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

Democratic Rights, english, Fascism, history, lead article, News, Obituary, politics, politics & economics, War Crimes / September 5, 2025

Our Correspondent.

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 »

Zelensky government hails Trump’s resumption of weapons deliveries

english, Fascism, lead article, News, politics, politics & economics, War, World War / July 11, 2025

By Jason Melanovski.

Reposted below is the article published on wsws.org here on July 11, 2025.

In a complete about-face from the position his administration declared last week, United States President Donald Trump announced on Monday that his government would continue to send weapons to Kiev in order to fuel the ongoing proxy war against Russia that has killed hundreds of thousands in its over three-year history.

“We’re gonna send some more weapons we have to them, they have to be able to defend themselves, they’re getting hit very hard now,” Trump told reporters during a meeting of US and Israeli officials at the White House.

Later that day, the Pentagon released its own statement confirming more war materiel would be sent to Ukraine, likewise contradicting its previous statements that aid had been paused.

“At President Trump’s direction, the Department of Defense is sending additional defensive weapons to Ukraine to ensure the Ukrainians can defend themselves while we work to secure a lasting peace and ensure the killing stops,” it stated.

While initial reports from Politico cited Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby as the Trump official responsible for the weapons halt last week, shortly thereafter NBC News named Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as the individual who made the decision, as part of a “capability review,” to unilaterally halt shipments to Ukraine starting on July 2.

According to the Washington Post, included in the items being held back from Ukraine were over two dozen Patriot air defense missiles, over two dozen Stinger air defense systems, precision artillery rounds, Hellfire missiles, drones and more than 90 AIM air-to-air missiles that Ukraine launches from F-16 fighter jets. These were reportedly already in Poland and being prepped for delivery to Ukraine when the order to cease was declared.

The move, which was roundly criticized by the Ukrainian government, was later confirmed by both the Pentagon and White House, with Trump’s press secretary stating that the decision “was made to put America’s interests first following a (U.S. Defense Department) review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries across the globe.”

As has become typical of his crisis-plagued, criminal presidency, Trump later performed an about-face while speaking to a NY Times reporter last Friday.

“Why did you pause weapons shipments to Ukraine?” the journalist asked Trump as he was boarding Air Force One.

“We haven’t,” Trump replied, flatly contradicting multiple previous statements from his own government. “We’re giving weapons.”

Trump’s 180-degree foreign policy turn is being publicly celebrated by the right-wing dictatorial government of President Volodymyr Zelensky, following a disastrous public meeting at the White House between the two presidents, who was just months ago was accusing Trump of living in a Russian “disinformation space.”

On Tuesday, Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s closest presidential advisor, vociferously hailed Trump as the “only leader” who can pressure Russia to end the war on Ukrainian terms in an interview with the NY Post.

“I always knew that the two presidents share a lot in common. They have many of the things that they see the same way—they just need to talk more,” he said. “There was a brilliant meeting in the Vatican, and then several phone calls, and then meeting in The Hague, and so all that is the work to understand each other more deeply.

“And you know, certain events had to unfold, certain conversations had to happen—including conversations with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.”

Yermak’s glowing description of Trump is a tacit admission that both the war and the Zelensky government itself are highly dependent on the continuation of US military and financial aid.

Despite having been allocated $182.8 billion in US support since the beginning of the full-scale war in February 2022, the Ukrainian government continues to be totally dependent on foreign aid to function.

Speaking Wednesday at the 2025 Ukraine Recovery Conference, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal underlined the critical financial situation of the country.

“The total financial resource for defence and security in 2025 will amount to nearly US$50 billion. That is 26% of GDP,” the prime minister stated.

The weapons procurement budget is also at a record-high $16.4 billion, while the state’s own revenue is projected to be just $48.5 billion.

“Thus, external financing is critically important for us, as it allows Ukraine to allocate its own resources directed at defending our country,” Shmyhal said.

Shmyhal also noted that Ukraine has already secured $22 billion in foreign aid for 2025. But it needs more for next year.

“Meanwhile, 2026 remains a challenge. Our external financing needs will stay above $40 billion. The key task is to develop mechanisms and instruments that will make it possible to raise these funds.”

Whatever the full story behind the rapid vacillations of Trump’s policy towards Ukraine, the ultimate goal of the Trump administration is to uphold the predatory interests of US capitalism, as demonstrated by the “critical minerals” signed between Ukraine and the US in April.

As Trump has demonstrated, despite his campaign promises to end the war in Ukraine in “24 hours,” he is just as committed to war as his predecessors, as long as it maximizes the interests of US capitalism.

Zelensky government hails Trump’s resumption of weapons deliveries Read More »

American imperialism’s bombardment of Iran: A day that will live in infamy

english, Fascism, lead article, News, politics, politics & economics, Trade War, War, World War / June 24, 2025

By WSWS Editorial Board

We repost below the World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board statement published on wsws.org here on June 23, 2025

June 22, 2025 is a day that will live in infamy. In a massive and unprovoked assault, the United States launched a sneak attack on Iran, dropping the most powerful non-nuclear bunker-buster bombs ever used in combat on Iranian nuclear energy facilities. This act of aggression is the continuation and escalation of the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza, and threatens to engulf the entire Middle East and set the world on fire.

Codenamed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” the assault involved more than 125 aircraft, including at least eight B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, backed by fighter jets, refueling tankers and surveillance aircraft, in what was the largest B-2 strike operation in US history.

The centerpiece of the attack was the deployment of the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), a 13.6-ton bunker-busting bomb—the most powerful non-nuclear weapon of its kind ever used. Twelve MOPs were dropped on the heavily fortified Fordow uranium enrichment site, and two more on Natanz. These were accompanied by numerous 2,900-pound Tomahawk missiles, which rained down on both facilities as well as the Isfahan research complex.

US President Donald Trump justified his attack in a four-minute homicidal, lying rant, delivered Saturday night. Announcing that US forces had struck three nuclear facilities, he claimed they were part of a “horribly destructive enterprise” which was supposedly necessary to “stop the nuclear threat” posed by Iran.

In fact, these sites are part of Iran’s civilian nuclear energy program, developed in accordance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and subject to international inspection. For years, the United States’ own intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran was not actively pursuing nuclear weapons. But in the tradition of the Bush administration’s lies about Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” Trump once again invoked fabricated threats to justify extraordinarily reckless acts of unprovoked aggression.

Trump boasted of the “spectacular military success” of the attack, which he intended to serve as a message to the entire region, declaring that “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace.”

The reference to Iran as the “bully of the Middle East” turns reality on its head. For over a third of a century, US imperialism has been at war and carried out regime change operations throughout the region, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Yemen. Over the past two years, the Israeli government has waged a genocidal war in Gaza with continuous US support, slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent civilians. This has been merely a dress rehearsal for a broader campaign of mass murder.

Having just launched an unprovoked military strike against a sovereign nation in flagrant violation of international law, Trump now demands “peace”! By this, he means “unconditional surrender,” as he demanded last week—that is, the turning over of the country to direct imperialist dominance. On Sunday, Trump explicitly called for “regime change” in Iran, following his threat last week to assassinate Ayatollah Khamenei.

Trump declared, “For 40 years”—since the overthrow of the US-backed Shah—“Iran has been saying, ‘Death to America, death to Israel,’” and proclaimed that “hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East … have died as a direct result of their hate.” The carnage Trump blames on Iran is in fact the outcome of successive US wars and interventions, under Democrats and Republicans, that have devastated entire societies. It is not Iran that has inflicted “hundreds of thousands” of deaths—it is the United States.

The strikes were directly coordinated with the fascist Israeli government, which is continuing to launch missile attacks on Iran. As Trump stated, “We worked as a team as perhaps no team has worked before.” Just prior to Trump’s remarks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement hailing the US airstrikes and thanking Trump, declaring that the two were pursuing a policy of “Peace through strength: First comes strength, then comes peace.” In other words, slaughter and terror must precede submission.

Trump concluded with a naked threat of further violence: “There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran. … Remember, there are many targets left.” The logical next step in this campaign of destruction is the use of tactical nuclear weapons—an option the Trump administration has repeatedly declared is “not off the table.”

Saturday’s attack makes clear that there are no red lines for American imperialism, which will stop at nothing. Its criminality knows no limits. No government has so openly and flagrantly violated international law since the Nazi regime.

The bombing of Iran is a central component of an escalating global war. It is not a question of warning of the danger of a new world war—it has already begun. American imperialism is seeking to resolve its deepening internal social and political crisis through military aggression. Having targeted Iran, the logic of imperialist war is leading inevitably to confrontation with China. Regime change in Iran is aimed at securing unchallenged control over the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea and the broader Eurasian landmass—regions rich in oil, gas and critical trade routes.

Trump hailed the strikes as a “spectacular military success,” but in reality, he has embarked on a catastrophic and utterly reckless course of action. Whatever short-term calculations were made by the White House and Pentagon, they have now launched a war whose consequences they cannot control. They have sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind. As with the war against Iraq launched in 2003, American imperialism has a rendezvous with disaster, but on a far larger scale.

It remains to be seen how Iran will respond, as well as its close allies, Russia and China. Iran’s parliament has moved to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant share of the world’s oil supply passes—an action that will send global energy markets into turmoil and could trigger a global recession. For years, the passivity of the Iranian bourgeois government—marked by appeals for negotiations and the avoidance of direct confrontation—has emboldened US imperialism.

Whatever the immediate response of Iran, Russia and China, however, the decisive issue is the reaction of the international working class. The most significant and far-reaching impact of Saturday’s attack will be on the consciousness of billions of people throughout the world. This act of imperialist aggression is already provoking mass outrage, expressed on all social media platforms and through initial protests that took place throughout the US on Sunday.

The war on Iran follows nearly two years of expanding global opposition to the genocide in Gaza. It exposes beyond any doubt the thoroughly criminal character of American foreign policy. The United States is increasingly seen by billions of workers throughout the world as a criminal government that operates outside of all legal restraint. The myth that American imperialism defends “freedom” or “democracy” lies forever in the past.

The war will pour gasoline on the already raging social and political crises in the United States, across Europe and around the world. It is the action of a regime ruled by and for the financial oligarchy. As it bombs and murders abroad, the Trump administration is dismantling democratic rights at home and erecting a political dictatorship. The Democratic Party, the so-called opposition, is paralyzed and complicit—paralyzed by its fear of the working class and complicit in the aims of imperialism.

Mass opposition is emerging. Just one week before the bombing of Iran, millions participated in the largest anti-government demonstrations in American history. The question is not whether opposition exists, but how it can be organized, directed and armed with a political perspective. The immense anger and revulsion provoked by the bombing must be transformed into a conscious political movement of the working class, linking the fight against war and dictatorship to the struggle against capitalism.

The working class is the social force that must be mobilized to stop imperialist barbarism. The criminal war being waged against Iran is not an aberration, but the product of the entire capitalist system. It must be halted through the unified global struggle of the working class, organized across all national boundaries.

The International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated Socialist Equality Parties call for an immediate end to the US-Israeli war against Iran and the dismantling of the entire imperialist war machine. We urge workers and youth to organize protests, walkouts and strikes in every country.

Imperialism is plunging the world into barbarism and criminality. It is not a matter of reforming a bankrupt system, but of overthrowing it through the conscious and organized struggle of the working class for power. The alternative to war and dictatorship is socialism. What is needed is the building of a new revolutionary leadership to lead this movement forward, and to make socialism—the democratic control of the economy by the working class in the interests of all humanity—the guiding principle of a new social order.

American imperialism’s bombardment of Iran: A day that will live in infamy Read More »

Oppose the imperialist war on Iran!

english, Fascism, lead article, politics, politics & economics, War, World Economy, World War / June 16, 2025

By WSWS Editoria Board.

We repost below the World Socialist Web Site statement published on wsws.org here on June 13, 2025

On Thursday evening, under the cover of darkness, Israel launched a massive air and missile assault on Iran, striking air defenses, nuclear facilities, key military personnel and command centers.

