On February 29, the Sinhala section of the World Socialist Web Site had published an article under the title, “Police claim one cannot be allowed to humiliate them through pamphlets, and pounce upon the Colombo Action Committee.” The relevant issue was the police raid to stop the CAC-led campaign against the suppression launched under the name of ‘Operation Justice’. The police charged CAC with “intentionally insulting with intent to provoke a breach of peace, and circulating false reports with intent to cause mutiny or an offence against the republic or public tranquility.” The SEP letter has clearly expressed its opposition to the repression of the police, and has also raised the danger it poses to the public.
The prelude to the CAC campaign against the suppression operation called “Justice” was the police intimidation followed the arrest of Aruna Wijesuriya, son of CAC secretary and journalist Shanta Wijesuriya. Aruna Wijesooriya was arrested by the Kesbewa police, who later demanded and received a ransom of 10,000 rupees for his release. Another officer threatened to kill Shantha for lodging a complaint to the police regarding the whole incident. Shanta and his family then faced retaliation by the police. Shanta’s son was arrested and falsely accused of keeping the illicit drugs commonly called ice. His girlfriend, who went to visit him, was stripped and beaten within the police station for recording the conversation.
On February 17, CAC issued the aforementioned statement, “Defeat the state terror campaign called ‘Mission of Justice’, unleashed against the people, including the oppressed youth”. “This attempt by the machine of state repression, posing as an agent of morality against immorality, is fraudulent, evil and despicable. It is a desperate attempt to suppress the opposition of the laboring oppressed people to the implementation of austerity measures as dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), hence imposing the crisis of the capitalist class rule on the shoulders of the oppressed masses,” it pointed out.
The campaign was expanded through pasting posters all over the area with the assistance of the Prisoner’s Rights Organization and local youth. The campaign invited people to join a picketing campaign at Kesbewa on February 27. On February 23, while CAC leaflets were being distributed, Shanta was summoned to the Piliyandala Police Station by the Superintendent of Police, Ratmalana saying that they would conduct an urgent investigation regarding the complaints of Shanta and his family. It was a naive attempt to stop the campaign. The next day, Comrade Punyawardena of CAC, who was distributing leaflets in Piliyandala town, was forcibly taken away in a three-wheeler under the direction of the same Superintendent of Police. The superintendent told Punyawardena that, he was sure that no wrongdoing of the type described in CAC statement had occurred in the Piliyandala and Kasbewa police stations.
CAC February 27 picket campaaign
Punyawardena was released after obtaining a statement. Meanwhile, CAC distributed more than 2,000 leaflets in the city and the public was informed against the action of the police. At the same time, the head of the criminal division of the Piliyandala Police warned Shantha to not to oppose the police and the operation of justice, because an investigation is underway into the incident. But that evening (24th), Kasbewa police obtained a search warrant from the court and raided Shanta’s house and seized about 500 CAC leaflets and materials that had been prepared for the campaign.
It has been noticed by the police that, CAC is the only organization that has been engaged in such an open struggle against this violent state repression campaign, until this date. Hence the police thought that it would be easy to suppress it under the circumstances that no other organization challenged the operation of justice. Even the Socialist Equality Party, the Sri Lankan branch of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), only documented their protest in two articles on the World Socialist Web Site in June and in January. But public opposition is growing strongly. This dire situation is reflected by the independent intervention of a group of members of the Frontline Socialist Party to support this struggle in several ways.
It was in these circumstances that CAC convened a press conference on the 26th to explain the threat and to gather support against it. Despite the presence of representatives of the major electronic media organizations in Sri Lanka, most of the major capitalist media organizations avoided publishing the reports. Meanwhile, the CAC’s invitation to the Sinhala section of the WSWS to participate in the press conference was ignored due to the subjective dislike of Sri Lanka’s SEP towards CAC.
The picket campaign was carried out at Kesbewa town on 27th evening, as per the schedule. The police did not step forward to implement the court order they claimed to have obtained against the campaign. Under the circumstances of continuing of the struggle by the CAC, not giving in to the pressures, it was not possible to prevent the wide publicity it received. As a last moment attempt to “protect its ‘good’ name”, the police constable Paulson and Sergeant Alwis of the Kesbewa Police, who posed a threat to Shanta and the family, were transferred to the Moratuwa and Mt. Lavinia Police stations respectively.
