Perspectives

World

Global class struggle

Pandemic

Arts & Culture

History

Capitalism & Inequality

Anti-Imperialism

Videos

Podcast

Marxist Library

Socialist Equality Party

topnav

icfi

International Committee of the Fourth International

history

History of the Fourth International

wsws

About the WSWS

iysse

International Youth and Students for Social Equality

sepnav

2020 US elections

Coronavirus pandemic

SEP (US) presidential campaign

Free Julian Assange!

oldhotnav

home

Home

search

Search

clock

Updates

user

Profile

metanav

Politics

Perspective

Workers Struggles

Economy

Science

Philosophy

News & Analysis

Socialist strategy

The politics of the pseudo-left

Inequality and the social crisis

War and geopolitical conflict

The Fight Against Fascism

Immigrants and refugees

World News

The Matamoros workers rebellion

Los Angeles teachers strike

The “Yellow Vest” protests in France

The fight against the GM plant closures

The Struggle at UPS

Autoworkers struggles

Education in the US

Amazon

Film Reviews

Film Festivals

Interviews with Directors and Artists

Book Reviews

Art &amp; Photographic Exhibitions

Music Reviews

Theater and Dance

Art &amp; Socialism – Lectures &amp; Essays

The 1917 Russian Revolution

Leon Trotsky

Fascism &amp; the Holocaust

US History

The American Revolution

1998 Lectures: Marxism and the Fundamental Problems of the 20th Century

2005 Lectures: Marxism and the Foundation of the Fourth International

This Week in History

World Economy

European Economy

US Economy

Marxist political economy

Questions and replies on Marxist economics

Human Genetics &amp; Evolution

The Internet

Space Research &amp; Astronomy

Climate Change

The Enlightenment

Existentialism and Post-modernism

Religion

more...

mainnav

Fourth International

IYSSE

Contact

Donate

hotnav

Global Class Struggle

Browse articles by country

News & Commentary

WSWS Chronology

Browse online

Mehring Books

Monthly archive

Newsletter

RSS Feeds

fullnav

socialist-equality-party.html

Why Study the Russian Revolution Vol I & Vol II

default

The Truth Behind the Bankruptcy of Detroit

arts

The Historical &amp; International Foundations of the Partei fur Soziale Gleichheit

correspo

Castroism and the Politics of Petty-Bourgeois Nationalism

In Defense of Leon Trotsky (second edition)

editorials

The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left: A Marxist Critique

The Heritage We Defend: A Contribution to the History of the Fourth International

ic-archive

The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution

news

A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990 - 2016

perspectives

Fundamental Problems of Marxism

philos

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

science

Thirty Years Since the PATCO Strike

workers

The Historical & International Foundations of the SEP, Sri Lanka

world

slsep

The Gelfand Case

h-icfi

mehring

Why Are They Back? Historical Falsification, Political Conspiracy, and the Return of Fascism in Germany

eu-right

39903a96-144b-4db7-a3ee-28bbe85fddec

efbc15ec-2e17-45fb-967e-6c7e2a6cb3ff

<placeholder type="page-article-inline-mautic-form" design="" description="false" heading="true"><placeholder type="text-line">Sign up for the WSWS email newsletter</placeholder><placeholder type="text-block"><p>Some content</p></placeholder><placeholder type="mautic-form" form-id="133" html-id=""></placeholder></placeholder>

wsws newsletter

Sri Lankan Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Namal Karunarathne

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Sri Lanka strongly condemns the forcible dispersal of a meeting of the National Farmers’ Conference (NFC) entitled “Blood suckers and buffaloes in farming” being held in Uswewa village near Hambantota on February 12 by a mob of thugs affiliated with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna-led (JVP) National People’s Power (NPP) government. 

Private television channels showed how the mob attempted to physically attack the conference organisers. Wimal Wattuhewa, the co-convener of the NFC and leader of the Farmers’ Struggle Movement (FSM) controlled by the fake-left Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), said that the JVP/NPP thugs removed the background banner hanging in the conference hall and took it away. They also removed the wires of the loudspeakers.

The government’s hostility towards the conference was directly expressed by a JVP activist named Sunil Ratnayake, who led the thugs. He introduced himself as a representative of the All Ceylon Agrarian Congress (ACAC), affiliated to the JVP. The ACAC had played a key role in rallying farmers’ support for the JVP/NPP in presidential and general elections in September and November last year respectively. Its convener Namal Karunaratne was awarded with the post of Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Livestock for this service.

Ratnayake said that the farmers played a fundamental role in bringing the JVP/NPP government to power. He claimed the current government, in power for barely three months, had provided “everything” for farmers, including fertilizer subsidies and a guaranteed price of 120 rupees per kilo for paddy rice. This is a lie. Farmers have been protesting in various areas, insisting that the guarantees price was not adequate.

The JVP thug accused the conference organisers of being “puppets” of the opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya party (SJB) and former president Ranil Wickremesinghe, adding that farmers have now lined up with the ACAC and the government. He warned that he would not let anyone bring down the government which has a two-thirds parliamentary majority given by the masses. He declared “from now on, I would not allow to hold any bogus conferences anywhere in this district.” 