At least 78 people were killed and over 300 injured in the largest attack on Iran since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Israel assassinated six nuclear scientists and 20 high-ranking military personnel, including the Chief of Staff of Iran’s military and the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The World Socialist Web Site unequivocally condemns Israel’s illegal and unprovoked assault on Iran as a brazen act of imperialist aggression. The increasingly unhinged Israeli regime—already carrying out a genocide against 2 million people in Gaza—has now deliberately provoked war with a country 10 times its size, threatening catastrophic consequences for the entire region.

Israel’s claim that it acted in “self-defense” against an alleged Iranian nuclear program is an absurd and transparent fraud. It is well known that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, acquired in violation of international law.

Prior to the assault, Iran was engaged in negotiations with the White House over its nuclear program. In the days leading up to the strike, every major imperialist government—including the United States—made statements saying they opposed an Israeli attack on Iran, calling instead for a negotiated settlement.

The United States even went so far as to announce a new round of talks with Iran on Sunday just hours before Israel, with US foreknowledge and complicity, began raining missiles down on Tehran. Within the span of 24 hours, the White House went from vocally proclaiming it opposed an Israeli attack on Iran to publicly gloating about it.

Asked by the Wall Street Journal Friday whether the US got a “heads-up” of the attacks, US President Donald Trump replied, “Heads-up? It wasn’t a heads-up. It was, we know what’s going on.”

In reality, the so-called “negotiations” were a treacherous charade, designed to provide Israel with the opportunity to kill Iran’s military leaders in their homes. Among those targeted and killed in Israel’s Thursday night attack was top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Shamkhani.

Citing US and Israeli officials, Axios reported Friday that “Trump and his aides were only pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public—and didn’t express opposition in private. ‘We had a clear U.S. green light,’ one claimed. The goal, they say, was to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel’s target list wouldn’t move to new locations.”

The fact that Iran allowed a significant portion of its leadership to be killed—apparently while they were in civilian dwellings vulnerable to missile strikes, even as the American press openly telegraphed an Israeli attack—is a devastating exposure of the Iranian regime’s strategic bankruptcy. The regime placed immense confidence in the good faith of the Trump administration. Ignoring and forgetting all that has happened, including Trump’s authorization of the murder of General Suleimani in January 2020, the Iranian leaders were convinced that the United States would restrain Israel while negotiations were pending. They fell for a simple trick, like a child taking candy from a stranger.

But there are politics behind the Iranian regime’s astonishing naivete. Terrified of its own working class, the Iranian capitalist elite is desperately seeking an agreement with the imperialist powers, who have demonstrated their full commitment to Iran’s destruction and subjugation.

Israel’s attack on Iran has also exposed where the European imperialist powers really stand, despite their recent criticisms of aspects of the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The German government announced that Netanyahu had informed Chancellor Merz of the planned assault. Both the French and German governments issued statements affirming Israel’s “right to defend itself” and condemning retaliatory strikes by Iran.

The attack on Iran is the direct outcome of the longstanding US-Israeli drive to create a “new Middle East” under imperialist domination, intensified in the wake of the events of October 7, 2023. It was made possible by the immense political, military and intelligence support Israel has received from the United States for decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

The Pentagon and Israeli military have long planned and war-gamed an assault on Iran and its nuclear program—an attack that Trump has repeatedly vowed to authorize.

US imperialism has never accepted the outcome of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which overthrew the dictatorship of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a key American ally in the Middle East. Washington backed Iraq in its brutal war against Iran throughout the 1980s. Even as it turned on Iraq—waging war in 1990–91 and invading in 2003—the installation of a US-aligned regime in Tehran remained a central objective.

Today, Iran is grouped with Russia, China, and North Korea as a major obstacle to US global hegemony—one that Washington is determined to eliminate at any cost.

The ultimate aim of this assault is the imperialist domination of the Middle East—the world’s most important oil-exporting region and home to critical trade routes and strategic chokepoints, including the Persian Gulf. By subjugating Iran, a key ally of both Russia and China, the United States aims to strengthen its global position in preparation for direct confrontation with its principal strategic rivals.

History has shown that imperialist wars lead to unforeseen and catastrophic consequences. Just as the US invasion of Iraq unleashed a regional disaster, so too will Israel’s assault on Iran. The people of the Middle East will not remain passive as their countries are turned into battlegrounds for imperialist domination.

The international working class must respond by building a conscious movement against imperialist war and the capitalist system that gives rise to it.

The World Socialist Web Site calls for the defense of Iran from imperialist violence and subjugation. But this can not be waged through the support of any bourgeois government. It requires the independent mobilization of the working class of the Middle East and the whole world, in opposition to all ethnic, racial and religious divisions, on the basis of a revolutionary socialist program.

Oppose the imperialist war on Iran! Read More »

Israeli academics issue open letter condemning Gaza genocide

Democratic Rights, english, Fascism, politics, War / June 5, 2025

By Andre Damon, David North

We re-post here the World Socialist Website perspective article published on June 01, 2025.

On Wednesday, 1,200 Israeli university academics and administrators issued an open letter protesting the “war crimes and even crimes against humanity” committed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

The letter—addressed to the Association of University Heads in Israel, the Board of Academic Public Colleges, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and Academics for Israeli Democracy—is a reaction to the launching of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” in March, which is employing the mass starvation of the Palestinian population in pursuit of what is now the open policy of the Israeli government: the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The statement declares:

Since Israel violated the ceasefire on March 18, almost 3,000 people have been killed in Gaza. The vast majority of them were civilians. Since the start of the war, at least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including at least 15,000 children and at least 41 Israeli hostages. At the same time, many international bodies are warning of acute starvation—the result of intentional and openly declared Israeli government policy —as well as of the rendering of Gaza into an area unfit for human habitation. Israel continues to bomb hospitals, schools, and other institutions. Among the war’s declared goals, as defined in the orders for the current military operation “Gideon’s Chariots,” is the “concentration and displacement of the population.” This is a horrifying litany of war crimes and even crimes against humanity, all of our own doing.

As academics, we recognize our own role in these crimes. It is human societies, not governments alone, that commit crimes against humanity. Some do so by means of direct violence. Others do so by sanctioning the crimes and justifying them, before and after the fact, and by keeping quiet and silencing voices in the halls of learning. It is this bond of silence that allows clearly evident crimes to continue unabated without penetrating the barriers of recognition.

The letter signifies the emergence of public opposition within Israel to the war. It is not yet clear how broadbased this opposition is. Recently published polls indicated that there still remains widespread support for the regime’s onslaught against the Palestinians, which—if the polls are accurate—reflects the deep social disorientation produced by decades of reactionary Zionist policies and propaganda.

However, given the relentless barrage of lies to which Israelis are subjected, the fact that more than 1,000 academics have denounced the policies of the government as criminal is a significant development.

The letter is a devastating indictment not only of Netanyahu’s government but of its international backers in Washington, London, Berlin and other capitals, who have denounced criticisms of Israel’s genocide in Gaza as a form of “antisemitism.” The New York Times and other major imperialist media outlets have not reported on the letter, despite prominent coverage in Haaretz and Al Jazeera.

The letter contrasts the vocal role that Israeli universities played in the 2023 mass protests against the Netanyahu government’s attempt to suppress the judiciary with their relative silence on the ongoing genocide. It declares:

Israeli higher education institutions play a central role in the struggle against the judicial overhaul. It is precisely against this backdrop that their silence in the face of the killing, starvation, and destruction in Gaza, and in the face of the complete elimination of the educational system there, its people, and its structures, is so striking.

There are other signs of growing opposition in Israel to the Gaza genocide. The publication of the letter followed demonstrations Tuesday at universities throughout Israel, where students and lecturers protested the ongoing genocide in Gaza. “This is the first action against the ongoing denial and the silent support for crimes being committed in our name,” the organizers told Haaretz. At Tel Aviv University, students and lecturers protesting the genocide were assaulted by campus police officers.

One of the organizers of the protest told Haaretz, “There’s a sense of a breakthrough, that from now on, it won’t be possible to hold back.” She added, “There’s a whole community living under a kind of censorship, feeling stifled, with a scream lodged in their throats. The message we got from the students is clear: they need us to stop staying silent.”

Ayelet Ben-Yishai, a professor at the University of Haifa, told Al Jazeera that for some participants, the decision to publicly oppose the genocide was in response to “the breaking of the ceasefire in March. That was a watershed moment for many, plus witnessing the starvation we’ve been forcing on Gaza ever since then.”

The group organizing the publication of the letter is known as the “Black Flag Action Network.” Professor On Barak of Tel Aviv University told Haaretz that the group’s name is a reference to the term “coined by [then Jerusalem Magistrate Court] Judge Benjamin Halevy following the 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre, in which 48 innocent Palestinians were killed by the Israeli Border Police.” Judge Halevy wrote in his ruling, “The hallmark of manifest illegality is that it must wave like a black flag over the given order, a warning that says: ‘forbidden!’ Not formal illegality … but rather, the clear and obvious violation of law.”

Barak added, “The widespread indifference [toward Gazans] among many Israelis is the result of an intensive dehumanization campaign that must be actively resisted.”

Professor Yael Hashiloni-Dolev of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev told Haaretz, “Anyone with even a shred of responsibility or humanity can no longer buy into the propaganda. We must recognize that war crimes and crimes against humanity are openly being committed in Gaza. We’re in the midst of a moral collapse.”

Al Jazeera noted that “the academics’ letter is unique in that it places Palestinian suffering at the heart of its objections to the war.”

Professor Ben-Yishai told Al Jazeera, “we wanted to make Palestinian suffering central. We wanted to say that we stand alongside and in solidarity with Palestinians. This was also about taking responsibility for what we are doing in Gaza and opening people’s eyes to it.”

The letter appeals to “all the people of this land, Palestinians and Jews.” It declares, “For the sake of the lives of innocents and the safety of all the people of this land, Palestinians and Jews; for the sake of the return of the hostages; if we do not call to halt the war immediately, history will not forgive us.”

The letter has the character of a moral appeal. Its authors do not address the fundamental historical and political issues that underlie the genocide. But however deeply felt the outrage against the war, the development of an effective opposition to the regime requires a break with the ideology and policies of Zionism. The genocidal character of this war is the culmination of the policies based on the reactionary political foundations upon which the “Jewish state” was erected in 1948.

The opposition of Jewish and Arab socialists, and the Trotskyist Fourth International, to the formation of the Zionist state in 1948 has been vindicated.

The authors of the letter state that “It is our duty to save what can still be saved of this land’s future.” The phrasing leads one to hope that the reference to “this land” rather than to Israel indicates a growing awareness that the existence of the Israeli state, based on the expropriation and annihilation of the Palestinian people, forecloses any future other than one that perpetuates mass murder.

The only viable future is one that achieves the revolutionary dissolution of the existing Zionist state and the unification of the Palestinian and Jewish working class in a socialist republic.

Israeli academics issue open letter condemning Gaza genocide Read More »

යුරෝපීය ප්‍රතිසන්නද්ධ කිරීමට එරෙහි වන්න!

Democratic Rights, Fascism, lead article, politics, politics & economics, Trade War, War, World War / May 31, 2025

ඇලෙක්ස් ලැන්ටියර් විසිනි.

මෙහි පලවන්නේ ලෝක සමාජවාදී වෙබ් අඩවියේ (ලෝසවෙඅ) 2025 මැයි 26 දින ‘Oppose European rearmament!’ යන හිසින් පලවූ ඇලෙක්ස් ලැන්ටියර් විසින් ලියන ලද ඉදිරිදර්ශන ලිපියේ සිංහල පරිවර්තනය යි.

යුරෝපීය රටවල් සාමූහිකව යුරෝ බිලියන සිය ගනනක් මිලිටරි වියදම්වල වියරු ආවේශයක ගිල්වා දමයි. සම්පත්, සමාජ වැඩසටහන් හා රැකියා වලින් දැවැන්ත ලෙස යුද යන්ත්‍රය වෙත හරවා යැවීම, යුරෝපීය අධිරාජ්‍යවාදී බලවතුන් කම්කරු පන්තිය සමග ගැටීමේ මාවතට යොමු කරයි.

