Democratic Rights

Gaza

2 years of the Gaza genocide: A crime of Zionism and imperialism

By WSWS Editorial Board.

This Perspective was published in the World Socialist Website Site on 06 October 2025.

Today marks two years since the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, one of the greatest crimes of the modern era. Before the eyes of the entire world, the Israeli government—armed, financed and defended by every imperialist power—has carried out a campaign of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and deliberate starvation. At least 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 20,000 children, and the entire population has been repeatedly displaced.

Gaza
Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza carry their belongings along the coastal road toward southern Gaza, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders from Gaza City. [AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi]

In order to launch this long planned genocide, Israel used as its pretext the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, in which a few thousand fighters with small arms, possessing no armored vehicles or aircraft, breached the Israeli border without resistance. To claim that Israel, with one of the most sophisticated intelligence networks in the world, was taken completely by surprise by a few thousand Hamas fighters is a despicable fiction.

As the events of the past two years have shown—in Israel’s assassinations of foreign leaders, military officers and scientists—Israeli intelligence has penetrated every state and movement in the region. Indeed, within months of the October 7 attacks, newspaper accounts revealed that Israel possessed the entire Hamas battle plan but orchestrated a deliberate stand-down of its troops stationed on the border.

The genocide that followed was the premeditated outcome of 75 years of brutal oppression, the implementation of the “final solution” to the Palestinian “problem.” It has exposed before the entire world the bankrupt and reactionary character of Zionism. The Israeli state has shown itself to be a murderous instrument of imperialism.

While carried out by Israel, the genocide has been a joint operation of world imperialism. Every imperialist government, from Washington to London, Paris and Berlin, together with the entire media, justified the Israeli assault on Gaza. A hideous double standard was adopted, in which any act of mass murder by Israel, which illegally occupies Gaza, was justified, while any effort at resistance by the Palestinians was demonized as “terrorism.”

Opposition to the Israeli state was slandered as “antisemitism,” in an exercise that the WSWS referred to as “semantic inversion,” in which “a word is utilized in a manner and within a context that is the exact opposite of its real and long-accepted meaning.” This became the framework for a brutal and escalating assault on democratic rights, in which opposition to genocide has been criminalized. The attempt to equate opposition to the genocide with hatred of the Jews, is, in any case, negated by the prominent role played by Jewish people around the world in mass demonstrations. 

The United States has been Israel’s key weapons supplier, funneling unlimited amounts of deadly military gear to fuel the slaughter. But Germany, France, Britain and others have all contributed their share to the bloodbath. Moreover, they have all purchased billions in Israeli government bonds to help finance the murderous military machine they also armed.

Underscoring the fact that these crimes have been facilitated by the major North American and European powers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was allowed to defend his actions from the podium of the United Nations last month, even though an arrest warrant against him for war crimes is outstanding.

The imperialists back the genocide as a central component of their drive to secure control over the oil-rich Middle East, part of a global eruption of imperialist war targeting Russia and China. Their support for the genocide has demonstrated that they are ready to deploy any and all means to secure for themselves access to markets, raw materials, labour and geostrategic influence.

This imperialist plunder has culminated in Trump’s “peace” plan, which proposes robbing Palestinians of all their rights by creating a neo-colonial protectorate under the control of America’s would-be Führer and his bagman, the unindicted war criminal Tony Blair. If Hamas follows Trump’s demand to accept this arrangement, the Palestinians will be expelled to make way for a US-controlled trade corridor through the Middle East. If they refuse, Israel will get the green light to slaughter the remaining Palestinians en masse.

A particularly foul role in this process has been played by the bourgeois nationalist regimes of the Middle East. The entire history of the 20th century has shown the incapacity of any form of nationalism to secure the democratic and social rights of the working class. The despicable role of these governments culminated in their embrace of the “peace” plan promoted by Trump, which completely repudiates the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.

The genocide in Gaza has provoked mass revulsion and opposition throughout the world. Over the past two years, tens of millions have participated in demonstrations spanning every continent, from Europe and the Americas to the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Trump’s plan to turn the Middle East into a US fiefdom on the bones of the Palestinians, and Israel’s violent seizure of the Sumud aid flotilla, have ignited a new and broader wave of protest.

In recent days, millions have filled the streets of Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Colombia and Argentina. In Italy, action initiated by dockworkers, who refused to load weapons for Israel, triggered a one-day general strike of more than 2 million workers and a million-strong march in Rome. Though still limited by the trade union bureaucracies and appeals to the Meloni government, these actions point to the immense potential power of the international working class to halt the genocide.

One day of coordinated strike action has shaken Trump’s closest European ally. An organized, global industrial and political movement of the working class could stop the imperialist war machine in its tracks. Nothing less than a mass, international movement of workers can end the genocide and block the extension of American imperialism’s drive for domination—from Gaza to a wider war aimed at Iran, Russia and ultimately China.

The development of opposition to the genocide must be guided by an understanding of the political lessons of the past two years. The central lesson is the total bankruptcy of all appeals to governments of the imperialist powers. They are not the instruments for halting genocide but its perpetrators and enablers.

The perspective of a two-state solution has failed. Only the unification of all the peoples of the Middle East can lead to a viable future. The Israeli state has proven to be a historical monstrosity, resulting in demoralization and degradation. The Israeli working class must repudiate the poisonous ideology and politics of Zionism, reject the reactionary dystopia of the “Jewish state” and strive for the unity of Israeli and Palestinian workers in the struggle for the United Socialist Federation of the Middle East.

In a lecture delivered on October 24, 2023, three weeks after the beginning of the genocide, WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North explained:

In the final analysis, the liberation of the Palestinian people can be achieved only through a unified struggle of the working class, Arab and Jewish, against the Zionist regime, as well as the treacherous Arab and Iranian capitalist regimes, and their replacement with a union of socialist republics throughout the Middle East and, indeed, the entire world.

This is a gigantic task. But it is the only perspective that is based on a correct appraisal of the present stage of world history, the contradictions and crisis of world capitalism and the dynamic of the international class struggle. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine are tragic demonstrations of the catastrophic role and consequences of national programs in a historical epoch whose essential and defining characteristics are the primacy of world economy, the globally integrated character of the productive forces of capitalism, and, therefore, the necessity to base the struggle of the working class on an international strategy.

Two years later, there are growing signs of a global resurgence of working class struggle. The Trump administration’s drive to establish a presidential dictatorship is bringing it into head-on conflict with the working class in the United States, despite all efforts by the Democrats to sow complacency and passivity. President Macron in France is unable to form a stable government, amid mass opposition to his demands for austerity to pay for remilitarisation. Starmer in the UK and Merz in Germany have no popular support whatsoever.

Internationally, there has been an explosion of popular anti-government struggles, led by “Generation Z”—in Kenya, Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Morocco and Madagascar.

The development of this opposition along revolutionary lines requires that workers break free from the control of the social democratic, Stalinist and trade union bureaucracies, along with their pseudo-left defenders, who work to contain and dissipate opposition. This requires building new, democratic organizations of class struggle—rank-and-file committees in every workplace and neighborhood—to coordinate and lead a unified international offensive of the working class.

Workers, students, youth and all opponents of Zionism and imperialism must fight for:

  • An immediate halt to all weapons shipments to Israel;
  • A comprehensive boycott of all trade and other economic activity with Israel;
  • The prosecution of all US, European and other corporations assisting Israel in carrying out the genocide.
  • The arrest of Israeli officials for war crimes;
  • An end to state repression of anti-genocide protesters and the repeal of all anti-demonstration laws;
  • Immediate, unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza by all available routes.

These demands must spearhead the broader movement already developing in the working class internationally. The same governments that funnel weapons of death to Israel are erecting dictatorial forms of rule at home to suppress opposition to oligarchic rule, mass impoverishment and the drive to world war.

The genocide in Gaza has laid bare the historical dead end of the capitalist system itself. The “normalization” of genocide is the product of a system that has exhausted any progressive role. It is accompanied by the normalization of fascism, the normalization of military-police dictatorship, the normalization of world war and oligarchic rule.

The perspective that must guide the working class is Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution. The democratic and social aspirations of the oppressed can be achieved only through the independent political mobilization of the working class, on a world scale, for the conquest of power.

The critical task is the building of a new revolutionary leadership to guide this struggle. The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its sections, the Socialist Equality Parties, fight to unite workers and youth across all borders in a single movement against capitalism, for the establishment of workers’ governments and the socialist reorganization of the world economy to meet human need, not private profit.

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Trump

Trump’s fascist conspiracy and how to fight it: A socialist strategy

Socialist Equality Party (US)

This statement was published originally in the World Socialist Web Site on the 19 September 2025.

In the week since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Trump administration has escalated its conspiracy to establish a presidential dictatorship.

The policy of the Trump regime was spelled out clearly by fascist strategist Stephen Bannon, one of Trump’s closest political allies. “If we are going to go to war,” he declared, “let’s go to war.” The Trump administration is waging a war—against the population, against democratic rights, against Constitutional government.

Trump
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. [AP Photo/Alex Brandon]

This war is being conducted within the framework of the public deification of Kirk. Over the past week, the White House has spearheaded a campaign to ban all criticism of the Trump administration. Workers, including teachers, airline staff and others, have been fired for critical social media posts about Kirk. 

On Wednesday, ABC/Disney announced that it was suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live!, after Kimmel made mild, accurate remarks on Monday about the political exploitation of Kirk’s killing. The move followed an explicit directive from the White House and its enforcers. FCC (Federal Communications Commission) Chair Brendan Carr threatened broadcasters, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Nexstar and Disney, desperate to protect multibillion-dollar mergers and profits, rushed to comply.

In interviews Thursday, Carr declared that Kimmel’s suspension was not the “last shoe to drop,” calling for a “massive shift that’s taking place in the media ecosystem.” On the same day, Trump himself declared that regulators should revoke the licenses of broadcasters who air “negative coverage” of him.

The critical question now is: What must be done to stop this drive to dictatorship? In answering this question, it is necessary to identify the political context of Trump’s attempt to overthrow the Constitution, the class and economic interests that underlie the actions of the government, the social force that has the power to defend democratic rights, and the political strategy and program upon which the fight against Trump must be based.

First, it is necessary to put aside all self-deluding hopes that what is unfolding is anything less than a drive to establish a presidential dictatorship, based on the military, police, paramilitary forces and fascist gangs. The essential purpose of the glorification of Charlie Kirk has been to provide a martyr symbol to galvanize the most reactionary forces in the country.

As the World Socialist Web Site has warned, the Hitler admirers in Trump’s inner circle, such as Vice President JD Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, are working off the playbook written by the Nazis. Kirk is the Trump regime’s “Horst Wessel” (the name of a murdered storm trooper) and the assassination is their equivalent to the infamous Reichstag Fire, the burning of the German parliament building, which was seized upon by Hitler to claim absolute power in March 1933.

The cancellation of the Jimmy Kimmel show is yet another action based on the tactics of the Nazi regime. Any form of speech, including jokes, that was deemed insulting to the honor and dignity of Hitler was treated as a criminal offense that merited drastic punishment. The “Heil Hitler” salute became an obligatory form of greeting, even between friends.

Second, Trump is not acting on his own. However grotesque his individual qualities, he represents the interests of the corporate and financial oligarchy. Here again, the parallels to Nazi Germany are chilling. It is a historical fact that Hitler’s rise to power would not have been possible without the resources provided to the Nazi movement by leading German capitalists. Once in office, Hitler’s brutal regime served the interests of German banks and corporations, and they supported his dictatorship.

If anything, the alliance of Trump and today’s financial-corporate oligarchy is even more intense than that which prevailed in Nazi Germany. It can be described, without exaggeration, as a love affair. In the midst of Trump’s assault on democratic rights, he was feted last week at a White House dinner, where a gang of mega-millionaires and billionaires sang his praises. An even more obscene spectacle was staged this week at Windsor Castle in Britain. Seated next to King Charles III, Trump was feted at a state banquet by a retinue of oligarchs, including Tim Cook of Apple, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Ruth Porat of Alphabet, financiers Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone, Jane Fraser of Citigroup, Larry Fink of BlackRock and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America.

Third, underlying the public reverence for Trump are cold-blooded economic and political calculations. The staggering concentration of wealth in an infinitesimal segment of the population is not compatible with democratic forms of rule. The rich are convinced that the defense of their wealth and their unrestricted exploitation of the working class is incompatible with democracy. Dictatorship is their preferred form of political rule.

However, the oligarchy’s reasons for supporting the overthrow of whatever remains of American democracy extend beyond their uncontainable lust for ever greater heaps of money and personal wealth. The American ruling class is acutely conscious of and terrified by the existential crisis of the capitalist system. It is aware that the national debt—now approaching $40 trillion—is unsustainable. 

The oligarchs are convinced that a massive assault on the living standards and even the lives of the working class is necessary. All the social reforms extending back to the Progressive era of the first two decades of the 20th century, the New Deal of the 1930s, and the Great Society of the 1960s must be ended. Critical programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are to be all but eliminated. The war on medicine—to the point of ending vaccinations against COVID, measles, mumps, polio, whooping cough, and other deadly illnesses—is aimed at substantially raising infant and child mortality and lowering life expectancy.

The wiping out of regulations that provided any sort of protection against injury and death in factories, mines, depots, shipyards, and other workplaces is a major objective. 

Yet another factor in the political calculations of the capitalist elites is the geo-political crisis confronting American imperialism. The protracted deterioration in the global economic and strategic position of the United States has reached critical dimensions. The rise of China and the development of an alliance of states challenging American hegemony cannot be stopped except through war. The militarization of the United States demands ever greater expenditures, which, in turn, intensifies the pressure to slash social expenditures and wages. Moreover, the preparation and launching of wars requires the violent suppression of domestic political opposition.

These are the objective factors that underlie the collapse of American democracy. Trump’s policies are those of the ruling class. This is not to ignore the specific pathological features of his personality and that of his MAGA cabal that impart to this regime its particularly degenerate character. But even if the workings of actuarial statistics were to suddenly remove Trump from the scene, it would not halt the drive to dictatorship. The war on democracy and the working class would continue.

This objective cause of the breakdown of democracy is verified by the fact that parallel processes are being manifested in all major capitalist countries. Throughout Europe neo-fascist parties are gaining strength. The drive toward dictatorship is a global phenomenon. 

Fourth, the correct identification of the source of Trump’s war against the working class leads to critical political conclusions. The starting point of any serious struggle against dictatorship is a break with the Democratic Party. To rely on the Democratic Party to oppose Trump is to guarantee defeat.

The Democrats are, like the Republicans, a party of Wall Street, the Pentagon, and the corporate-financial oligarchy. What they fear above all is not the rise of fascism but the eruption of a mass movement from below that threatens the foundations of capitalist rule. This accounts for the Democratic Party’s cowardly capitulation to the fascist glorification of Kirk and its feckless response to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel and all the previous dictatorial decrees issued by Trump.

The prostration of the Democratic Party was exposed when the US Senate unanimously approved a resolution marking October 14, Kirk’s birthday, as a “National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk.” Not one Democrat, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, had the courage to object. It would have been sufficient, and politically correct, to oppose the assassination on principled grounds, i.e., that the killing of one or another despicable figure serves absolutely no progressive interest, that it sows confusion among workers and youth and that it plays into the hands of the reactionaries.

But to sanction the elevation of Kirk—a man whose record of racism, antisemitism, opposition to civil rights, and promotion of authoritarian violence is well documented—as a national hero is obscene. Yet Sanders and the Democrats joined in this sanctification.

The next day, 90 Democrats, including the party’s leadership, voted with Republicans in the House to pass a resolution “honoring the life and legacy of Charles Kirk,” praising the fascist provocateur as a martyr for “freedom” and “civil discourse,” and a “fierce defender” of “life, liberty, limited government, and individual responsibility.” 

Fifth, the development of the struggle to defeat Trump must be based on the mobilization of the multimillioned working class—the social force that has the power, if mobilized on the basis of a correct political strategy, to defeat Trump and drive him from office.

The key elements of this strategy are: 

1) The complete political and organizational independence of the working class from the Democratic Party and its collaborators and apologists, i.e., the DSA, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the myriad middle class organizations and individuals who believe that shouting obscenities on various social media platforms will stop Trump. These are the methods of frustrated liberals who hope that their hysterical rhetoric will move the Democratic Party to fight Trump.

2) The building of a new form of organization that can unify the working class and mobilize its vast industrial and economic power against the Trump regime. This new form of organization proposed by the Socialist Equality Party consists of rank-and-file committees. They must be established in every factory, workplace, school and neighborhood to organize resistance to Trump’s dictatorship. These committees must become centers of resistance, uniting all sections of the working class (in industry, logistics, transport, restaurants and fast food, social services, legal defense, education, arts and culture, entertainment, medicine, health care, sciences, computer technology, programming and other highly specialized professions) and student youth against Trump’s fascist government, the complicity of the Democrats, and the broader assault on democratic rights and living standards. 

The building of rank-and-file committees is essential to break the stranglehold of the trade union bureaucracies, which function as industrial police for the corporations and utilize their power to block every form of resistance by the working class. Power must be transferred from the offices of the bureaucratic parasites to the workers on the shop floor and job sites, where decisions on all matters of strategy, policy and action can be made democratically by the working class.

These rank-and-file committees, spreading across all workplaces, will create new centers of coordinated social power upon which the defense of democracy throughout the country can be based. The mobilized working class will be able to inspire with confidence and unify all the now disparate elements of protest in a massive social movement against the hated government led and controlled by capitalist oligarchy.

3) This movement, led by the working class, requires a program that accurately reflects socio-economic realities and corresponds to the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population. The capitalist oligarchy has declared war on the working class. The necessary response is the declaration of war by the working class on capitalism, which must result in the socialist reorganization of society. This entails the establishment of public ownership and democratic control by the working class of major industries, banks, utilities and natural resources. Moreover, the obscene levels of wealth concentrated in the approximately 900 billionaires must be expropriated. The 400 richest Americans alone hold a combined wealth of $6.6 trillion, which represents a growth by more than $1 trillion over the previous year. The concentration of so much money and power is a social malignancy that kills democracy.

