AFTER an exhausting, genocidal war, hugely costly in lives and resources, and in the face of a working class movement that is now demanding wage rises to keep pace with a cost of living that is galloping out of sight, and millions of young people demanding jobs, the Sri Lankan military-police regime has split at its core, with the resignation of General Fonseka.
He is the top commander who justified the murder of the Tamil Tigers leadership, which was seeking to surrender under a white flag, as previously arranged with the Sri Lankan president Rajapakse, with full assurances of safety.
Fonseka has now broken with Rajapakse.
Under the Rajapakse regime, Sri Lankans saw journalists who were critical of his regime murdered by thugs transported in white vans, large numbers of people jailed without either trial or charge, as well as the murderous campaign against the national rights of the Tamil people.
However Rajapakse did not stop there. He openly called trade unionists, who fought for trade union conditions and trade union rates of pay, ‘terrorists’, and under his regime trade unionists were amongst the ‘disappeared’, and the corpses that were found.
Now the bloody regime has split in the face of a mighty advance of workers and their trade unions, who are being forced into action for wage rises and jobs by the massive increases in the cost of living, and the joblessness that is the price of a massive IMF loan, that was used to finance the war against the Tamil people.
Now, the opposition political parties will be uniting around Fonseka to persuade him to stand against Rajapakse for the presidency next year.
This will be a choice between two butchers, and therefore no choice for the working class and small farmers at all.
Meanwhile the class war is raging in Sri Lanka and uniting Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim workers against the employers and the government, with the armed forces already attempting to strike break.
The country’s workers running essential services – water, electricity, fuel and ports have organised a work-to-rule campaign which began Tuesday.
Workers are sticking to their contracts, refusing overtime and shift work and not standing in for absent colleagues.
The unions’ wage demands vary from a 6,000-rupee (£30) per month allowance to a 50 per cent wage increase.
A last-minute government offer on Tuesday to increase salaries by 22 per cent at the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corp was rejected.
The navy has already attempted to strike break operating tug boats at Colombo port, but had to give up.
The government has already accused the trade unions of a political conspiracy, and are getting ready to arrest trade union leaders.
Rajapakse stated yesterday that he will not allow anyone to ‘destroy the country and a nation that was liberated by the armed forces’ accusing the trade union leaders of a conspiracy. Trade unionists will be treated in the same way as the Tamils.
The trade unions must develop their struggle and mobilise workers and the millions of youth who want jobs, to build up the struggle to an indefinite general strike.
This must bring down the military police regime and bring in a workers’ and small farmers’ government.
This will expropriate all the foreign-owned garment factories and tea and rubber plantations as well as nationalising the banks and the major industries, putting them under workers’ control.
It will carry out socialist policies, including resolving the national question, by allowing the Tamil people to hold a referendum on whether they wish to be part of a Workers and Small Farmers Sri Lanka, or have their own separate bourgeois state in the north and east of the island.
