Space Created By LLRC And Role For Civil Society

By Jehan Perera -

Jehan Perera

The government has overcome several formidable challenges to itself in the past few weeks.  It has now secured control over the Eastern Provincial Council even though it failed to win the majority of seats in it.  The government’s ability to thrash out an agreement on favorable terms with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress is an indication of its virtually unassailable political position in the country. Although the SLMC was clearly not happy with the terms being offered to it, the leadership of the party has evidently decided that joining the government is better than being in opposition to it.  Those who politically oppose the government and considered a threat run the risk of losing all.

An indication of the difficulties faced by those who act in opposition to the government can be seen in the case of developments taking place in respect to the ongoing university crisis.  The university teachers have been on strike for three months, with little sign of the problem being settled through mutual compromise.  The President of the Federation of University Teachers Association which is spearheading the strike has complained once again that he has been at the receiving end of death threats.   The arrest of the convener of the Inter University Student Federation is related to this ongoing struggle.  The government has accused the teachers and students alike of being party to a political conspiracy against it.  The IUSF convener has been remanded on the grounds that he used violence in one of the demonstrations against the government.

There is a reasonable apprehension that the action against the student leadership is a preliminary indication of repression to follow in order to break the strike by the university teachers. The government has shown that it continues to have public support by winning successive elections.  But no amount of electoral mandates can justify the coercive or extra legal suppression of dissent. In the past,Sri Lanka has experienced several occasions where drastic measures were used to overcome protests against them.  In recent times this has included even at protesting garment factory workers and fishermen, which resulted in a death in each case.    In the more distant past there was even the selective assassination of trade union leaders that cowed the rest of the protest movement into giving up the struggle.

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