ඉරිදා, ජර්මානු සන්නද්ධ හමුදා අණදෙන නිලධාරි කාර්ස්ටන් බෲවර් 2029 වන විට ජර්මානු හමුදාව නවීන උපකරණවලින් සම්පූර්ණයෙන් සන්නද්ධ කරන ලෙස නියෝග කළේය. බර්ලිනයේ යුරෝ ට්‍රිලියන 1 ක නැවත සන්නද්ධ කිරීමේ අරමුදලෙන් අරමුදල්, ඩ්‍රෝන් යුද සූදානමට, දිගු දුර මිසයිල සහ අභ්‍යවකාශ යුද හැකියාවන් වෙත යෙදවීමට නියමිතය. ජර්මානු චාන්සලර් ෆ්‍රෙඩ්රික් මර්ස්, යුරෝපයම අලලා ගත් සමස්ත යුද්ධයක පුපුරා යාමට තර්ජනය කරනා රුසියාව ඉලක්ක කර ගත් නව මිලිටරි උත්සන්න කිරීමක් නිවේදනය කරමින්, එවැනි අරමුදල් භාවිතා කරන්නේ කෙසේදැයි පැහැදිලි කළේය.

රුසියාව පුරා ප්‍රහාර එල්ල කිරීම සඳහා, බර්ලිනය දැන් යුක්රේනයට එහි ටෝරස් කෲස් මිසයිල වැනි දිගු දුර මිසයිල ලබා දෙන බව හඟවමින් මර්ස් මෙසේ පැවසීය:

“යුක්රේනයට ලබා දෙන ආයුධ පරාසයේ තවදුරටත් සීමාවන් නොමැත – බ්‍රිතාන්‍යයන්ට, ප්‍රංශ ජාතිකයින්ට හෝ අපට එසේ සීමාවන් නැත. ඇමරිකානුවන්ටත් එසේමයි.”

ජර්මනියේ සහ එහි නේටෝ සහචරයන්ගෙන් මිසයිල “රුසියානු භූමියේ මිලිටරි ස්ථාපනයන්ට එරෙහිව” වෙඩි තබන බවට මර්ස් දිව්රුම් දුනි. මෙය, පාලනය කළ නොහැකි සර්පිලාකාර උත්සන්නියක් මුදා හරිමින් ජර්මනියේ ඉලක්ක වෙත රුසියානු මිසයිල වෙඩි තැබීමේ අවදානම මතු කරයි.

කෙසේ වෙතත්, ජර්මානු ප්‍රතිපත්තිය යනු, සමස්ත යුරෝපීය ධනේශ්වරයම අල්ලා ගන්නා යුද උණ පිලිබඳ වඩාත්ම නිර්දය ප්‍රකාශනය පමනි. 2014 සිට 2024 දක්වා යුරෝපීය වාර්ෂික මිලිටරි වියදම් යුරෝ බිලියන 147 සිට යුරෝ බිලියන 326 දක්වා දෙගුණයකටත් වඩා වැඩි වූ අතර එය 2022 සිට පමණක් තුනෙන් එකකින් වැඩි විය. ජර්මනියේ මිලිටරි වියදම් 2024 දී සියයට 28 කින් ඉහළ ගොස් ඩොලර් බිලියන 88.5 දක්වා ඉහළ ගිය අතර, පෝලන්තයේ මිලිටරි වියදම ඩොලර් බිලියන 38 දක්වා සියයට 31 කින් වර්ධනය වී ඇත. මේ අතර ප්‍රංශය 2030 වන විට යුරෝ බිලියන 100 දක්වා තම මිලිටරි වියදම් දෙගුණ කිරීමට ප්‍රතිඥා දී ඇත.

එහි පිරිවැය හෝ ඉලක්ක පිළිබඳව මහජනතාවට කිසිදු පැහැදිලි කිරීමකින් තොරව යුරෝපයේ මහජනතාවයට වහංගු කරමින් යලි සන්නද්ධ කිරීම බොහෝ දුරට සිදු වේ. පසුගිය සතියේ, යුරෝපා සංගමය (EU), යුරෝපා සංගමය සඳහා ආරක්ෂක ක්‍රියාමාර්ග (SAFE) වැඩසටහන සක්‍රීය කරන ලදී. මාර්තු මාසයේ දී එකඟත්වයට පැමිණි එහි යුරෝ බිලියන 800 ප්‍රතිනිර්මාණය කිරීමේ සැලැස්මේ කොටසක් වන එය, යුරෝපා සංගම් රාජ්‍යයන්ට සහ බ්‍රිතාන්‍යයට ඒකාබද්ධ යුරෝපීය ආරක්ෂක ව්‍යාපෘති සඳහා නය වශයෙන් යුරෝ බිලියන 150 ක් සපයයි. මෙම තීරණය බොහෝ දුරට වාර්තා නොවූ අතර, එයින් අදහස් වන්නේ අවසානයේදී බදු ඉහල දැමීමෙන් හෝ සමාජ වැඩසටහන් කප්පාදු කිරීමෙන් යුරෝපීය රාජ්‍යයන්ට යුරෝ බිලියන 150 ක් ආපසු ගෙවීමට සිදුවනු ඇති බවයි.

මේ වසරේ ට්‍රම්ප් බලයට පැමිණීම කෙරෙහි යුරෝපීය අධිරාජ්‍යවාදී බලවතුන්ගේ ප්‍රතිචාරය, නාසීන් යුරෝපය පාලනය කළ දා සිට නොදුටු පරිමානයේ මිලිටරිවාදයේ පිපිරීමකි. යුක්රේනයට මිලිටරි ආධාර නතර කරන බවටත්, යුරෝපයට එක්සත් ජනපද ආරක්ෂක සහතික අත්හිටුවන බවටත් ට්‍රම්ප් තර්ජනය කරද්දී, ස්වාධීනව, යුරෝපය පුරා මහා පරිමාන යුද්ධ කිරීමේ හැකියාව – න්‍යෂ්ටික සන්නද්ධ රුසියාවට එරෙහිව පවා – වර්ධනය කිරීමට ඔවුහු උත්සාහ කළහ.

වොෂින්ටනය සහ එහි යුරෝපීය නේටෝ “සහචරයින්”, ලෝක බලවතුන් අතර දිගහැරෙන වෙලඳපොලවල් හා මූලෝපායික වාසි පිලිබඳ කටුක අරගලයේ එදිරිවාදීන් ය. ට්‍රම්ප් යුක්‍රේනය පිළිබඳ සාකච්ඡාවලින් යුරෝපය කපා හැරීමට උත්සාහ කිරීමෙන් සහ යුක්‍රේනය වොෂින්ටනයට ඩොලර් බිලියන 500 ක දුර්ලභ ඛනිජ අමුද්‍රව්‍ය ලබා දෙන ලෙස බලකර ඉල්ලා සිටීමෙන් පසුව, බ්‍රිතාන්‍යය සහ යුරෝපා සංගමය යුක්‍රේන ඛනිජ කොල්ලකෑමේ තරඟකාරී සැලසුම් දියත් කළහ. යුක්‍රේනය “යුරෝපයට අවශ්‍ය තීරනාත්මක ද්‍රව්‍ය 30න් 21ක්” සපයන “වින්-වින් හවුල්කාරිත්වයක්” සඳහා EU කොමසාරිස් Stéphane Séjourné ඉල්ලා සිටියේය.

යුරෝපයේ යලි සන්නද්ධ කිරීම රුසියාවට හෝ ට්‍රම්ප්ට එරෙහිව ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය ආරක්ෂා කිරීමක් නොව, වෙන කවරදාකටත් වඩා එළිපිටම ආක්‍රමණශීලී, ෆැසිස්ට්වාදී ස්වභාවයක් ගැනීමයි. යුරෝපීය පාලක පන්තියේ ස්ථරයන් තමන් ප්‍රධාන බලවතුන් අතර ගෝලීය යුද්ධයකට සම්බන්ධව නොසිටිනා බවට හෝ ඔවුන්ගේ ආර්ථික හා මිලිටරි අවශ්‍යතා හඹා යාමේ මෙවලමක් ලෙස සමූල ජන සංහාරයේ පිහිට ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කරන බවට හෝ වන දේශපාලන ප්‍රබන්ධයන් අත්හරිමින් සිටිති.

ඉරිදා, එක්සත් රාජධානියේ කොන්සර්වේටිව් පක්ෂයේ නායක කෙමී බඩෙනොක් Sky News හිදී, ඉරානය සහ හමාස් ඉලක්ක කරන බැවින්, බ්‍රිතාන්‍යයට වාසිදායක වේ යැයි කියා, ගාසා තීරයේ ඊශ්‍රායල සමූල ජන සංහාරය නිර්ලජ්ජිත ලෙස ආරක්ෂා කළාය. ඇය තවදුරටත් මෙසේ පැවසුවාය.

“යුක්රේනය බටහිර යුරෝපය වෙනුවෙන් රුසියාවට එරෙහිව සටන් කරනවා සේම ඊශ්‍රායලය එක්සත් රාජධානිය වෙනුවෙන් ප්‍රොක්සි යුද්ධයක් කරමින් සිටී.“

යුරෝපීය යලි සන්නද්ධ කිරීම සඳහා දැන් සූදානම් කර ඇති සමාජ කප්පාදුව මෙන්ම ගාසාවේ සමූල ජන සංහාරය කම්කරුවන් අතර ප්‍රගාඪ කෝපය අවුලුවා ඇත. පුපුරන සුලු පන්ති අරගල න්‍යාය පත්‍රය තුල ඇත. එසේ වෙතත්, තුන්වන ලෝක යුද්ධයක් කරා ඇදවැටීම වැලැක්වීමට නම්, එක් එක් යුරෝපීය රටක් තුල මධ්‍යම පන්තික ව්‍යාජ-වාම පක්ෂවල සහ ඔවුන්ගේ මිත්‍ර වෘත්තීය සමිති නිලධරයන්ගේ ප්‍රතිගාමී උපාමාරු සමඟ තීරනාත්මක දේශපාලන ගනුදෙනු බේරා ගැනීමක් සිදු කළ යුතුය.

ස්ටැලින්වාදයෙන් සහ ට්‍රොට්ස්කිවාදයෙන් පලා ගිය සුලු ධනේශ්වර ද්‍රෝහීන්ගෙන් පැවත එන මෙම බලවේග, යුද්ධ කිරීමේ දී සහ කම්කරු පන්තියේ විරුද්ධත්වය අවහිර කිරීමේ දී ප්‍රධාන භූමිකාවක් ඉටු කරයි. ජර්මනියේ වාම පක්ෂය, කාමී මර්ස් තනතුරට පත් කිරීම සඳහා පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ ප්‍රධාන ඡන්ද ලබා දුන් අතර, ජීන්-ලූක් මෙලන්චොන් විසින් නායකත්වය දෙන ප්‍රංශයේ නව ජනප්‍රිය පෙරමුණ (New Popular Front), යුක්රේනයට ප්‍රංශ හමුදා “සාම සාධක භටයන්” ලෙස යැවීමේ මැක්‍රොන්ගේ සැලැස්ම පසුගිය වසරේ සිය මැතිවරණ වැඩපිළිවෙලේ සටහන් කළේය. ස්පාඤ්ඤයේ Podemos (දැන් Sumar) පක්ෂය සම්බන්ධයෙන් ගත් කල, එය ඉතිහාසයේ ස්පාඤ්ඤයේ විශාලතම මිලිටරි අයවැය සම්මත කරන ආන්ඩුවල අසුන් ගත්තේය.

