Sri Lanka

This election is in a sense similar to the JR’s referendum which was held in 1983. It is being held just after the presidential election with the main contender for presidency being under arrest. - read article...

Global capital and its ruling organizations failed miserably in this tsunami disaster to warn us in time. - read article...

Many thousands of people have been killed and over 2.5 million people displaced by the deadly Tsunamis that swept across South East Asia, hitting Sri Lanka the hardest. Many of our comrades including trade union members have been definitely affected in coastal areas. - read article...

Sri Lankan New Left Front condemns the induction of foreign troops to Sri Lanka under cover of relief and rescue operations. - read article...

This is a moment of unbearable sorrow and despair. People have nowhere to turn, in particular the fishing folk along coastal lines. In those regions Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim poor people have been made destitute. The tsunami disaster has no doubt opened the eyes of people throughout the world. There is mass sympathy and rethinking on our common human future. But behind this wave of sympathy there are vultures circulating, waiting for an opportunity to grab the flesh of the poor. - read article...

The LCR, French section of the FI, sent 5000 euros to the tsunami fund of the LSSP, the Sri Lankan section of the International. In this letter of thanks the Sri Lankan comrades explain the initiatives they have taken. - read article...

November’s presidential election resulted in victory for hardline Sinhala chauvinist Mahinda Rajapakse, who primised to ’review’ the peace process with the Tamil Tiger rebels. Opposition from the Tamils themselves and Rajapakse’s reliance of chauvinist ultras means major upheval in the months to come. - read article...

The Sri Lanka government is carrying out an undeclared war against the Tamil people. Sign the online petition for a stop to the bombings, murders and disappearances. - read article...

LTTE political wing leader B. Nadesan has written to the UN general secretary requesting UN to recognize the sovereignty of the Tamil nation. This is a result of the barbaric war mongering policy of the GOSL. - read article...

The parties that gathered at the recent international committee meeting of the Fourth International called for autonomy for the Tamil people. - read article...

The Sixteenth World Congress of the Fourth International, having heard the Sri Lankan delegation, adopted a statement on the situation. - read article...

40,000 people demonstrated in front of the EU and UN headquarters in Europe on March 16th. They demand an end to the Sri Lanka’s government’s genocide, that emergency aid be allowed into the war zone and for a lifting on the ban on the LTTE, the militant organisation which represents the Tamil people. - read article...

Common Left Candidate Vickramabahu Karunaratne called the declared result of the presidential election in Sri Lanka as the biggest ever betrayal of the country. - read article...

The vicious offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) launched by the Sri Lankan army at the start of 2006 ended in May with a brutal defeat for the Tamil national liberation movement. Civilians taking refuge in agreed no-fire zones were bombarded along with the few medical facilities. Between January and May this year, over 30,000 Tamils were killed. The leaders of the LTTE were executed summarily, as well as soldiers taken prisoner. - read article...

Left alliance met on 20th May at the Teachers’ Mansion at 2 pm. There were around 70 delegates, representing groups Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim through out the country. - read article...

The civil war which has raged in the north and east of Sri Lanka for more than 30 years now has taken a significant turn since mid January. The government of Mahinda Rajapaksa has launched an offensive with the full military might of the Sri Lankan army seeking to definitively put an end to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). For the first time in thirty years, the LTTE seems on the way to being defeated. - read article...

On Sunday 7th May the weapons of the Tamil Eeelam Tigers were silenced and they heard of the death of their leader Vilupillai Prabhakaran. This was the end of a brutal and merciless military offensive by the chauvinistic nationalist Sinhalese government led by Mahinda Rajapaksa. - read article...

On Sunday May 17, 2009 the Sri Lankan army stated that it had evacuated all remaining civilians trapped in the area of its offensive against the Tamil Tigers. The Tamil separatists who had taken refuge on a strip of land of around 1km² have for their part admitted their military defeat and laid down their arms. - read article...

I am contesting Colombo district in the forthcoming provincial council elections. V Thirunavukkarasu, Chamil Jayaneththi, Dharmasiri Lankapeli, N. Jenagen, Mohamed Faizal, and Saranapala Silva will also contest with me in the same list. - read article...

