Supporters of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in France will hold a public meeting in Paris on Sunday, May 15. Speakers will address the rising danger of war in Sri Lanka and Asia, the bankruptcy of the Tamil nationalist parties, and how Tamil workers and workers in Europe can oppose war and austerity. Workers, youth, and intellectuals from the Tamil community and of all nationalities are invited to attend.

Tamil nationalist parties that long dominated political life in the Tamil diaspora in Europe are discredited. Their co-thinkers in Sri Lanka, led by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), have become shameless supporters of last year’s US-sponsored regime change operation that installed President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Their promises that these officials would deliver ‘good governance’ and improve Tamils’ lives proved to be a pack of lies.

The main speaker at the meeting will be Deepal Jayasekera, Assistant Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka), the ICFI’s Sri Lankan section. He has played a leading role for nearly three decades in the SEP’s struggle to unify Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim workers in Sri Lanka in a socialist and internationalist opposition to the anti-Tamil racialist war waged by successive governments in Colombo.

On May 15, Jayasekera will explain how Washington’s installation of a pro-US regime in Colombo is part of its wider campaign to ally with countries across Asia to encircle China and prepare for war. Sri Lanka has been drawn into the geopolitical maelstrom of the drive to war of all the imperialist powers. Workers there face the same essential problem faced by workers across Europe, as NATO aggressively confronts Russia and launches military interventions in Ukraine and Syria.

The Sri Lankan SEP’s struggle to unify the working class in Sri Lanka and the Indian subcontinent against war is an integral part of the ICFI’s struggle to unify the international working class in a movement against war and for socialism. The lessons of this struggle are vital not only for Tamil workers in Europe, but for the entire European working class as it seeks to fight the onslaught of war and austerity unleashed by imperialism.

Date and Time: Sunday, May 15, 3.00 p.m.

Venue:

Auberge de Jeunesse HI Yves Robert
20, esplanade Nathalie Sarraute (en face du 43 rue Pajol)
75018 Paris
Métro: Marx Dormoy, Ligne 12
La Chapelle, Ligne 2
Riquet, Ligne 7