The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Sri Lanka call on plantation and other workers, students, teachers and residents of the Central Hills district to attend an important public meeting in Hatton to oppose the criminal US-Israeli war against Iran.
This war is not a distant “regional” dispute. It is a predatory offensive by American imperialism, backed by its Israeli ally to seize control of energy resources and reassert US global hegemony in a period of capitalist breakdown. The assault on Iran is part of the US drive to establish its hegemony in the Middle East at the expense of its rivals, especially China and Russia. The European imperialist powers are supporting the US despite their tactical differences with Washington.
The so‑called “ceasefire” announced by Trump is a fragile, tactical pause to rearm, reposition and prepare for renewed aggression. Within hours it was exposed as a sham when Israel continued bombing Lebanon and Washington signaled it was “loading up the ships” for further attacks. The pause changes nothing: the imperialist objectives remain, and the ruling elites will use any lull to consolidate military advantage.
Workers will pay the cost. War abroad means austerity, price rises and attacks on wages at home. Sri Lankan workers are already suffering from surging fuel and food costs driven by the conflict, and the plantation and export sectors—the backbone of Hill Country livelihoods—are immediately vulnerable.
The JVP/NPP government, while posing as “neutral” and calling for “restraint,” has not condemned the US and Israeli aggression against Iran. The government and all bourgeois parties are aligned with US imperialism.
Only the international working class has the social power to halt the war machine. The SEP insists that the fight to stop imperialist war must be rooted in an independent, socialist and internationalist movement of workers.
At the Hatton meeting we will discuss: the real aims of the US-Israel offensive; how war and austerity are linked; the role of Sri Lanka’s capitalist parties and pseudo‑left tendencies in misleading workers; and the concrete steps for building an international anti‑war movement based on the working class and a socialist program.
Date: Sunday, April 26
Time: 10:30 a.m.
Venue: Town Hall, Hatton