Sri Lanka: A Regime Whitewashes Its Dirty History

The Sri Lankan regime has carried out repression against the Tamil people — a minority nationality on the island — for decades, and this article from a Ceylonese Maoist leader outlines how the LLRC (copy of the commission’s report), a “truth and reconciliation commission” set up by the regime, has served as an effort to whitewash the government’s history of attacks on the masses. The question of national liberation (as among the Terai people in Nepal or adivasis in
India) is a central concern of communist revolutionaries in many places in the world.

“If the war on the side of the Regime and the State was
waged based on a political ideology and an accompanying military doctrine aimed at militarily liquidating the LTTE, along with its political-military leadership, and to annihilate the political status of the Tamil nation, if the war was waged under a military
doctrine with no regard for collateral damage in order to achieve this
objective; and with that, to consolidate a Sinhala-Buddhist
hegemonic-chauvinist-militarist State that would feed into the
political agenda of perpetuating the Rajapakse dynastic regime,
then the war itself is on trial.”

The original post appeared at Democracy and Class Struggle. Thanks to Joseph for pointing it out, and writing the introduction.

The LLRC Report: A Process of Reconciliation or Perpetuation of a

Dynastic Military Junta?

December 29, 2011

by Surendra Ajit Rupasinghe, Secretary, Ceylon Communist Party – Maoist

The LLRC Report has served to polarize an already, irrevocably, polarized society, placed barriers in bringing about reconciliation and opened the country to even more foreign intervention.  Here was a golden opportunity for the State and the Regime to come clean, on which basis the bridges of reconciliation could have been built and all foreign powers that intend to pursue their geo-political agendas by exploiting the situation would have been silenced. This issue affects all of us. It is our collective honor and dignity that is at stake. As citizens, as the supreme People of Lanka, we do not want our country to be seen as a morally degenerate banana republic. The country belongs to us, its citizens. It cannot be held hostage to any particular political agenda or regime. This issue affects our collective moral conscience, our shared sense of justice, our collective identity as a civilized human community. Therefore, we must pursue the debate, however consequential it may be.

From Sri Lanka’s Communists: Triumphant Reaction, Its Ideas & Global Context

Following are excerpts from two articles, “Global Politics and the Sri Lankan Trajectory” and “A Contribution to the Debate between Rajpal Abeynayake and Malinda Senevirathne on the Role of the Moral Police,” submitted by Surendra Rupasinghe, Secretary of the Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist).

These selections focus on the interrelationship on the one hand between the political and economic situation in Sri Lanka and international developments, and on the other the relationship between all this and a campaign being waged in the ideological sphere by the regime of President and Commander-in Chief Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has acquired enormous political power in the wake of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers (LTTE).

Thanks to the A World to Win News Service for sending these excerpts to Kasama for posting.

Sri Lanka: the global context and ideology of a triumphant regime

Introduction

The imperatives and the options of the Sri Lankan regime have to be identified within the logic of motion of the global political-economic-strategic order.

The present regime is trying to optimise the range of its policy options within the context of dramatic changes in the global political-economic-strategic order. The undisputed hegemony exercised by the U.S. as the sole superpower has entered into a new spiral of crisis.

Sri Lanka: US-China Rivalry Behind Intra-Ruling Class Struggle

Chinese-financed container port under construction in Colombo

This article appeared on the World Socialist Web Site on January 29, 2010.

Behind Sri Lanka’s political infighting: US-China rivalry

Peter Symonds

In the wake of Tuesday’s presidential election in Sri Lanka, Colombo has become a hotbed of rumour and intrigue as the two factions of the ruling elite backing the winner, Mahinda Rajapakse, and the loser, General Sarath Fonseka, manoeuvre and position themselves for open political warfare. Far from putting an end to the campaign brawling, the election has set the stage for deepening instability.

The extraordinary events of the past three days have included: the surrounding of Fonseka’s hotel by heavily-armed troops, government accusations that he was planning a coup, counter-accusations by Fonseka that the government was about to arrest or assassinate him, a demand that the election be annulled and threats of legal action from both sides.

What is behind this bitter rivalry? The two men have essentially the same domestic program. General Fonseka was part of President Rajapakse’s inner cabal as it ruthlessly prosecuted the communal war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that ended in the LTTE’s defeat last May. Fonseka now pledges to renew Sri Lankan democracy, but like Rajapakse, he is responsible for war crimes and gross abuses of democratic rights. If he fears assassination, it is because he is intimately acquainted with the operations of the pro-government death squads that murdered hundreds of politicians, journalists and ordinary people over the past four years.