4) The most important element of this strategy—upon which the implementation and realization of all previous elements depends—is internationalism. No effective struggle can be waged by workers in the United States unless their actions are coordinated and aligned with the struggles of the global working class. The threat of fascism is an international phenomenon. The capitalist ruling class of every country has its own version of Trump and even Hitler. American workers must repudiate the reactionary, outdated and self-defeating ideology of nationalism, which is the primal evil that instigates the racism and ethnic hatreds utilized by fascism. It is not an accidental coincidence that Trump launched his drive for dictatorship by unleashing a savage assault on immigrants. The deprivation of their democratic rights was only the first stage in the overthrow of the Constitution. The masked ICE agents who prowl through cities are the vanguard of the fascist paramilitary that Trump is planning to unleash against all sections of the working class.

An inseparable corollary of the fight for the international unity of American workers with their class brothers and sisters beyond the borders of the United States is irreconcilable opposition to US imperialism, militarism and war. The Gaza genocide carried out by the Zionist regime, which has to a great extent been carried out with weapons provided by the United States, reveals the barbarism of which capitalism is capable. The mass murder of Palestinians sanctioned by all the imperialist powers is an anticipation of what the capitalist oligarchs are prepared to inflict against the workers in their “own” countries.

It flows from this internationalist strategy that the rights of immigrants must be defended against the criminal and inhumane policy of deportation. The principle of birthright citizenship, inscribed in the Constitution, must be defended without compromise. Further, the class-conscious worker rejects the insidious and cruel distinction between the “native” and “foreign born.” Moreover, sanctions and tariffs imposed by the Trump administration must be opposed. The working class cannot defend its jobs and interests by supporting economic nationalism, which is entirely reactionary in an era of the global integration of production. The working class can advance its interests only by demanding the tearing down of national boundaries, which not only strangle the development of the productive forces but also lead mankind down the terrible path to nuclear world war.

Even before Trump began his second term and launched his drive for dictatorship, the Socialist Equality Party issued a call for the formation of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC). This initiative has not only been vindicated. Its development has acquired burning urgency.

5) The strategy, organization and action that are necessary to defeat Trump, defend democratic rights, and prevent fascism and war will not emerge spontaneously. This program must be fought for. But the determination that is required to take up and wage this fight is incompatible with pessimism and demoralization. These moods lead to paralysis. Moreover, pessimism is invariably connected to a superficial and false appraisal of reality. The Democrats, the unions and the media cultivate the myth of an all-powerful government while insisting that nothing can be done. This is a lie. What is lacking is not mass opposition but, rather, a political strategy to guide and organize the struggle against Trump’s assault on democratic rights.

The Socialist Equality Party advances this program as the basis for the struggle against Trump and the degenerate oligarchy which he represents. Our program is not for the pessimists, the skeptics and the demoralized, but for the fighters among workers, students, youth, professionals, artists and intellectuals. There is no time to lose.

We call on all workers and young people who agree with this perspective to join the Socialist Equality Party, mobilize the power of the working class, defeat the conspiracy of the oligarchs and fight for a socialist future without fascism, genocide and war

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Commemoration

කටුවන සමූලඝාතනය: වසර 36ක බිය ගැන්වීම්වලින් සහ අඛණ්ඩ දණ්ඩමුක්තියකින් පසු ඥාතීහු වින්දිතයන් අනුස්මරණය කරති

අපගේ වාර්තාකරු විසිනි.

මෙම ලිපිය ඉංග්‍රීසි බසින් 2025 සැප්තැම්බර් 05 දින thesocialist.lk හි පල විය. 

Commemoration
කටුවන සමූලඝාතනයේ වින්දිතයන් – දකුණේ සිට: සිසිලියානා, එඩ්වින්, නිල්මිණි, මතගලතා, සුජිතසීලි, චන්ද්‍රලේකා සහ නිරංජලා. 1990 දී ඝාතනය වූ චූලානන්ද, වමේ සිට මුලින්ම.

අගෝස්තු 27 වන දින, හම්බන්තොට දිස්ත්‍රික්කයේ කටුවන දී, 1989 අගෝස්තු මාසයේ දී ශ්‍රී ලංකා හමුදාව විසින් සමූලඝාතනය කරන ලද පවුලේ සාමාජිකයින් හත් දෙනාගේ ඥාතීන් විසින් ඔවුන්ව බෝම්බ ප්‍රහාරයට ලක් කරන ලද එම ස්ථානයේම, තම ආදරණීයයන් සැමරීමේ අවස්ථාවක් පවත්වන ලදී. වසර 36ක් අපරාධකරුවන්ට ලැබුනු දණ්ඩමුක්ති‍යකින් සහ වින්දිතයින්ගේ ඥාතීන්ට එරෙහි පීඩනයෙන් පසු රාජ්‍ය භීෂණයට ගොදුරු වූ මෙම වින්දිතයන් අනුස්මරණය කරමින් සැමරුම් උත්සවයක් පැවැත්වූ පළමු අවස්ථාව මෙය විය. theSocialist.lk වාර්තාකරුවෝ මෙම අවස්ථාවට එක් වූහ.

දශක තුනහමාරකට සහ තවත් වසරකට පෙර,  ඒ මාරක රාත්‍රියේදී, ශ්‍රී ලංකා හමුදාවේ සිංහ රෙජිමේන්තුවේ  6 වැනි බලඇණිය එම පවුලේ නිවස ආක්‍රමණය කළේය. එම අවස්ථාවේ නිවසේ සිටි එකම පිරිමියා වූයේ සිංහල පාරම්පරික වෛද්‍යවරයෙක් වූ 63 හැවිරිදි  ජේ.එච්.ඒ. එඩ්වින් පියා ය. අනෙක් අය වූයේ 53 හැවිරිදි මව වන එච්.ඒ. සිසිලියානා, තරුණ දියණියන් තිදෙනා වූ, ජේ.එච්.ඒ. නිල්මිණි අශෝකා (25), ජේ.එච්.ඒ. මතඟලතා (20), ජේ.එච්.ඒ. සුජිතසීලි (15), ඥාති දියණියක් වූ ඩබ්ලිව්.ඒ.චන්ද්‍රලේකා (24) සහ 6 හැවිරිදි මිනිබිරිය වූ එන්.ඒ.නිරංජලා විල්සන්ය. සියල්ලෝම සිංහල වාර්ගිකයෝ වූහ. හමුදාව ඔවුන් සියල්ලන්ම එම ස්ථානයේදීම මරා දැමුවේය, නැතහොත් (පසුව මරා දැමූනු ලැබූ) සමහර සාක්ෂිකරුවන්ට අනුව, තරුණ ගැහැණු ළමයින් හතරදෙනා හමුදා කඳවුරට ගෙන ගොස් දින තුනක් දූෂණය කර මරා දමන ලදී. නිවසට බෝම්බ ප්‍රහාරයක් එල්ල වූ අතර නිවස සමඟ පවුලම දවා ලනු ලැබූහ.

ඥාතීන් තම ආදරණීයයන්ගේ පින්තූර ප්‍රදර්ශනය කර ඉටිපන්දම් දැල් වූහ. දිවි ගලවා ගත් දියණියන් දෙදෙනෙක්, ඔවුන්ගේ ස්වාමිපුරුෂයන්, මුණුබුරන් සහ ඔවුන්ගේ පවුල් සහ මිතුරන් විනාඩි කිහිපයක නිශ්ශබ්දතාවයක් පැවැත් වූහ. දශක ගණනාවකට පසුවත් ඔවුන්ගේ කඳුළු වියළී නොතිබුණි. එඩ්වින්ගේ මුණුබුරෙකු වන විමුක්ති මෙසේ සභාව ඇමතීය: 

දිගු වසර 36 ක් තිස්සේ, ඔවුන්ගේ මතකය සැමරීම සඳහා අපට මෙම ඓතිහාසික අවස්ථාව උදා කර ගැනීමට නොහැකි විය. අපට මෙහි පැමිණීමට, ඔවුන්ගේ නම් හඬ ගා කීමට සහ විවෘතව ශෝකය පල කිරීමට අපට නොහැකි විය. භීෂණ තත්ත්වය, මර්දනයේ වාතාවරණය සහ සත්‍යය සහ යුක්තිය සොයන මිනිසුන්ට එරෙහිව අඛණ්ඩව පැවති තර්ජනය අප වැනි පවුල් නිහඬ කළේය. නමුත් නිහඬතාවය යනු අමතක කිරීම නොවේ. මේ වසර ගණනාව අපගේ ශෝකය ගැඹුරු කර ඇති අතර අපගේ අධිෂ්ඨානය ශක්තිමත් කර ඇත.

අද අපි ඒ නිහඬතාවය බිඳ දමමු…ඒවා ක්‍රියාත්මක කළ හමුදාව, ඝාතක කණ්ඩායම් සහ පොලිසියේ සිට ඒවා මෙහෙයවූ දේශපාලන අධිකාරියේ අය දක්වා, නීතිය ඉදිරියේ නොවේ නම්, ඉතිහාසය ඉදිරියේ වගවීමට ලක්කල  යුතුය.

අපේ ඥාතීන්ගේ රුධිරය කෑගසන්නේ පළිගැනීම සඳහා නොව සත්‍යය හා යුක්තිය සඳහා ය. මෙම ජීවිත වැදගත් බවත්, දුප්පතුන්, ගම්වැසියන්, එම වසරවල මරා දැමූ අහිංසක මිනිසුන්, ගැහැනුන් සහ තරුණයින්ගේ ජීවිත ගෞරවනීය බව පිළිගැනීම සඳහා එය කෑගසයි.

මෙවැනි අපරාධ නැවත කිසිදා සිදු නොවිය යුතු බවට විරෝධය පළ කිරීමේ ගැඹුරු සලකුණක් ලෙස අපි ඔබේ නම් සහ ඔබට එල්ල කරන ලද කෲරත්වයන් පිලිබද මතකය ඉදිරියට ගෙන යන්නෙමු.

සත්‍යය, යුක්තිය සහ ගෞරවය වෙනුවෙන් සහ රාජ්‍ය මර්දනයට එරෙහිව සටන් කරන සැමට ඔබේ මතකය ධෛර්යය ලබා දෙනු ඇත.”

එඩ්වින් සහ සිසිලියානාගේ එකම පුත්‍රයා වූ ජේ.එච්.ඒ. චූලානන්ද (22)ගේ නම  සඳහන් කරමින්, ඔහු “යුක්තිය සහ සමාජ සමානාත්මතාවය අපේක්ෂා කළ නමුත් යුගයේ ප්‍රතිගාමී දේශපාලන බලවේග විසින් නොමඟ යවන ලද තරුණයෙක්” බවත්, 1990 ඔක්තෝම්බර් මාසයේදී බෙලිඅත්ත පොලිසිය විසින් ඝාතනය කරන ලද බවත් හෙතෙම ප්‍රකාශ කළේය. චූලානන්ද, 1988-1990 කාලය තුල, ෆැසිස්ට් ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ සාමාජිකයෙකු වූ බව පැවසේ. කරුනු පැහැදිලි කරන්නේ, ඔහුව අල්ලා ගැනීමට හෝ මරා දැමීමට අපොහොසත් වූ කළ, හමුදාව, පළිගැනීමේ හා ත්‍රස්ත ගැන්වීමේ ක්‍රියාවක් ලෙස, ඔහුගේ මුළු පවුලම සමූලඝාතනය කිරීම සැලසුම් කරන ලද බවයි. 

Katuwana massacre commemoration
කටුවන සමූලඝාතනයට ගොදුරු වූවන්ගේ පවුල්වල සාමාජිකයෝ දණ්ඩමුක්තියේ වසර 36 සනිටුහන් කරමින් තම ආදරණීයයන් අනුස්මරණය කරති.


සාක්ෂි

මරා දැමුනු අයගේ ඥාතීන් සමඟ අපි කතා කළෙමු. එඩ්වින්ගේ වැඩිමහල් දියණිය චාන්දනී (63) වසර ගණනාවක වේදනාව, විඳදරාගැනීම සහ ජීවන අරගලය පිළිබඳ ඇගේ දුක්බර කතාව අප සමඟ මෙසේ පැවසුවාය: 

“මගේ තාත්තට මිනිස්සු කිව්වේ වෙද මහත්තයා කියලා. මිනිස්සු ගොඩක් ඔහුට ආදරේ කළා. ඔහු හරිම අහිංසක, කරුණාවන්ත, අවංක මනුස්සයෙක්. ඔහු අවිද්දෙ හෙමින්,  මුහුන ප්‍රියමනාප හිනාවකින් පිරී තිබුනා, මෘදුව කතා කළා, සරමයි ජාතික ඇඳුමයි ඇඳලා හිටියේ. ඉස්සර පැවිදි වෙලා ආයුර්වේද පොත් ගණනාවක් පළ කරලා තිබුණා. ඔහුගෙන් ඖෂධ ප්‍රතිකාර ලැබූ බොහෝ දෙනෙක් මා හමුවී මගේ පියානන්ගෙන් සහ මවගෙන් ලැබුණු දයානුකම්පිත සහ, බොහෝ විට නොමිලේ වූ ප්‍රතිකාර ගැන මට පැවසූවා.

අපේ පවුල දුවලා හය දෙනෙක්ගෙන් වූ ලොකු පවුලක්, මගේ සහෝදරයා චූලානන්ද එකම පුතා. අපේ පවුලේ ආර්ථිකය යැපුනේ මගේ පියාගේ ආයුර්වේද වෙදකමෙන් ලැබෙන සොච්චම්, නමුත් ස්ථාවර ඉපැයීම් මතයි. අපිට කුඹුරු ඉඩම් සහ අක්කර ගාණක පොල්, කුරුඳු, හා පැඟිරි ඉඩම් තිබුණා; ඒවා තාත්තා වගා කරලා කළමනාකරණය කළා. මගේ පියා ජයගත් නමුත්, ඒ ඉඩම් පිළිබඳ නඩු හබ නිසා ඔහුට මූල්‍යමය වශයෙන් අලාභ වුනා වගේම ඔහුගේ ව්‍යාපාර කඩා වැටුණා.  අපි හැමෝම ජීවත් වුණේ වරිච්චි ගහල මැටි වලින් හදපු ගෙදරක. කොහොම වුණත්, අපි හැමෝටම හොඳට කන්න දෙන්න, අපිට උගන්වන්න, අසරණ අයට උදව් කරන්න මගේ තාත්තාට තවමත් හැකියාව තිබුණා. 

1971 වන විට මගේ පියා ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂයේ (ශ්‍රීලනිප) සහ සිරිමාවෝ බණ්ඩාරනායක මැතිනියගේ ප්‍රබල ආධාරකරුවෙක් වුනා. කෙසේ වෙතත්, 1977 වන විට, ඔහු සමඟි පෙරමුණු ආණ්ඩුව එපා වී, අතෘප්තියට පත් වී එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයට ඡන්දය දුන්නා. එහි නායක ජේ.ආර්.ජයවර්ධන “ධර්මිෂ්ඨ සමාජයක්” පොරොන්දු වුණා.  

අපි හැමෝම ගියේ කටුවන මහා විද්‍යාලයට. මගේ මල්ලී හතේ ශ්‍රේණියෙන් පසු අධ්‍යාපන කටයුතු කරගෙන ගියේ නැහැ. ඔහු ඉතා කාරුණික හා සමාජශීලී තරුණයෙක්. ගම්වැසියන්ට බොහෝ උපකාර කළා. ඔහු තම පවුලේ අයට වඩා තම මිතුරන් සහ අසල්වැසියන් ගැන සැලකිලිමත් වුනා. බොහෝ විට ඔහු නිවසේ සිටි කාලයට වඩා වැඩි කාලයක් නිවසින් බැහැරව සිටියා. ඔහුගේ කැපී පෙනෙන හා බුද්ධිමත් ස්වභාවයත්, සිත් ඇදගන්නා පෙනුමත් නිසා ස්වභාවිකවම තරුණයින් ඔහුව ඔවුන්ගේ නායකයා ලෙස සැලකූවා. ඔහුට රැකියාවක් කිරීමට අවශ්‍ය වූ නමුත් ගම හැර යාමට ඔහුට අවශ්‍ය නොවීය. මම හිතන්නේ ඔහු 1987 අගභාගයේ සිටම ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ සමඟ සම්බන්ධකම් ඇතිකරගෙන තිබුණා. 

මගේ සහෝදරයා ගමේ මැරයන්ගේ සහ පියාගේ හිටපු විරුද්ධවාදීන්ගේ උදහසට ලක්ව සිටියා. වරක් ඔවුන් හෙල්ලයෙන් ඇන ඔහුගේ ජීවිතය නැති කිරීමට පවා උත්සාහ කළා. ඔහු යන්තම් දිවි ගලවා ගත් නමුත් ඔහුගේ මිතුරා තුවාල ලබා මිය ගියා. 

1979 දී මම ගුරුවරයෙක් සමඟ විවාහ වී වෙනම ජීවත් වුණා. මගේ වැඩිමහල් සහෝදරියක් (ඉන්දුමතී) පසුව පොලිස් නිලධාරියෙකු සමඟ විවාහ වී 1989 මුල් භාගයේදී වැලිමඩ පදිංචියට ගියා. අනෙක් සියලුම සහෝදරියන් මගේ දෙමව්පියන් සමග මහගෙදර ජීවත් වුනා. බාලමයාට වැඩිමල් නංගී ‘ලොකු’ (සුජිතසීලි) සාමාන්‍ය පෙළ (සා/පෙ) විභාගයටත්, ‘හිච්චි’ (මතඟලතා) උසස් පෙළ (උ/පෙ) විභාගයටත් ඉගෙන ගනිමින් සිටියා. නීලා (නිල්මිණි) උසස් පෙළින් පසුව රැකියාවක් බලාපොරොත්තුවෙන් වෘත්තීය පුහුණු පාඨමාලාවලට සහභාගි වෙමින් සිටියා.

1989 අගෝස්තු මාසේ ඉස්කෝලේ නිවාඩු කාලේ මගේ වැඩිමල් නංගිලා දෙන්නා [නිල්මිණි සහ මතඟලතා] අපිව බලන්න වලස්මුල්ලේ [කටුවන සිට කිලෝමීටර් 17ක්] අපේ ගෙදරට ආවා. අපගේ මහගෙදර පිහිටා තිබුණෙ කටුවන ගොවි ජන සේවා මධ්‍යස්ථානය පරිශ්‍රයේ පිහිටි යුධ හමුදා කඳවුරේ සිට කිලෝමීටර් භාගයක් පමණ දුරින්. මගේ සහෝදරියන් හමුදා කඳවුර පසුකර යද්දී සමහර සොල්දාදුවන්, ‘හා…රවුමක් දාල එන්න’ යි කෑ ගසා  තිබුණා. ඒ අගෝස්තු 26 වැනි දා, සෙනසුරාදා දිනයක්. 

