourselves from the masses. Unless they are conscious and willing, any kind of work that requires their participation will turn out to be a mere formality and will fail.
This is what Prabhakar, deputy commander of the PLA, meant when he said: “We will not take any action against this government. People at large will decide the fate of this government”.
The Maoists have been working hard to make the next push – for the final seizure of power – an act of the people, not a self-isolating putsch by the communists alone.
On April 15, YCL commander Sonam was arrested in Kathmandu on weapons charges. Thousands of people mobilised within the hour for a torchlight march to the jail. Sonam was released.
Backed by the defence ministry, commanders of the 96,000-strong Nepal army began new recruitment this week in direct violation of prior agreements. UCPN (Maoist) leader Ashok calls this a “conspiracy to invite civil war”.
For all its complexity, dual power in Nepal rests on two armies. The middle ground is disintegrating under the pressure. Splits are appearing within all kinds of political forces – including the moderate leftist CPN (UML) and reportedly among the army rank and file. The UCPN (M) openly says it is seeking to make its case “directly to the soldiers”.
"If the army acts against democracy, the people won't stand for it", said Bishnu Pukar. A human rights activist and former leader of the revolutionary teacher's union, Pukar was arrested twice in the fight for a new Nepal by the military. "Too many lives have been lost. There will be general rebellion."
In short: the Maoists are forcing a question of ultimate power that the people of Nepal will have to decide. Look to May 1 and the days that follow.
[This article first appeared at Jed Brandt's blog. It has been posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewalwith permission.]