As CAC stated during this struggle, “the anti-democracy and terror-mongering displayed by governments, by bringing social media censorship laws and anti-terror laws, is not at all an expression of the strength of capitalist governments, but an expression of their organic weakness. …. Anywhere in the world, such regimes have been able to survive, because trade unions and pseudo-left fronts have invaded into every instance of class struggle to sabotage, control and compromise mass struggles. We workers, peasants, and the rest of the oppressed people, must understand that, for us, there is no self-defense through official capitalist institutions. Freedom and security cannot be guaranteed except through building of an independent mass movement under the revolutionary working-class program, against those very institutions.”
Reflecting the SEP’s nervousness and fickleness, this principled struggle the CAC is engaged in, has been deliberately kept in the dark by the anonymous author in his article. At the same time, it did not forget to denounce CAC, as will be explained later in this article. However, this unknown so-called “our writer” claims that, “the repressive arm strengthened through the justice operation is being used to stifle those who criticize the government’s program in any manner.”
But it does not seem that even the ruling class themselves have believed “the repressive hand has been strengthened through the operation justice”. The police announced on Monday (11) that the army will also participate in this operation. Capitalist media, trade unions, pseudo-lefts have offered open and closed support, but only a feeble mind insensitive to the drivers of class struggle and class relations can assume that the regime, which is repelled and hated by the laboring masses, can be strengthened so easily. The campaign launched in the name of justice has shown the desperation of the ruling class, with the government, its police force and the army boasting that they will destroy the underworld. Currently, imprisoning beggars has also become a part of ‘justice’.
The responsibility of revolutionaries is to expose this situation and mobilize the working class against it. As CAC revealed in its struggle, the truth is that the operation of justice is evoking strong popular opposition and paving the way for the revolutionary organization of the working class. This protest is growing unorganized in all workplaces, and villages. There is no justification for depicting the desperation of the ruling class as a strength, instead of intervening in the situation. Such actions always allow opportunism, hence saving capitalism from danger.
As the International Committee of the Fourth International has pointed out, we are entering the fourth year of a revolutionary decade. The revolutionary struggle erupted in Sri Lanka in 2022 is still ablaze like the cinders under the ash. At a time like this, “it is necessary to utilize the favorable conditions of a revolutionary crisis in order to mobilize the masses; taking as a starting point the given level of their “maturity” it is necessary to propel them forward, teach them to understand that the enemy is by no means omnipotent, that it is torn asunder with contradictions, that behind the imposing facade panic prevails.” (Leon Trotsky, Class, Party and Leadership).
CAC is following this revolutionary policy.
The SEP article ignores CAC’s this struggle and turns to condemn it. It says: “Despite deep political differences with the Colombo Action Committee, the Socialist Equality Party opposes this vicious attack on them.” Unable to find any of these “deep political differences” which have never been explained, the SEP writer washes its hands by saying that “The Colombo Action Committee was formed by a group expelled from the SEP on disciplinary charges” and recommends the reader to read the “Statement of the Socialist Equality Party of Sri Lanka on the Expulsion of Nandana Nannetti and Sanjaya Jayasekara”.
At the same time, it says, “the response of the working class to the Wickramasinghe government’s sharpening of the class war against the working class should be to develop its own class struggle. The lie of the trade unions that they can pressure the capitalist governments and win their demands is exposed through the repression being carried out by the Wickramasinghe government. By doing so, the government shows that it is not ready to take a step back from its austerity program in any way. Hence arises the urgency for the working class to form action committees, independent of these trade unions and capitalist parties.”
The primary responsibility of the Revolutionary Party, that is to develop perspectives, is not an astrological task, it is historical task. The revolutionary intervenes in what he is analyzing. The revolutionary who analyzes the world in dialectical materialism does not stop at that and wait. He is committed to change the world. SEP did not make any active intervention in the political incident which it emphasizes to take seriously. Even now, what the author of this article recommends to the public is to follow this and that procedures, to eliminate this and that disaster.
“Only with the help of such systematic, persistent, indefatigable, courageous agitational and organizational work always on the basis of the experience of the masses themselves, is it possible to root out from their consciousness the traditions of submissiveness and passivity; to train detachments of heroic fighters capable of setting an example to all toilers; to inflict a series of tactical defeats upon the armed thugs of counterrevolution; to raise the self-confidence of the exploited and oppressed; to compromise Fascism in the eyes of the petty bourgeoisie and pave the road for the conquest of power by the proletariat”, (The Death of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International, p. 18) hence culminating the program of the Fourth International.