එපමනක් නොව, මෙම පක්ෂ සහ ඔවුන්ගේ සහචරයෝ ගාසා සමූල ජන සංහාරයට හා යුරෝපයේ කප්පාදුවලට එරෙහි විරෝධතා, පිලිවෙත් වෙනස් කිරීම සදහා අධිරාජ්‍යවාදී ආන්ඩුවලට ආයාචනා කිරීමේ බංකොලොත් ඉදිරිදර්ශනයට ගැටගැසීමට කටයුතු කරති.

මෙම ඉදිරිදර්ශනයේ කුණුකම වසර දෙකකට පෙර යුරෝපීය මහා වර්ජන ව්‍යාපාරය තුල ඔවුන්ගේ භූමිකාව මගින් පෙන්නුම් කෙරුනි. ජර්මනිය, බ්‍රිතාන්‍යය, ප්‍රංශය, තුර්කිය සහ යුරෝපය පුරා උද්ධමනය හා කප්පාදුවලට එරෙහිව මිලියන ගනනක් කම්කරුවන් වැඩ වර්ජනය කරද්දී, හතරවන ජාත්‍යන්තරයේ ජාත්‍යන්තර කමිටුවේ (හජාජාක) යුරෝපීය ශාඛා නැගී එන ව්‍යාපාරය පිලිබඳ ප්‍රකාශයක් නිකුත් කලේය. “මහා වැඩ වර්ජන ව්‍යාපාරය, යුද්ධය සහ යුරෝපයේ විප්ලවවාදී අර්බුදය” [The mass strike movement, war and the revolutionary crisis in Europe, 2023 පෙබරවාරි 10] යන මාතෘකාවෙන් එය පැහැදිලි කලේ:

“දිග හැරෙමින් පවතින්නේ එක් හෝ වෙනත් ධනේශ්වර ආන්ඩුවක් සමග හුදකලා සාකච්ඡා මගින් විසඳා ගත හැකි ජාතික වෘත්තීය සමිති අරගල මාලාවක් නොවේ. ඒ වෙනුවට, කම්කරුවන් සෑම රටකම සමාන ඉල්ලීම් මතු කරමින්, අපකීර්තියට හා පුලුල්ව පිළිකුලට පාත්‍ර කරන ලද ආන්ඩුවල පොලිස් මර්දනයන් හා නීතිමය තර්ජනවලට මුහුණ දෙන බැවින්, එය ජාත්‍යන්තර දේශපාලන අරගලයකි. …

යුරෝපය පුරා මතුවෙමින් පවතින්නේ වෛෂයිකව විප්ලවවාදී තත්වයකි. ශතවර්ෂයකට පෙර පළමු ලෝක සංග්‍රාමය පුපුරා යාමේදී මෙන් විකල්ප පැහැදිලිවම ඉදිරිපත් ව ඇත. එක්කෝ ධනේශ්වර පන්තිය යුරෝපය හා ලෝකය න්‍යෂ්ටික සන්නද්ධ රාජ්‍යයන් අතර ගෝලීය යුද්ධයකට ඇද දමයි, නැතහොත් කම්කරු පන්තිය යුදවාදී පාලක ප්‍රභූව අතින් බලය ලබා ගනී.”

කෙසේ වෙතත්, වැඩ වර්ජන ඒකාකාරව පාවා දෙනු හෝ දේශපාලනික වශයෙන් ගෙල සිර කර දමනු ලැබිණි. වැඩි කරන ලද මිලිටරි වියදම් වලට අරමුදල් සැපයීම සඳහා පිලිකුල් කෙරුණු විශ්‍රාම වැටුප් කප්පාදුවලට එරෙහිව ප්‍රංශයේ සිදු වූ මහා වැඩ වර්ජන වලදී තරම් වෙන කොතැනකවත් මෙය පැහැදිලිව නොදිස් වුණි.

මිලියන සංඛ්‍යාත කම්කරුවන් වැඩ වර්ජනවල නිරත වූ අතර, 1968 මැයි මහා වැඩ වර්ජනයෙන් පසු ප්‍රංශයේ ඇති වූ දැවැන්තම දේශපාලන අර්බුදය තුල රටපුරා කැරලි ඇවිල ගියේය. එහෙත් මැක්‍රොන් පහ කිරීම සඳහා දේශපාලන අරගලයක් සඳහා වූ කිසිදු ඉල්ලීමක් මෙලෙන්චොන් මගහැරී අතර, අතිමහත් මහජන විරෝධය උල්ලංඝණය කරමින් කප්පාදු කිරීම් ප්‍රකාශයට පත් කිරීමෙන් පසු වෘත්තීය සමිති නිලධරයන් වැඩ වර්ජන සහ විරෝධතා වහාම අවසන් කළහ. පසුගිය වසර දෙක තුළ ප්‍රංශයේ සහ යුරෝපය පුරා මිලිටරි වියදම් වාර්තාගත ලෙස වැඩි කිරීම සඳහා ඔවුන් මෙසේ වේදිකාව සැකසූහ.

යුරෝපීය අධිරාජ්‍යවාදය ඊටත් වඩා දැවැන්ත යලි සන්නද්ධ කිරීමේ ධාවනයක් දියත් කරද්දී, අද දින එවැනිම ව්‍යාපාර න්‍යාය පත්‍රයට ඇතුල් වී ඇත. නමුත් පාඩම් උකහා ගත යුතුය. පන්ති අරගලය මත ව්‍යාජ වාම බලවේගවල ග්‍රහණය බිඳ දැමිය යුතුය. මෙයින් අදහස් කරන්නේ පළමුවෙන්ම, ජාත්‍යන්තරව පන්ති අරගල සම්බන්ධීකරණය කිරීම සඳහා, නිලධරයේ කඩාකප්පල්කාරී ක්‍රියාවලින් ස්වාධීනව, කම්කරුවන් හා තරුනයින් අතර ක්‍රියාකාරී කමිටු ගොඩ නැගීම හා ජන සංහාරයට, ෆැසිස්ට්වාදයට හා යුද්ධයට එරෙහිව වඩාත් පුලුල්, අඛණ්ඩ බලමුලු ගැන්වීමක් ගොඩනැගීමයි.

සියල්ලටත් වඩා, එහි අර්ථය වන්නේ, එවන් අරගලයක අවසානය ලෝක සමාජවාදී විප්ලවයක් තුල කම්කරු පන්තියට බලය පැවරීම අවශ්‍ය වන බවට වන විඥානයෙන් කම්කරුවන් හා තරුනයන් සංතෘප්ත කිරීම සඳහා දේශපාලන ව්‍යාපාරයක් ගොඩනැගීමයි. එවන් ව්‍යාපාරයක ජීව රුධිරය වන්නේ ස්ටැලින්වාදයට සහ සියලු ආකාරයේ ජාතික අවස්ථාවාදයට ජාත්‍යන්තර කමිටුවේ (ICFI) සමනය කළ නොහැකි විරුද්ධත්වය සහ ට්‍රොට්ස්කිවාදය ආරක්ෂා කිරීමේ නොබිඳුණු අඛණ්ඩ පැවැත්මයි.

යුරෝපීය ප්‍රතිසන්නද්ධ කිරීමට එරෙහි වන්න! Read More »

Germany’s Social Democrats and conservatives elect Merz as Chancellor, sign reactionary coalition agreement

Democratic Rights, english, Far Right, Fascism, News, politics, politics & economics, War / May 7, 2025

By Johannes Stern.

On Tuesday afternoon, Friedrich Merz (CDU) was elected in the second round of voting and subsequently appointed as the new German Chancellor by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD).

Merz had initially failed in the first ballot—a unique occurrence in German post-war history. With 621 MPs present, Merz was six votes short of the required majority of 316 votes to become Chancellor: 310 MPs voted for him, 307 against him, there were three abstentions, and one vote was invalid. Nine MPs did not take part in the vote.

Merz’s unexpected non-election had caused feverish nervousness in all Bundestag parties. In the end, the Bundestag parties agreed to schedule a second round of voting on the same day.

Shortly before the vote, the notoriously right-wing CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn announced that a new ballot would be held with the agreement of the CDU/CSU, SPD, Green and Left Party parliamentary groups. The whole of Europe, perhaps even the whole world, was watching this election. He then thanked everyone who had made a second round of voting possible so quickly.

The role of the Left Party and the Greens as essentially right-wing parties of the state could not be clearer: in the face of a looming political crisis in Berlin, they played a key role in installing Merz and paving the way for his extreme right-wing government.

The Merz government heralds a new stage in the rightward evolution of the ruling class. It is undoubtedly the most reactionary and anti-working class government since the fall of the Nazi regime 80 years ago. Its central aim is to remove the last restraints imposed on German militarism as a result of its unprecedented crimes in the Second World War. With the adoption of war credits amounting to €1 trillion on March 18, the Bundestag has already paved the way for a massive military build-up.

The coalition government of the CDU/Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) will not only rearm like Hitler. It will organise a historic onslaught on social spending to finance rearmament and establish a police state to enforce it against the enormous opposition among the population. Domestically, it will also adopt the refugee policy of the fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and help the fascists’ nationalistically charged “cultural policy” achieve a breakthrough.

Leading members of the government, such as Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and State Secretary for Culture Wolfram Weimer, are politically far to the right and could easily be members of the AfD. Chancellor Merz himself embodies the interests of the financial oligarchy like no other. For four years, he headed the German branch of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.

The SPD, which was founded more than 150 years ago under the banner of Marxism, is now the organiser of this shift to the right as a right-wing state party. Yesterday, it announced that Boris Pistorius (SPD) will remain Minister of Defense under Merz. Pistorius personifies the “new era” in foreign policy ushered in by SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who received a farewell at a militaristic spectacle on Monday evening. Pistorius has set himself the goal of making Germany “fit for war” again and preparing it for a direct war against the nuclear-armed power Russia.

Party leader Lars Klingbeil takes over as Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister. In this role, he will ensure that the costs of horrendous military spending and escalating global trade wars are borne by the working population. He will work closely with the new SPD Labor Minister Bärbel Bas, who, as a nominal “party leftist,” will push through the brutal cuts in close cooperation with the trade unions.

The coalition agreement signed yesterday reflects the reactionary personnel of the new government. The focus is on war policy and the comprehensive militarisation of society. The following goals, among others, are mentioned:

Dominance over Europe and a role for German imperialism as a world power

In the coalition agreement, the CDU/CSU and SPD define the entire globe as a zone of influence for German imperialism. According to the agreement, the German government is striving for an Africa policy that “does justice to the strategic importance of Africa,” declares that the “Indo-Pacific region” is “of elementary interest” and announces that it intends to “continue to show a presence in the region.” The “expansion of strategic partnerships with the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean” is also “of particular importance.” Overall, the aim is to “intensify bilateral relations with the countries of the Global South and expand them into a global network.”

As in the past, this global power politics means German support for genocide and war. The coalition declares the “security of Israel” to be a “fundamental German national security interest”—in the midst of the genocide committed by the far-right Netanyahu regime against the Palestinian population. At the same time, it assures the Islamist forces in Syria of support “in the stabilisation and economic reconstruction of the country”—in order to gain geopolitical influence and deport refugees.

With regard to the war against Russia, the coalition agreement announces that “military, civilian and political support for Ukraine will be substantially strengthened and reliably continued together with partners.” Germany must “for the first time since the end of the Second World War … be in a position to guarantee its own security to a much greater extent.” Germany will assume “a leading role” in the further development of the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP).

Militarisation of schools and universities

“We are anchoring our Bundeswehr [Armed Forces] even more firmly in public life and are committed to strengthening the role of youth officers, who fulfil an important educational mission in schools,” it says on page 130 in the section on “Defence policy.” It continues: “We are committed to dismantling obstacles that impede dual-use research or civil-military research cooperation, for example.” We will “eliminate the deficit that exists in Germany in the area of strategic security research and advocate its promotion in the sense of a networked understanding of security.”

Reintroduction of compulsory military service

“We are creating a new, attractive military service that is initially based on voluntary service,” explain the coalition partners. The design of this service will be based on “the criteria of attractiveness, meaningfulness and contribution to the ability to grow.” In doing so, “the Swedish military service model” is being used as a guide and “the conditions for military registration and monitoring will be created this year.”