මගේ නංගිලා අපිත් එක්ක දවල්ට කෑවා. ඒක තමයි අපි එකට ගත්ත අන්තිම කෑම වේල. මගේ දරුවන් තිදෙනාම ඔවුන්ගේ ආච්චිලා සීයලා සහ පුංචිලා සමඟ නැවතී සිටීමට බොහෝ කැමැත්තක් දැක්වූවා. ඉතින්, තුන්දෙනාම පුංචිලා එක්ක යන්න කියලා අඬන්න ගත්තා. අන්තිමට මගේ දුව නිරංජලා එයාලා එක්ක ගියා. 

ඉස්කෝලේ නිවාඩුව ඉවර වෙන නිසා අගෝස්තු 29 වෙනිදා උදේ මගේ මහත්තයා [සැමියා] අපේ දුවව ගෙදර එක්කන් එන්න යාළුවෙක් එක්ක කටුවනට ගියා. මගේ මහත්තයා බෝම්බ දැමූ නිවස දුටුවා; මිනිස් මාංශ සහ හිස් කබලක් පිළිස්සෙනු ඔහු දුටුවා. මගේ දරුවා ඇතුළු කිසිවෙක් ජීවතුන් අතර සිටියේ නැහැ.  

සිද්ධියෙන් පසු මම වලස්මුල්ල පොලිසියට පැමිණිල්ලක් කිරීමට ගියේ ඒ වන විට කටුවන ප්‍රදේශයේ පොලිසියක් නොතිබූ බැවිනි. පොලිසිය මගේ පැමිණිල්ල සටහන් කර ගැනීම ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කළා. ස්ථානාධිපති (OIC), කේ.එම්. ප්‍රේමතිලක එයාගේ පිස්තෝලය මගේ කටට තියලා, ‘උඹ ගෑණි, කට වහගෙන හිටපං. අවි ගත්තෝ අවියෙන් නසිති,’ කියලා කෑ ගැහුවා.

හරියටම මගේ 28 වැනි උපන්දිනය දවසේ, 1990 ඔක්තෝබර් 22 වැනිදා, බෙලිඅත්ත පොලිසියෙන් මගේ මල්ලී ඝාතනය කළා කියලා සිල්වා කියල කෙනෙක්ගෙන් මගේ මහත්තයාට තොරතුරක් ලැබුණා. මගේ මල්ලීට වෙඩි තැබූ බෙලිඅත්ත පොලිසියේ ස්ථානාධිපති දසනායක මෙම ඝාතනය පිළිබඳව ඉක්මනින්ම පළාත් සභා මන්ත්‍රී කේ. ධනපාලට දන්වා තියෙනවා. ධනපාල [ඔහු අවුරුදු කිහිපයකට පෙර මිය ගියේය] මගේ සහෝදරයාගෙන් ඔහුගේ ජීවිතයට තර්ජනයක් වේ යැයි බිය විය; නමුත් එය කිසි විටෙකත් එසේ නොවීය. ධනපාල තෘප්තිමත් කරවන්න දේහය ඔහුට පෙන්වූ පසු පොලීසිය මල්ලීගේ සිරුර ටයර් සෑයක් මත  පුලුස්සා තිබුණා.

ධනපාලටත් බොහෝ කලකට පෙර මගේ පියා සමඟ ඉඩම් ආරවුලක් තිබුනා. ඔහු මගේ පියාට එරෙහිව පවරා තිබූ නඩුවක් පැරදුණා. ධනපාල සහ අප අතර කුල භේදයක්ද  තිබුනා. මගේ පියාත්, ගමේ ඒ මුළු කොටසම පාහේත් ධනපාලගේ කුලයට වඩා උසස් කුලයකට අයත් වූවක්. ගමේ විවිධ කුලවලට අයත් මිනිසුන් ජීවත් වුනේ ‘මණ්ඩි’ [පොකුරු] හැටියට.”

චාන්දනීගේ ස්වාමිපුරුෂයා වන චමල් (69) සිය කම්පන සහගත අත්දැකීම් මෙසේ හෙලි  කළේය:

“අගෝස්තු 29 වෙනිදා උදේ මම මගේ යාළුවෙක් එක්ක එයාගේ කාර් එකේ දුවව ගෙදර එක්කන් එන්න කටුවනට ගියා. මගේ යාළුවාට ඕන වුණා ධනපාල මන්ත්‍රීව හම්බවෙලා එයාගේ අයියගෙ පුතාව වලස්මුල්ල යුද හමුදා කඳවුරෙන් නිදහස් කර ගන්න උදව්වක් ඉල්ලන්න. කටුවන යුද හමුදා කඳවුරේ මාර්ග බාධකය ළඟ හමුදාව අපේ කාර් එක නතර කළා. මගේ යාළුවා කිව්වා අපි මන්ත්‍රී තුමා හම්බ වෙන්න යනවා කියලා. ඒනිසා, අපිට යන්න දුන්නා.

අපි නිවස පිහිටි ස්ථානයට ළඟා වූ විට මට නිවස  දකින්නට ලැබුනේ නැහැ. මට පෙනුනේ දුම විතරයි. මම ළඟට ගියා. මට මගේ ඇස් අදහා ගන්න බැරි  උනා. නිවස කඩා විනාශ කර දමා සියල්ල ගිනිබත්  වෙමින් පැවතියා. ප්‍රධාන දොරට කිට්ටුව ගේ ඇතුලේ මිනිස් මාංශ පිච්චෙනවා මම දැක්කා. හිස් කබලක් පිච්චෙනවා මම දැක්කා. මට හිටගෙන ඉන්න බැරි වුණා. ගමේ එක්කෙනෙක් දෙන්නෙක් ඇවිත් මාව තදින් අල්ලගත්තා. මගේ නැන්දම්මාගේ සහෝදරියක් මා ළඟට ඇවිත් ‘කවුරුත් ජීවතුන් අතර නැහැ. හැමෝම පිච්චිලා’, කියලා කිව්වා. මම මගේ දුවගේ නම කියමින් කෑගැසුවා. පුංචිඅම්මා මට කිව්වා, ‘මහත්තයා දැන් යන්න. හමුදාව ආවොත් මහත්තයත් මරයි’. ඊට පස්සේ මගේ යාළුවා මාව කාර් එක ඇතුලට තල්ලු කරලා ආපහු ගෙදර ගෙනාවා. මම මගේ බිරිඳට හැමදේම කිව්වා. ඇය පොලොවේ හැපෙමින් වැලපුණා.

සති කිහිපයකට පසු, ධනපාලගේ මුරට හිටපු ග්‍රාම ආරක්ෂකයෙකු වූ [රජයේ සිවිල් ආරක්ෂක බළකායේ සාමාජිකයෙක්] ගාමිණී මට කියා සිටියේ ඔහු සහ තවත් මුරකරුවෙකු අපරාධය කරන විට හමුදාව සමඟ සිටි බවත්, හමුදාවෙන් සියලු දෙනාම මරා දැමූ බවත්, ඒනිසා ඔවුන් ගැන නොසොයන ලෙසත් ය. සහෝදරියන් හතර දෙනා කටුවන හමුදා කඳවුරට ගෙන ගොස් එහි දින තුනක් දූෂණය කර වධ දී මරා දැමූ බව ඔහු මට කීවේය. වැඩි කල් යන්නට මත්තෙන් ඒ මුරකරුවන් දෙදෙනාම ඝාතනය වූ බව මට දැන ගන්නට ලැබුණා.

එම කාලය තුළම අපි පොලිස් ස්ථානවල පැමිණිලි කිරීමට උත්සාහ කළා. ඔවුන් තවමත් කිසියම් රැඳවුම් මධ්‍යස්ථානයක ජීවතුන් අතර සිටින බවට විශ්වාස කළ නිසා අපි හමුදා කඳවුරුවල පවා ඔවුන් සොයමින් සිටියා. මමත් මගේ බිරිඳත් වලස්මුල්ල පොලිසියට පැමිණිල්ලක් කරන්න ගියාම අපිව එලව ගත්තා. මගේ ඥාතීන් ගැන තොරතුරු දැන ගන්න සිංහ රෙජිමේන්තුවේ 6 වැනි බළඇණියේ කපිතාන් පී.එල්.යූ. බුද්ධදාස හමුවීමට වලස්මුල්ල හමුදා කඳවුරට යාමට පවා මම එඩිතර වුණා. ඔහු මට කිව්වා, ‘ඔවුන් ගැන හොයන්න එපා. ඒ අය ඔක්කොම මැරිලා. ඔවුන් වෙනුවෙන් පිනක් දහමක් කරන්න,’ කියලා. මම තංගල්ල සහකාර පොලිස් අධිකාරී කාර්යාලයට (ඒඑස්පී) පැමිණිලි කිරීමට ගිය විට සහකාර පොලිස් අධිකාරී ඒකනායක මට තර්ජනය කරමින්, ‘තමුන් ගුරුවරයෙක්; මැරිච්ච මිනිස්සු ගැන සෙවීමට උත්සාහ කරන්න එපා. එසේ නොවුණහොත් තමුන්ට තමුන්ගේ ජීවිතයත් අහිමි වෙයි’, කියලා කෑ ගැසුවා.

මට මිද්දෙණිය පොලිසියට පැමිණිල්ලක් කරන්න පුළුවන් වුණේ 1994 සැප්තැම්බර් අගදී චන්ද්‍රිකා කුමාරතුංග මැතිනිය ජනාධිපති වුණාට පස්සේ. අතුරුදන් වූවන් පිළිබඳ ජනාධිපති කොමිසමට පැමිණිලි කරන්නත් අපට පුළුවන් වුණා. මුත්තෙට්ටුවේගම කොමිසමේ අවසන් වාර්තාවේ අපේ ඥාතීන් හත් දෙනාගේ නම් තිබෙනවා.

කෙසේ වෙතත්, 1998 න් පසු මෙම නඩුව කිසි දිනක ඉදිරියට ගියේ නැහැ. සමූල ඝාතන භූමියේ සාම්පල එකතු කර වසර හතරක් ගතවී තිබියදී, මෙම නඩුව ක්‍රමානුකූලව වළලන්නට පොලිසිය ධනපාල සමඟ හවුල් වී ඇති බව අපට දැනගන්නට ලැබුණා. 

මටත්, මගේ බිරිඳටත් විඳදරාගැනීමට සිදු වූ දිගුකාලීන මානසික කම්පනය නිසා මට ගුරුවරයෙක් ලෙස මගේ වැඩ කටයුතු අවංකව කරගෙන යාමට නොහැකි වුනා. ඒ නිසා මම අංක 44/90 චක්‍රලේඛය යටතේ විශ්‍රාම යාමට තීරණය කළා. ඊට පස්සේ අපේ පවුලේ තත්ත්වය නරක අතට හැරුණා. දරුවන් හතර දෙනෙකුගෙන් යුත් මගේ පවුලේ පැවැත්ම සඳහා මට අරගල කිරීමට සිදුවුණා.

චන්ද්‍රිකා එල්ටීටීඊය [දෙමළ ඊළාම් විමුක්ති කොටි සංවිධානය] සමඟ යුද්ධය නැවත ආරම්භ කළා. 1998 වන විට ශ්‍රී ලංකා හමුදාව යාපනයේ අහිංසක දෙමළ ජනතාවට කළ අපරාධ ගැන අපට දැනගන්නට ලැබුණා. ක්‍රිෂාන්ති කුමාරස්වාමි සහ ඇගේ පවුලේ අය චෙම්මනිහිදී ඝාතනය කිරීමේ සිද්ධිය අපගේ ආත්මයන් කම්පා කළා. එතකොට අපිට තේරුණා සමහර වෙලාවට අපේ පවුලට කරපු අපරාධවලට වඩා දෙමළ මිනිස්සුන්ට උතුරේ විඳවන්න සිද්ධ වෙන්න ඇති අපරාධවල තරම. පසුව, මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ යුද්ධය දිගටම කරගෙන ගියා; ඔහුගේ සහ ඔහුගෙන් පසු සියලු රජයක්ම කුලී මිනී මරුවන් ‘රණ විරුවන්’ ලෙස වර්ණනා කළා. ඒ මුළු කාලය පුරාම අපව නිහඬ කරනු ලැබුවා.”

එකල ව්‍යාජ “මානව හිමිකම්” සටන් කරුවන් පිලිඹඳ ඔහුගේ අත්දැකීම් ගැන ද ඔහු අපට පැවසීය: 

“මගේ බිරිඳගේ අනාථ වූ බාලම සොහොයුරිය ඒ කාලය තුළ ඉගෙනුම ලබමින් අප සමඟ ජීවත් වූවා. වරක්, 1997 මුල් භාගයේදී, ඇයට රැකියාවක් සොයා දීමට උදව්වක් අපේක්ෂාවෙන් මම ඇය සමඟ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ හමුවීමට ඔහුගේ තංගල්ල කාල්ටන් කාර්යාලයට ගියා. මගේ දෙමව්පියන් ඩී.ඒ. රාජපක්ෂ වෙනුවෙන් වැඩ කළා; තරුණයෙකු ලෙස මම මහින්දගේ මැතිවරණ සඳහා මැතිවරණ ව්‍යාපාරයේ නියැලිලා තිබුණා. ඉතින්, මම ඔහුව පෞද්ගලිකව දැන සිටියා. ඔහුව හමුවීමට බොහෝ වේලාවක් බලා සිටීමෙන් පසු, අපි බලහත්කාරයෙන් ඔහුගේ කාමරයට ඇතුළු වී පවුලේ සමූලඝාතනයෙන් පසු අපගේ දුෂ්කර තත්වය ඔහුට දැනුම් දුන්නා. ඔහු අපට කෑ ගැසුවා: ‘බලන්න, මේ කට්ටිය ජවිපෙට වැඩ කරලා මරෝගෙන, දැන් රැකියා ගන්න මගේ උදව් ඉල්ලගෙන ඇවිත්’. මගේ නෑනා හඬා වටුනා. ඇයට ඔහුගෙන් රැකියාවක් හෝ කිසිදු උදව්වක් ලැබුණේ නැහැ.”

පවුලේ ඉතිරි වූ තවත් වැඩිමල් දියණියක් වන ඉන්දුමතී ප්‍රාදේශීය දේශපාලකයා පවුල කෙරෙහි බැඳගෙන තිබූ ද්වේශය පිළිබඳ සිය අත්දැකීම මෙසේ පැවසුවාය: 

“මගේ තාත්තා 1988 අග සහ 1989 මුල මැතිවරණවලදී එජාපයට සහය දුන් නිසා, මහ මැතිවරණයෙන් පසු, මගේ පියා මා සමඟ ගියා ධනපාල මන්ත්‍රීට කතා කිරීමට. අපේ දෙමවුපියන්ගේ නිවස තිබුණේ ඔහුගේ නිවසට යාර කිහිපයක් දුරින්. ඔහු මුල්කිරිගල ආසනයේ එවකට එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂ කැබිනට් අමාත්‍යවරයා වූ ආනන්ද කුලරත්නගේ බාප්පා විය. පසු කාලීනව අපට දැනගන්නට ලැබුණා මගේ සහෝදරයා ඒ කාලේ ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ (ජවිපෙ) ක්‍රියාකාරකම්වල පූර්ණ කාලීනව නියැලී සිටි බව.  මැතිවරණවලදී ඡන්දය නොදෙන ලෙස ජවිපෙ නියෝග කර තිබුණා [දකුණු පළාතේ පළාත් සභා මැතිවරණය 1988 ජුනි මාසයේදී පැවැත්විණි]. ධනපාල හිතුවෙ ජවිපෙ සහ එහි සන්නද්ධ අංශය වූ දේශප්‍රේමී ජනතා ව්‍යාපාරය (DJV) මගින් ඔහුගේ ජීවිතයට තර්ජනයක් එල්ල වී ඇති බව යි. කෙසේ වෙතත්, ගම්වැසියන් පවසන්නේ මගේ සහෝදරයා ගමේ කිසිවෙකුට, අපේ පවුලට ඊර්ෂ්‍යා කළ අයට පවා, හානියක් කිරීමට කිසිඳු ඉඩක් නොතැබූ බවයි. මට හෝ අපේ පවුලේ වෙනත් කිසිවෙකුට රැකියා සොයා දීම ධනපාල දැඩි ලෙස ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කළා. ‘ඔය ගෙදර ත්‍රස්තවාදියෙක් ඉන්නවා. වෙද මහත්තයා සිටියේ නැත්නම්, මෙලහකටත් ඔය ගෙදර තමුසෙලත් එක්කම අලුවෙලා ඉවරයි,’ කියල ඔහු කෑ ගැසුවා.

නමුත්, මගේ දෙමවුපියන් හෝ කිසිවකු ළඟදීම නියමිත සමූල ඝාතනයක් ගැන සිහිනෙන්වත් නොසිතුවේ, එවැනි සිදුවීම් අප මීට පෙර අසා නොතිබූ නිසයි. 

අපේ නිවසට බෝම්බ ප්‍රහාරයක් එල්ල කිරීමට දින දෙකකට පමණ පෙර මගේ වැඩිමහල් සහෝදරිය, නීලා මට ලිපියක් එවා  කියා තිබුණේ, පෙරේදා එම ප්‍රදේශයේ හමුදාව ඉලක්ක කර බෝම්බ ප්‍රහාරයක් එල්ල වූ බවත්, එයින් සෙබළුන් කිහිප දෙනෙකු මිය ගිය බවත්ය. මගේ සහෝදරිය ලියල තිබුනා දැන් ඔවුන්ට ඔවුන්ගේ ජීවිතත් අනතුරේ කියලා දැනෙනවා කියලා. මම හිතන්නේ ඒ ලියුම තැපෑලට දාපු දවසෙ තමයි එයායි හිච්චියි අපේ ලොකු අක්කාව බලන්න වලස්මුල්ලේ එයාගේ ගෙදරට ගිහින්  තියෙන්නෙ. ඒ ලියුම එවනකොට අපේ හීං නංගී [සුනීතා] මාත් එක්ක මගේ ගෙදර හිටියා. ඒ නිසා ඇගේ ජීවිතය බේරුණා.”