It is not our intention here to repeating our comments on the disgusting statement of expulsion, the document which the SEP leadership recommends to the reader. But we just say this much: The SEP leadership has repeatedly violated the party constitution and discipline on a large number of occasions, from very important matters such as congresses, not allowing to discuss the differences and expelling 12 members from the party, without disciplinary investigation. The expelled members have a written history of a fight against this situation. The SEP issued statements claiming that it stands with the struggle and, then expelled Comrade Sanjaya for staunchly defending the party line at the ground. According to them, his participation was a breach of discipline. There is no discipline to superior to fight for the program and perspective, and the SEP in Sri Lanka has made history within the history of the International Committee by expelling a group of members exactly that manner for breaching some superior discipline by fighting for the party program and perspectives.
Thus, it should be clear that the SEP leadership’s disgust towards CAC is not just a question about CAC or its members. SEP should seriously consider this situation. The conditions that enabled the suppression of objective truth are collapsing. The growing class struggle will bring the truth to light.
[This is the English translation of the article originally published in Sinhalese here on March 13, 2024]
Statement of the Colombo Action Committee for People’s Struggles
Image courtesy:adaderana.lk
It is already clear that the state terror unleashed in the name of Operation Yukthiya is one way the government is intensifying its repression against the youth and the rest of the oppressed. Its goal is the protracted class struggle.
The government suddenly jumped on to the crackdown on drugs as one of the measures to forcefully maintain the much hated capitalist state; to keep the society terrorized with violence and to garner the support of a backward social stratum. This has already given way to allow the police to act beyond the limits of the existing law and making that situation the norm in the country. What the country has is a police force that has a long history of being warrented and been operating to kill persons outside the judicial procedure.
A complaint made to the Police Commission by Aruna Indika Wijesuriya, a professional photographer based in Madapatha, Piliyandala, exposes the repressive drama, hence bringing us a picture of what is happening right now across the country. According to the complaint, on December 6, the police raided the young man’s house at night, searched it thoroughly and found nothing suspicious, but arrested the young man and demanded a ransom of 10,000 rupees for his release. It is alleged that Sergeant Alwis and police driver Madushanka have requested the bribe and Indika’s friends gave them the requested amount. He was released on police bail the next day.
Aruna’s father, Shanta Wijesuriya, who is a well-known journalist and political activist, came to know about this later and went with his son to Kesbewa police station to complain about this, but the police avoided accepting the complaint. The police hunters were furious because the father and son tried to complain against the police for taking bribes.
On December 13, a group of plain clothed police officers assaulted Aruna, searched his house and arrested him again. When the youth made a phone call to his cousin, the police surrounded the relative’s house as well. Again, around 3 am, On December 17, a police team including Alwis, who was accused of taking bribes, surrounded the youth’s home. There, a young man named Shehan was also with the police, and the police showed Shehan something that appeared to be a pack containing the illegal drug called ‘Ice’ and asked, “Shehan, did Aruna give you this?” But, facing protests from those present, the police retreated with the following warning: “Aruna Oya Adath Dinum( (Aruna, you have won today too)”.
Later, on February 2, the police officer, identified as Paul, had threatened Wijesuriya – the father of the youth – at Kesbewa courts premises saying that he would “shoot him if he tries to be smart”. On the same day at around 5 pm, the police raided a place where the young man was taking photographs and arrested him. The next day, his girlfriend, who went to visit him, was arrested on the charge that she had recorded the conversation of the police officers, beaten and harassed by removing her clothes forcibly, checking for illegal drugs. The cousin who visited the youth was also arrested and later released. The court rejected the request of the police to send the young man for rehabilitation, alleging that the boy who was brought to the court with ‘ice’ had used the substance. Allegations that he had used it were nullified by the medical evidence. There is no place to complain about these injustices. The institutions which claim to be investigating and redressing such grievances continue to ignore complaints. The response received from many such institutions was that there is no evidence to prove the allegations.