Development of a war economy and massive armaments industry

The planning and procurement system will be “reformed” and “new implementation paths” will be enforced for major projects and future technologies. In particular, “future technologies for the Bundeswehr” are to be promoted, including “satellite systems, artificial intelligence, unmanned (also combat-capable) systems, electronic warfare, cyber, software-defined defence and cloud applications as well as hypersonic systems.” This requires “simplified access and increased exchange with research institutions, the academic sector, start-ups and industry.”

The “special infrastructure fund” of €500 billion is also designed to prepare for war. “We are simplifying the definition of requirements and approval for military construction projects and creating exemptions in construction, environmental and public procurement law as well as in the protection and dedication of military land with a Federal Armed Forces Infrastructure Acceleration Act,” it says on page 132. The “concerns and infrastructure measures for overall defence” are to be “established as an overriding public interest and prioritised in implementation over other state tasks.”

The historic rearmament and war policy will be financed by equally historic attacks on the working class. “We will make a considerable contribution to consolidation in this legislative period,” it says in the section on “budget consolidation.” The agreement only mentions a few specific measures—such as cutting citizens’ benefits—but the role model is clear: the US, where the Trump regime is ruthlessly cutting social spending in the interests of the financial oligarchy and destroying all existing social rights.

The deeply anti-worker policy of the new federal government is based on the support of all Bundestag (Federal Parliament) parties. The Greens provided the CDU/CSU and SPD with the necessary two-thirds majority in the Bundestag to pass the war credits. The Left Party backed it in the Bundesrat (Federal Council). And the trade unions are also firmly on the side of the government. They reaffirmed their loyalty to the rearmament course and worked systematically in recent weeks to isolate the wage struggles at the post office, in the public sector and at the Berlin Transport Company, and to prevent a joint all-out strike by the working class.

The broad support for militarism and social spending cuts by all Bundestag parties and trade unions shows that the struggle against fascism, war and social inequality can only be waged through the independent mobilisation of the working class. In its statement on the formation of the government, the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) therefore called for “the establishment of rank-and-file committees in workplaces and neighbourhoods that will allow workers to take the fight against mass redundancies and wage cuts into their own hands and combine it with the fight against war.”

The statement continues:

We counterpose the international unity of the workers to the growth of nationalism, trade war and rearmament. The war can only be stopped and social and democratic rights can only be defended if capitalism itself is abolished and replaced by a socialist society in which people’s needs, not profit interests, take centre stage. The big banks and corporations must be expropriated and placed under democratic control.

This article was originally published in the World Socialist Web Site Here

Germany’s Social Democrats and conservatives elect Merz as Chancellor, sign reactionary coalition agreement Read More »

ඉදිරිදර්ශන: ට්‍රම්ප්ගේ ආඥාදායකත්වය නවත්වන්න! සමාජවාදය සඳහා කම්කරු පන්තියේ ව්‍යාපාරයක් ගොඩනඟන්න!

class struggles, Democratic Rights, Fascism, News, politics, politics & economics, War / April 17, 2025

සමාජවාදී සමානතා පක්ෂය (එක්සත් ජනපදය) විසිනි.

මෙහි පලවන්නේ ලෝක සමාජවාදී වෙබ් අඩවියේ 2025 අප්‍රේල් 04 දින “Stop Trump’s dictatorship! Build a movement of the working class for socialism!” යන හිසින් යුතුව එක්සත් ජනපද සමාජවාදී සමානතා පක්ෂ්ජය විසින් ලියන ලද ඉදිරිදර්ශන ලිපියේ සිංහල පරිවර්තනය යි.

එක්සත් ජනපදය පුරා, ට්‍රම්ප් පරිපාලනයට එරෙහිව ලක්ෂ ගණනක් සෙනසුරාදා පෙලපාලි යනු ඇතැයි අපේක්ෂා කෙරේ. කම්කරුවන් හා තරුනයන් අතර විරෝධයේ සහ කෝපයේ පුලුල් මනෝභාවයක කොටසක් වන විරෝධතා රට පුරා නගරවල පැවැත්වේ.

සංක්‍රමණිකයන්ට එල්ල කරන ප්‍රහාර, ප්‍රකාශනයේ නිදහසට එරෙහි ප්‍රහාරය සහ ගාසා තීරයේ ජන සංහාරක යුද්ධයෙන් මිලියන ගනනක් කම්පනයට පත්ව සිටින අතර ඔවුන්ට ආපිට හැරී සටන් කිරීමට අවශ්‍ය වේ. නමුත් සිදුවෙමින් පවතින දේ, එහි මූලාරම්භය සහ එය නැවැත්වීමට කුමක් කළ යුතුද යන්න පිළිබඳ පැහැදිලි අවබෝධයකින් ප්‍රතිරෝධය දැක්වීමේ අධිෂ්ඨානය මෙහෙයවිය යුතුය.

පවත්නා තත්වය අතිශය පැහැදිලිකමකින් ප්‍රකාශ කළ යුතුය: ට්‍රම්ප් පරිපාලනය ඒකාධිපතිත්වයක් ස්ථාපිත කිරීමට ක්‍රමානුකූලව සහ හිතාමතාම ගමන් කරයි. එය මූලික ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී අයිතීන් අහෝසි කිරීම, අපාලිත විධායක බලය තහවුරු කිරීම සහ සියලූ විරුද්ධත්වයන් තලා දැමීම ඉලක්ක කරගත් ෆැසිස්ට්වාදී වැඩපිලිවෙලක් ක්‍රියාත්මක කරයි. මෙය ඉලක්ක කරන්නේ, සියල්ලටත් වඩා, කම්කරු පන්තියයි. ශිෂ්‍යයන් සහ සංක්‍රමණිකයන් මත අද පරීක්‍ෂා කෙරෙන දේ හෙට භාවිතා කරනුයේ වැඩ වර්ජන කරන කම්කරුවන්, සියලු සමාජ විරුද්ධත්වය සහ සියලු ආකාරයේ දේශපාලන විසම්මුතිය මර්දනය කිරීමට ය.

රට පුරා විශ්ව විද්‍යාල මණ්ඩපවල දැනටමත් භීෂණ පාලනයක් ක්‍රියාත්මක වෙමින් පවතී. ගාසා තීරයේ එක්සත් ජනපදයේ පිටුබලය ලබන ජන සංහාරයට විරුද්ධ වීම නිසා සාමකාමී විරෝධතාකරුවන් අවේක්ෂණයට (සෝදිසි කිරීමට) ලක් කර, අල්ලා ගෙන, රඳවා තබා ගෙන පිටුවහල් කරනු ලැබේ. AI බලයෙන් ක්‍රියාත්මක වන නිරීක්ෂණ වැඩසටහනක් වන “Catch and Revoke” යටතේ සිසුන්ගේ සමාජ මාධ්‍ය පළ කිරීම් සහ ප්‍රසිද්ධ ප්‍රකාශ, රටින් ඉවත් කිරීම සඳහා ඉලක්ක හඳුනා ගැනීම පිණිස රාජ්‍ය දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව විසින් අධීක්ෂණය කරනු ලැබේ.

කෝර්නල් විශ්ව විද්‍යාලයේ Ph.D. උපාධි අපේක්ෂක මොහමඩ් ටාල්ට, ට්‍රම්ප්ගේ විධායක නියෝග උසාවියේදී අභියෝගයට ලක් කිරීම නිසාවෙන් ෆෙඩරල් නියෝජිතයන් ඔහු අල්ලා ගැනීමට උත්සාහ කිරීමෙන් පසු මේ සතියේ රට හැර යාමට සිදුවිය. කොලොම්බියාවේ උපාධි ශිෂ්‍යයෙකු සහ නීත්‍යානුකූල ස්ථිර පදිංචිකරුවෙකු වන මහමුද් ඛලීල් ICE (ආගමන හා රේගු බලාධිකාරය) විසින් අත් අඩංගුවට ගෙන ඇත. ෆුල්බ්‍රයිට් ශිෂ්‍යත්වලාභී රුමේෂා ඔස්ටර්ක් (Rumeysa Öztürk) ඇතුළු තවත් අය – වෙස්මුහුණු පැලඳ ගත් ෆෙඩරල් නියෝජිතයන් විසින් මහ දවල් පැහැරගෙන ගොස් ඇත.

ට්‍රම්ප් පරිපාලනය, සමූහ වශයෙන් පිටුවහල් කිරීම සහ දේශපාලන විරුද්ධවාදීන් නෙරපා හැරීම සඳහා මින් පෙර කිසි දිනෙක මේ අයුරු භාවිතා නොකළ යුද කාලීන ප්‍රඥප්තියක් වන විදේශ සතුරන්ගේ පනත (Alien Enemies Ac) ක්‍රියාත්මක කර ඇත. උසාවි තීන්දු නොතකා හැරීමට, පවතින නීති අභිබවා යාමට සහ ජනාධිපතිවරයාට අසීමිත විධායක බලය ලබා දීමට, තමන්ට අධිකාරය ඇතැයි පරිපාලනය ස්ථිරවමු කියා සිටී. ගොඩ නගමින් තිබෙන නෛතික රාමුව ආදර්ශයට ගනු ලබන්නේ ‘අයිතීන් පිළිබඳ පනත’ (Bill of Rights) නොව, රජු නැතහොත් පාලකයා, ස්ථිර “ව්‍යතිරේක තත්ත්වයක්” (“state of exception”) හරහා පාලනය කරන බව අවධාරනය කළ නාසි නීතිවේදියෙකු වන කාල් ෂ්මිට්ගේ අධිකාරීවාදී න්‍යායන් මත ය.

ලක්ෂ ගනනක් ෆෙඩරල් කම්කරුවන් දොට්ට දැමීම, සමාජ වැඩසටහන් විනාශ කිරීම, රාජ්‍ය අධ්‍යාපනය විසුරුවා හැරීම, කම්කරුවන්ගේ කොන්ත්‍රාත්තු ඉරා දැමීම සහ “අකීකරු” කම්කරුවන් ඉලක්ක කර ගැනීම සඳහා ෆෙඩරල් ඒජන්තයන්ගේ බලතල පුලුල් කිරීම වැනි පියවර ගනිමින් පාලක පන්තිය කම්කරු පන්තියට එරෙහිව යුද්ධයක් ගෙන යයි. විද්‍යාව සහ මහජන සෞඛ්‍යය සම්බන්ධයෙන් ගත් කල, දැනට පවතින COVID-19 වසංගතය සහ H5N1 “කුරුළු උණ” වසංගතයේ වර්ධනය වන තර්ජනය මධ්‍යයේ සියලුම සෞඛ්‍ය හා මානව සේවා ආයතන වසා දැමීමේ වගකීම එන්නත් විරෝධී කුමන්ත්‍රණවාදී න්‍යායාචාර්ය රොබට් එෆ් කෙනඩි කනිෂ්ඨ (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) වෙත පැවරී ඇත.

ජාත්‍යන්තරව, ට්‍රම්ප් පරිපාලනය ලෝක යුද්ධයට සූදානම් වෙමින් සිටී. බ්‍රහස්පතින්දා, එය සමස්ත ලෝකයටම එරෙහි ආර්ථික යුද්ධයක් ප්‍රකාශ කිරීමක් බදු, නව විශාල තීරුබදු ප්‍රකාශයට පත් කළේය. “මේඩ් ඉන් ඇමෙරිකා” යන ධජය යටතේ මෙම පියවර, චීනය අඩපණ කිරීමට හා එක්සත් ජනපද අධිරාජ්‍යවාදී අවශ්‍යතා සමග පෙලගැසීමට සෑම රටකටම බල කිරීම අරමුනු කර ඇත. ඒවා ගෝලීය ගැටුම් තීව්‍ර කරන අතර විදේශයන්හි පමනක් නොව එක්සත් ජනපදය තුලම, දොට්ට දැමීම් අවුළුවාලමින් උද්ධමනය සහ කම්කරු පන්තිය මත ගැඹුරු වන ප්‍රහාර දියත් කරමින් දැවැන්ත ආර්ථික හා සමාජ අවුල් කිරීමක් ඇති කරනු ඇත .

