Explosive struggles are developing in Sri Lanka among workers, the poor and youth against the government’s austerity measures, dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and its growing attacks on democratic rights.
The strikes and protests in Sri Lanka are part of the resurgence of working class struggles internationally, in the US, in Europe, China, India and elsewhere, in the context of a deepening crisis of world capitalism.
President Maithripala Sirisena came to office under the bogus banner of defending democratic rights and improving living conditions. The trade unions, pseudo-left parties and so-called civil society groups supported his election as the only supposed alternative for the masses to the autocratic rule of President Mahinda Rajapakse.
Just 18 months on, the government of Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is discredited. It is continuing and deepening the attacks carried out by the Rajapakse government to shift the burden of the capitalist crisis onto the working class.
Sirisena was installed via a regime-change operation orchestrated by the US, with the assistance of India and sections of the Sri Lankan ruling elite. Washington did not oppose Rajapakse’s anti-democratic methods of rule but rather his close ties to Beijing. Sirisena and Wickremesinghe shifted the country’s foreign policy into the US camp as Washington stepped up its military build-up throughout Asia in preparation for war with China.
Socialist Equality Party is the only party that exposed the US-backed operation to instal Sirisena and consistently fought for a socialist alternative to defend democratic rights and living conditions and end the threat of war.
The SEP and International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) public meeting in Colombo will discuss this socialist and internationalist program. We urge workers, youth and socialist-minded intellectuals to participate in this important discussion.
Meeting details:
Date: Tuesday August 9
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Venue: Colombo Public Library Auditorium