A History of the Tamil Struggle for Self-Determination in Sri Lanka

Radical Notes, November 19-20, 2009

Tamil Eelam: Historical Right to Nationhood

by Ron Ridenour

We are running  four articles in a five-part series which trace the settlement of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka and the development of the modern Tamil struggle for self-determination. They also expose the cabal of imperialist and reactionary powers that have fortified the Sinhala-chauvinist Sri Lanka regime, and describe the horrific conditions in the so-called “welfare villages” that now hold close to 300,000 Tamil refugees. Finally, the author draws apt comparisons with Israel’s oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon in English, and Serendib in Arabic (which gave rise to the word serendipity) is commonly referred to as the “pearl of the orient” due to its beauty and wealth of natural resources, flora and fauna. Today, it is a land torn apart by hatred: racist government policies, ethnic cleansing, and terror war just ended albeit continuing in the form of incarceration of hundreds of thousands of Tamil people in the north. A key reason for this brutal hatred is the dispute over whether a minority of its people, the Tamils, should have: equal rights with the majority Sinhalese, and if this is denied (as will be shown it has), should they have the right to their own autonomous territory.

Sri Lanka’s first aborigines with continuous lineage are the Tamil people. It is not precisely known when they came to the island, but perhaps as many as 5000 years ago. Archaeologists date the first humans in Sri Lanka to some 34,000 years. Scientists call them Balangoda people, the name of the location where artifacts were found. These hunting-gathering cave dwellers have no current lineage.

People’s Truth: Tamil Eelam Struggle and its Lessons, Part 2

This article was published in People’s Truth #7. Thanks to Banned Thought for making it available. Part 1 appeared here yesterday.

Tamil Eelam Struggle and its Lessons: Part 2

Ravindran

The role of Indian Expansionists

Since the beginning, the Indian government always intervened in Sri Lanka keeping its expansionist interests in mind. While paying lip service to the plight of Tamils the Indian government extended tacit support to the Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinist ruling classes.

In 1949, after the Sinhalese ruling classes assumed power, it colluded with them in disenfranchising the plantation workers of Indian origin and agreed to promulgate the Citizenship Act 1949 that made more than a million Tamil plantation workers stateless. In 1971, when the Sirimao Bandaranaike government was in imminent threat from the JVP uprising, the Indian government provided all help to quell that rebellion because it did not want to lose its prominent status to China in Sri Lanka. Again in 1974, for the same reason, it ceded Katchattivu, a fishing island port of Tamil nadu from time immemorial, to Sri Lanka, brushing aside opposition from the people of TN and the state government. Today, as a result of this, more than four hundred fishermen from TN were killed and thousands were arrested and tortured and their fishing boats, nets and other equipments worth millions of rupees were destroyed by the Sri Lankan navy. Hundreds of protests and strikes by the Tamil fishing community and appeals from different sections of the people and all political parties to take necessary steps to protect the fishermen were simply ignored by the Indian government on the pretext that these fishermen are conduits for the LTTE.

In order to serve its expansionist interests the Indian government sought either to appease the Sri Lankan chauvinists or to pressurize them through the Tamil issue. In 1983, when anti-Tamil riots broke out in Sri Lanka, the Indian government, which was waiting for an opportunity to intervene, immediately stepped into the scene and provided arms to the LTTE and set up training camps in India. In 1985, on the pretext of opposing the bombing of Tamils in northern Sri Lanka, Indian Air Force jets entered Sri Lankan territory and dropped food and medicines violating all international law and norms.

People’s Truth: Tamil Eelam Struggle and its Lessons

This article is part 1 of a 2 part series. This article was originally published in People’s Truth #7. Thanks to Banned Thought for making it available.

Tamil Eelam Struggle and its Lessons

Ravindran

On 18th May 2009, the president of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapakshe declared that the three decades of war against the LTTE has come to an end. He declared that the Sri Lankan army won a final victory against the Tigers.   The Sri Lankan army and the government also claimed that the LTTE leader Prabhakaran and many of his lieutenants were killed in the battle and showed the photographs of the dead body of Prabhakaran in the electronic and print media. On 20th, the Sri Lankan government declared a national holiday to ‘celebrate’ this ‘victory’.

The timing of this declaration created suspicion amongst the people who are closely watching the developments in Sri Lanka, in India and all over the world. It appears that the Sri Lankan government deliberately spread this news after the announcement of parliament election results in India. While the Sri Lankan government and the UPA government led by the Congress party celebrated this, millions of sympathizers/supporters of Tigers and Eelam struggle all over the world were shocked in disbelief that the struggle for a separate Tamil Eelam would come to such an end. Within 24 hours, the Tigers rubbished the Sri Lankan government’s claim and published that the Tiger’s chief and many leaders of the LTTE are safe and the struggle for Tamil Eelam would continue until realizing its goal of achieving a separate homeland for the Eelam people.

Tamils all over the world held protest demonstrations, and in Tamil Nadu (TN), some violent incidents also took place. Although the claim by the Sri Lankan government that they have achieved a conclusive victory over the LTTE and the armed struggle for a separate homeland for Eelam can be disputed, at least for the present, there is no doubt that the Sri Lankan army achieved a major military victory over the LTTE.