දිවි ගලවා ගත් බාලම දියණිය සහ දැන් ගුරුවරියක් වන සුනීතා තම ආදරණීය දෙමාපියන්, තම සහෝදරයා සහ හමුදාවෙන් එල්ල වූ හිරිහැර ගැන කඳුළු සලමින් සිහිපත් කළාය:

“මගේ පියා බෝධිසත්වයෙක්. රටේ විවිධ ප්‍රදේශවල මිනිසුන් විසින් සොයනු ලැබූ දක්ෂ වෛද්‍යවරයෙකු ලෙස, සර්ප දෂ්ට කිරීම්වලින් පසු ගෙන එන ලද බොහෝ රෝගීන්ගේ ජීවිත ඔහු කොතරම් ආශ්චර්යමත් ලෙස බේරා ගත්තාද යන්න මම දුටුවා. විවිධ අනතුරු හේතුවෙන් සිදු වූ අත් පා කැඩීම් බ්ඳීම් ඔහු දක්ෂ ලෙස සුව කළ ආකාරය ද මම දුටුවා. මගේ මව මගේ පියාට පරිපූර්ණ ගැළපුමක්. දේවතාවියක් මෙන්, ඇය රෝගීන්ට ප්‍රතිකාර කිරීම සඳහා දිවා රෑ කැපවී සිටියා. 

අපේ තාත්තා වෙද ග්‍රන්ථ කිහිපයක් ලියා පළ කර තිබුණා. ඒවා ලියා ඇත්තේ කවි පද ස්වරූපයෙන්. සර්ප විෂ සංහාරය I සහ II, හා බිලිඳු රෝග සංහාරය ඉතා ජනප්‍රිය වූ අතර මන්ත්‍ර ශතකය තවමත් පොත් සාප්පු වල අලෙවි වන පොතක්.

ඔහු කිසිවිටෙක කිසිවෙකුට, කෘමියෙකුටවත් හානියක් කළේ නෑ. එවැනි තේජසකින් යුත් මිනිසෙකුට ගිනි අවියක් එල්ල කර ඔහුව මරා දැමීමට යමෙකු කෙතරම් කුරිරු විය යුතු දැයි මට තේරුම් ගත නොහැකියි. මේ ලෝකය ශාප ලත් වේ!

අයියා හරිම කඩවසම් කෙනෙක්. ඔහු සෑම විටම අන් අයට උපකාර කළ අතර සහානුකම්පාවෙන් යුක්තව සිටියා. ඔහු ගමේ තරුණයන්ට නායකයෙක් වුනා. සමහර විට ගමේ තරුණයන් ඔහුව පාවා දුන්නේ ඔහු කළ වරදක් නිසා නොව කුඩා ආරවුල් සහ රණ්ඩු සරුවල්වලට අත්අඩංගුවට ගත් විට තමුන්ට බේරීමට යි.

අපේ පවුල ඝාතනයට මාස දහයකට පමණ පෙර කටුවන යුද හමුදා කඳවුරේ ප්‍රධානියා අනෙක් සොල්දාදුවන් සමඟ අපේ පැරණි නිවසට පැමිණ එදින රාත්‍රී 7.00 ට අපේ නිවස ගිනිබත් කිරීමට යන බැවින් අවශ්‍ය සියලුම බඩු බාහිරාදිය ඉවත් කර  ගන්නා  ලෙස තාත්තාට කියා සිටියා. “අපට හිංසා කරන්න එපා, මගේ පුතා වරදක් කර ඇත්නම් ඔහුට දඬුවම් කරන්න” යි කියා මගේ පියා ඔහුගෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටියා. ඒත් ඔවුන් අපේ ගෙදරට ගිනි තිබ්බා. සමූල ඝාතනය වන විට අපේ පවුල පදිංචිව සිටි රුක්මල්පිටිය පාර අයිනේ තිබූ නිවස එම මාර්ගයේම තිබූ පැරණි නිවසට මීටර් සියයක් පමණ දුරින් පසුව ඉදිකරන ලද්දක්.

මට මතකයි රාජ්‍ය ත්‍රස්තවාදය පැවැති කාලයේ හමුදාව නිතරම අපේ ගෙදරට රිංගලා ඇතුලේ හැමතැනම සෝදිසි කළා. අපි නිතරම භීතියට පත් වුණා. ඒ අය හොඳටම දැනගෙන හිටියා මගේ අයියා ගෙදර නැති බවත්, අපේ වයසක අම්මා තාත්තා සහ අපි ගෑනු ළමයි විතරයි එතන හිටියේ කියලා. ඒ අය අපෙන් අයියා ගැන ප්‍රශ්න කරලා පොත්පත් පවා හෙව්වා. සමහර වෙලාවට අපි නිදාගෙන ඉද්දි රෑ මැදියමේ පවා ඒ අය කඩා වැදුනා. ඉන් පස්සෙ භූමිතෙල් ලාම්පු නිවන්න කියලා,  එහේ මෙහේ  හොයනවා.”

ක්‍රමානුකූල ඝාතන රැල්ලක් 

දකුණේ සහ උතුරේ, ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ පාලක ප්‍රභූව, ධනේශ්වර පාලනයට දේශපාලන දක්ෂිනාංශයෙන් එල්ල විය හැකි තර්ජනය  තුරන් කිරීමට හා, සියල්ලටත් වඩා, අහිංසක ග්‍රාමීය දුප්පතුන්ට හා පීඩිතයන්ට එරෙහිව, මිලිටරිය සහ පොලිසිය, ඝාතක කල්ලි, ත්‍රස්තවාදය වැලැක්වීමේ පනත සහ හදිසි අවස්ථා රෙගුලාසි යන රාජ්‍යයේ සම්පූර්ණ යාන්ත්‍රණය දිගේලි කළේය. එම කාලපරිච්ඡේදය තුළ සිදු වූ මහා පරිමාණ අතුරුදන්වීම්වලට හේතු සූත්‍රගත කරමින්, 1997 දෙසැම්බර් මස ආසියානු මානව හිමිකම් කොමිෂන් සභා වාර්තාව (AHRC) මෙසේ ප්‍රකාශ කළේය:

 “හදිසි අවස්ථා රෙගුලාසි යටතේ, නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන නිලධාරීන්ට තිබූ සියලු සීමාවන් ඉවත් කරන ලද අතර, මළ සිරුරු බැහැර කිරීමේ බලය මෙම නිලධාරීන්ගේ තනි අභිමතයට පවරන ලදී. අධිකරණ අධීක්ෂණය අත්හිටුවන ලදී. බැහැර කරන ලද සිරුරු පිළිබඳ වාර්තා තබා ගැනීමට පවා ප්‍රතිපාදන නොතිබුණි.”

එම වාර්තාවේ වැඩිදුරටත් මෙසේද සඳහන් විය:

“අතුරුදහන් කිරීම් ඉතා හිතාමතාම සැලසුම් කළ ප්‍රතිපත්තියක ප්‍රතිඵලයක් වූ අතර සැලැස්මකට අනුව ඉතා සූක්ෂම ලෙස ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන ලදී. නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන නිලධාරීන්ට අත්අඩංගුවට ගැනීමට, මරා දැමීමට සහ මළ සිරුරු බැහැර කිරීමට උපදෙස් ලැබුණි. හදිසි අවස්ථා රෙගුලාසි පැනවීමෙන් මෙය නීත්‍යානුකූලව කළ හැකි විය. ඝාතන සිදු කිරීමට පොලිසියට නිරන්තරයෙන් පුහුණුව ලබා දුන් අතර, එක් එක් ප්‍රදේශයේ කොපමණ සංඛ්‍යාවක් මරා දැමිය යුතුද යන්න අධීක්ෂණය කිරීමේ ක්‍රම තිබුණි. ඝාතක කණ්ඩායම් සඳහා මුදල් බෙදා හැරීම හරහා දිරි දීමනා ලබා දෙන ලදී. 

එවැනි ක්‍රියාකාරකම්වලට සහභාගී වීමට හිතකර මනෝභාවයකින් තබා ගැනීම සඳහා මෙම කණ්ඩායම්වලට මත්පැන් ද ලබා දෙන ලදී. මරා දැමීමට නියමිත අයගේ ලැයිස්තු බෙදා හරින ලදී. ප්‍රශ්න කිරීම සඳහා විශේෂ ස්ථානවල විශේෂ ප්‍රශ්න කිරීම් පවත්වන ලදී. බොහෝ අවස්ථාවන්හිදී, මෙම ප්‍රශ්න කිරීම් අතරතුර මරා දැමීමට තීරණය කරන ලද අතර, මෙම ස්ථානවල රහසිගත වටපිටාව තුළ මිනිසුන් ඝාතනය කරන ලදී. නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන නිලධාරීන් මෙම ක්‍රියාකාරකම් සිදු කිරීමේදී නීති විරෝධී කන්ඩායම් සමඟ මිශ්‍ර විය. දේශපාලනඥයින්ගේ අභිමතයන් ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමට හැකි වන පරිදි මෙම කණ්ඩායම් වෙත දේශපාලනඥයින්ට සෘජු ප්‍රවේශය ලබා දෙන ලදී.”

කොමිෂන් සභා වාර්තාව සහ වළ දැමූ ලැයිස්තු

1988 ජනවාරි 1 න් පසු පුද්ගලයන් බලහත්කාරයෙන් ඉවත් කිරීම හෝ අතුරුදන් කිරීම් පිළිබඳ සිද්ධීන් විමර්ශනය කිරීම සඳහා 1994 නොවැම්බරයේදී ජනාධිපති කුමාරතුංග විසින් ජනාධිපති කොමිෂන් සභා තුනක් පත් කරන ලදී. මනෝරි මුත්තෙටුවේගමගේ සභාපතිත්වයෙන් යුත් කොමිසම බස්නාහිර, දකුණ සහ සබරගමුව පළාත්වල සිදුවීම් පිළිබඳව සොයා බලන ලදී.

එවකට කටුවන යුද හමුදා කඳවුරට අනුයුක්තව සිටි නිලධාරීන් පිළිබඳ තොරතුරු ලබා දෙන ලෙස කොමිෂන් සභාව කළ ඉල්ලීමට ප්‍රතිචාර වශයෙන් 1997 ජුනි 30 වැනි දින යුද හමුදාව ඔවුන්ගේ වාර්තාවල ‘සඳහන්ව නොමැත’ යනුවෙන් පිළිතුරු දුන්නේය. මෙය අනෙක් බොහෝ කඳවුරු සම්බන්ඳයෙන් ප්‍රතිචාර වශයෙන් ලබා දුන් පිළිතුරම විය. එම තොරතුරු හමුදාවෙන් ලබා ගැනීමට කොමිසම වැඩිදුර පියවර ගත්තේ නැත.

මෙම අපරාධ සිදු කළ බව කියන අපරාධකරුවන් කොමිසමේ නිර්දේශවලින්ම ආරක්ෂා විය. කොමිසම “සාක්ෂිකරුවන්ගේ චෝදනාවලට පදනම් වූ තොරතුරු සහ කරුණු මූලික වශයෙන් විශ්වාස කළ හැකි” බව සොයා ගත් නමුත්, එය එසේ වුවද, වැඩිදුර විමර්ශන සිදු කරන තුරු, “අප විසින් වෙනම ආවරණයක් යටතේ එවනු ලබන බලහත්කාරයෙන් ඉවත් කිරීම් හෝ අතුරුදහන් කිරීම් සම්බන්ධයෙන් වගකිව යුතු යැයි චෝදනා ලබන පුද්ගලයන්ගේ නම් ලැයිස්තු ප්‍රකාශයට පත් නොකරන ලෙස අපි නිර්දේශ කරමු,” යි කියා සිටියේය. කුමාරතුංගගේ ආන්ඩුව හෝ අනුප්‍රාප්තික ආන්ඩු විසින් එවැනි “වැඩිදුර විමර්ශන” කිසිවිටෙක සිදු නොකළ අතර, එමගින් අපරාධකරුවන්ට ජීවිතාන්තය දක්වා දණ්ඩමුක්තිය සහ වැඩිදුර අපරාධ කිරීම සඳහා ආරක්ෂාව ලබා දුන්නේය. අද දක්වාම, මෙම රහස්‍ය ලැයිස්තු සහ සාක්ෂිකරුවන්ගේ සාක්ෂි මහජනතාවට අනාවරණය කර නොමැත.

ධනේශ්වර ඒකීය රාජ්‍යය සහ මූල්‍ය ප්‍රාග්ධනයේ අවශ්‍යතා ආරක්ෂා කිරීම සඳහා පසුව උතුරේ සහ නැගෙනහිර ජනවාර්ගික දෙමළ ජනතාවට එරෙහිව ඉදිරියට ගෙන ගිය දකුණේ ප්‍රතිකැරැල්ල සමයේ ක්‍රියාත්මක කළ ආන්ඩුවේ මර්දන ප්‍රතිපත්තිවල පන්ති ස්වභාවය theSocialist.lk පෙන්වා දී ඇත

පරපෝෂිත රාජ්‍යය, එහි මිලිටරිය, පොලිසිය, නීති සහ ධනේශ්වර පන්ති පාලනය අහෝසි කිරීමෙන් තොරව ධනේශ්වර රාජ්‍යයේ මෙම කුරිරුකම් වැළැක්විය නොහැකි අතර යුක්තිය ස්ථාපිත කළ නොහැක. සමාජවාදී ප්‍රතිපත්ති සඳහා දකුනු ආසියාතික හා ජාත්‍යන්තර කම්කරු පන්තියේ ඒකාබද්ධ අරගලයේ කොටසක් ලෙස සුලු ධනේශ්වරය සහ පීඩිත ජනතාව තම පිටුපස පෙළගස්වා ගනිමින් මේ සඳහා සටන් කිරීම කම්කරු පන්තියේ ඓතිහාසික කර්තව්‍යය යි.

කටුවන සමූලඝාතනය: වසර 36ක බිය ගැන්වීම්වලින් සහ අඛණ්ඩ දණ්ඩමුක්තියකින් පසු ඥාතීහු වින්දිතයන් අනුස්මරණය කරති Read More »

Indonesia

Indonesian protests—a sign of social crisis and deep-seated opposition

By Peter Symonds.

Reposted below is the article of the World Socialist Web Site published on 07 September 2025.

In the wake of a huge police crackdown and thousands of arrests, the protest movement that erupted in Indonesia late last month has largely subsided, but none of the basic issues that fuelled the widespread demonstrations have been resolved. 

The immediate trigger for the protests was the decision to pay a huge monthly accommodation allowance of 50 million rupiah ($US3,045) to the 580 parliamentarians of the House of Representatives (DPR)—10 to 20 times the minimum wage paid to millions of workers struggling to survive.

The lavish allowance was emblematic of far deeper concerns and opposition stemming from the immense social gulf between the country’s wealthy few and their political representatives and the vast majority of working people. Moreover, the social crisis facing broad layers of the population, particularly young people, is only worsening as economic growth slows and unemployment rises. The jobless rate for youth has hit 16 percent, forcing many into poorly paid, casual work.

Indonesia
Protesters clash with the police during a protest against lavish allowances given to parliament members, in Jakarta, August 28, 2025. [AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana]

The protests dramatically escalated after the callous killing of a young ride-share motorbike rider Affan Kurniawan on August 28. He was run over by an armoured police vehicle amid a mass mobilisation of police, including the notorious, heavily-armed BRIMOB. In the following days, angry protesters clashed with police, attacked government buildings and stormed the homes of prominent political figures including Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, the architect of the budget cuts that set off protests earlier in the year. 

Facing a deepening political crisis, President Prabowo Subianto delayed a planned trip to China. He appeared at a press conference on August 31, flanked by leaders of the main political parties, to appeal for calm, declaring he understood “the genuine aspirations of the public.” At the same time, however, he ordered “the police and military to take the strongest possible action” against purported looting and destruction. 

The protests involving thousands were not limited to the capital Jakarta but had spread to major cities throughout the country, including Surabaya, Surakarta, Bandung, Semarang and Yogakarta in Java; Banda Aceh, Padang and Medan in Sumatra; as well as Makassar and Kendari in Sulawesi, Palangka Raya in Kalimantan, and Manokwari in West Papua.

At least 11 people died in the clashes with the police and military, hundreds were injured, and another 20 protesters are missing, according to the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence. More than 3,000 people have been arrested. 

Confronting a police crackdown, the protests subsided last week but the anger has not. Smaller protests continued. Last Wednesday, hundreds of women from the Indonesian Women’s Alliance (IWA) marched to the parliament building in Jakarta wielding brooms to “sweep away the dirt of the state, militarism and police repression.”

Last Thursday, a student demonstration led by the All-Indonesian Students’ Union (BEM SI) took place outside the parliament, where its central coordinator Muzammil Ihsan read out a list of demands, including the reduction of parliamentary allowances, complete reform of the national police and parliament, the release of all those arrested and the creation of 19 million jobs. 

On the same day, members of the Labor Movement with the People (GEBRAK) held a protest in a major road in Jakarta also demanding the complete reform of the police and parliament.

On Thursday evening, a delegation of student leaders was invited to meet ministers at the Presidential Palace but reportedly walked out of the talks after being told they had to consider “the nation’s development” in making any demands. 

Last week, a grouping of activist organisations drew up a list of 17 short-term “people’s demands” to be implemented by Prabowo and the government by last Friday along with eight longer-term ones. The deadline, however, passed with few of the demands being met or partially met.

In a bid to quell widespread anger, the parliament did announce the axing of the housing allowance that initially sparked the protests. The announcement was left to the parliamentary speaker Puan Maharani. She is the daughter of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, chairperson of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)—the only parliamentary party that is not part of the Prabowo government.

On the same day, Co-ordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto suggested that the government would carry out various stimulus measures to boost jobs and incomes—including wage subsidies for those earning less than 10 million rupiah a month, a program of public works, tax exemptions and steps to prevent mass lay-offs. But under conditions of a slowing economy that will be further hit by Trump’s tariffs, these proposals have the character of empty promises.

No steps have been taken to rein in the police and military. The only action taken against the police has been against low-level officers involved in the widely publicised killing of ride-share worker Affan Kurniawan. The officer in charge of the vehicle that struck Kurniawan has been dishonourably dismissed, and another received a seven-year demotion.