Last Friday Com. Chamil Jayaneththi,the organizing secretary of the Nava Samasamaja party had been informed to summon the magistrate Court on 2nd of February. - read article...

This statement of solidarity with the Tamil people’s struggle for self-determination was agreed by the sections present at this month’s meeting of the Fourth International’s European Political Bureaux. - read article...

The Sri Lankan government military onslaught on Tamils have met with heavy condemnation throughout the world. - read article...

“Noting the petition campaign launched by the British section of the FI on the Tamil National Question in Sri Lanka as most appropriate and valuable, this assembly agrees to carry out similar action in all countries where sections of the FI are present.” - read article...

This is a story about a country where over 200,000 men women and children were displaced by war in a year; a country where 600,000 people from the minorities are confined and denied basic human requirements; a country where shelling and air raids are the only Christmas and New year fireworks for tens of thousands. In this country nearly 5000 have been killed within a year and nearly 2000 have been made to disappear within eight months. - read article...

The Sri Lanka government is carrying out an undeclared war against the Tamil people. The government of Mahinda Rajapaksa has consistently breached the 2002 cease-fire agreement with the LTTE. The anti-war opposition has been put under extreme pressure. - read article...

On December 26 2005, Sri Lankans commemorated the first anniversary of the disastrous Tsunami that brought fear and devastation that will remain and haunt their minds for many years to come. The Tsunami not only washed away human lives and homes but also represented a thundering blow to the economy that may take several decades to rebuild. - read article...

Presidential elections are taking place in Sri Lanka on 17 November. We publish here two political statements from the left. The first is the Manifesto of the New Left Front. The second is from the Ceylon Mercantile, Industrial and General Workers’ Union (CMU). - read article...

Does the development strategy undertaken by the Alliance government after the Tsunami have any relevance to the avoidance of catastrophes, as some would want us to believe? Do their plans for radical change in the socio-economic set up really aim to resurrect the lives of the people? - read article...

On December 5, 2001 elections to Sri Lanka’s 12th Parliament concluded - marred by unprecedented violence that tragically claimed the lives of at least 50. The single worst incident was on the day of the election itself, when ten Muslim youth accompanying ballot boxes to the counting station were pursued and then gunned down by hirelings of a senior Cabinet Minister. - read article...

Observers of the March 21st local elections in Sri Lanka predicted a poor result for the ruling Peoples Alliance. They were wrong. - read article...

Our articles on the floods in Pakistan have given details of how to send financial aid to the Labour Relief Fund. If it is more convenient for you, you can also send funds through the Europe Solidaire Sans Frontieres account. - read article...

Pakistan is facing worst ever floods of its history. Torrential rains have unleashed flash floods in different parts of the country since last three weeks. Water levies broke leaving the people exposed to flood water. More than 12 million people have suffered due to these floods. More than 650,000 houses have collapsed, mainly in villages. Thousands of acres of crops have been destroyed due to flood water. Houses, live-stock such as cattle’s and goats, household goods, clothes, shoes and other items have been destroyed. Residents of villages are currently without drinkable water, food, shelter and in need of clothes. In particular, the situation is dire for children and women and they are in desperate need of food and clothing. Disease is spreading fast in the areas affected due to lack of drinkable water. In particular, flu, fever, diarrhea, cholera have been noted and are spreading. - read article...

An unexpected, unthinkable, yet - concerning current circumstances - quite expectable and natural thing has occurred yesterday night. Three public social activists that have always expressed a consistent antifascist attitude and shunned civil indifference have been detained. - read article...

We, the participants at the Istanbul ESF, affirming that we have a strong engagement aganist all war and occupation and that we are for a politial resolution of the Kurdish issue, have made the following resolution : - read article...

Under the impulse of the World Bank and international capitalist institutions, the Moroccan regime started a privatization process of the universities and attacks against the right to studiy. The announcement of the “Emergency plan” to the university at beginning of the academic year, i.e. of the brutal aggravation of these attacks, put a spark to the powder. The class-struggle trade unionists of fight, organised within the UNEM, are at the forefront of the mobilization against the “Emergency plan”. - read article...