| The Socialist 23 February 2001 |
Fight For Socialist Change |
| Fight For Socialist Change |
Ditch the Labour cynics: LABOUR UNVEILED parts of its election programme last week saying the biggest threat to them winning a second term is voters' cynicism. Blair said the prospect of Hague, Portillo and Widdecombe forming a government was enough to stir any voter from their apathy and go out and vote. But who will working-class people vote for? |
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THOUSANDS of Vauxhall workers will take strike action this Thursday, 22 February, against the company's plans to shut its Luton plant and axe over 2,000 jobs. |
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JUST WEEKS after his inauguration, US president George Bush has flexed his country's military muscles by bombing Iraq and in so doing has sought to demonstrate his 'decisiveness'. As usual, Tony Blair played the role of US imperialism's lap dog. |
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A REPORT published last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body, confirms the threat to the environment from global warming is occurring faster than previously predicted. Amrita Huggins |
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NUS week of action 26 February - 1 March: EDUCATION IS in crisis. The elitist Blair government is attacking education 'from the cradle to the grave', spitefully snatching away the gains of a century. A chronic lack of funding condemns schools, colleges and universities to cut courses and raise charges. Hugh Caffrey |
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"A different world, a socialist one, is possible" PORTO ALEGRE, state capital of Rio Grande do Sul, was the venue for the first World Social Forum from 25-30 January. There were nearly 5,000 delegates from 117 countries registered (mostly from Brazil). In addition, thousands more took part in debates and activities. ANDRE FERRARI of Socialismo Revulicionario (SR - CWI, Brazil) reports. |
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| ANGER AT the Sri Lankan People's Alliance (PA) government is mounting by the day. The economic situation has become dire. Fuel prices have gone up four times in six months, bus fares have doubled in three months and water, electricity and telephone charges have increased by 25%. Elizabeth Clarke |
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LABOUR UNVEILED parts of its election programme last week saying the biggest threat to them winning a second term is voters' cynicism.
Blair said the prospect of Hague, Portillo and Widdecombe forming a government was enough to stir any voter from their apathy and go out and vote. But who will working-class people vote for?
We're rightly cynical about this New Labour government. But we're also angry at it too and we're certainly not apathetic.
We're angry because Blair said New Labour wouldn't enjoy the trappings of power but the Irvine scandal shows New Labour are just as sleazy as the Tories.
Workers know that it's Labour that's practised the cynical deception of promising things would get better after 18 years of Toryism.
And when Labour claim to be the practical party of British politics, workers now see them as the party that has 'practically' continued the Tories' pro-big business policies, which devastate the economy, NHS, education and other services. (see pages 3 and 5)
Is it any wonder working-class people are 'cynical' when Labour lines big business's pockets so eagerly? Blair talks tough about drug dealers but lets the pharmaceutical and tobacco companies make billions from people's suffering. (see page 3)
Blair claims that like the British people he "is restless for change". But why hasn't he used his massive majority to carry out fundamental change that benefits millions of working-class people currently living below the poverty line?
Jack Straw says Labour will give larger compensation to victims of crime. But what about compensation for the economic muggings people suffer daily from the petrol companies, the utilities the rail companies and the banks and financial institutions.
The Socialist doesn't want to see the Tories returned. They are just as cynical as Labour.
But why should Labour be given a second chance? How can we stop them offering more of the same?
Sleaze-free Socialist candidates will be standing in the election as workers' MPs on workers' wages. They will strive to carry out anti-capitalist policies that benefit working-class people.
They may not win a majority at the election but if some are elected then they will make Labour sit up and listen.
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THOUSANDS of Vauxhall workers will take strike action this Thursday, 22 February, against the company's plans to shut its Luton plant and axe over 2,000 jobs.
General Motors (GM), now more accurately known as Greedy Multinational, made £1.2 billion in profits from its British plants in the last decade - £100,000 per worker - but it claims it hasn't got enough orders and money to continue production at Luton.
The reality is GM are sitting on cash mountains of billions of dollars and letting their workforce pay the price for the bosses' economic recession.
DAVE WEVILL, a worker at Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant told The Socialist: "The Luton plant is the most efficient plant in Europe and together the UK plants have been the only ones to show a profit.