These measures are unlikely to assuage popular anger and resentment. Imran, a food delivery driver, told Al Jazeera that “inequality” was the root cause of the mass protests, “including economic inequality, educational inequality, health inequality and unequal public services.”

Referring to the government and parliament, he said: “They are not concerned about our fate. They should be present to resolve the problems facing the community, not fan the flames. These protests arose from the community’s poor economic conditions.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Rahmawati, a housewife, said that public anger had “finally exploded …because we feel like no one cares about us… What we want is for them [politicians] to care about us and our needs. Every year, the price of basic foodstuffs rises and never goes back down again. Groceries are becoming more and more difficult to afford.”

Significantly, the protests in Indonesia reverberated more broadly throughout South East Asia as workers and young people confront very similar economic and social problems, exacerbated by slowing economies. Protests took place last week in support of those in Indonesia, including in Malaysia and Thailand.

Thai students hung a banner on an overpass near Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok declaring “Thailand stands with the people of Indonesia” and called for justice for those protesters killed during police crackdowns.

In Thailand, a social media poster called Yammi shared instructions on how to order meals for Jakarta-based ride-share and food delivery motorbike riders. Revealing sympathy not just with the protesters but the difficult and dangerous conditions facing poorly paid riders, the post went viral in the region and internationally. Donations came in from Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei, as well as Japan, Sweden and the United States.

The protests have provided a glimpse of the explosive social tensions that have built up in Indonesia as well as the broader region and will only intensify amid growing global economic turmoil.

Indonesian protests—a sign of social crisis and deep-seated opposition Read More »

Commemoration

Katuwana Massacre: Relatives commemorate victims after 36 years of intimidation and continuing impunity

Our Correspondent.

Commemoration
Katuwana Massacre Victims – From right: Sisiliyana, Edwin, Nilmini, Mathangalatha, Sujithaseeli, Chandraleka and Niranjala. Chulananda, first from the Left, was assassinated in 1990.

On August 27, at Katuwana, in Hambantota District, the relatives of the seven family members, who were massacred by Sri Lanka Army in August 1989, held an event of commemoration of their loved-ones, at the same location where they were bombed. This was the first time a commemoration event was held in remembrance of these victims of state terror after 36 years of impunity and oppression. theSocialist.lk reporters were present at the occasion.

On that fateful night, three and half a decade plus one year ago, Sri Lanka army of the Singha Regiment – 6th Battalion invaded the house of the family, where the only male who was at home at the time was the 63 year old father, J.H.A. Edwin, a Sinhalaese traditional medical physician. The others were the 53-year-old mother, H.A. Sisiliyana; the three young daughters, namely J.H.A. Nilmini Asoka (25), J.H.A. Mathangalatha (20), J.H.A. Sujithaseeli (15); a niece, W.A. Chandraleka (24), and the 6 year old granddaughter, N.A. Niranjala Wilson. All were ethnic Sinhalese. The army killed them all on the spot or, according to some witnesses—who were also killed later—the four young girls were carried to the army camp, raped for three days and killed. The house was bombed and the family was burnt with the house. 

The relatives displayed the pictures of their loved ones and lit candles. Two surviving daughters, their husbands, grandchildren and their families and friends observed minutes of silence. Even decades later, their tears have not dried. Vimukthi, a grandson of Edwin addressed the gathering. He stated as follows: 

This is the first time in 36 years that we have been able to gather here publicly to speak their names…They were silenced by guns and disappeared into the shadows of mass graves and tire pyres.

For 36 long years, we could not hold this historic event in commemoration of their memory. We could not come here, speak their names, and mourn openly. The state of terror, the climate of repression, and the continued threat against those who sought truth and justice kept families like ours silent. But silence is not forgetfulness. These years have only deepened our grief and strengthened our determination.

Today we break that silence… Those who carried them out—from the military, death squads and the police to those who directed them—must be held accountable before history, if not yet before law.

Our relatives’ blood cries out not for revenge, but for truth and justice. It cries out for recognition that these lives mattered, that the poor, the villagers, the youth killed in those years were not expendable.

We carry your names and the memories of cruelties inflicted on you forward as a profound mark of protest, so that such crimes must never be repeated.

May your memory give courage to all who fight for truth, justice and dignity and against State repression.”

He also read out the name of J.H.A. Chulananda (22), the only son of Edwin and Sisiliyana, whom he stated was “a young man who aspired to justice and social equality but was misled by the reactionary political forces of the era”, and who was killed by Beliatta Police in October 1990.  He was said to be a member of fascist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) during the 1988-1990 insurgency. When the Army failed to capture or kill him, evidently, the massacre of his entire family was orchestrated as an act of reprisal and terrorization. 

Katuwana massacre commemoration
Family members of the Katuwana Massacre victims commemorate their loved ones, marking 36 years of impunity.

Testimonials 

We talked to the victims’ relatives. Edwin’s eldest surviving daughter Chandani (63) related to us her harrowing story of years of pain, endurance and struggle:

“People called my father Weda Mahattaya. He was very much loved by people. He was a very  innocent, kind and honest man. He walked slowly, smiled pleasantly, spoke gently, and wore a sarong and the national dress. Formerly, as a monk, he had published a number of Ayurvedic books. Many people who received medicinal treatment from him have met me and told me about the compassionate, and often free, treatment they received from my father and mother. 

Our family is a large one of six daughters, and my brother, Chulananda, was the only son. Our family’s economy was founded on meager but stable earnings from my father’s Ayurvedic practice. We had paddy land and acres of coconut, cinnamon and citronella land, which my father cultivated and managed. Due to litigations on land disputes, which my father all won, he lost financially, and his businesses collapsed.  We all lived in a thatched house, made of wattle and mud. However, my father could still afford to feed all of us well, educate us, and also help the needy. 

By 1971, my father was a strong supporter of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Sirimavo Bandaranaike. However, by 1977, he was fed-up with and dissatisfied with the United Front government and voted for the United National Party, whose leader J.R.Jayawardene promised a “Dharmista Samajaya” [A society led by noble principles].  

We all went to Katuwana Maha Vidyalaya (school). My brother did not continue his education after grade seven. He was very kind-hearted, sociable, and very helpful to the villagers. He cared for his friends and neighbors more than his own family. He often stayed away from home longer than he stayed at home. He was outstanding, intelligent, fair-looking and, naturally, the youth considered him as their leader.  He wanted to do a job, but also never wanted to leave the village. I think he had made connections with the JVP since late 1987. 

My brother had earned the wrath of village thugs and  father’s former opponents. Once they even attempted to take his life by stabbing him. He narrowly escaped with his life, but his friend succumbed to the injuries. 

In 1979, I married a teacher and lived separately. One of my older sisters married a police officer and went to live in Welimada in early 1989. All other sisters were with my parents at home, Loku (Sujithaseeli), the next to youngest preparing for her Ordinary Level Examinations. Hichchi (Mathangalatha) was studying for the Advanced Level (A/L) examination. Neela (Nilmini) was attending vocational training courses after A/L in expectation of a job.

During the school vacation in August 1989, my two elder sisters [Nilmini and Mathangalatha] came to visit us at our residence at Walasmulla [17 km from Katuwana] by bus. Our parental home was just about half a kilometer away from the Army camp located in the Katuwana Govi Jana Seva [Aggrarian Services Center] premises. While my sisters were passing the army camp, some soldiers had shouted and remarked, “well, go, have a round and come”. That was on 26th August, a Saturday. 

My sisters had lunch with us. That was our last meal together. All my three children were much fond of staying with their grandparents and aunts. So, all three were crying and pleading to go with their aunts.  Finally,  my daughter, Niranjala went with them. 

On the morning of August 29th, my husband went to Katuwana with a friend to bring our daughter back home, as school vacation was ending. My husband saw the bombed house; he saw burning human flesh and a skull. Nobody was alive, including my child.  

After the incident, I went to lodge a complaint at Walsamulla Police, as there was no police station in Katuwana at the time. The police refused to record my complaint. The Officer in Charge (OIC), K.M. Premathilake put his pistol to my mouth and shouted, ‘You woman, keep your mouth shut. Those who take arms will perish by arms.’

Exactly on my 28th birthday, on October 22, 1990, my husband received information from one Silva that my brother had been killed by Beliatta Police. Dasanayake, OIC of the Beliatta Police, who had shot my brother, had quickly informed K. Danapala, the newly elected Provincial Councillor (PC), about the killing. Danapala [who expired a few years ago] feared my brother would pose a threat to his life, which was never the case. My brother’s body had been burnt on a tyre-pyre, after the body was shown to the satisfaction of Danapala.

Danapala too had had a land dispute with my father a long time ago. He lost a court case he had filed against my father. There was also a caste difference between Danapala and us. My father, and almost that entire block of the village, belonged to a higher caste than Danapala’s. Katuwana had a number of such blocks of houses called “Mandi”, where people of different castes lived.” 

Chandani’s husband, Chamal (69), related his traumatic experiences as follows:

”On the morning of 29 August, I went with a friend of mine in his car to Katuwana to bring my daughter back home. My friend wanted to meet Danapala Manthree (PC) and request his help to get his nephew released from Walasmulla Army camp. At the road barrier at the Katuwana Army Camp, the army stopped our car. My friend told them we were going to meet Manthree Thuma (Danapala). So, we were allowed to proceed. 

When we reached the place where the house was situated, I could not see the house. I could only see the smoke. I went closer. I could not believe my eyes. The house was demolished and everything was burning. I could see human flesh burning inside the house close to the main door. I saw a skull burning. I could not stand up. One or two villagers came to me and held me tight. A sister of my mother-in -law came to me and said, ‘Nobody is alive. Everybody is burnt’. I shouted, calling my daughter’s name. The aunt told me, ‘You should leave now. If the army comes and finds you, they will kill you too”. My friend then pushed me inside the car and brought me back home. I told my wife everything. She was devastated.

A couple of weeks later, Gamini, one of Danapala’s home guards [Grama Arakshaka – members of government’s Civil Security Force], told me that he and another guard were present with the army when they committed the crime, and asked me not to search for the family as everybody was killed by the army. He told me that the four sisters were taken to Katuwana army camp, raped and tortured there for three days, and then killed. It was not long afterwards that I came to know that both those guards were assassinated.

During the same period, we were trying to lodge complaints at police stations and even searched for them at army camps, as we believed they were still alive in some detention center. When my wife and I went to lodge a complaint at Walasmulla Police, we were chased away. I even dared to go to Walasmulla army camp to meet Captain P.L.U. Buddadhasa of the 6th Battalion, Singha Regiment, to find out some information about my relatives. He just told me, ‘Do not search for them. They are all dead. Do some religious observances for them’.  When I went to complain to the ASP [Assistant Superintendent of Police] office at Tangalle, ASP Ekanayake warned me, saying, ‘You are a teacher; do not try to search for them. Otherwise, you will lose your own life.’

I was able to lodge a complaint at Middeniya Police only in late September 1994, after Madam Chandrika Kumaratunga was elected President. We were also able to complain to the Presidential Commission on Disappearances. The Muttetuwegama Commission’s final report contains the seven names of our relatives.

However, the court case never proceeded after 1998. We have learned that the Police had colluded with Danapala to systematically bury the case, four years after the collection of samples from the massacre site. 

Due to the lasting psychological shock my wife and I had to endure, I could not continue my work as a teacher with sincerity. Therefore, I decided to retire under the Circular No.44/90. Thereafter, the conditions of our family worsened. I had to struggle for sustenance for my family of four children.

Chandrika soon resumed the war with the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam]. By 1998, we learned of the crimes committed by the Sri Lankan army against innocent Tamil people in Jaffna. The case of Krishanti Kumaraswamy and her family’s murder at Chemmani shook our souls. Then we realized the extent of the crimes Tamils must have been forced to suffer in the North, sometimes even beyond the crimes committed against our family. Later, Mahinda Rajapaksa continued the war, and his and all succeeding governments praised the mercenaries as ‘Rana Viruvo’ [war heroes]. Throughout, we were silenced.”

He also told us about his experience with the false “human rights” crusaders of the time: 

“The orphaned youngest sister of my wife was studying and living with us during that period. Once, in early 1997, I went with her to meet Mahinda Rajapaksa at his Carlton office, seeking his help to find a job for her. My parents had worked for D.A. Rajapaksa and I myself had, as a youth, campaigned for Mahinda’s elections. So, I knew him personally. After waiting a long time to meet him, we forcibly entered his room and informed him of our predicament after the massacre of the family. He shouted at us: ‘Look, these people have worked for the JVP and got themselves killed, and now have come seeking my help to get jobs’. My sister-in-law was crying. She never received a job from him, nor any assistance.” 

The other surviving daughter, Indumathi expressed her first hand experience of the wrath the local politician had toward the family: 

“Since my father supported the UNP in elections in late 1988 and early 1989, after the general elections, my father went with me to talk to Danapala Manthree. Our parental home was just a few yards away from his residence. He was the uncle of Ananda Kularathna, then UNP cabinet minister from the Mulkirigala seat. We later came to understand that my brother was at that time full time engaged in the activities of the JVP, which had ordered people not to vote at elections [the provincial council election in the Southern Province was held in June 1988]. Danapala seemingly saw his life as threatened by the JVP and its military wing, Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya (DJV). However, villagers say my brother never left any room for harm to be inflicted upon anybody in the village, not even on those who envied our family. Danapala ferociously denied any help in finding jobs for me or anyone else in our family. He shouted: ‘There is a terrorist in your house. If it were not for Weda Mahattaya, you and your house would already have been reduced to ashes.’ 

But, neither my parents nor anybody even dreamt of an impending massacre, because we had not heard of such incidents before. 

About two days before the bombing of our home, my elder sister Neela sent me a letter saying that the previous day there had been a bomb blast in the area targeting the army, which had killed several soldiers. My sister wrote that now they felt their lives were also in danger. I think the day she posted that letter was the day she and Hichchi visited my eldest sister at her home in Walasmulla. When she sent that letter, our youngest sister was with me at my house. So, her life was saved.”

Sunitha, the youngest surviving daughter and now a teacher, tearfully recalled her loving parents, her brother, and the harassment by the armed forces:

“My father was a Bodhisattva [a reference to the noble lives of Buddha before enlightenment]. As a skilled physician, sought after by people from different parts of the country, I witnessed how miraculously he saved the lives of many patients who had been brought after snakebites. I also saw how skillfully he cured limb and arm injuries caused by various accidents. My mother was the perfect match for my father. Like a goddess, she was dedicated day and night to treating patients. 

Our father had written and published a couple of Veda Grantha [medicinal books]. They were written in verse form. Sarpa Visha Sanharaya I and II [Neutralizing Serpent Venom], Bilindu Roga Sanharaya [Treating Pediatric Illnesses] were very popular, and Manthra Sathakaya [Hundred Mantras] is a book still being sold in bookstores.

He never harmed anybody, not even an insect. I cannot understand how cruel one must be to aim a weapon at such a man of glory and kill him. This world is cursed!

My brother was very handsome. He was always helpful and empathetic toward others. He was a leader to the village youth. Sometimes, village youth even betrayed him, not because of any wrongdoing he committed, but to save themselves when they were arrested for small disputes and fights.

About ten months before the massacre of our family, the chief of the Katuwana Army Camp came to our former house with other soldiers and asked my father to remove all necessary belongings, as they were going to burn our house at 7:00 p.m. that night. My father pleaded with him: “Do not harm us. If my son has done anything wrong, you may punish him.” But they burned our house. The house by the side of Rukmalpitiya Road, where our family was living at the time of the massacre, was built later, about a hundred meters away from the former house on the same road.

I remember, during the period of state terror, the army often intruded into our home and searched everywhere inside. We were always terrorized. They knew very well that my brother was not there, and that only our elderly parents and we girls were present. They questioned us about our brother and even searched for books. Sometimes, they even came in the middle of the night while we were sleeping. Then they would ask us to turn off the lamps (kerosene lamps) and search here and there.”

A systematized killing spree 

In both the South and the North, the Sri Lankan ruling elite deployed the full apparatus of the state—the military and police, death squads, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and Emergency Regulations—to eliminate perceived threats to capitalist rule from the political right and, above all, against the innocent rural poor and the oppressed. Theorizing the causes of large scale disappearances during the period, Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report in December 1997 stated,

 “[U]nder the emergency regulations, all restraints on law enforcement officers were removed, and the power to dispose of dead bodies was left to the sole discretion of these officers. Judicial supervision was suspended. There were no provisions even to keep records of the disposed bodies.”

The report further stated as follows:

“Disappearances were the result of a very deliberate policy and were implemented meticulously according to a plan. Law enforcement officers received instructions to arrest, kill and dispose of the bodies. Enacting emergency regulations made this legally possible. The police were constantly coached to carry out killings, and there were methods of supervising how many were to be killed in each area. Incentives were given through the distribution of money for killer squads. 

Liquor was also provided to these squads to keep them in a mood conducive to participation in such activities. Lists of those who were to be killed were distributed. Special interrogations were held in special places for interrogation. In many instances, the decision to kill was made during these interrogations, and people were murdered in the secret surroundings of these places. Law enforcement officers mingled with illegal elements in undertaking these activities. Politicians were given direct access to these groups so that they could execute the wishes of these politicians.”

The Commission Report and the Buried Lists

In November 1994, president Kumaratunga appointed three presidential commissions to  inquire into incidents of involuntary removals or disappearances of persons after 1 January 1988. The commission chaired by Manouri Muttetuwegama inquired into incidents in Western, Southern and Sabaragamuwa Provinces.

In response to the Commission’s request to provide information on the officers who were attached to the Katuwana Army Camp at the time, on 30 June 1997, the Army replied “not mentioned” in their records—the same answer given in response to most of the other camps. The Commission did not take any further steps to obtain the information from the Army.

The alleged perpetrators of these crimes were shielded by the very recommendations of the Commission itself. While the Commission “found the information and material upon which the allegations of the witnesses were based to be prima facie credible,” it nevertheless stated: “we recommend that the lists of names of persons alleged to have been responsible for involuntary removals or disappearances sent by us under separate cover be not published,” until further investigations were carried out. No such “further investigations” were ever undertaken by Kumaratunga’s government or by successive governments, thereby granting the perpetrators lifelong impunity and protection to commit further crimes. To this day, these confidential lists and the witness testimonies remain undisclosed to the public.

theSocialist.lk has pointed out the class character of the government’s policies of repression during the counterinsurgency in the South, which were later carried forward against the ethnic Tamil population in the North and East, in order to defend the capitalist unitary state and the interests of finance capital. 