බිඩෙන් යටතේ ආරම්භ වූ ගාසා තීරයේ වාර්ගික ශුද්ධ කිරීම “අවසන් කිරීමට”, යේමනය “විනාශ කර දැමීමට”, ග්‍රීන්ලන්තය, කැනඩාව සහ පැනමා ඇළ ඈඳා ගැනීමට සහ චීනයට එරෙහිව පූර්ණ යුද්ධය දියත් කිරීමට ට්‍රම්ප් ප්‍රතිඥා දී ඇත. 1917 රුසියානු ඔක්තෝබර් විප්ලවයේ ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨ සම නායක ලියොන් ට්‍රොට්ස්කි අධිරාජ්‍යවාදී අර්බුදයේ පූර්ව අවධියක දී පැහැදිලි කල පරිදි, ලෝකය මුහුන දී සිටින්නේ “ඇමරිකානු අධිරාජ්‍යවාදයේ ගිනිකඳුමය පිපිරීමට” ය.

මේ අතර, ට්‍රම්ප්, මස්ක්, බෙසෝස් සහ සෙසු බිලියනපතියන් වංචා, අභ්‍යන්තර ගනුදෙනු ( insider dealing) සහ විවෘත සොරකම් හරහා ධනවත් වී ඇත. වෝල් ස්ට්‍රීට් යනු අපරාධ කාටලයකි. මේ රටේ දේශපාලන, ආර්ථික, සංස්කෘතික යන සෑම ආයතනයක්ම ඇතුළතින් කුණුවෙමින් පවතී. පාලක ප්‍රභූව ප්‍රතිගාමිත්වයේ ගැඹුර සොයමින් සිටී.

කම්කරුවන් හා තරුනයින් මුහුන දෙන හදිසි ප්‍රශ්නය නම්: කළ යුත්තේ කුමක් ද? යන්නයි.

ට්‍රම්ප් යනු ක්‍රමයට පිටින් ක්‍රියා කරන ආගන්තුක බලවේගයක් නොවන බව මුලින්ම තේරුම් ගත යුතුය. ඔහු ඇමරිකානු ධනවාදයේ නිෂ්පාදනයක් වන අතර, ඔහු කතා කරන්නේ තම ධනය හා බලය ඕනෑම ආකාරයකින් පවත්වා ගැනීමට අධිෂ්ඨාන කරගෙන සිටින පාලක පන්තියක් වෙනුවෙන් ය. ට්‍රම්ප් කියන්නේ කොහේවත් සිට ප්‍රාදූර්භූත වූ යකෙකු නොවෙයි. ඔහු ඇමරිකානු සමාජයේ (යථා) ස්වභාවයට අනුරූප වන පරිදි දේශපාලනය ප්‍රචණ්ඩ ලෙස ප්‍රතිව්‍යුහගත කරන කතිපයාධිකාරයේ පුද්ගලාරෝපණය වේ.

ඩිමොක්‍රටික් පක්ෂය විපක්ෂය නොවේ – එය සිය කැමැත්තෙන්ම හවුල්කරුවෙකි. ගාසා තීරයේ එක්සත් ජනපදයේ පිටුබලය ලබන ඊශ්‍රායල ජන සංහාරය ආරම්භ වූයේ බිඩෙන් යටතේ ය. ශිෂ්‍ය විරෝධතාකරුවන්ට හිංසා පීඩා කිරීම ආරම්භ වූයේ බිඩෙන් යටතේ ය. ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී අයිතීන්ට එරෙහි ප්‍රහාර ගැඹුරු කිරීමට ට්‍රම්ප් පරිපාලනයට මුදල් සපයමින් රිපබ්ලිකානුවන්ගේ ‘අඛණ්ඩ යෝජනාව’ (continuing resolution- අතුරැ අයවැය) සම්මත කිරීම සහතික කළේ ඩිමොක්‍රටිකයෝ ය.

කමලා හැරිස් ට්‍රම්ප්ව ෆැසිස්ට්වාදියෙකු ලෙස විවෘතව හැඳින්වීමෙන් වැඩි කල් නොගොස්ම, බිඩෙන් ට්‍රම්ප්ට “සාර්ථකත්වය” ප්‍රාර්ථනා කරමින් ධවල මන්දිරයට පිළිගත්තේය. ඩිමොක්‍රටිකයෝ ට්‍රම්ප්ගේ ආඥාදායකත්වයට විරුද්ධ වීම ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කරන්නේ ඔවුන් එහි මූලික අරමුනු සමග එකඟ වන බැවිනි: ඇමරිකානු අධිරාජ්‍යවාදය ආරක්ෂා කිරීම, සමාජ විරෝධය යටපත් කිරීම සහ වෝල් වීදියේ ආධිපත්‍යය පවත්වා ගැනීම. ඩිමොක්‍රටික් පක්ෂය යනු මූල්‍ය ප්‍රාග්ධනයේ, මිලිටරි-ඔත්තු සේවා යාන්ත්‍රිකයේ, සීඅයිඒ සහ පෙන්ටගනයේ සහ ඉහළ මධ්‍යම පන්තියේ වරප්‍රසාදිත කොටස්වල පක්ෂයකි. එහි ප්‍රධාන උත්සුකය වන්නේ ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය නොව එක්සත් ජනපද ගෝලීය ආධිපත්‍යය රැක ගැනීම සහ යුක්රේනයේ රුසියාවට එරෙහි යුද්ධයයි.

ඩිමොක්‍රටික් පක්ෂයට ආයාචනා කිරීමෙන් ට්‍රම්ප් නතර කළ නොහැක. ට්‍රම්ප්ගේ ජාතිකවාදී ආර්ථික යුද ප්‍රතිපත්ති වැලඳ ගන්නා ගමන්ම, “ඔබේ කොන්ග්‍රස් සභිකයාට ලියන්න” යන ඉල්ලීම් සමඟ, සමූහ රැකියා අහෝසි කිරීම් වලට ප්‍රතිචාර දක්වා ඇති වෘත්තීය සමිති යන්ත්‍රය විසින් ප්‍රවර්ධනය කරන ලද පුහු ප්‍රයෝග සහ සංකේත අභිනයන් හරහා ඔහුට විරෝධයක් දැක්විය හැකි නොවනු ඇත. බර්නි සෑන්ඩර්ස් සහ ඇලෙක්සැන්ඩ්‍රියා ඔකාසියෝ-කෝර්ටෙස් වැනියවුන් අප විශ්වාස ගැන්වීමට උත්සාහ කරන කරන පරිදි, බංකොලොත් පද්ධතියක වාටියේ කූරු ගෑම පිළිබඳ කාරණයක් ද නොවේ. ඔවුන්ගේ කාර්යභාරය වන්නේ විරුද්ධත්වය සමනය කිරීම සහ එය ඩිමොක්‍රටික් පක්ෂයේ රාමුව තුළ තබා ගැනීමයි.

අවශ්‍ය වන්නේ, ෆැසිස්ට්වාදයේ තර්ජනය පැන නගින්නේ ධනේශ්වර ක්‍රමයේම බිඳවැටීමෙන් බවට පැහැදිලි අවබෝධයකින් මෙහෙයවනු ලබන කම්කරු පන්තියේ මහජන විප්ලවවාදී ව්‍යාපාරයකි.

මෙම සටන ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී අයිතීන් ආරක්ෂා කිරීමේ සැබෑ ජන කොට්ඨාශය වන වන කම්කරු පන්තිය තුලට ගෙන යා යුතුය. ආඥාදායකත්වයට එරෙහි සටන, බලය ලබා ගැනීමේ, ධනවාදය අහෝසි කිරීමේ සහ සමාජවාදය ස්ථාපිත කිරීමේ වැඩපිලිවෙලකින් සන්නද්ධ කම්කරු පන්තියේ මහජන දේශපාලන ව්‍යාපාරයක් බවට පත්විය යුතුය.

සමාජවාදී සමානතා පක්ෂය කම්කරුවන් හා තරුනයින්ගෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටින්නේ වැඩවර්ජන හා පෙලපාලි ඇතුලු මහජන ප්‍රතිරෝධය බලමුලු ගැන්වීම සඳහා කම්හල්, සේවා ස්ථාන සහ අසල්වැසි ප්‍රදේශවල ක්‍රියාකාරී කමිටු ගොඩනගන ලෙසයි. ධනේශ්වර කතිපයාධිකාරය විසින් කම්කරු පන්තියට එල්ල කරන දැවැන්ත ප්‍රහාරයට එරෙහිව සැබෑ අරගලයක් ගෙන යාම සඳහා වෘත්තීය සමිති නිලධරයන්ගෙන් ස්වාධීනව සම්බන්ධීකෘත සංවිධාන ජාලයක්- ක්‍රියාකාරී කමිටු වල ජාත්‍යන්තර කම්කරු සන්ධානය (IWA-RFC) වර්ධනය කරයි.

සසප සටන් කරන්නේ මෙම නැගී එන ව්‍යාපාරය සමාජවාදී හා ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදී වැඩපිලිවෙලකින් සහ ඉදිරිදර්ශනයකින් සන්නද්ධ කිරීමට ය. ආඥාදායකත්වයට එරෙහි අරගලය මූල්‍ය කතිපයාධිකාරයට හා ධනවාදයට ම එරෙහි අරගලයෙන් වෙන් කළ නොහැකි ය. මෙම කතිපයාධිකාරයේ ධනය උදුරා ගත යුතු අතර සමාජ අවශ්‍යතා සහ සමානාත්මතාවයේ පදනම මත සමාජය ප්‍රතිසංවිධානය කළ යුතුය.

ෆැසිස්ට්වාදයට, යුද්ධයට හා ආඥාදායකත්වයට එරෙහි සටන ජාතික දේශසීමාවල සීමාවන් තුළ ගෙන යා නොහැක. ධනේශ්වර පද්ධතියේ ගෝලීය ස්වභාවයට ජාත්‍යන්තර මූලෝපායක් අවශ්‍ය වේ. ලොව පුරා පාලක පන්තිය ෆැසිස්ට්වාදය, ආඥාදායකත්වය සහ යුද්ධය වෙත හැරෙමින් තිබේ. ඒ අතරම, එක්සත් ජනපදයේ සිට ජර්මනිය දක්වා, ප්‍රංශයේ සිට ශ්‍රී ලංකාව දක්වා සෑම රටකම වැඩෙන විරෝධතා සහ වැඩවර්ජන රැල්ලක් මතුවෙමින් තිබේ. කම්කරු පන්තිය ජාත්‍යන්තර පන්තියක් වන අතර එහි අරගල සියලු ජාතික, ජන වාර්ගික හා වාර්ගික රේඛා හරහා එක්සත් විය යුතුය.

පාලක පන්තියට සැලැස්මක් ඇත: ඒකාධිපතිත්වය, යුද්ධය සහ මර්දනය. කම්කරු පන්තියට ද සැලැස්මක් තිබිය යුතුය: බලය ලබා ගැනීම, ධනවාදය අවසන් කිරීම සහ සැබෑ ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය, ආර්ථික සැලසුම් කිරීම සහ අධිරාජ්‍යවාදී යුද්ධය අවසන් කිරීම මත පදනම් වූ සමාජවාදී අනාගතයක් ගොඩනැගීම.

සමාජවාදී සමානතා පක්ෂයේ හා එහි තරුන ව්‍යාපාරය වන සමාජ සමානතාව සඳහා ජාත්‍යන්තර තරුනයෝ සහ ශිෂ්‍යයෝ (සසජාතශි) වැඩපිලිවෙල එයයි. මේ සටන අතට ගන්න. සසප හා සසජාතශි සමග එකතු වන්න! ඒකාධිපතිත්වය නැවැත්වීමට, යුද්ධය අවසන් කිරීමට සහ පුද්ගලික ලාභය මත නොව මානව අවශ්‍යතා මත සමාජය ප්‍රතිසංවිධානය කිරීමට අවශ්‍ය විප්ලවවාදී නායකත්වය ගොඩනගන්න.

