Against the Repression in Ceylon

[p053] GAINST THE REPRESSION IN GEYLON The political trials involv- ing about 14,000 youth who are being held in the so-called ‘rehabilitation camps’ are now in pro- gress in special law courts in Ceylon. These camps were specially set up by the bourgeois coali- tion government when the mass killings and arrests of youth started 18 months ago. The government also recently brought in new statutory laws to set up special judicial proce- dures for the hearing of these political trials. These political prisoners were arrested during the abor- tive uprising in April 1971, led by Janatha Vimukthi Para- mura (JVP). This organization, which came into the open in 1968, was mainly composed of university and rural] youth who had experienced long periods of unemployment. No doubt these youth could be an invalu- able motive force for the socialist revolution if they were trained and organized on the principles of Marxism and the traditions of Bolshevism. But from the very beginning the JVP opposed this perspec- tive of building and training an alternative leadership in the working class. In fact they condemned the working class Against the repression in Ceyion and its traditional organiza- tions, the trade unions, as reformist, and abandoned any fight to transform the workers and their organizations into cadres and organs of revolu- tionary politics. They believed in a revolu- tion from the country to the town, believing that the workers in the towns would join the revolution spontane- ously as they saw the rural masses fighting. In this way they developed a _ conception completely hostile to Marxism on the development of revolu- tionary consciousness in the working class. They showed this hostility towards Marxism concretely when they attempted several times to physically beat the members of the Revolu- tionary Communist League (RCL), the Ceylon section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), who fought uncompro- misingly to build a revolution- ary leadership among the workers and peasants on the basis of Marxism. Massacre The crisis-ridden bourgeois Coalition government provoked these petty-bourgeois romantic revolutionaries of the JVP to a battle in March 1971 and _ with the aid of all the centres of imperialism and Stalinism perpetrated a massacre on the militant youth throughout the country. The responsibility for these youth who were thrown into a struggle unprepared and iso- lated, ending up in a blood bath, lies with the Pabloite revisionists of the Unified Sec- retariat in Ceylon who covered up for the petty-bourgeois politics of the JVP. They encouraged the JVP in their suicidal attempts by their theories about ‘natural Marx- ists’, after the example of Castro. It also must be stated here that the conscious treachery of the Unified Secretariat is un- pardonable as it deliberately covered up for Bala Tampoe, the secretary of the Pabloite section in Ceylon. On the one hand he encouraged these - youth for blind terrorism and on the other hand maintained close relations and made him- self a source of information to the worst reactionaries, like MacNamara, the head of the World Bank, and ex-Nazi Kis- singer, West German Minister, Today these same P&bBloite revisionists have abandoned any struggle to defend these youth in the jails. Instead, starting by writing petitiors to Prime Minister Mrs Sisi rave Bandaranaike preachini® * ‘er 49

[p054] about Buddhist principles and appealing to her to pardon futile one-day hunger strikes in the worst tradition of paci- fism. Aided by these policies of the Pabloite revisionists, the Lanka Sama Samaja_ Party (LSSP) and the Stalinist Com- munist Party (CP) desper- ately attempt to maintain their counter-revolutionary alliance with the bourgeois party of Mrs Bandaranaike. But the working class of Ceylon, with its powerful trade union organizations, has come for- ward today to oppose this con- dition in all its struggles to defend its basic rights. This is the central political issue involved in all the major strikes which have occurred in the last year. The bank employees have shown their determination not to bow down in front of the govern- ment’s threats or strike-break- ing attempts, by carrying for- ward their fight for a wage demand now over a period of more than ten weeks. The International Committee of the Fourth International demands that all the political prisoners in Ceylon be released immediately and all the demo- cratic rights of the workers and peasants be restored. It believes that these demands can only be met by the struggle for a workers’ and peasants’ government which will take the political power from the bourgeoisie. The mobilization of the working class and the peasants for this political task can be achieved today by training a new alter- native leadership in the work- ing class and the rural areas, by breaking the grip of the. LSSP and the CP reformists who try to tie the workers and peasants to the bour- geoisie. That is why the fight to mobilize the masses to force the LSSP and CP lead- ers to break from the coali- tion and fight for their own government has become _ so vital and urgent today. Only through this mobiliza- tion of the mass movement for its political independence can we train a new leadership. The RCL, the Ceylon sec- tion of the ICFI, fights rigor- ously against all the revision- ist elements who try to divert the workers and peasants from this central political struggle to build an independent Marxist leadership in Ceylon. October 30, 1972 NEW YORK 135 W.14St. 7thFloor Mon.-Fri. 5:30-8pm Sat.: 1] am-5 pm MINNEAPOLIS 1924 So. 2nd Ave. \Weekdays: 6:30-10pm ‘Tues. and Sat.: 10:30 am-5:30 pm ‘CHICAGO 1325 So.Wabash,Rm 305 !Mon.,Wed., Fri.6-9pm Sat.: 10 am-6 pm BALTIMORE 2202 Maryland Ave. Wed., Thurs., Fri.: 6:30-9 pm Sat.: 2-5 pm Fourth International Spring 1973

[p055] Statement by the International Committee of the 4th International