"At the end of the day, contrary to what the bosses tell you, increased efficiency, speed-ups, and having jobs timed to a hundredth of minute only increases shareholders' profits and doesn't protect jobs."
The striking workers are members of the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU), which makes up about 60% of Vauxhall's workforce.
About another 2,000 workers who are members of MSF and AEEU unions will also not be crossing picket lines, despite a narrow vote against action in their ballots. Many MSF and AEEU members complained they were not given a clear-cut choice about strike action in their ballot.
Yet the workers' anger is still simmering says Dave Wevill. "The mood to fight is still there, as the strike ballot shows. Workers here don't trust this company one inch.
"Multinationals straddle the globe, whilst national governments let them ride roughshod over workers' rights. The only people who can oppose them are the workers through international solidarity.
"The only way to guarantee jobs and security for all workers in any industry, is to nationalise all the leading corporations and operate them under workers' control and management.
"I think the union leaders should be immediately pressed to organise all-out action.
"At the same time we need to organise strike action by GM workers across Europe to show they can't play divide and rule. Every GM worker knows the company will come back for more.
"Thursday will show GM how determined we are but after that we need to go for all-out action to let them know we mean business."
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JUST WEEKS after his inauguration, US president George Bush has flexed his country's military muscles by bombing Iraq and in so doing has sought to demonstrate his 'decisiveness'. As usual, Tony Blair played the role of US imperialism's lap dog.
The action is a continuation of a failed ten-year policy, following the 1991 Gulf War, to remove the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussain. In fact, the thousands of deaths and terrible privations as a result of sanctions have weakened the Iraqi opposition and strengthened Saddam's rule.
In reality, only the US and Britain governments adhere to the bombings and sanctions policy. The sanctions regime is crumbling as international trade and flights increase.
Late last year 1,450 firms from 30 countries attended a trade fair in Baghdad. British-based Shell and Premier Oil have already discussed with Iraqi officials about the resumption of trade in post-sanctions Iraq.
Last Friday's attack on Baghdad is George Bush serving notice on ruling regimes and the masses of throughout the Middle East and the world, that US foreign policy will continue to be backed with its military might.
In many Arab capitals people have taken to the streets to protest against the attack by US and British imperialism. They point to the plight of the Palestinian masses who face national oppression by the US-backed Israeli ruling class, who ignore UN resolutions which demand a return of Palestinian territory seized in the 1967 and 1973 Arab/Israeli wars.
To add fuel to the fire of the present Israeli/Palestinian national conflict the US intends to hold joint manoeuvres with the Israeli military.
NEW LABOUR government defence ministers Geoff Hoon and John Spellar, with their usual breathtaking hypocrisy, claimed this action was to cage Saddam Hussein and thereby protect the Kurds of northern Iraq and the Shia Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq.
However, since the end of the 1991 Gulf war and the imposition of 'no fly zones' and a 'safe haven' in northern Iraq, NATO member Turkey has continued to bomb and send in ground troops against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members and Kurdish civilians. Saddam's ground forces still operate in these areas while the reactionary warlords of the Kurdish PUK and KDP parties oppress the working-class, women and peasants.
They also conveniently forget the gassing of Iraqi Kurds in Halabja in 1988 when the Iraqi dictator still enjoyed the West's patronage.
It was the US-led alliance that allowed Saddam's murderous Republican Guard to crush the Shia uprising at the end of the Gulf War having previously encouraged the revolt. The Western powers feared a dismemberment of Iraq and a strengthening of Iran at the time.
Consequently, thousands of Iraqi Kurds have been forced to flee from the repression and poverty they suffer. Desperate to escape this persecution many have risked their lives to seek sanctuary in the West.
AND WHILE sanctions have reduced the Iraqi population to paupers they have failed to stop the rebuilding of the country's armed forces. At the same time, Saddam's cronies are profiting from smuggling operations
According to Unicef, sanctions have contributed to the deaths of 500,000 children and 800,000 are chronically malnourished.
Advocates of sanctions say that food and medicines are exempt under United Nations 'food-for-oil' programme. But, Iraq's oil revenue is held in a UN managed account with 30% being taken for reparations. Imports are subject to approval by the UN Security Council, so that equipment vital to Iraq's electricity and water supplies is held up. Even lead for pencils is prevented under sanctions.