ඉදිරිදර්ශන: ට්‍රම්ප්ගේ ආඥාදායකත්වය නවත්වන්න! සමාජවාදය සඳහා කම්කරු පන්තියේ ව්‍යාපාරයක් ගොඩනඟන්න! Read More »

The Myth of Common Guilt: ‘Rani‘ as Perversion of Truth in the Form of Art

art & culture, art and culture, class struggles, Democratic Rights, english, Fascism, history, lead article, politics, politics & economics / April 13, 2025

By Sanjaya Jayasekera.

In “My Thoughts on Handagama’s Rani,” published in Daily FT on March 28¹, Jagath Weerasinghe—artist, archaeologist, and cultural commentator—extends, rationalises, and legitimises the central reactionary thesis of Asoka Handagama’s recent film Rani. This is a film whose underlying narrative, presented in the guise of artistic subtlety and aesthetic ambiguity, represents a deeply ideological falsification of history. Weerasinghe’s endorsement of the director’s central proposition²—reproduced in Sinhala translation in Anidda on March 30 by Vidura Munasinghe—is emblematic of a broader trend among the middle-class intelligentsia and the pseudo-left, who serve as ideological apologists for the crimes of the capitalist state.

The core thesis promoted by both Weerasinghe and the film is that the atrocities carried out during the 1988–90 period—enforced disappearances, state death squads, mass graves, torture camps, and extrajudicial killings, as well as the fascistic violence perpetrated by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)—were not the products of concrete political decisions, class interests, and specific agencies of state and party power. Instead, they were the result of a society in which “violence had become systemic and normalised.” Weerasinghe writes: authoritarian regimes perpetuate brutality “for political gain and self-preservation, creating an environment where violence is not only carried out by those in power but is also internalised, accepted, and even participated in by ordinary citizens. In such a climate, even those with moral integrity can find themselves complicit—whether through silence, fear, or the gradual erosion of ethical boundaries.”

This pseudo-sociological claim—that violence was embedded in the very fabric of society and was collectively enacted by the masses—leads to a profoundly reactionary conclusion: that there is a shared moral guilt for the crimes of the period, borne by everyone, without any class distinction. Rani—the eponymous protagonist, who is portrayed as initially a passive observer of the surrounding terror but who gradually becomes emotionally and psychologically implicated—and every other defenseless rural man and woman, the worker, the unemployed youth, who were terrorized for their lives both by the fascism of the JVP and by state repression, are depicted as responsible for and willing participants in the atrocities.

Was this culpability moral, political, or both? While Weerasinghe leaves no doubt that he intends to assign moral culpability to the masses—an implication clearly shared by the director—this vulgar theory leaves the spectator wondering who bears political accountability. That is precisely the issue at hand. The film and its director’s apologetics place the blame on the “ordinary” masses. Political responsibility follows moral culpability. Consequently, the oppressed are identified with the oppressor, giving rise to a vision of a society that is hopeless, anarchic, and devoid of historical or scientific grounding. This approach is crudely ahistorical, impressionistic, and unscientific—and it serves a definite class interest.

The capitalist state agents of terror, its political leadership, the military-intelligence apparatus, and the misdirected cadre of the JVP are equated, and these contradictory forces are placed on the same grounds as the poor and the working people, constituting a homogeneous society of “ordinary citizens.” They are all morally and indiscriminately dissolved into an amorphous, classless “we.” The final anecdote of the film, which Weerasinghe refers to, is founded upon this proposition and leads to the conclusion that the director wanted the viewers of his film to read into as the alternative narrative: the killing of Richard de Soysa was not necessarily ordered by President R. Premadasa, nor did it serve the interests of the latter or the ruling class. This is a liquidationist proposition that casts doubt upon many other suspected assassinations and abductions of the period, getting the political leadership of the state off the hook. In conclusion, this is where the “broader and more layered exploration of the underlying social and political realities,” which Weerasinghe claims the purported “fiction” allows its viewer to delve into, lands.

Such a political framework is not new. It has appeared time-to-time in bourgeois and petty-bourgeois historiography, where the responsibility for state crimes—pogroms, wars, genocides—is shifted onto “society” or “human nature.” One prominent historical analogue is Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1996), which absurdly claimed that the Holocaust was not the outcome of a historically developed political program of German imperialism and the fascist state of the Nazi Third Reich, but the result of a deep-seated, inherent antisemitism among the German people³. Thus, the “ordinary” Germans were willing accomplices in the Final Solution, the extermination of over six million Jews. Hitler was only the final executioner of this ideology. This deadly distortion of history has been widely discredited by serious historians, not only for its factual inaccuracy, but for the reactionary political implications it carries⁴.

Weerasinghe offers no sociological or historical research to substantiate his claims—nor does the director, who admits to conducting little serious investigation prior to the making of the film. However, similar arguments have been advanced internationally through certain psychological and sociological theories that lack rigorous empirical grounding. Chief among these are the studies of Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo, whose respective experiments on obedience to authority and simulated prison environments have been widely cited to suggest that ordinary individuals can become complicit in acts of cruelty under systemic pressure. Both studies have come under sustained criticism for methodological shortcomings, ethical violations, and issues of reproducibility. More importantly, when abstracted from their immediate experimental context and applied uncritically to complex social phenomena like mass political violence, these theories devolve into a kind of psychological determinism. They obscure the class forces and political programs that shape historical events and instead offer a right-wing, pseudo-scientific narrative in which atrocities are the inevitable result of human nature or diffuse social norms—thereby absolving the state and the ruling elite of political responsibility.

In the Sri Lankan context, this argument has especially reactionary consequences. It leads to the notion that the Sinhalese majority are collectively responsible for the 1983 pogrom against Tamils, and ultimately, for the genocide in Mullivaikkal in 2009. A section of the middle class of the country harbours this ideology, which was once starkly expressed by Pubudu Jayagoda, a leader of the pseudo-left Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), who claimed that racism is deeply ingrained in the Sinhalese “society”⁵, reducing complex political phenomena to abstract moral failures of entire ethnic groups of conflicting classes⁶. This is not only unscientific and historically false, but it plays directly into the hands of the capitalist state and chauvinist forces, who exploit communalism to divide the working class on racialist lines to prevent unified struggle.

Marxism begins not with moralism, but with the concrete analysis of social relations and historical processes. The essential questions that must be addressed in any serious assessment of the 1988–90 period are the following: What were the objective causes of the JVP-led insurrection and its fascistic methods? What class forces were involved in the repression? What was the role of imperialism, the IMF, and the Sri Lankan bourgeoisie in creating the social crisis that produced this violence? And above all, was there an alternative revolutionary leadership that could have mobilized the working class against both the JVP and the capitalist state?

The JVP uprising was not a spontaneous eruption of madness, nor was it the inevitable product of a culture of violence. It emerged from a deep social crisis rooted in the failure of the post-colonial bourgeoisie and the betrayal of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in 1964, which had entered into a class collaborationist coalition with the bourgeois Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). In the aftermath of this betrayal, tens of thousands of rural youth—disillusioned by the parliamentary left and devastated by the economic liberalization policies of the J. R. Jayewardene regime—were drawn to the radical rhetoric of the JVP.

The JVP, despite its populist posture, was never a Marxist organization. It rejected the class struggle, dismissed the internationalism of the Fourth International, and relied on petty-bourgeois nationalism and adventurist terror. In 1987–89, it launched a campaign of assassinations and fascistic violence that paralyzed the working class and the middle class. The response of the state was a campaign of ruthless repression. Death squads, torture camps such as Batalanda, and state-sponsored terror claimed the lives of an estimated 60,000 youth.

Massacre 1989 — A scene of mass killings and daily-life in rural Sri Lanka in September 1989. Photo by Prasanna Hennayake

This was not a case of generalized ”ideology of violence” within society. It was class warfare, waged from above by the capitalist state to defend private property, intimidate the working class, and preserve bourgeois rule. It was facilitated by the political vacuum created by the betrayals of the old left and the inability of the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), to politically break the working class and the rural poor from the grip of the petty-bourgeois JVP and other Stalinist and Maoist organizations in time to develop an alternative mass leadership.

However, it was only the RCL, the Sri Lankan section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the world party of the working class, which alone insisted that the fascist violence of the JVP and the state terror could only be opposed by the independent political mobilization of the working class on a socialist and internationalist program. In November 1988, in order to mobilize the independent power of the working class, it called for a united front of working-class organizations to fight both state repression and JVP fascism, as an immediate practical measure. Instead of supporting this effort, the LSSP, the Communist Party (CP), Nawa Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), and Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) aligned themselves with the terror of the UNP regime, which armed them against the JVP. This betrayal aided the state in unleashing mass repression on the rural poor of the South and launching its racist war against the oppressed Tamil people.

None of these dynamics are on the historical balance sheet of those who seek to “push” the contemporary youth “to the very edges of these established frameworks.”

Today, the pseudo-left has once again emerged as a shield for the ruling class, which has endorsed the JVP/NPP as its saviour. The JVP-led NPP is using its parliamentary position not to uncover or prosecute the war crimes of the past, but to bury them. Its recent tabling and debating of the Batalanda Commission report—gathering dust for over two decades—is a cynical gesture meant to divert public attention from IMF austerity measures. The NPP is objectively poised not to challenge the military, nor the UNP, nor the interests of imperialism. It fears that any real reckoning with the crimes of 1988–90 will expose not only the state, but the politics of the JVP itself.

The working class and rural poor must reject the “common guilt” thesis advanced in Rani and promoted by figures like Weerasinghe. They must demand justice based not on emotional reconciliation, but on historical truth and political accountability⁷.

Neither of these are possible within the capitalist state. It requires the building of a revolutionary socialist movement of the working class to finally break the grip of imperialism, overturn the legacy of terror, and unify the oppressed—Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim—on the basis of a common struggle against exploitation.

The film’s thesis, and Weerasinghe’s article by extension, constitute an aestheticized historical falsification, a rebranding of a reactionary historical revisionism in the garb of “critical reflection.” The function of art, if it is to be progressive, is not to obscure these truths but to clarify them. Rani fails in this most fundamental task. It replaces history with impressionism, class analysis with pseudo-science, and revolutionary clarity with reactionary confusion.

My Thoughts on Handagama’s Rani, Jagath Weerasinghe, Daily FT on March 28, 2025. <https://www.ft.lk/columns/My-thoughts-on-Handagama-s-Rani/4-774887>
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Anidda, February 2, 2025, A discussion with Ashoka Handagama by Upali Amarasinghe, p19.
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‘[A]ntisemitism moved many thousands of “ordinary” Germans—and would have moved millions more, had they been appropriately positioned—to slaughter Jews. Not economic hardship, not the coercive means of a totalitarian state, not social psychological pressure, not invariable psychological propensities, but ideas about Jews that were pervasive in Germany, and had been for decades, induced ordinary Germans to kill unarmed, defenseless Jewish men, women, and children by the thousands, systematically and without pity.’ Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), p. 9.
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The Myth of “Ordinary Germans”: A Review of Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners, David North (April 1997) in The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century (2014). <https://www.wsws.org/en/special/library/russian-revolution-unfinished-twentieth-century/15.html>
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<https://www.facebook.com/reel/3824881814291061?sfnsn=wa&mibextid=6AJuK9> ↩︎
Race, class and social conflict in the United States, Niles Niemuth, SEP Summer School Lecture 2021, <https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/09/06/race-s06.html>
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Batalanda Slaughter Chambers and the Mass Graves: The class roots of crimes against the poor and the working class of Sri Lanka, Sanjaya Jayasekera, March 23, 2025, <https://www.thesocialist.lk/batalanda-slaughter-chambers-and-the-mass-graves-the-class-roots-of-crimes-against-the-poor-and-the-working-class-of-sri-lanka/>

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Batalanda Slaughter Chambers and the Mass Graves: The class roots of crimes against the poor and the working class of Sri Lanka

class struggles, Democratic Rights, english, Fascism, history, lead article, News, politics / March 23, 2025

By Sanjaya Jayasekera

On March 12, Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power (NPP) government tabled the long-buried Batalanda Commission report in Parliament, fixing dates for a parliamentary debate. This sudden move—decades after the report was first compiled—has nothing to do with securing justice for the thousands of youth and workers who were abducted, tortured, and murdered during the late 1980s. Rather, it is a cynical maneuver by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led administration, aimed at deflecting attention from the ongoing economic crisis and reinforcing the credibility of the Sri Lankan state, which bears direct responsibility for the atrocities.

