The Socialist 7 July 2009

Action now to defend public sector

Jobs not dole

Brown's dead duck government

Postal workers need a national fightback

National Express goes off the rails

First Bus - no to pay freeze

Demanding justice for Shrewsbury 24

News in brief

Why women don't have real equality

Police trigger ethnic clashes in Xinjiang

Honduras coup - a warning to workers in Latin America

Sri Lanka: Protest over DfID role

Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky

Arundhati Roy - politics and literature

Higher fees in higher education

Drama students enter the stage of struggle

Teachers' MOTs

First strike against Trust schools

Strike against BSF proposals

RMT Annual General Meeting: "If provoked - Will strike"

Save jobs at Vestas wind turbine plant

Private companies caught in jobcentre scam

South West Wales Media: Fight for jobs, defend conditions

Oilc - fighting for decent working conditions in the North Sea

Previous issues, etc

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Sri Lanka: Protest over DfID role

TAMIL SOLIDARITY, which campaigns for the rights of all workers and the oppressed in Sri Lanka, organised a protest recently against UK government financial support for the repressive, chauvinist Sri Lankan government.

Senan, Tamil Solidarity

The UK Department for International Development recently announced an additional £5 million of 'humanitarian funding' for Sri Lanka, bringing the total contribution to the warmongering Sri Lankan government to £12.5 million since September 2008.

This is on top of "commercial sales of more than £13.6 million of equipment [from British companies over the last three years], including armoured vehicles, machine-gun components and semiautomatic pistols, according to official records" (The Times, 2/6/09).

Over 70 people joined the protest outside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in central London on 24 June to demand the provision of food, housing and health facilities to Tamil people and refugees, administered under the control of their own elected and accountable representatives.

FCO officials refused to meet the protesters, but we made sure that our voice was heard by shouting out slogans such as "not a penny not a bullet for the Rajapakse regime" and "shut down the [detention] camps now".

Protesters thanked Tamil Solidarity committee member Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, who led the chanting and who explained that the better way to offer aid to the victims of the civil war was through elected representatives representing the dispossessed Tamil community with the backing of independent trade unions, etc.

Other protesters who spoke expressed anger over the inexcusable silence of the media and Western governments on the continued Tamil repressions and lack of democratic rights in Sri Lanka, and pledged to continue their protests to end discrimination and exploitation in that country.

A majority of the protesters joined the Tamil Solidarity campaign and donated over £42 to the campaign funds.