Despite clear evidence that pro-government thugs disrupted the conference, Hambantota JVP/NPP MP Nihal Galappaththi simply dismissed any government involvement and justified the thuggery, when asked by the media. According to 

on February 13, Galappaththi alleged that “all parties other than the National People’s Power are conspiring to stop the government’s progress at various places [by holding such conferences].” 

The fact that Galappaththi, a long-time JVP leader, has made these comments, indicates that such thuggish activities are being carried out with endorsement from the highest levels of the party. 

Workers, youth and peasants must strongly condemn the thuggish and provocative actions of the JVP which are a serious warning. Just as it has branded the meeting’s organisers as “puppets” of the SJB and Wickremesinghe, it will denounce anyone, especially workers, who comes into struggle for their basic rights as agents of the right wing and resort to state and goon squad repression.

The JVP has a history of violent attacks. During 1988-1990, JVP gunmen killed thousands of political opponents, including workers and trade union leaders, in a fascistic campaign against the Indo-Lanka Accord under which so-called Indian peacekeeping troops were sent to the north and east of the island to disarm the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The JVP denounced the Accord in Sinhala communal terms claiming it would lead to division of the country. The right-wing UNP government, having exploited the JVP-led violence to terrorise the working class, seized on the provocations to conduct a murderous campaign to suppress unrest in the south of the island, killing some 60,000 rural youth.

Five weeks ago, the acting Vice Chancellor of Peradeniya University banned a public lecture entitled “How to fight the IMF austerity program?” organised by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) to be held on January 3 under the sponsorship of the Political Science Students Association (PSSA). The reason given for the ban was that the topic would “challenge” government policy. The IYSSE learned that the Prime Minister’s Office had directly approached the university administration about the meeting.

The denunciation of a meeting to be held by a farmers’ organisation as reactionary by a group affiliated with the JVP/NPP government is false. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his right-wing government function as agents of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), global finance capital and Sri Lankan big business. In the name of rebuilding the economy, Dissanayake has openly pledged to fully implement the IMF’s austerity program for slashing the living conditions of working people to the bone, to pay off foreign debt and boosting business profits. 

Just a week ago, at an Export Awards Ceremony, Dissanayake insisted that the “only viable path for recovery of Sri Lanka is to continue on the current International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed path,” adding: “Either we can collapse with this foundation or we can stand firm on this foundation and build our economy on a firm footing.” 

The reaction of the National Farmers’ Conference, aligned with the fake-left Frontline Socialist Party, to the thuggish attack on its meeting has been cowardly appeals to the JVP/NPP government. 

The NFC convener Wimal Wattuhewa told the media that the meeting’s aim was to “discuss whether we can find a way to urge this government to get certain things done”, including lifting the price of paddy. He made clear that neither the NFC nor the FSP were challenging the government, but simply pleading with it to address “a number of people’s aspirations” that brought it to power.

According to the NFC, the government will either “listen” to the farmers and increase the current guaranteed price of 120 rupees per kilogram of paddy by another 5 or 8 rupees or provide relief to the consumer by reducing rice prices. In reality, the government’s austerity measures will place new burdens on farmers and consumers alike.

The FSP is yet to report the attack on the NFC meeting. When the SEP asked, Pubudu Jayagoda, a key party leader, dismissed what happened as just a normal incident. The FSP, “criticises” the government in the name of pressuring it to take “the right direction” and advises people that government must be “rescued” from the “old gang of robbers” (the traditional bourgeois parties) which are trying to overthrow it. When the struggles of workers and the poor become a challenge to the government, it is not surprising that the FSP leaders align themselves with the so-called “progressive government” against the masses.

The SEP opposes the fake-left politics of the FSP which is hostile to a socialist program and the independent mobilisation of the working class against the government and the capitalist system. The role of the FSP has been to defend the capitalist system by subordinating workers, the poor, and the youth to the various parties of the ruling class, in this case the JVP/NPP.

Any fight to resolve the problems facing the peasantry unavoidably comes into direct conflict with the capitalist system. Farmers face inadequate prices for their products and high prices for seed, agrichemicals and equipment, leading to punishing indebtedness. Agriculture is controlled by the banks, big corporations and large agribusinesses. These problems can only be resolved as part of the fight for a workers’ and peasants’ government to abolish the profit system and implement socialist policies that reorganize production, including of food, to meet pressing social needs, not corporate profits. 

The JVP’s thuggish action on February 12 has highlighted the need for the working class to organise independently of the capitalist parties and their agents, such as the FSP, and to form action committees in every workplace and plantation as well as peasant committees in rural areas to fight against the austerity policies of the government and its repressive measures.

Workers, youth and peasants must strongly condemn the thuggish and provocative actions of the JVP which are a serious warning of the repressive measures the government will resort to.

Pro-government thugs disrupt farmers’ conference in Sri Lanka: A warning to working people

as-lanka

Sri Lanka

Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka)

asia

Asia and the Pacific

The archive lists all articles that have been posted on the <em>World Socialist Web Site</em> by date.

My reading list

All our articles you've <strong>visited</strong> in this browser will automatically appear here.

Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information).