A new mood of anti-imperialism is developing throughout the Arab world. This could lead to revolutionary explosions against local dictators like Saddam and movements against the Western capitalist powers.
The long-suffering masses of the region can't rely on the imperialist powers to provide a solution. Instead, a socialist solution is necessary, where the oppressed of the Middle East rise against their oppressors and establish a socialist confederation of states to end capitalism.
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A REPORT published last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body, confirms the threat to the environment from global warming is occurring faster than previously predicted.
For years, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, corporations funded scientific research seeking to disprove the theory of global warming for their own ends.
The IPCC report predicts a loss in farming in Africa and Asia and drought in Australasia. Flooding will increase in Europe and low-lying areas such as Bangladesh as sea levels rise by tens of centimetres. The social and economic implications of these 'natural disasters' can't be underestimated, especially in neo-colonial countries where emergency provision and basic infrastructure is minimal.
Increasingly, capitalist politicians have been forced to address the problem but, as the Hague summit on climate change showed last year, no radical alternatives or solutions to the production of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels - the main cause of global warming - are on the agenda.
The ruling classes internationally are divided in their attitudes to the environment. Some in the European Union want to reduce pollution from irresponsible companies because of the long-term economic and social effects it will bring. But claims of environmentally friendly policies from New Labour are dubious.
For example reductions in Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions have more to do with the profits inspired switch from coal fired power stations to gas, while air pollution from car emissions is increasing.
Others, such as the US leaders, refuse to face up to the problem, displaying staggering arrogance and short-sightedness. They use any loopholes available, such as trading 'carbon quotas' and counting forests as 'carbon sinks', to avoid reducing CO2 emissions which would threaten profits.
No half-hearted summits or negotiations initiated by the ruling politicians will have any significant effect on the environmental ravages of capitalism. The only system that can offer long-term green solutions is a socialist society, controlled democratically by working-class people and youth.
Capitalism is incapable of providing a safe, clean and sustainable environment for the world's populations. We have to fight for a socialist system that will.
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EDUCATION IS in crisis. The elitist Blair government is attacking education 'from the cradle to the grave', spitefully snatching away the gains of a century. A chronic lack of funding condemns schools, colleges and universities to cut courses and raise charges.
New Labour has - so far - hit out most at higher education. But even here, drop-out rates are soaring fastest at working-class institutions.
At Cambridge, with an 8% intake of working-class students, only 1% drop out. By comparison, students at University of East London, of which 40% are working-class, have a drop-out rate of 36%. The class divide could scarcely be clearer.
The blame lies fair and square at Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street. The pro-capitalist fanatics - Blair, Brown etc. - bent on appeasing capitalism at any cost are driving higher education still further out of reach for working-class people.
Blair's pre-May 1997 mantra of "education, education, education" proved to be merely a swan-song for the hopes of millions who voted out the Tories. Already inadequate maintenance grants, slashed to the bone by Thatcher and Major, were abolished altogether.
Tuition fees and loans have sent student debts spiralling up to an average of £15,000 plus, while every year applications fall - especially among working-class, black and mature students. Tuition fees are unaffordable.
In 1999-2000, £1.1 million went unpaid at Manchester Metropolitan University. Coventry students, unable to pay, were threatened with sanctions and exclusion. Middlesex University hired bailiffs to intimidate poverty-stricken non-payers. Meanwhile, University of Manchester vice-chancellor Harris got a knighthood from Blair and a hefty pay rise.
Extortionate rents cripple students still further. According to the NUS, students spend nearly 84% of their loans on rent, which in 1999-2000 increased at twice the rate of inflation.
EDUCATION MINISTER Blunkett claimed recently, in best pre-election mode, that "in the next parliament there will be no levying of top-up fees if we win the next election," but the university bosses have different ideas.
The elite Russell Group - including Oxbridge, LSE, Durham and Manchester - want to "opt-out of the state education system" and charge up to £60,000 fees for a three-year degree course.
Claims that scholarships will mean poorer students can still study are a scanty fig-leaf indeed. In the American system, on which this idea is based, even students awarded maximum scholarships graduated with debts of about $54,000 (£33,750).
Former NUS President Andrew Pakes said: "You cannot live on the state maintenance of £3,500 a year on its own. Students from privileged backgrounds are helped by their parents, while students from poorer backgrounds work long hours for low pay in unsafe jobs. No wonder so many drop out."