These atrocities of the capitalist state cannot—and could not—be prevented, nor justice established, without the abolition of the parasitic state, its military, police, laws, and capitalist class rule. This is the historic task of the working class, rallying behind it the petty bourgeoisie and the oppressed masses, as part of the united struggle of the South Asian and international working class for socialist policies.

Katuwana Massacre: Relatives commemorate victims after 36 years of intimidation and continuing impunity Read More »

Chemmani

චෙම්මනි සමූහ මිනීවළවල් ශ්‍රී ලංකා රාජ්‍යයේ පන්ති යුද ප්‍රතිපත්ති හෙලිදරව් කරයි

සංජය ජයසේකර විසිනි.

Chemmani
චෙම්මනි සමූහ මිනීවළ 2025 අගෝස්තු 01 දින. ඡායාරූප අනුග්‍රහය Kumanan Kana ෆේස්බුක් පිටුවෙනි.

යාපනයේ අලුතින් අනාවරණය කරගත් චෙම්මනිහි අරියාලෙයි “සිත්තුපත්ති” හින්දු සුසාන භූමියේ සමූහ මිනීවළේ දෙවැනි අදියරේ කැණීම්වල 28 වැනි දිනය අවසන් වන විට ඇටසැකිලි 147ක්—ඒ අතර බිළිඳන්, කුඩා දරුවන් සහ මාස දොළහකට අඩු ළදරුවන් ගේද වන ඒවා—ගොඩගෙන ඇත. අඩි දෙකක් තරම් වන නොගැඹුරු වළකින් සොයා ගන්නා ලද මෙම ඇටසැකිලි සහ ඉතිරි පහදු–සමහර සිරුරු එකිනෙක මත ගොඩගැසී ද, සමහර සිරුරු පණපිටින් වළලනු ලැබූ බව අඟවමින් අතපය නැවීගිය ආකාරයෙන් ද වන සේ–පිළිවෙලක් නොමැතිව විසිරී තිබුණි. සියලු දෙනාම ඇඳුම් රහිතව වූ අතර, ඔවුන්ගේ ළදරුවන් සමඟ කාන්තාවන් එතැනම මරා දැමීමේ පැහැදිලි සලකුණු ද, කඩිමුඩියේ භූමදාන කිරීමද සහ ඇඟ සීතල කරවන මානවකෘති ද–1990 ගණන්වල යුනෙස්කෝව විසින් පරිත්‍යාග කරන ලද ඒවා වැනිම වූ පාසල් බෑගයක්, ළදරු සෙල්ලම් බඩුවක් සහ පෝෂණ (කිරි) බෝතලයක්, කුඩා වීදුරු වළලු, සපත්තු මේස්, සෙරෙප්පු, මැෂින් තුවක්කු  බඳක් යැයි සැක කරන්නක්, බිදීම් සහිත හිස් කබල්–දක්නට විය. මෙම සොයාගැනීම්, දැනටමත් පවතින වාර්තා සහ සාක්ෂි සමගින්, මොවුන් ස්වභාවික විපත්වලට හෝ අහඹු ප්‍රචණ්ඩත්වයට ගොදුරු වූවන් නොව, ක්‍රමානුකූලව, රාජ්‍ය විසින් සංවිධානාය කළ සමූහ ඝාතන ව්‍යාපාරයක ගොදුරු බවට සැකයක් ඉතිරි නොකරයි.

යාපනය මහේස්ත්‍රාත් ඒ.ඒ.ආනන්දරාජා ගේ අධීක්‍ෂණය යටතේ  සහ පුරාවිද්‍යා මහාචාර්ය රාජ් සෝමදේවගේ නායකත්වයෙන් සිදුකෙරෙන කැණීම, අගෝස්තු 6 වැනිදා තාවකාලිකව නවතා දමා අගෝස්තු 22 වැනිදා නැවත ආරම්භ කිරීමට නියමිතය. අගෝස්තු 3 සහ 4 යන දිනවල මෙම ලේඛකයා එම ස්ථානයේදී මහේස්ත්‍රාත්වරයා සමඟ ද, අතුරුදහන් වූවන් පිළිබඳ කාර්යාලයේ (OMP) විධායක අධ්‍යක්ෂ ජේ. තත්පරන් හා  මහාචාර්ය සෝමදේව සමගද සෘජුවම කතා කළේය. එයින් හෙළි කරන ම්ලේච්ඡත්වයේ සහ මානව ඛේදවාචකයේ පරිමාණය පිළිබඳව පමණක් නොව, අහිංසක සිවිල් වැසියන්ට එරෙහිව සිදු කරන ලද අපරාධ සම්බන්ධයෙන් එය සපයන ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කළ නොහැකි සාක්ෂි සඳහාද මෙම සොයාගැනීමේ වැදගත්කම සියල්ලෝම තහවුරු කළහ. 

Chemmani visit
චෙම්මනි සොහොන් බිමේ, වමේ සිට, 2025 අගෝස්තු 3: යාපනය මහේස්ත්‍රාත් ඒ.ඒ. ආනන්දරාජා; ජේ. තත්පරන්, අතුරුදහන් වූවන් පිළිබඳ කාර්යාලයේ (OMP) විධායක අධ්‍යක්ෂ; සහ ලේඛකයා. ඡායාරූප අනුග්‍රහය Kumanan Kana ෆේස්බුක් පිටුවෙනි.

චෙම්මනි, 1998 සිට අද දක්වා: රාජ්‍ය හමුදා සමූහ මිනීවළ වලට සම්බන්ධ කිරීම

1995 න් පසු යාපනය වාඩිලා ගත් ශ්‍රී ලංකා සන්නද්ධ හමුදාවන්ට මෙම සමූහ මිනී වලවල් සම්බන්ධ කිරීම සඳහා කිසිවකුට අඳුරේ අතපත ගෑමට අවශ්‍ය නැත. සමූහ මිනීවළවල් පවතින බවත් රාජ්‍ය හමුදාව විසින් සමූලඝාතන සිදු කළ බවත් අන්ත දක්ෂිණාංශික සිංහල ජාතිවාදීන් විසින් පවා පිළිගෙන ඇති අවිවාදිත සත්‍යයකි. චෙම්මනි ගොඩගැනීම් වලින් තැතිගත් පිවිතුරු හෙළ උරුමයේ නායක සහ හිටපු ඇමැතියෙක් වූ වර්ගවාදී හා යුධකාමි උදය ගම්මන්පිල මාධ්‍යයට පැවසුවේ, “උතුර යුද්ධයෙන් විනාශ වී ඇති නිසා සමූහ මිනීවළවල් කොතැනක හෝ මතුවෙයි. ඒවා හාරා [ඒවා ගැන] අදහස් දැක්වීම තේරුමක් නැති වැඩක් සහ මුදල් නාස්තියක්,” යනුවෙනි.

ආසියානු මානව හිමිකම් කොමිසම (AHRC) 1997 දෙසැම්බරයේ මෙසේ වාර්තා කළේය: “මෑත කාලයේ යාපනය අර්ධද්වීපයෙන් අතුරුදහන් වූ 600 දෙනෙකුගේ පමණ ඉරණම  කුමක් ද යන්න නොදනී”. 18 හැවිරිදි දෙමළ පාසල් සිසුවියක් වන ක්‍රිෂාන්ති කුමාරස්වාමි දූෂණය කර ඝාතනය කිරීමේ චෝදනාවට වරදකරු වූ ශ්‍රී ලංකා යුද හමුදාවේ කෝප්‍රල් දේවගේ සෝමරත්න රාජපක්ෂ, ”අපි කිසිවකු මැරුවේ නැහැ. අපි සිරුරු වැළලූවා පමණයි. සිරුරු 300-400 වළ දමා ඇති ස්ථාන පෙන්වීමට අපිට හැකියි,”කොළඹ මහාධිකරණයට ප්‍රකාශ කිරීමත් සමඟ 1998 ජූලි මාසයේදී “චෙම්මනි” යන නාමය ලෝකයේ අවධානයට ලක්විය.

1999 ජූනි මස ගොඩ ගැනීම් වලට ආසන්න පෙරාතුවේ යාපනය මහේස්ත්‍රාත් අධිකරණයේදී, ඔහු මෙසේ කීවේය: “අරියාලෙයි ප්‍රදේශයේ මිනිසුන් අත්අඩංගුවට ගෙන, වධ හිංසා පමුණුවා, වළදැමූ ආකාරය මට ඔබට පෙන්විය හැකියි… චෙම්මනි වල සිරුරු වළ දැමූ ස්ථාන 10 ක් මට ඔබට පෙන්විය හැකියී. මා සමඟ වරදකරුවන් වූ අනෙක් හතර දෙනාට තවත් ස්ථාන හයක් පෙන්විය හැකියි.”

1995 දී ශ්‍රී ලංකා හමුදාව අර්ධද්වීපය යළි අත්පත් කර ගැනීමෙන් පසු “අතුරුදහන් වූ” සිවිල් වැසියන් සිය ගනනක් අඩංගු යාපනය ප්‍රදේශයේ රහසිගත සමූහ මිනීවළවල් ජාලයක් රාජපක්ෂගේ සාක්ෂියෙන් හෙලිදරව් විය. 1990 දශකයේ අගභාගයේදී, චෙම්මනි හි සීමිත කැණීම් මගින් පුද්ගලයන් 15 දෙනෙකුගේ අස්ථි කොටස් තහවුරු විය; නමුත්, දේශපාලන බාධා කිරීම්, සාක්ෂිකරුවන් බිය ගැන්වීම, ක්‍රියාපටිපාටිමය බාධා, සහ හිතාමතාම සාක්ෂි විකෘති කිරීම්–රට පුරා විසිරී ඇති වෙනත් බොහෝ සමූහ මිනීවළවල් මෙන්–බොහෝ ස්ථාන දශක දෙකකට වැඩි කාලයක් තිස්සේ අත නොගසා පැවතීම සහතික කළේය. 

මුල් චෙම්මනි මිනීවළට කෙටි දුරක් පමණින් පිහිටි වත්මන් අරියාලෙයි සමූහ මිනීවළ, රාජපක්ෂගේ ප්‍රකාශවල සත්‍යතාව තහවුරු කරන අතර ශ්‍රී ලංකා හමුදාව මෙම කුරිරුකම්වලට සෘජුවම සම්බන්ධ කරයි. මාධ්‍ය වාර්තා, මිලිටරි මුරපොලවල් වල නතර කිරීමෙන් පසු  සහ වටලෑම් වලදී අතුරුදහන් වූ සිය ගණනක් දෙමළ සිවිල් වැසියන් ලේඛනගත කර ඇත. එකල චෙම්මනි මධ්‍යම හමුදා කඳවුර සුසාන භූමියට යාර කිහිපයක් ආසන්නයේ  පිහිටා තිබීම, ඇටසැකිලි අහඹු ලෙස ස්ථානගතව පැවතීම, ඇඳුම් පැළඳුම් නොතිබීම, සිරුරු සමඟ හමු වූ මිලිටරි භාණ්ඩය සහ මොට්ට ආයුධයකින් ලද තුවාල පිළිබඳ සාක්ෂි යන සියල්ල හමුදා පැහැරගැනීම්, වධහිංසා පැමිණවීම් සහ සෘජු මරා දැමීම් හා ගැලපේ.

Chemmani the dead
2025 අගෝස්තු 6 වන දින චෙම්මනි සමූහ මිනීවළෙන් හමු වූ වින්දිතයෙකුගේ කැඩුණු හිස් කබල. ඡායාරූපය: ෂබීර් මොහොමඩ්

රාජ්‍ය මර්දනය: උතුරේ සිට දකුණට

1988-90 ෆැසිස්ට්වාදී ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුනට (ජවිපෙ) එරෙහි ප්‍රතිකැරැල්ලේදී දකුණේ සිද්ධි 16,700කට වඩා සත්‍යාපනය කර ඇති බව 1997 දෙසැම්බරයේ සඳහන් කරමින් AHRC අතුරුදහන්වීම්වල ක්‍රමානුකූල ස්වභාවය ලේඛනගත කළේය.  අපරාධකරුවන්ට එරෙහිව නඩු පැවරීම් හුදෙකලා අවස්ථා කීපයක පමණක් ආරම්භ කරන ලද අතර, ඒ සියල්ලේන්ම පාහේ කිසිදු වරදක් සිදුකළ බවට තීන්දු නොකෙරුණි. ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ පාලක ප්‍රභූව, දකුණේ සහ උතුරේ, හමුදාව සහ පොලිසිය, ඝාතක කල්ලි, ත්‍රස්තවාදය වැලැක්වීමේ පනත සමග දඬුවම් නොලබා  මිනීමැරීමට සහ මළ සිරුරු බැහැර කිරීමටද, සමූහ මිනීවළවල් භාවිතා කිරීමටද නීතිමය බලපත්‍රයක් ලෙස සේවය කළ හදිසි නීති රෙගුලාසි සමග රාජ්‍යයේ සම්පූර්ණ යාන්ත්‍රණය යොදවා, ධනපති පන්ති පාලනයට, දේශපාලන දකුණෙන් සහ සියල්ලටම ඉහළින් අහිංසක ගැමි දුප්පතුන් සහ පීඩිතයන්ගෙන්  එල්ල වනවා යැයි  ඔවුන් සිතූ තර්ජනය අහෝසි කිරීමට කටයුතු කළහ.

කෙසේ වෙතත්, සිරුරු බැහැර කිරීමේ ක්‍රමවල වෙනස්කම් තිබුණි. දකුණේ, ටයර් සෑය–ප්‍රසිද්ධ ස්ථානවල මළ සිරුරු පුළුස්සා දැමීම–මහජනයා භීතියට පත් කිරීමට සහ විරෝධය දැක්වීමේ ප්‍රතිවිපාක ප්‍රදර්ශනය කිරීමට භාවිතා කරන ලදී. උතුරේ සහ නැඟෙනහිර ප්‍රදේශවල හමුදාව බොහෝ විට තම අපරාධ සඟවා ගනිමින්, මර්දනය දිගටම කරගෙන යන අතරේ, සෝදිසියෙන් වැළකී සිටීම සඳහා දුරස්ථ හෝ පාලිත ප්‍රදේශවල මළ සිරුරු වළදැමූහ.

මේවා “බලය ඉක්මවායෑම්” හෝ “අපගමන” නොව හිතාමතා තීන්දු කළ පන්ති ප්‍රතිපත්තියේ ප්‍රතිඵලය විය. නිදහස් වෙලඳපොල ආර්ථික ප්‍රතිපත්ති හඳුන්වා දීමේ පූර්ව කොන්දේසියක් ලෙස දහස් ගණනක් ඉවත් කර දැමීම සඳහා ගත් සෘජු දේශපාලන තීරණ සහ 1965 ඉන්දුනීසියානු සමූහ ඝාතන ශෛලිය භාවිතය මර්දනය සඳහා ආදර්ශයක් ලෙස ගැනීම ඇතුළුව අතුරුදහන්වීම් පිටුපස රටා හතක් AHRC හඳුනාගෙන ඇත.

අනුප්‍රාප්තික ආණ්ඩු, හවුල් අපරාධ

දිවයින පුරා අනාවරණය වී ඇති තවත් දුසිම් දෙකකට ආසන්න ප්‍රමාණයක් වන අනෙකුත් ඒවා  සමග, චෙම්මනි සමූහ මිනීවළවල්,  හමුදාවට පමණක් නොව, රාජ්‍ය ප්‍රචණ්ඩත්වය කෙරෙහි දණ්ඩමුක්තිය ලබා දුන් පාලන තන්ත්‍රයක මුලසුන දැරූ යූඑන්පී, ශ්‍රීලනිප, ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණ සහ දැන් එන්පීපී/ජේවීපී යන සෑම ආන්ඩුවකටම එරෙහිව අධි චෝදනා ඉදිරිපත් කරයි.

අද “පිරිසිදු” සහ ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී බලවේගයක් ලෙස පෙනී සිටීමට උත්සාහ කරන ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුන (ජවිපෙ), අවම වශයෙන් ප්‍රතිගාමී ඉන්දු-ශ්‍රී ලංකා ගිවිසුම අත්සන් කළ 1987 ජූලි මාසයේ සිට උතුරේ සහ දකුණේ මර්දනය නීත්‍යානුකූල කළ ජාතිකවාදී, ස්වෝත්තමවාදී සහ මිලිටරිවාදී ව්‍යාපාරවල ප්‍රධාන භූමිකාවක් ඉටු කළේය. ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ එසේ කළේ හිටපු ජනාධිපතිවරු වන චන්ද්‍රිකා කුමාරතුංග සහ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ සමඟ සභාග ආණ්ඩුවලට හවුල් වෙමින් සිටියදීය. ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ දෑත් දෙමළ ජනතාවගේ ලේවලින් තෙත් වී ඇත. චෙම්මනි පිලිබඳ එහි වත්මන් නිශ්ශබ්දතාවය කම්කරු පන්තියට හා දුප්පතුන්ට එරෙහිව එය ආරක්ෂා කරන ධනේශ්වර රාජ්‍යයට සහ අධිරාජ්‍යවාදයට එහි ඇති සැබෑ පන්ති පක්ෂපාතීත්වය පිළිබඳ මහත් සේ හඬ නගයි.

