CEYLON: Lift the Press Ban! Fight to End the Coalition! For Basic Democratic Rights!

[p063] Halt the repression! Fight to end coalition For basic democratic rights THE COALITION govern- ment which came to power in Ceylon in May 1970 was a crisis government. The devaluation of the Ceylon rupee, just after sterling devaluation expressed the insoluble crisis looming in world imperialism which threatened the very basis of Ceylon’s colonial economic setup. The insurgent movement of the radicalized students and the rural youth in April-May 1971 was the first sign of the out- ICFI Statement burst of mass struggles against the bourgeois coalition. This counter - revolutionary coalition government could re- tain power only through the treacherous policy of its Stalinist and renegade Trotskyist partners who barred the working-class movement's independent develop- ment by joining hands with Mrs Bandaranaike’s capitalist party. But these parasitic bureau- cracies cannot curtail the develop- ment of the class struggle, which is unfolding today as a direct result of the new stage of economic crisis since August 15, 1971. The Emergency Powers im- posed on the workers and peasants and the ban _ imple- mented on the Trotskyist pub- lications of the section of the International Committee are the government’s conscious attacks on the working class which is on the verge of massive struggles. We demand the lifting of all emergency powers and the grant- ing of democratic rights of free assembly and free publication, immediately. We demand that the Stalinist Communist Party and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party leaders break away from the coalition to fight for these basic democratic rights of the masses. It is only this way that a workers’ and peasants’ government can be fought for in Ceylon. 207