This won't be news to thousands of struggling students. But the question is: what will Pakes' successor, Owain James, do about it? Unfortunately the answer is: as little as possible. James was fielded as a willing stooge by the Labour Student (NOLS) faction at the NUS Conference in 2000, as a so-called "independent".
This was the first time in 18 years that NOLS did not openly (James is a NOLS supporter) run for President. Why?
Ex-President Pakes admits: "Labour students still have a vision for modernisation and reform [read cuts and bureaucracy - HC] but none can be achieved while there is distrust over the president's motives."
Guardian journalist John Carvel put it more bluntly: "They know they would lose the vote and do not want to embarrass Tony Blair by demonstrating student dissatisfaction with New Labour ... a Labour student candidate would probably be trounced by the hard left. Far better then to swing the dwindling vote on campus behind an alternative anti-Trot [i.e., an alternative bureaucrat - HC] candidate."
A combination of bureaucratic fixes, demagoguery and lies got James elected. Since then - what's happened? The power is there. 25,000 turned out to march in London last November. NUS-sponsored actions are repeatedly well-supported by students. Yet at the national demonstration in November, James boasted that "we have only just begun our campaign".
Two and a half years after fees come in, the bureaucrats have "only just begun"! Ironically, James dubs his strategy "Winning for Students". In reality, the careerists who infest NUS at all levels are winning for themselves - winning safe Labour seats and well-paid positions in the City.
Despite this, Blair, Blunkett and Brown are feeling the heat. Fees were abolished in Scotland and replaced with the graduate tax - totally inadequate but nonetheless causing a surge of new students. In both Wales and Northern Ireland, a big question-mark hangs over the future of fees.
AT THE same time, lecturers and staff are up in arms over pay and conditions. As Paul Mackney, the general secretary of lecturers' union NATFHE, pointed out in January: "... five months after the pay award was agreed, over 30% of lecturers still haven't had their cost-of-living increase for 2000/01... some colleges have financial difficulties and are awaiting the outcome of student enrolments.
"But what other service tells its employees they must wait for their increase until their fortunes improve?"
One month earlier, cooks, cleaners, technicians and lecturers began a programme of industrial action which, though short of strikes, will continue through February. As the Manchester Evening News reports: "the government has ensured cash is available and they are protesting at the universities' refusal to pass it on."
Under-funding, cuts and privatisation affect workers and students alike. A graphic example is selling student halls of residence in Manchester, Sheffield, and Leeds. Profit-driven private companies will inevitably push rents up and wages down.
As UNISON point out: "Although our members' jobs will be protected for a year under EU legislation, there is no saying what will happen when that year is up."
Ageing, decrepit halls badly need investment and renovation. But whatever comes from the private sector will have a hefty price tag attached. Students and workers must join forces in an active campaign to defend pay and conditions, oppose cuts and sell-offs, and fight for free fully-funded education.
A survey in last March's Student Direct suggests that 64% of lecturers opposed tuition fees; 56% said students are "now less well-prepared to do a degree than they were five years ago"; 54% said "their job quality has declined over the past two years... A massive 95% complained that bureaucracy had grown. ...43% described [David Blunkett] as either fairly poor or very poor."
We must build a fighting opposition among students and staff against neo-liberal assaults. The crisis in education will not get better.
Labour, Tories, Liberals and NOLS are all wedded to capitalism, which is the root of the problem. While James has "only just begun" his campaign, activists of Save Free Education, Socialist Students, and the Socialist Party have fought against all fees and cuts since they were introduced.
THE MASSIVE non-payment levels even now don't fully reflect all those who have taken bank loans to cover fees, or who have dropped out because of poverty. The government and management couldn't care less.
Scandals will continue. At the University of Manchester, for example, students have been forced to wait three months for "emergency" hardship loans, grants are arbitrarily refused, and money the management refuses to give to students is handed back to the government!
As one student commented: "It seems like a stupid set-up that people in hardship cannot get help when they need it. Instead, it seems that they are expected to plan two months ahead when they are going to be in hardship!"
Fees and cuts can be beaten. Grants can be won back, and top-up fees stopped dead in the water. For this we need a mass campaign armed with a worked-out strategy. Mass organised non-payment backed by mass action can sink these attacks and win decent funding.
