Defeat For Sri Lankan Government

By TU Senan -April 8, 2014

TU Senan

Contrary to the claims of the Sri Lankan government they have been defeated on many fronts now. Not just in the UN in the form of the UNHRC resolution, but they also suffered a humiliating loss of support in the local provincial election.

In the last provincial election in Sri Lanka, the ruling party candidates lashed out at the US and the UK. It wasn’t that the ruling party of the misnamed ‘socialist republic’ suddenly wake up to the reality of the horror of capitalism. On the contrary the current Sri Lankan government has been implementing vicious neoliberal policies. But a US-led resolution in the UNHRC this month regarding human rights violations by the Sri Lankan regime, was a major propaganda defeat for the government.

Although the resolution fell short of any concrete action it was a humiliation for President Mahinda Rajapaksa. To this day he maintains that no human rights transgressions either took place or are taking place in Sri Lanka. The ruling party went all out to turn the Geneva embarrassment into votes and support – hence the bashing of western governments. They urged voters to support them to ‘save the nation’ and ‘to send a message to Geneva and the Americans’.

Despite these attempts, the results in the last election provided a clear indication of the diminishing support for the government, even in the places they used to consider as strongholds. While the fall in the vote is significant (11% in the western province and 9% in the southern province), more revealing is that this fall in support is taking place despite the massive Geneva scaremongering. What has been vote-producing ‘development rhetoric’ also received a whacking with a 9% reduction in the vote in the heartland of development and Mahinda’s family cave – Hambantota.

In an attempt to whip up Sinhala nationalism the government now resorts to attempting to adopt an anti-imperialist face. Look at the example of Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe from the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and national organiser of racist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU). He claimed in an election rally that “they” are prepared to sacrifice a hundred thousand people to “ensure the protection of the country”. This is not just a throw-away comment from a racist, but reflects a mentality that exists in the ruling party in Sri Lanka.    Read More