How could one of the most powerful guerrilla forces, the LTTE, have faced such a defeat and how was the Sri Lankan army able to inflict such a defeat? With this defeat, whether the three and half decades of armed struggle for self-determination come to an end? Whether the Sri Lankan government will fulfill the genuine national aspirations of the Eelam people? Whether the Tamil people in Sri Lanka can live as equal citizens along with the Sinhalese? What will be the future of Tamils in Sri Lanka? These are the important questions for all those who fight for freedom, national liberation and for people’s democracy and those who genuinely support the cause of Tamil Eelam. To understand the struggle for Tamil Eelam it is necessary to look into its origin and its growth.

Sri Lankan Maoists’ Thousand Flowers: Editorial

Kasama has received a new theoretical journal “Thousand Flowers” created by Maoist forces in Sri Lanka. We plan to publish a few articles from it here online, and work with others to make the whole issue available. (Thanks to Maoist Revolution list.) Read over the table of contents and share with us which essays you think are most important to post and discuss.

Editorial from the First Issue of Thousand Flowers

Thousand Flowers is intended to train a new generation of revolutionaries in grasping and applying the science of Marxism-Leninism- Maoism as a foundation for building the Ceylon Communist Party-Maoist . The objective is to build a new leadership that can formulate and solve the concrete problems of the Sri Lanka revolution. Through critical analysis and discussion, Thousand Flowers hopes to charter the scientific theory, strategy and path of the Lankan revolution.

Sri Lankan Maoists’ Thousand Flowers: Contents & PDF

Kasama has received a new theoretical journal “Thousand Flowers” created by Maoist forces in Sri Lanka We plan to publish a few articles from it here online, and work with others to make the whole issue available. (Thanks to Maoist Revolution list.) Read over the table of contents and share with us which essays you think are most important to post and discuss.

For a complete pdf file of this journal. (thanks to Eric Odell.)

Note: While “Thousand Flowers” describes itself as the journal of the Ceylonese Communist Party (Maoist) — it is worth pointing out that several different centers and lines claim continuity with that party.

Sri Lankan Maoists’ Thousand Flowers: Open Letter to Communist Forces

Kasama has received a new theoretical journal “Thousand Flowers” created by Maoist forces in Sri Lanka We plan to publish a few articles from it here online, and work with others to make the whole issue available. (Thanks to Maoist Revolution list.) Read over the table of contents and share with us which essays you think are most important to post and discuss.

Open Letter To Genuine Communist Revolutionary Forces.

By Comrade Surendra, Chairman, Ceylon Communist Party-Maoist

We have all experienced the disintegration of the proletarian revolutionary movement in our country. This is a tragic development given the historic challenges and opportunities facing the international proletariat and the oppressed people of the world. While many have abandoned revolution and sought secure pastures, others have stayed on the high road of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Socialism and Communism, upholding the crimson path of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Some of us, along with the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), have adopted Maoism as the highest stage in the development of Marxism-Leninism, while upholding the path of the new democratic revolution and protracted people’s war. Some have formed rival parties claiming the legacy of the CCP-M and of Comrade Shan. Some have formed small groups to sustain their own class limitations and personal needs. However, all these trends remain divorced from scientific revolutionary practice, from the masses, and from concrete reality. Their activity has no link to advancing the revolutionary class struggle towards the goal of Communism.

Sri Lankan Maoists’ Thousand Flowers: Some Notes on Method

Kasama has received a new theoretical journal “Thousand Flowers” created by Maoist forces in Sri Lanka We plan to publish a few articles from it here online, and work with others to make the whole issue available. (Thanks to Maoist Revolution list.) Read over the table of contents and share with us which essays you think are most important to post and discuss.

Some Notes On Method Of Analysis and Presentation:

The method adopted here is to

1) Draw a sweep of history and to situate the proletarian revolution and Communism in its universal context,

2) Evaluate the role and contribution of Comrade Shan in serving and advancing the proletarian revolution and the cause of Communism, and

3) Draw a line of demarcation between scientific proletarian revolution and bourgeois revisionist counter-revolution, between Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and Revisionism.

Let us try to engage in a serious discussion – although in a somewhat free flowing way, so we can try to spread wings and soar like eagles while being aimed at the target. That is to say, so we can move back and forth from the abstract to the concrete, from the general to the specific, from perceptions to conceptions, advance from partial, fragmented, distorted, subjective knowledge to rational scientific objective knowledge, move from illusion and appearance to reality and essence, from ignorance to knowledge, from false consciousness to class consciousness. The flow of the discussion may tend to be discursive and even repetitive. Major crucial points will be emphasized over and over again. At the end of the exercise we would have crossed a bridge by making a radical rupture with revisionism and a conscious leap to becoming true communist revolutionaries and prepare ourselves for the revolution.