හමුදාකරණය, බිය ගැන්වීම සහ මර්දනය

දකුණේ, එජාප රජය යටතේ රාජ්‍ය භීෂණයට  සහ ජවිපෙ ෆැසිස්ට්වාදීන්ට ගොදුරු වූවන්ට පොලිස් පැමිණිලි පවා ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට සීමිත ඉඩක් විවෘත වූයේ, අතුරුදහන් වූවන්ගේ පවුල්වලට සත්‍යය සහ යුක්තිය පිළිබඳ ව්‍යාජ ප්‍රතිඥා දී ජනාධිපති කුමාරතුංග බලයට පත් වූ 1994 න් පසුව  පමණි.  වැඩි කල් නොගොස්, බෙදුම්වාදී දෙමළ ඊළාම් විමුක්ති කොටි (එල්ටීටීඊ) සංවිධානයට එරෙහි යුද්ධය යලි ආරම්භ කිරීමේදී පොදුජන එක්සත් පෙරමුණු (PA) ආන්ඩුව විසින් හමුදාව ඉහලම උත්කර්ෂයට නංවන ලදී. උතුරේ අඛන්ඩ මිලිටරිකරණය සහ මර්දනය, කම්කරු පන්තිය සහ සියලු විරුද්ධවාදීන් භීත කරමින් පැහැරගැනීම් සාමාන්‍ය දෙයක් බවට පත් කල ජනාධිපති රාජපක්ෂ යටතේ පුනර්ජීවනය කරන ලද යුද්ධය තුල, දකුණ මග හැරියේ නැත. මුළු කාලය පුරාම ජවිපෙ ගෙන ගියේ යුද්ධයට සහාය දෙන දුෂ්ට ස්වෝත්තමවාදී ව්‍යාපාරයකි. අද විශ්‍රාමික හමුදා නිලධාරීන් බොහෝ දුරට ජ්විපී/එන්පීපී ආණ්ඩුව යටතේ සුරක්ෂිත බලකොටුවක් සොයාගෙන ඇත. අතුරුදහන් වූවන්ගේ අගතියට පත් ඥාතීන්ට අධිකරණ ක්‍රියාවලීන් කරා යාම වැළැක්වූ කොන්දේසි මේවා වූ අතර, පොලිසිය සහ හමුදාව නඩු කටයුතු අවහිර කිරීමට සක්‍රීයව මැදිහත් විය.

ජාතිකවාදී උගුල් සහ අධිරාජ්‍යවාදයට කරන ආයාචනවල ආවෘත අන්තය

උතුරේ හෝ කොළඹ ක්‍රියාත්මක වන දෙමල ජාතිකවාදී සංවිධාන හෝ දෙමල ඩයස්පෝරාව ඉදිරි මාවතක් ඉදිරිපත් නොකරයි. ඔවුන්ගේ සැබෑ අරමුණ දෙමළ කම්කරු පන්තියට සහ දුප්පතුන්ට එරෙහිව තම වරප්‍රසාද ආරක්ෂා කර ගැනීම සඳහා උතුරු හා නැගෙනහිර ප්‍රභූ ස්වයං-පාලනයක් තහවුරු කර ගැනීමයි. එක්සත් ජාතීන්ගේ සංවිධානය, බටහිර ආන්ඩු සහ ජාත්‍යන්තර මානව හිමිකම් සංවිධාන වෙත ඔවුන් කරන ආයාචනා හුදෙක් කඩතුරාවක් පමණක් වී ඇති අතර, බොහෝ දුරට එක්සත් ජනපද අධිරාජ්‍යවාදය කොළඹට යටත් වන ලෙස බලපෑම් කිරීම සඳහා ඒවා යොදා ගනී. මේවා, යුද සමයේ කොළඹට, හමුදා, බුද්ධි අංශ සහ රාජ්‍යතාන්ත්‍රික පිටුබලය සැපයූ අධිරාජ්‍යවාදී බලයන්මය.

ඒ හා සමානව, සිංහල ජාතිකවාදය, “ඒකීය රාජ්‍යය සුරැකීමේ” සහ “ජාතික ආරක්ෂාව” ආරක්ෂා කිරීමේ ආවරණය යටතේ අතීත සහ වර්තමාන සමූලඝාතන සාධාරණීකරණය කරයි. වාර්ගික ජාතිකවාදයන් දෙකම සේවය කරන්නේ මර්දනයේ සහ දණ්ඩමුක්තියේ චක්‍රය අවසන් කළ හැකි එකම සමාජ බලවේගය වන කම්කරු පන්තිය බෙදීමට ය.

සමූල ඝාතන පන්ති යුද්ධයක් ලෙස

1988-90 කාලයේ දකුණේ සිදුකළ සමූලඝාතන මෙන්ම, 1983-2009 දෙමල විරෝධී සිවිල් යුද්ධයේදී උතුරු හා නැඟෙනහිර සිදුවූ ඒවා හුදෙක් වාර්ගික සුළුතරයකට එරෙහිව සිදු කරන ලද අපරාධ නොව, මූලික වශයෙන් පන්ති යුද්ධයේ ක්‍රියාවන් ය. වින්දිතයන්–JVP සබඳතා පිලිබඳ චෝදනා එල්ල වූ ග්‍රාමීය සිංහල තරුනයන් හෝ වේවා, එල්ටීටීඊයට ආධාර කළ බවට සැක කෙරෙන දෙමල ගැමියන් වේවා–අතිමහත් ලෙස ඇදී ආවේ කම්කරු පන්තියෙන්, රැකියා විරහිත තරුනයන්ගෙන් සහ පීඩිත ග්‍රාමීය දුප්පතුන්ගෙනි. ඔවුන්ව තුරන් කිරීමේ අරමුණ වූයේ දේශපාලන විරුද්ධත්වය තලා දැමීම සහ දේශීය ධනේශ්වරය සහ ජාත්‍යන්තර මූල්‍ය ප්‍රාග්ධනය විසින් ඉල්ලා සිටින “විවෘත ආර්ථික” ප්‍රතිපත්ති පිළිගැනීමට මහජනයා භීතියට පත් කිරීමයි.

හතරවන ජාත්‍යන්තරයේ ජාත්‍යන්තර කමිටුව (ICFI) අවධාරනයෙන් පැහැදිලි කර ඇති පරිදි, උතුරේ වින්දිතයින්ට යුක්තිය නොමැතිව දකුණේ වින්දිතයින්ට යුක්තිය ඉටු නොවනු ඇති අතර එහි ප්‍රතිලෝමයද සත්‍ය වනු ඇත. වාර්ගික බෙදීම මත 1948 දී පිහිටුවන ලද ධනේශ්වර රාජ්‍යය තමන්ටම එරෙහිව නඩු  පවරා ගැනීම සිදු නොකරන්නාක් මෙන්ම එසේ කරනුද නැත.

ඉදිරි මාවත: කම්කරු පන්තිය සහ පීඩිතයන් සඳහා සමාජවාදී වැඩපිලිවෙලක්

මර්දනය අවසන් කිරීම සහ අව්‍යාජ යුක්තිය සුරක්ෂිත කිරීම සඳහා ICFI පැහැදිලි ඉදිරිදර්ශනයක් ඉදිරිපත් කරයි: එනම්, දකුනු ආසියාවේ සමාජවාදී සමූහාන්ඩු සංගමයේ කොටසක් ලෙස, ශ්‍රී ලංකා-ඊලාම් එක්සත් සමාජවාදී රාජ්‍යයක් සඳහා අරගලයේ දී, කම්කරු පන්තියේ ස්වාධීන දේශපාලන බලමුලු ගැන්වීම තුල සිංහල, දෙමල සහ මුස්ලිම් කම්කරුවන් එක්සත් කිරීම යි.

මේ සඳහා, රැකියා විරහිත තරුනයින් සමග පීඩිත ග්‍රාමීය හා නාගරික දුගීන්, කම්කරු පන්තියේ නායකත්වය පිටුපස එක්සත් කිරීමට සටන් කරන, නොනවතින විප්ලවයේ ට්‍රොට්ස්කිවාදී වැඩපිලිවෙල මත පදනම් වූ විප්ලවවාදී පක්ෂයක් ගොඩනැගීමය අවශ්‍ය යි. මධ්‍යම පංතිය සහ සුළු ධනේශ්වරය ජාතිකවාදී මිත්‍යාවන්ගෙන් මිදී ජාතික හා ජාත්‍යන්තර වශයෙන් ඔවුන්ගේ සැබෑ පන්ති සහෝදර සහෝදරියන් සමඟ එක්විය යුතුය.

සත්‍යය නම් යුක්තිය ඉටුවනු ඇත්තේ හේග්, ජිනීවා හෝ වොෂින්ටනයෙන් නොව, යුද්ධය, ආඥාදායකත්වය සහ සමූහ මිනීමැරුම් බිහි කරන ධනේශ්වර ක්‍රමයට එරෙහිව කම්කරු පන්තියේ ජයග්‍රහණයෙන් බවයි. චෙම්මනි හි මිනීවලවල්  හුදෙක් අතීත කුරිරුකම්වල නටබුන් පමණක් නොවේ–ඒවා කම්කරු පන්තිය තවත් පරාජයකට ලක් වුවහොත් ශ්‍රී ලංකා රාජ්‍යය යලිත් කුමක් වෙතට යොමු වනු ඇත්ද යන්න පිලිබඳ අනතුරු ඇඟවීමකි. අධිරාජ්‍යවාදී පිටුබලය ලත් සියොන්වාදී ඊශ්‍රායලය විසින් පලස්තීනුවන් සමූලඝාතනය කිරීම තුලින් අපගේ ඇස් ඉදිරිපිට ප්‍රදර්ශනය කරන ලද මෙය දුරස්ථ වියහැකියාව ක් නොව ජීවමාන යථාර්ථයකි. 

මෙම ලිපිය 2025 අගෝස්තු 15 දින ඉංග්‍රීසි බසින් මෙම වෙබ් අඩවියේ පල කෙරුණි.

චෙම්මනි සමූහ මිනීවළවල් ශ්‍රී ලංකා රාජ්‍යයේ පන්ති යුද ප්‍රතිපත්ති හෙලිදරව් කරයි Read More »

Chemmani

The Chemmani Mass Graves expose the class war policies of the Sri Lankan State

By Sanjaya Jayasekera.

Chemmani
Chemmani Mass Graves on August 01, 2025. Photo courtesy of Kumanan Kana Facebook page.

At the close of the 28th day of the second phase of excavations at the newly uncovered Chemmani–Ariyalai “Siththupaththi” Hindu Cemetery mass grave in Jaffna, 147 skeletons have been exhumed—among them toddlers, children, and babies less than twelve months old. The remains were unearthed in a pit as shallow as two feet, scattered without order—some bodies stacked atop one another, some with bent limbs suggesting they were buried alive. All were stripped of clothing, with clear signs of on-the-spot killings of women alongside their babies, hurried burials, and accompanied by chilling artifacts: a school bag identical to those donated by UNESCO in the 1990s, a baby’s toy and a feeding bottle, small glass bangles, socks, slippers, a suspected machine gun barrel, and fractured skulls. These discoveries, together with already available reports and evidence, leave no doubt that these were not the victims of natural disaster or random violence, but of a systematic, state-organised campaign of mass murder.

The ongoing excavation, conducted under the supervision of Jaffna Magistrate A.A. Anandarajah and led by archaeologist Professor Raj Somadeva, was temporarily halted on August 6 and is scheduled to resume on August 22. On August 3 and 4, this writer visited the site and spoke directly with the Magistrate; J. Thathparan, Executive Director of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP); and Professor Somadeva. All confirmed the significance of the discovery—not only for the scale of barbarism and human tragedy it reveals, but also for the irrefutable evidence it provides of crimes committed against innocent civilians.

Chemmani visit
From left at the Chemmani grave site, August 3, 2025: Jaffna Magistrate A.A. Anandarajah; J. Thathparan, Executive Director of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP); and the writer. Photo credit Kumanan Kana facebook page.

Chemmani from 1998 to today: Linking State Military to the Graves

One does not have to grope around to relate these mass graves to the Sri Lankan armed forces who occupied Jaffna after 1995. It is an indisputable fact—even acknowledged by ultra-right Sinhala racists—that mass graves exist and massacres were carried out by the state military. Alarmed by the Chemmani exhumations, racist warmonger Udaya Gammanpila, leader of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya and a former minister, told the media: “The North is war-ravaged, so mass graves will appear anywhere. Digging them up and commenting [on them] is pointless and a waste of money.”

Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) reported  in December 1997: “The fate of about 600 people who disappeared from Jaffna Peninsula in recent times is unknown”. The name “Chemmani” entered the world’s attention in July 1998, when Sri Lanka Army Corporal Dewage Somaratna Rajapaksha, convicted for the rape and murder of 18-year-old Tamil schoolgirl Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, told the Colombo High Court: “We didn’t kill anyone. We only buried bodies. We can show you where 300 to 400 bodies have been buried.”

In Jaffna Magistrate Court, just prior to exhumations in June 1999, he said, “I can show you how people were arrested in Ariyalai, tortured and buried…I can show you 10 places in Chemmani where bodies are buried. The other four convicted with me can show another six places.”

Rajapaksha’s testimony exposed a network of clandestine mass graves in the Jaffna area, containing hundreds of civilians who had “disappeared” following the Sri Lankan military’s recapture of the peninsula in 1995. In the late 1990s, limited excavations at Chemmani confirmed the remains of 15 individuals, but political obstruction, witness intimidation, procedural impediments, and the deliberate tampering with evidence ensured that most sites remained untouched for over two decades—like many other mass graves scattered across the country.

The present Ariyalai mass grave—only a short distance from the original Chemmani site—confirms the truth of Rajapaksha’s claims and directly links the Sri Lankan army to these atrocities. Media reports from the period documented hundreds of Tamil civilians vanishing after being stopped at military checkpoints and round-ups. The close proximity of the central army camp at Chemmani at the time, few yards away from the burial site, random placement of the skeletons, absence of clothing, a military item found with the bodies, and evidence of blunt force trauma all fit the established pattern of military abductions, torture, and summary executions.

Chemmani the dead
The fractured skull of a victim found on August 6, 2025 at the Chemmani mass grave. Photo credit: Shabeer Mohamed.

State repression: from the North to the South

The AHRC documented the systematic nature of disappearances, noting in December 1997 that more than 16,700 cases had been verified in the South during the 1988–90 counterinsurgency against the fascist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Only in isolated instances were prosecutions initiated against the perpetrators, and almost all of these resulted in no convictions. In both the South and the North, the Sri Lankan ruling elite deployed the full apparatus of the state—the military and police, death squads, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and emergency regulations that served as a legal licence to kill and dispose of bodies with impunity, along with the use of mass graves—to eliminate perceived threats to capitalist rule from the political right and, above all, against the innocent rural poor and the oppressed. 

There were, however, differences in the methods of disposal. In the South, tyre pyres—burning corpses in public—were used to terrorise the population and demonstrate the cost of defiance. In the North and East, the army often concealed its crimes, burying the bodies in remote or controlled areas to evade scrutiny while continuing the repression.

These were not “excesses” or “aberrations,” but the outcome of deliberate class policy. The AHRC identified seven patterns behind disappearances, including direct political decisions to eliminate thousands as a precondition for introducing free-market economic policies, and the use of 1965 Indonesian-style mass killings as a model for repression.

Successive governments, shared crimes

The Chemmani mass graves, like nearly two dozen others uncovered around the island, indict not only the military but every government—UNP, SLFP, SLPP, and now NPP/JVP—that has presided over a regime of impunity for state violence.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which today attempts to posture as a “clean” and democratic force, played a key role in the nationalist, chauvinist, and militarist campaigns that legitimised repression in both the North and the South—at least since July 1987, when the reactionary Indo–Sri Lanka Accord was signed. The JVP did so while entering into coalition governments with former presidents Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa. The JVP’s hands are soaked in the blood of Tamils. Its current silence on Chemmani speaks volumes about its real class allegiance—to the capitalist state and imperialism, which it defends against the working class and the poor.

Militarization, Intimidation, and Suppression

In the South, it was only after 1994—when President Kumaratunga came to power with phony pledges of truth and justice to the families of the disappeared—that limited space was opened for victims of state terror under the UNP government and of JVP fascists to lodge even police complaints. Soon, the military was elevated to the highest esteem by the People’s Alliance (PA) government in resuming the war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The continued militarization and repression in the North did not spare the South, where abductions were commonplace under president Rajapaksa’s reinvigorated war, keeping the working class and all dissenters in a state of terror. All throughout, the JVP waged a sinister chauvinist campaign supporting the war. Today, retired military officers have largely found a safe haven under the JVP/NPP government. These were the conditions that prevented the aggrieved relatives of the disappeared from pursuing judicial processes, while the police and military actively intervened to block prosecutions.

Nationalist traps and the dead-end of appeals to imperialism

Neither Tamil nationalist organisations operating in the North or Colombo, nor the Tamil diaspora—whose real aim is to secure an elite self-rule in the North and East to safeguard their privileges against the Tamil working class and poor—offer any way forward. Their appeals to the United Nations, Western governments, and international human rights bodies have only been pretexts, largely for US imperialism to exert pressure on Colombo into submission. These are the very same imperialist powers that provided military, intelligence, and diplomatic backing to Colombo during the war.

Similarly, Sinhala nationalism justifies past and present massacres under the cover of “protecting the unitary state” and defending “national security.” Both ethnic nationalisms serve to divide the working class, the only social force capable of ending the cycle of repression and impunity.

Massacres as class war

Like the massacres in the South during 1988–90, those in the North and East during the 1983–2009 anti-Tamil civil war were not simply crimes committed against an ethnic minority, but primarily acts of class war. The victims—whether rural Sinhala youth accused of JVP links, or Tamil villagers suspected of aiding the LTTE—were overwhelmingly drawn from the working class, unemployed youth and oppressed rural poor. Their elimination was intended to crush political opposition and terrorise the masses into accepting the “open economy” policies demanded by the local bourgeoisie and international finance capital.

As the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) has emphatically explained, there has been—and will be—no justice for the victims of the South without justice for the victims of the North, and vice versa. The capitalist state, founded in 1948 on communal division, cannot and will not prosecute itself.

The way forward: a socialist programme for the working class and the Oppressed

The ICFI advances a clear perspective for ending repression and securing genuine justice: the independent political mobilisation of the working class, uniting Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim workers in the struggle for a Sri Lanka–Eelam United Socialist States, as part of the Union of Socialist Republics of South Asia.

This requires building a revolutionary party grounded in the Trotskyist programme of permanent revolution, fighting to unite the oppressed rural and urban poor, along with unemployed youth, behind the leadership of the working class. The middle class and petty bourgeoisie must break from nationalist illusions and join forces with their true class brothers and sisters, both nationally and internationally.

The truth is that justice will not come from The Hague, Geneva, or Washington, but from the victory of the working class over the capitalist system that breeds war, dictatorship, and mass murder. The graves at Chemmani are not merely relics of past atrocities—they are a warning of what the Sri Lankan state will resort to again if the working class suffers another defeat. This is not a distant possibility but a living reality, demonstrated before our eyes in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians by imperialist-backed Zionist Israel.

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Gaza

Workers must mobilise to halt the Zionist/imperialist extermination of the Palestinians in Gaza

By Jordan Shilton

Reposted below is the WSWS.org Perspective published here on August 08, 2025.

