Aftermath of Tsunami in Sri Lanka

by SP Member - Socialist Party / CWI Thu Jan 20, 2005 01:06

A grotesque picture of devastation is slowly emerging and haunting us.
Report on the work of the United Socialist Party (CWI) in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the horror of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
In the recent meeting of the extended Central Committee of the party last Saturday, it was reported that, although no actual members of the party were lost, at least 86 supporters of the USP have died in the tsunami.

The real brunt of the tsunami was taken by the eastern part of the island, the principal town Pottuvil has seen the worst disaster in its living memory. Nearly 2,000 homes were swept away without trace. The south-western coast was hit up to 30 minutes later. With the modern communications and scientific advancement available, the entire disaster and loss of life could have been averted with a mere warning for evacuation. But such is the bureaucratic bungling and non-availability of science to be used for the common good, that a gigantic disaster worsened by capitalist negligence had to happen.

Read More

by Seamus Kelly Thu Jan 20, 2005 10:47

If you had lost all your family all your meagre possessions and had only the shirt on your back you would welcome aid from anybody be they Capitalist USA, Jewish Israel, Communist China, Nazi Germany, Imperial Rome or the Scilian Mafia - it doesn't matter as long as you got it and could continue living.
The people of Asia are desperate and they need our help. Everybody who is willing to give should give. We are all one human family and we should recognise generosity.
I am horrified by the Iraq War but I will not criticise George W. Bush for organising the world community like never before to bring aid to the people of South Asia.
You seem to put ideology before humanity.
You want perfection where none exists.
You seem to believe that it is better for innocents to die needlessly just as long as the wrong people ( USA or who ever) are prohibited from helping them?
GET REAL!

by SP Member - Socialist Party/CWI Tue Jan 25, 2005 20:22

Update on the situation in Sri Lanka and the work of the United Socialist Party (CWI Sri Lanka)
In Sri Lanka there has been huge discontent expressed by those made homeless – both about their immediate squalid conditions but also about the plans for their future homes. A plan to build 60 new towns three miles or so inland to replace villages destroyed on the Sri Lankan coast, has been hastily drawn up with no consultation with the displaced people themselves or consideration for cultural differences in the population.

The president, Chandrika Kumarasinghe now insists on a scheme where Muslim and other Tamil-speaking people should be (compulsorily) made to share three storey blocks together. The president has also insisted that people wanting to rebuild their own houses and restart their lives should take out loans through private banks. The USP (CWI Sri Lanka) says no more crippling debt! In fact, if some of the country’s debt to the world’s banks and governments is being cancelled, says the USP, those resources should be used to cancel all the debts of the poverty-stricken small farmers and fishermen of Sri Lanka. Full compensation to all those who have lost their homes and livelihoods. Interest free loans for re-starting any small endeavours of the tsunami-stricken people. Nationalisation of the banks to make this possible.

The Sri Lankan people united in the face of adversity. Tamil and Sinhala pulled together. But the chauvinists lost no time in trying to sabotage any attempts to help Tamil-speaking people. The prime minister and some MPs from the JVP (a party that mixes Sinhala communalism with ‘Marxist’ phraseology) visited one of the many camps in the north organised and run by the LTTE, now, because of protests, without the Sri Lankan Army trying to control them. They did not even get a chance to speak. They were howled at and chased out by women with brooms in hand, the worst insult to any ‘guest’! By contrast, representatives of the USP visiting the very next day got a warm response.

The president of Sri Lanka made clear how she would use the crisis to strengthen her Bonapartist, almost dictatorial powers.There would be no elections for five years, she declared. There will be a referendum to get the approval of the people!…The privatisation of the phosphate industry (long resisted by workers’ action) will go ahead now and so will the rest of the programme of the World Bank. “We need the money!”…“Some people will be opposed. We will not put them in prison, but in a hotel, feed them and stop them talking!”

The aid relief coming into Sri Lanka has also been disrupted. Aid has been blocked and requisitioned by the government itself. (This includes supplies of water-purifying tablets and anti-diarrhoea sachets sent from the CWI for the protection of the comrades of the USP and their families, who will get no help from the bigger parties). This week the comrades of the USP are producing a special broadsheet to go to the camps called Voice of the Tsunami People which will take up the immediate problems of the victims of the crisis and put forward aspects of the programme of the USP for socialist change. The demand for a convention of workers, the displaced and poor people to discuss the emergency and prepare a fight against the government is being taken up and circulated throughout the trade union movement by the Government Press Union. The comrades are hoping for press and TV coverage for the launch of this idea. The party is also preparing posters and leaflets to demand action from the government to get people back on their feet and no return to war. An important demand in their propaganda is that for real workers’ and poor people’s control over the emergency programmes through directly elected representatives at all levels. The USP demand for the US and Indian troops to be withdrawn and no militarisation of aid has been very well received in the camps.