The Batalanda torture chambers and the mass graves scattered across Sri Lanka are grim symbols of the bloody terror unleashed by the ruling class in response to the social unrest caused by the economic collapse of the 1980s. Thousands of youth, primarily from impoverished rural backgrounds, were abducted by the police, the army and the death squads, held in state-run camps, tortured, raped, killed, burned alive on tyre-pyres, or their bodies were thrown to rivers or buried in unmarked graves. The military and police officers invaded the houses of the male victims, raped their wives, mothers and sisters. These were not just isolated crimes but a systematic class war waged against the poor by a ruling elite determined to defend the bourgeois state, capitalist economic reforms and power at any cost.

IMF Austerity and the Social Crisis of the 1980s

The second JVP insurrection (1987–89) did not emerge in a vacuum. The economic devastation of the 1980s, caused by the United National Party (UNP) government’s brutal implementation of IMF-dictated austerity – rural poverty, indebtedness, disease, malnutrition, land grabbing, unemployment, privatization, inflation – created conditions in which insurgent situation grew among the rural disillusioned youth.

In 1977, the government of J.R. Jayawardene abandoned Sri Lanka’s limited welfare-state model and embraced open-market liberalization. The IMF and World Bank demanded “belt-tightening” measures: currency devaluation, drastic cuts to social spending, and the elimination of subsidies for essential goods. The consequences were catastrophic:

By 1988, the overall budget deficit had soared to 12% of GDP.
Foreign debt quadrupled, forcing the government into commercial borrowing.
Inflation reached 14% in 1988.
Official reserves collapsed, falling to six weeks at the end of 1988 and just three weeks of imports by mid-1989.
By 1987-88 unemployment reached 15.5%, I.e. 940,000 unemployed, and 75% of them were in the 15-29 age group, according to official surveys.

JRJ — J.R.Jayawardene and Ranil Wickremasinghe (r)

Significantly, military expenditure was also increased for the civil war against the Tamil population in the North and East, the total accumulated cost of which up to 1996 since 1983 was at least Rs. 1,135 billion at 1996 prices (168.5% of the 1996 GDP, equivalent to US$ 20.6 billion).

The young men and women who had been promised economic prosperity under Jayawardene’s “open economy” found themselves jobless and trapped in deepening poverty. With traditional avenues for dissent crushed—particularly after the crushing of the July 1980 general strike— JVP capitalized youth resentment for recruitment.

JVP’s Treachery

Founded on a reactionary mixture of Maoism, Castroism and petty-bourgeois radicalism, sequel to the “great betrayal” of Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in 1964, JVP channeled youth discontent over the social crisis, along the line of Sinhala chauvinism, nationalism and to tactics of fascism, in defence of the capitalist state. It exploited the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of July 1987 between Jayawardena and Rajiv Gandhi to wage a chauvinist campaign to recruit cadres.

JVP was never a Marxist party, and ruled out independent mobilization of the working class for the perspective of socialist internationalism against capitalist rule, counterposing the rural youth against the working class. Its hostility to the working class was manifested in its killings of workers, political opponents of the left and those who opposed it ideologically.

This fascist conduct of the JVP marked a high point in the degeneration of the petty-bourgeois nationalist movements throughout the world under conditions of the global crisis of imperialism.

State Terror

In response to the fascist attacks by JVP and its military wing, Patriotic People’s Movement (DJV), the UNP unleashed unspeakable brutality against rural and urban youth and the poor. Jayawardene and his successor, Ranasinghe Premadasa, oversaw a state-sponsored reign of terror against not only JVP cadres but also thousands of working-class youth who had no connection to the insurrection.

Ranasinghe Premadasa (Right) and his Son Sajith Premadasa, now the Leader of the Opposition, who boasts of his father’s “spine”

Torture Camps and Killings: Secret interrogation centers were established across the country, with Batalanda and Eliyakanda emerging as the most notorious. Unspeakable torture methods were employed – those who were abducted were hanged, beaten, barb wires were forced into their rectums, and they were forced into barrels of chili-powder-mixed water, many never emerging alive. Youth were often subjected to rape, decapitation, nails hammered into their heads and into ears, eyes removed and burnt alive on tyre-pyres etc.
Death Squads and Tyre-Pyres: The military, police, and paramilitary gangs abducted suspected “subversives,” who were then executed and burned in public. Sometimes, their families were forced to witness. Many innocent villagers were massacred, kids stabbed, and women raped, just because someone of their family members was a suspected JVP cadre.
Mass Graves: Thousands of bodies were dumped in shallow, unmarked graves, many of which remain undiscovered (Matale, Sooriyakanda, Wilpita are among the few such identified).

Witnesses and victims’ families have provided horrifying testimonies of the pogrom. Survivors recount hearing the screams of detainees through the night. Mothers were told their sons had “disappeared,” only for their burned bodies to be found days later by the roadside.

theSocialist.LK talked to a bereaved woman in the Mulkirigala electorate, whose entire family was massacred by the army in late August 1989, because the army could not locate her only brother. Time has hardly permitted her recovery from the trauma. She told as follows:

“My seven year old daughter (Niranjala), my three young sisters (Nilmini, Sujithaseeli, Mathangalatha), my cousin sister Chandraleka, my mother (Sisiliyana -53) and my father (Edwin-63), all were massacred by the Sinha regiment forces of Katuwana army camp, in that thick of the night. Those devils had bombed our house and, the following day, my husband witnessed the burning flesh under the rubble. We have been told that my sisters were carried away, raped for three days by the soldiers and killed. Beliatta police had later killed and burned my brother (Chulananda -21) too.”

A survivor of government repression told our reporters as follows:

“I was then 16. I was somehow able to secure my life. One night in mid 1989, Wanduramba Police in Galle abducted the boyfriend of my cousin, Udayakantha, a tuition teacher, said to be on the orders of Udugampola, who was referred to by the villagers as the “Butcher”. One day after, I saw his burning body on a tire by the roadside, among other bodies.”

Over 100,000 people, mostly youth, were massacred by the government during the period. Millions were rendered destitute. To this day, not a single high-ranking official or politician has been held accountable for any of these crimes.

The JVP’s Complicity in Covering Up the Crimes

Despite having been the primary target and immediate cause of this repression, the JVP has no intention of persuing justice to the families of those murdered. It did nothing to expose these crimes when it previously aligned itself with bourgeois coalition governments, nor will it act now. Like its predecessors, past atrocities will only be capitalized by the government to suppress political opposition, whenever need arises.

Since the 1990s, the JVP has transformed into a right-wing bourgeois party, repeatedly aligning itself with the same capitalist forces that once massacred its youth cadres.

In 2004, the JVP joined a coalition government with Chandrika Kumaratunga, providing political cover for the continuation of state violence, and suppression of the dark record of the ruling class.
It later supported Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime, which carried out the genocidal slaughter of Tamil civilians during the final phase of the Sri Lankan government’s racist war against Tamils in 2009.
In 2010 and 2015 JVP stood on one platform with Ranil Wickremasinghe and general Sarath Fonseka to consolidate the hand of the oppressor – Wickremasinghe was a cabinet Minister in the Premadasa government, who has been implicated in the Batalanda Commission Report and believed to have overseen the torture, and the latter is the former army commander who supervised killings both in the South and North.

AKD — Anura Kumara Dissanayake, then a Parliamentarian and now the President of Sri Lanka, being sworn in as Minister of Agriculture, Land and Irrigation by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (r) at the Presidential House in Colombo in April 2004 [Photo Credit: M A Pishpa Kumara/EPA/Shutterstock]

Now, as the leading force in the NPP government, the JVP is once again engaged in a political charade. By revisiting Batalanda in Parliament, it seeks to posture as a defender of democracy while positioning to suppress working-class struggles against the IMF’s new round of austerity measures.

The Class Nature of the Crimes and the Path to Justice

The atrocities committed at Batalanda and across Sri Lanka were the calculated acts of a capitalist state defending itself against the threat of mass working-class resistance. Every ruling class party, from the UNP to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to the JVP, has participated in suppressing the working class. In the 1971 youth uprising, SLFP-LSSP-CP (CP – Communist Party) coalition government killed about 20000 rural youth to defend the capitalist rule, followed by a series of subsidy cuts and austerity.

Real justice will not come from parliamentary debates, charades of commissions or through bourgeois “administration of justice”. Justice for the victims of state terror requires the fulfillment of all of the following demands:

Disclose the names of all those who were abducted, forcibly disappeared and/or tortured and/or killed by the government security forces, the police and state sponsored paramilitary death squads,
Disclose all the police and military records in respect of the places where police stations, army camps and detention centers were located during the period,
Disclose the names of the officers in charge of the police stations, and the names, ranks and regiments of the commanding officers who were in charge of the army camps, located islandwide during the insurgency.
Locate every Mass Grave in all parts of the island, exhume the remains, conduct forensic analysis to identify the victims and disclose to their relatives,
Disclose to the relatives of the victims what happened to their loved ones, and fully compensate them.
Identify, prosecute and punish the perpetrators, including those who provided political cover.

The realization of these demands requires direct political power to the hands of the working class. The ruling class—regardless of which party holds office, including NPP—will never willingly prosecute its own agents. The fight for truth and justice must be connected to the broader struggle against capitalism and the hegemony of financial capital to overthrow capitalist State and dismantle its military-police apparatus.

The Socialist Perspective

The lessons of 1988-90 are clear: the imperialist system survives through the ruthless suppression of working-class struggles. The pogrom effected on the Sinhala youth of the South, the genocide of the Tamils in the North and the East, the ethnic-cleansing of the Palestinians, the loss of millions of lives to COVID-19 pandemic are seen by the ruling class as necessary costs.

Sri Lanka once again faces economic collapse, and the IMF’s latest demands for austerity will provoke new social explosions. The NPP government, following its predecessors, will respond to mass opposition with state repression. The only way to prevent a repeat of past atrocities is for the working class to take independent political action, break away from all factions of the ruling class, and fight for socialist revolution, with the support of the international working class against the hegemony of the finance capital and their domestic lackeys. This needs revolutionary leadership – the second and the most important lesson.

The Socialist Lead of Sri Lanka and South Asia (SLLA), the Revolutionary Left Faction of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) of Sri Lanka calls upon workers, rallying behind them the oppressed youth of the North and the South, to reject the false promises of the JVP-led NPP, and to organize independently in committees of industrial action in line with the international socialist program that will end the rule of the capitalist elite and establish a workers’ government of Sri Lanka and Eelam. They should not trust the pseudo-left and the trade unions, who pose as defenders of mass interests while setting political traps against them by proposing an alternative capitalist state. There is no such thing. Only through socialist revolution can the crimes of the past be truly redressed and a future free from oppression and exploitation be secured.

Reference:

The US war and occupation of Iraq—the murder of a society, Bill Van Auken, 22 May 2007, <https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2007/05/iraq-m22.html>
Repression and the State in Sri Lanka, Political Committee of the Revolutionary Communist League, December 1990
Sri Lankan Trotskyists Defend Rural Youth, Revolutionary Communist League (Sri Lanka), 23 November 1990.
The Situation in Sri Lanka and the Political Tasks of the Revolutionary Communist League, Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International, David North, Keerthi Balasuriya, 19 November 1987.

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