Mass non-payment will clog up the system with refusals and bureaucracy; the government-provided "safety-net" to cushion University management against non-payment will be overstretched and snap. This will hit Blair and the bureaucrats where it hurts - in the pocket.
Not least, a mass movement will terrify the government into offering concessions, including potentially the abolition of fees and restoration of the grant. We must force them into this position through organised mass non-payment, backed by mass action.
However, to secure free education for good we need to replace the greed-driven capitalist system with democratic socialism, under which the world's resources and human potential can be fully realised in education. We must fight off New Labour and the neo-liberals.
The NUS "week of action" (26 February - 2 March), and above all the shut-down on 1 March, is a good opportunity to build the free education and socialism movement on campus.
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PORTO ALEGRE, state capital of Rio Grande do Sul, was the venue for the first World Social Forum from 25-30 January. There were nearly 5,000 delegates from 117 countries registered (mostly from Brazil). In addition, thousands more took part in debates and activities. ANDRE FERRARI of Socialismo Revulicionario (SR - CWI, Brazil) reports.
THE World Social Forum in Porto Alegre aimed to oppose the capitalists' World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, held on the same dates.
The organisers at Porto Alegre rejected the neo-liberalism of the Davos forum and raised the slogan of "a different world is possible".
Most of the organisers thought that while many anti-globalisation demos simply rejected the current order in a negative way, Porto Alegre should pose an alternative.
For many at the Forum this alternative consisted of 'humanising globalisation', 'democratising the international institutions of capitalism' and defending immediate cosmetic measures that do not question the fundamental logic of the capitalist order.
The extreme statement of this position was the intervention by French government ministers who argued that Porto Alegre was not in opposition to Davos but, rather, a complement to it.
They think that austerity measures really are required but there has to be 'concern' with the social effects of those policies.
The Workers Party (PT) city government in Porto Alegre and in the state of Rio Grande do Sul was also put forward as an example of an alternative to neo-liberal policies.
Although undoubtedly a step forward in comparison with any capitalist parties in government, the PT governments here have, under pressure, continued to pay foreign debt and carry through the fiscal adjustment imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and assisted by president Cardoso of the federal government.
NEVERTHELESS, THE 'anti-capitalist spirit' of Seattle, Washington, Melbourne, Plague and Nice was present all the time in the Forum and often surfaced against the will of many of the main bodies that co-ordinated it.
Porto Alegre was the scene of innumerable calls for condemnations of the US's 'Plan Colombia', solidarity with Palestinian masses, struggle against the foreign debt, protest against the arrest of demonstrators in Davos and, of course, a strong condemnation of the policies of the IMF and the World Bank.
Besides the debates, there were big demos during the five days. More than 15,000 took part in the "March against neo-liberalism and for life" on the first day of the Forum.
During the Forum, the Landless Movement (MST) organised an action to destroy a field of GM soybeans owned by multinational Monsanto. GM plants and the American flag were burned by MST activists.
The leader of the Small Farmers Confederation of France, Josˇ Bovˇ, took part in the action and was brutally arrested by Federal Police a few days later and issued with an order to leave the country. Demos of protest and solidarity with Bovˇ marked the last day of the Forum.
Another highlight at the Forum was the live teleconference debate between Davos and Porto Alegre. Hebe de Bonafini, of the Argentinean Mothers (of victims of the military regime) called the Davos spokesmen murderers while financiers such as Soros and others reaffirmed their 'good intentions'.
THE INTERCONTINENTAL Youth Camp was the left-wing and socialist side of the Forum. More than 2,000 camped and held discussions, demos, artistic and cultural activities, etc.
The youth took to the streets against Plan Colombia [US military intervention in Colombia] and diverted the march on the first day to protest at McDonald's, against the will of the leaders.
The merciless sun by day and mud and rain around the tents by night at the youth camp contrasted with the deluxe dinners in honour of Danielle Mitterrand (wife of the late French president) held in traditional establishment clubs.
At the end of the Forum, the youth camp agreed a manifesto. Under the title A different world, a socialist one, is possible, the manifesto emphasizes that "A global alternative to commodity production has to be posed. This means building a new world, a socialist world".