On February 6, social media reported an incident where the father of two was arrested by the Baddegama Police. The victim, Jeewantha Kumara of Ganegama, within the jurisdiction of the Baddegama Police was arrested with 2 grams and 350 milligrams of “ice”. Police assaulted Jeewantha and his brother, and their sister, a school-girl, video-taped how the police team in plainclothes assaulted her two brothers. She watched and taped how one of the police team tried to put a black parcel in her brother’s pocket. The police assaulted her, snatched her phone, arrested Jeewanta and filed a case. The phone which recorded the incident was never returned and has disappeared with all the evidence. The girl and her other brother had to be admitted to Karapitiya Hospital and receive treatments. There is no reason to think that the complaints made to the Elpitiya Senior Superintendent of Police and Galle Assistant Superintendent of Police will bring justice to these oppressed people.
The case of shooting down a carpenter at Narammala is a well-known crime among hundreds of such incidents. On January 18, police personnel in plain clothes ordered him to stop the lorry he was driving. When he did not stop, the vehicle was chased and he was shot dead. This is the way the so-called Operation Yukthiya is being carried out and the Public Security Minister Tiran Alas has assured in Parliament that the operation will continue irrespective of any objections such as concerns of human rights.
This attempt by the state repressive apparatus to pose itself as the agents of morality against immorality, is deceitful, evil, and despicable. It is a desperate attempt to curb the resistance of the working and oppressed people, arising from the implementation of austerity dictates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), hence imposing the crisis of capitalist class rule on the oppressed masses.
The root of all crimes is the rule of the bankrupt capitalist class. It is not limited to Sri Lanka. These rampant economic, political and social problems are not caused by illicit-drug users. The drug business operates through politically supported transnational and domestic parasitic crime networks. Addiction to drugs itself is the result of social unrest flowing from endless economic, political and social problems. Under these circumstances, the daily operations by military and police, establishing military police roadblocks at every other inch and conducting search operations are nothing but setting up the mechanism to subjugate the lives of the workers and oppressed people to the conditions of the police state. These operations have nothing to do with eradication of illicit drugs.
The statistics of the World Bank show how the poverty in the society is increasing day by day. Poverty, which was 11.3 percent of Sri Lanka’s population in 2019, has increased to 12.7 percent in 2020; and then from 13.1 percent in 2021 to 25 percent in 2022, and to 27.9 percent in 2024. This is a manifestation of the bankruptcy of capitalism on a global scale. World Bank reports show that between September 2022 and March 2023, world poverty increased by 11 million from 648 to 659 million. That’s by calculating the income below $2.15 per day. But, taking into account the lower middle income level and upper middle income level countries, i.e. the levels of $3.65 and $6.85, this figure rises by another 28 million. The poor are consumed by hunger, disease and discomfort. On the other hand, the income of the top 1% supre-rich is increasing by leaps and bounds.
The results of this level of inequality include the escalation of social tragedy, from drug addiction to various crimes and suicides. There was a recent incident where a 14-year-old boy jumped to the fast approaching train and committed suicide near Tambalagamuwa railway station on February 11. Following the sound of the train’s horn, the other children moved out of the way, but this child spread his hands and was smiling while waiting for the train to go over him. The train driver has stated that he had never seen anything like this in his entire life. Later, the child’s guardian aunt told the media that the child was suffering from acute malnutrition.
Attention of the masses is, and should be, focused on these issues. The world is gripped by the struggles of workers, farmers and youth. Anti-democratic measures and terror-mongering displayed by governments bringing social media censorship laws, anti-terror laws are not at all manifestations of the strength of capitalist governments, which are largely discredited among the masses, so lacking popular support, but manifestations of their organic weakness. Those governments cannot fulfill even a single economic or social need of the people. Anywhere in the world, such regimes have been enabled to persist because trade unions and pseudo-left fronts have infiltrated every instance of class struggle, to disrupt, control and compromise mass struggles. We workers, peasants and other oppressed people must realize that self-defense does not come at all from official capitalist institutions, and that freedom and security cannot be guaranteed except through the formation of an independent mass movement against the capitalist establishment under the working class revolutionary programme.
We, the Colombo Action Committee for People’s Struggles, request all progressive people opposed to capitalist attacks to come forward to build and unify action committees at workplaces and residential areas, which can ensure the safety of the oppressed people. Only such a mass movement can really wipe out capitalist rule and all the tendencies that block the path of social progress.
Abolish all repressive laws!
Forward towards a Workers’ and Peasants’ Government!
[This statement was originally published here in Sinhales on February 17, 2024]