Gaza
Palestinians struggle to get food and humanitarian aid from the back of a truck as it moves along the Morag corridor near Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 4, 2025 [AP Photo/Mariam Dagga]

The decision by the security cabinet of Israel’s fascistic government to expand its military occupation of the Gaza Strip will mean death for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and presages their final ethnic cleansing. Workers and young people who want to stop this barbarism must construct a socialist movement in the working class against the Zionist regime and its imperialist patrons.

The phased plan proposes the military conquest of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, Khan Younis and other refugee camps, where at least a million displaced Palestinians are located. Responding to tactical concerns expressed by the Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir of an unnecessary loss of military personnel and endangering the 20 hostages still held by Hamas, open talk of permanent annexation has given way to a proposal to hold the captured areas for five months with a new security perimeter set up inside the enclave, while Hamas is eliminated and the remaining hostages are freed. This is to be followed supposedly by some unspecified form of Arab control.

Behind this rhetorical shift, mass murder and ethnic cleansing are still on the order of the day. The IDF has already issued new enforced displacement orders in parts of Gaza City in the north and Khan Younis in the south. A military spokesman said ground troops were preparing to “expand the scope of combat operations.”

One million people, around half of the enclave’s population, will initially be driven south toward the Mawasi “humanitarian zone”—a concentration camp—after which a military offensive will be launched in the ethnically cleansed area. Many of these people, who are already starving and have been displaced multiple times since the genocide began, will die en route.

This is a genocide carried out by the Zionist regime but made in Washington, Berlin and London. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ability to escalate the extermination and expulsion of the Palestinians is made possible by the unconditional support his government enjoys from the imperialist powers that have flooded weapons and other war materiel to the Zionist regime. Indeed, President Trump greenlighted Netanyahu’s plan when he declared on August 5, “So Israel is going to have to make a decision. … It’s going to be pretty much up to Israel.” 

Since the outset of Israel’s latest onslaught on Gaza in October 2023, the imperialist governments have combined their arming of Israel with efforts to crush popular opposition to the genocide at home by deploying police violence and smear campaigns branding anti-genocide activists as “antisemites.”

But the decades-long support for the Zionist regime by the imperialist powers goes back to the creation in 1948 of a Jewish-exclusivist state in the British mandate of Palestine. As the Fourth International explained in May 1948, the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and Arab territories “is a compromise between the imperialist robbers” in the US and Britain aimed at securing their positions in the region. Partition would “throttle the anti-imperialist fight of the masses, while Zionists and Arab feudalists will vie for imperialist favours,” the Fourth International warned.

Nearly eight decades on, the imperialists can only preserve Israel as a bridgehead for their domination over the Middle East by backing the annihilation of the Palestinians.

The determination on the part of Washington and its European accomplices to facilitate the genocide and crack down on any opposition flows from their desperate striving to advance their predatory economic and geopolitical interests amid a global capitalist breakdown. The same antagonisms between the major powers that led to two world wars in the last century have created the conditions for a third imperialist world war, which threatens the very survival of humanity. 

The initial stages of this conflict are well underway, with the genocide of the Palestinians serving as a component of US imperialism’s push to secure unchallenged hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East. At the same time, the imperialist gangsters are waging a war against Russia with the aim of reducing it to a semi-colonial status and preparing a war on China to block its economic rise. The imperialists’ readiness to sanction the slaughter of an entire people provides an indication of the barbarism of which they are capable in pursuit of raw materials, markets, pools of labour and geostrategic influence.

The despotic Arab regimes continue to vie for imperialist favours and are deeply complicit in mass murder. For the Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi and other Gulf ruling elites, their main concern is to serve as junior partners in Washington’s war of regional conquest and plunder, forming an anti-Iranian alliance, without provoking an upsurge of the oppressed Arab working class against their rule. Thus their refusal to offer any opposition to the genocide beyond hypocritical statements of concern and proposals to orchestrate the expulsion of the Palestinians, i.e., carry out a crime against humanity more “humanely.” On the very day that Netanyahu discussed the expansion of military operations in Gaza with his security cabinet, Egypt inked a joint deal with the Zionist regime for the export of natural gas worth an estimated $35 billion.

The Zionists and their imperialist paymasters have succeeded for nearly two years in carrying through their criminal “final solution” of the Palestinian question thanks above all to the despicable conduct of the social democratic parties, trade unions and their political hangers-on. Parties like Labour in Britain and Germany’s Social Democrats that are in government have supplied Netanyahu’s fascist regime with weapons and military equipment and outlawed popular opposition. The trade unions in all of the major imperialist centres have systematically suppressed opposition in the working class to the genocide, ignoring the appeal of Palestinian trade unions at its outset for global solidarity actions to halt Israel’s onslaught.

Millions of workers and young people have taken to the streets around the world to express their outrage over the genocide. However, the social democratic and Stalinist parties, as well as the pseudo-left organisations and campaign groups in their orbit, have shackled protesters to the bankrupt strategy of moral appeals meant to pressure the very imperialist war criminals responsible for butchering the Palestinians.

The urgent task facing the working class in the imperialist centres is to mobilise its immense social power to halt the Gaza genocide and the war machine responsible for its implementation. Workers throughout manufacturing, transportation, and other key sectors must organise themselves in defiance of the union bureaucracy to fight for the following demands:

  • An immediate halt to shipment of all weapons to Israel.
  • The boycott of all trade and other economic activity with Israel.
  • US, European and other corporations assisting Israel in carrying out the genocide must be indicted and prosecuted.
  • The arrest of Israeli officials for war crimes.
  • The end of repression of the opposition to the Gaza genocide.
  • The immediate and unhindered access to Gaza for the supply of aid via all available land crossings.

These demands can only be enforced through the initiation of an industrial and political struggle by the working class. This week’s strike at Boeing, at the very heart of the US war machine, underscores the real basis for the development of a mass movement against imperialist war and the horrendous crimes it produces.

Strikes and a refusal to produce and handle goods destined for Israel must be combined with sustained efforts to broaden the struggle to other sections of workers and young people. Resolutions should be adopted by workers and delegations sent to other workplaces aimed at mobilising the working class all over the world to stop imperialist barbarism by taking up the fight for socialism.

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Palestine

Mobilize the working class to stop the Gaza genocide!

By WSWS Editorial Board.

Reposted below is the WSWS Editorial Board Statement published on wsws.org here on July 24, 2025.

Palestine
Palestinians carry boxes containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed organization approved by Israel, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 27, 2025 [AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana]

Every day brings new reports of the genocidal violence the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are unleashing on the defenseless Palestinian population. With food distribution to Gaza reduced to a trickle, dozens of Palestinians are dying of hunger each day, and more than 1,000 have been shot by IDF forces while trying to reach aid distribution points.

In Deir al-Balah, raided by Israel on Sunday, Palestinians returning to their homes are met with scenes of devastation—“complete destruction,” as one resident described it in comments to CNN. “There is nothing that indicates a source of life.”

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that the people of Gaza are confronting “mass starvation … a large proportion of the population of Gaza is starving.”

While the Israeli government is carrying out these atrocities, the United States and the major European imperialist powers are directly complicit. For nearly two years, they have armed and financed Israel as it wages genocide in Gaza, criminalized domestic opposition to the slaughter, and politically justified this historic crime—one that ranks alongside the atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II.

A coalition of European powers and other close allies of US imperialism issued a cynical statement Monday trying to wash themselves of responsibility.

In the statement, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, along with a number of smaller powers now acknowledge Israel’s undeniable resort to mass murder. Yet they remain steadfast in their support for the Zionist regime. Refusing to call the Gaza war a genocide, they offer only vague euphemisms while fully endorsing the policies of Washington, which alongside Berlin, is the main provider of arms to Israel.

They state, “The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid.” Calling for a “permanent ceasefire,” they conclude, “We reaffirm our complete support to the efforts of the US … to achieve this.”

But Washington is not seeking peace, any more than Israel is focused on delivering aid to Gaza. For nearly two years, the United States has shipped bombs, artillery, drones and other weapons used by Israel to target hospitals, refugee camps, medics and starving women and children. From the outset, top Israeli officials openly declared their genocidal aims, referring to Palestinians as “human animals” and invoking the Biblical command to exterminate the “seed of Amalek.”

Six months ago, Trump pledged that Washington would “take over” Gaza, expel the Palestinians, “level it out” and turn it into a beach resort, the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Now, Israeli officials are moving to implement this plan, which has underpinned their policy from the beginning. On Tuesday, in the Knesset, fascist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Israel to “conquer and settle Gaza,” declaring, “We have strong support from President Trump to turn Gaza into a prosperous region, a coastal city with settlement and employment.”

The statement from the European imperialist powers refrains from labeling the Israeli war a genocide and ethnic cleansing, but they are well aware that this is what is taking place. Indeed, their statement declares: “Proposals to remove the Palestinian population into a ‘humanitarian city’ are completely unacceptable. Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law.” Nonetheless, they cynically embrace US policy under the banner of peace.

The imperialist powers support Israel’s genocide because it is in line with their geopolitical interests. If Israel’s actions conflicted with those interests, they would be halted immediately. As German Chancellor Friedrich Merz bluntly admitted, “Israel is doing the dirty work for all of us.” Backed and armed by the United States, Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Canada and Australia, the Zionist regime functions as a proxy for imperialist domination of the oil-rich Middle East.

Mass and growing opposition to Israel’s crimes exist throughout the world. What is lacking is a clear program and perspective. The International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated Socialist Equality Parties insist that the genocide will not be stopped through appeals to the very capitalist governments carrying out and enabling the genocide. What is urgently required, and what has not yet occurred, is the independent eruption of the working class onto the political stage.

We propose that workers and young people throughout the world raise definite demands, including:

An immediate halt of shipment of all weapons to Israel. Since the beginning of the genocide, it is estimated that Israel has received some $25 billion in weapons and other assistance. The vast majority of bombs dropped on Palestinian homes has been provided by the United States and the European imperialist powers.

The boycott of all trade and other economic activity with Israel. The ability of the Israeli state to carry out the genocide must be halted by crippling its economic foundations. A recent comment in the Financial Times noted that since October 2023, Israel’s stock market has been the “best-performing in the world,” with an influx of foreign capital fueling the wealth of the ruling elite and financing the Zionist regime’s ability to murder Palestinians.

US, European and other corporations assisting Israel in carrying out the genocide must be indicted and prosecuted. The ruling class internationally is arming Israel behind the backs of the population and reaping vast profits by providing the IDF weapons, AI and surveillance infrastructure, just as corporations like IG Farben profited from making Zyklon B gas for the gas chambers the Nazis used to kill Jews. Washington retaliated against UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s denunciation of this “economy of genocide” by revoking her visa and freezing her bank accounts.

The arrest of Israeli officials for war crimes. International arrest warrants have already been drawn up against many Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but are ignored by the imperialist powers. Moreover, serving in the IDF are many citizens of the US and European countries. They should be subject to arrest and prosecution if it is determined that they in any way contributed to the genocide.

The end of repression of the opposition to the Gaza genocide. Capitalist governments, including those that signed this week’s statement, have relentlessly criminalized opposition to the genocide. They have carried out mass arrests against organizations criticizing it, launched bloody police assaults on pro-Gaza protests, and prosecuted defenders of Gaza on bogus terrorism or antisemitism charges. Workers and youth must fight to defend those who come out in defense of Gaza, for charges against them to be dropped and to end the repression of their activities.

These demands will not be achieved through appeals to the governments and institutions responsible for the genocide. It requires the intervention of the international working class through strikes, walkouts and other forms of independent action. This means organizing outside the stranglehold of the trade union apparatus, which in every country has done nothing to stop the slaughter in Gaza.

The struggle must unify workers across all borders—Palestinian, Israeli, American, European and beyond—in a common fight against imperialist war, genocide and the capitalist system that produces them. This includes Israeli workers, who must reject the Zionist regime and its crimes. There are significant layers of the Israeli population who are horrified by the actions of their government. In earlier decades, the Israeli state honored non-Jews who resisted the Nazis as “righteous among the nations.” Today, Israelis who recognize the criminal character of the genocide must speak out and take action.

The fight against the genocide in Gaza is inseparable from the fight against the expanding global imperialist war, of which it is a component part. The aim of the imperialist powers to create a “new Middle East” under their domination is inseparable from their broader war plans against Russia and China. 

The World Socialist Web Site, the International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated Socialist Equality Parties call for an end to the Gaza genocide through the building of a new international anti-war movement. This movement must be grounded in the working class and based on a revolutionary socialist program. Its goal must be to abolish the capitalist profit system, which is the root cause of war.

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Trump

House passes Trump bill, which robs working people to give tax cuts for the super-rich

By Patrick Martin.

Reposted below is the article published on wsws.org here on July 04, 2025.

Trump

The House of Representatives gave final approval to President Trump’s tax and spending bill Thursday, with a 218-214 vote that fell nearly along party lines. Republicans backed the legislation by 218-2 and all 212 Democrats opposed it.

The bill cuts taxes for the wealthy by $3 trillion, slashes more than $1 trillion from social spending on Medicaid and food stamps and pours $300 billion more into military violence abroad and domestic repression, particularly against immigrants.

Trump plans to sign the legislation Friday morning in a fascist-style ceremony drenched in Fourth of July hoopla, topped off with a flyover by B-2 bombers, the same warplanes that he ordered to attack Iran barely 10 days ago.

The bill was unchanged from the version passed by the Senate two days before, despite the clamor from the fascistic House Freedom Caucus that it did not sufficiently cut the federal deficit, while more than a dozen Republican “moderates” deplored the cuts, particularly in Medicaid, as too large.

In the end, however, nearly every Republican fell in line with the dictates of the White House, with Trump threatening to purge anyone who voted against his principal legislative initiative by supporting primary challengers against them. Underlying the political bullying was the deluge of online threats against anyone who might oppose the bill, including threats of violence.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, addressing the House just before the vote, delivered an anti-communist tirade in which he declared that the United States was the first country to be founded on religious principles, pointing to the slogan “In God We Trust” embossed on the wall of the chamber (put up not by the Founding Fathers but by the McCarthyite witch-hunters of the 1950s and early 1960s).

As the WSWS explained when the bill passed the Senate:

The bill is one of the largest transfers of wealth from workers and the poor to the oligarchy in US history. It calls for $930 billion in cuts to the Medicaid program, which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will deprive 11.8 million low-income and disabled workers of medical care.

It also includes $285 billion in food stamp cuts, a 20 percent reduction in a program on which 40 million Americans rely to feed themselves and their families. Nearly 11 million people, including 4 million children, could lose food assistance.

While the Democratic Party claimed to oppose the bill and every Democrat in the House and Senate voted against it, there was no serious effort by the party leadership to mobilize popular opposition.

The Democrats did not call a single protest in Washington or in any way alert the American population to the onslaught against their living standards and right to access healthcare services that this legislation authorizes. Instead, they engaged in a handful of futile gestures on Capitol Hill.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries delivered an eight-hour and 32-minute “speech” opposing the Trump bill, breaking the previous record for such a performance, but this only delayed passage in the House until Thursday afternoon. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer did even less, making a parliamentary point of order that led to a change in the name of the bill, which the Republicans wished to call the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” in tribute to Trump’s sloganeering.

The real attitude of these gentlemen to the fascist in the White House was demonstrated in the weeks leading up to the passage of the tax and spending bill. 

In the Senate, Schumer intervened to break a parliamentary deadlock over a so-called Continuing Resolution, legislation required to provide funds to keep the government running. He led a group of Democrats to give the Republicans a 60-vote majority needed for passage.

In the House, Jeffries mobilized a majority of the Democratic caucus to vote against a resolution to impeach Trump for ordering air strikes on Iran without seeking congressional authorization, let alone the constitutionally required declaration of war.

If the congressional arithmetic were reversed, with Democrats holding a narrow majority in each house over the Republicans, the Democrats would not even have attempted to push through their supposed priorities over Republican opposition.

It should be recalled, for example, that the Biden administration was unable to enact either an increase in the federal minimum wage, significant debt forgiveness for college student loans, or measures to curb police violence after the nationwide protests against the police murder of George Floyd, because one or two right-wing Democratic senators blocked the legislation.

The spinelessness of the Democratic Party cannot by itself explain the passage of this monstrous legislation. The Democrats were responding to their real constituencies, Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, and not to the working people whom they claim to defend.

The corporate oligarchs wanted the Trump tax cuts, enacted in 2017 and set to expire at the end of this year, made permanent. The legislation guarantees the 21 percent corporate tax rate and includes a treasure chest of other pro-corporate provisions that allow giant companies and billionaires to pay taxes at lower rates than factory workers and school teachers.

There is considerable discontent on Wall Street that the tax cuts will be financed largely through borrowing, since the spending cuts are to be phased in over a 10-year period and in any case do not come close to the $4 trillion windfall for the wealthy. But it is well understood that the cuts in Medicaid and food stamps are only a down payment, and that even more savage cuts are being prepared in future years, targeting Social Security and Medicare, the two largest social spending programs.

As to the military-police aspects of the legislation, roughly equal sums of about $150 billion each are provided for the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS funds will go to finish building the wall on the US-Mexico border begun during Trump’s first term, and to build a network of concentration camps to detain the millions of immigrants Trump and his fascist aides Stephen Miller and Tom Homan plan to round up and expel.

The Pentagon funds will be used at least in part to begin work on Trump’s proposed anti-missile program. This is not a “defensive” measure but a direct preparation for nuclear war, since it would encourage a US nuclear attack on a foreign antagonist, such as Russia or China, in the illusion that the US would survive a retaliatory strike.

The Democrats have said virtually nothing about either measure, because they support the massive build-up of both the US military machine and the apparatus of domestic repression directed against immigrants and the working class as a whole. They have criticized Trump only for his most overtly fascistic methods of attacking immigrants, and for his shifting the focus of US foreign policy away from the war against Russia in Ukraine and towards the Middle East and China.

There are a raft of anti-democratic measures incorporated into the 950-page bill, which the WSWS will analyze in the coming days. One provision stands out immediately: The bill authorizes the Trump administration to terminate all federal funding for healthcare services through Planned Parenthood clinics. That is a longstanding demand of the fascist right, which seeks to bankrupt Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortion services, by cutting off funding for its non-abortion healthcare operations as well.

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