In April, there will be demos in Argentina and Canada against governments meeting to discuss the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas).
In July, the youth will join in the International Movement for the Annulment of Foreign Debt for Third World Countries and in September, will protest during the World Bank and IMF meetings.
The final youth mass meeting also voted unanimously for solidarity and protest posed by members of SR, against attacks on student activists in Nigeria, among them members of Democratic Socialist Movement, the CWI section there.
At the end of the Forum no global alternative was presented. A Letter of Principles will be drawn up by April 2001 by the organising committee on the basis of the discussions.
BESIDES CONSTANTLY defending socialism as the alternative to neo-liberalism and imperialist globalisation, the high point of SR members' intervention at the Forum was presenting the Movement of the Education-less (MSE) to youth from other areas. (MSE is a youth and student movement that fights for the democratisation of access to public universities and in defence of public education.)
SR members met activists from several states around Brazil and other countries.
The idea of an occupation at the USP (University of S‹o Paulo) with students excluded from university attending classes attracted many people.
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ANGER AT the Sri Lankan People's Alliance (PA) government is mounting by the day. The economic situation has become dire. Fuel prices have gone up four times in six months, bus fares have doubled in three months and water, electricity and telephone charges have increased by 25%.
The government has cut the link of the Sri Lankan currency, the rupee, with the US dollar. It had been devalued four times before that, meaning an 18% drop over six months and now there will be even more to follow. The latest move has already led to almost daily increases in the price of foods and essential goods.
As the political and economic crisis deepens, the United Socialist Party (USP) - the Sri Lankan section of the Committee for a Workers' International - has been stepping up its propaganda and campaigning offensive.
Going onto the streets in the capital, Colombo, and elsewhere with thousands of leaflets and posters, the party has found an eager response to its material.
Apart from the USP, the parties of the 'old left' have put up no real opposition. The Communist Party and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) are still participating in the PA government that is responsible for the situation deteriorating so fast.
The main opposition party is the right wing United National Party (UNP). It is making a lot of noise and has organised a 'long march' of ten days from Kandy to the capital Colombo.
They expect 100,000 at their final rally in the capital. But, as Siritunga Jayasuriya, the secretary of the USP says: "The UNP is incapable of providing the leadership that ordinary working people need".
In the past, under governments of the UNP, if the present level of anger and frustration had accumulated, there would have been mass actions on the streets and a 'hartal' or total stoppage in the country.
Today, it is the JVP (Janata Vimuktui Peramuna - People's Liberation Front) that is cashing in on the discontent and calling for a general strike to get wages increased to cover the rapid rise in prices.
However, with ten MPs still supporting the PA, they are not linking their campaign to a demand for the government to resign. The fear of a new UNP government still holds them back, although the mass of the population is becoming increasingly desperate.
While trying to appear radical, demanding a general strike, the JVP is still peddling its propaganda against any division of the country - ie against the right of the Tamil-speaking minority - who are a majority in the North and East of the country - to self-determination.
The USP, on the other hand, is campaigning for this basic democratic right of the oppressed Tamils along with making demands against the price rises and the widespread corruption at the top of Sri Lankan society. It argues for a general strike to be called, as in the past, by a coming together of unions in a workers' convention.
The president of Sri Lanka, Chandrika Kumaratunga, has lashed out in a scare campaign against the UNP (saying they are in league with the Tamil Tiger 'terrorists' and so on) and insisted in a TV broadcast that no wage rises must be allowed.
Only days later, one of her government's most right-wing ministers contradicted her publicly on the need for salary increases. This in itself points to the grave tensions which exist in Sri Lankan society.
Amidst this growing crisis, the USP recently held a meeting to launch a small book they have produced. It puts forward the socialist opposition to left opportunism and careerism in parliamentary politics in the country and outlines the party's own programme.
Over 50 people attended the event, including 12 new people interested in joining the USP. Hundreds of copies of the book have already been sold.
Another book-launch took place soon afterwards, at which Siritunga Jayasuriya was invited to speak from the platform. It was for a compilation of material put together by former LSSP MP, Vasudeva Nannayakara. Included in the book is an article by Peter Taaffe, general secretary of the English and Welsh Socialist Party, on the relevance of the ideas of Marx and Engels 150 years after the publication of their Communist Manifesto.
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