media silent? In stark contrast to the media hype that has accompanied the Romanian events, with grossly exaggerated casualty figures, there has been a conspiracy of silence to cover up systematic violence in Sri Lanka.
There have been summary executions, and dismembered bodies have been exhibited in public places by the Sri Lankan govermnent. In the past four months over 80,000 Sri Lankans have been executed: an unknown number of detainees are being held incommunicado. Every day piles of headless bodies or charred limbs are dumped by the security forces, becoming a common sight in many parts of the country.
Lawyers who dared to file habeas corpus applications regarding the "disappearance" of persons who have been abducted and killed by the security forces have been persecuted; thousands of people have fled the country.
The British media did not report even the urgent appeal made by Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike, the leader of the op position, tol religious and political leaders of the world, requesting them to intervene in order to stop this carnage. She disclosed that under the guise of suppressing 'terrorists" 5,000 members and supporters of her own party had been abducted and killed by death squads of the ruling party. She also disclosed that she had received information about 1,500 ruling party members who are receiving military training at an army camp near Colombo, and that special squads are being formed in order to SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 22, March 1990
UPDATE eliminate the cadres of opposition parties.
The self-censorship of the British press is not due to any shortage of information or legal restrictions on reporting. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the British media are none too keen to criticise a pro-wester goverjnment which is more than willing to implement the diktats of the IMF and westem "donor countries".
Last September the Sni Lankan govemment made an agreement with the IMF in order to secure 'economic aid from westem countries. In order to fulfil the terms of this agreement the government devalued the rupee by 20 percent, closed down a number of government concems and abolished the remaining subsidies on essential commodities.
As a result the prices of essential food and other goods have risen by 50-60 percent. Other measures include the sacking olf 94,000 civil servants over the next three years, and this will adversely affect at least 600,000 dependents. The goverment has also agreed to a drastic reduction in tariffs on foreign imports, which will ruin local industries, and increase the already swollen ranks of the unemployed. Also coming is privatisation of all government-owned corporations. In a country where 40 percent of the urban population suffer from malnutrition, these measures must increase the suffering of workers and poor peasants.
Tis to implement these policies that the goverment has unleashed its systematic reign of terror. The latest diktat prohibits any meetings or gatherings for any purpose in schools, factories
or hostels. This is effectively a ban on all trade union and student union activities. The government is determined to hold down wages and to stifle any protest as it slashes the living standards of the masses.
The vast majority of western "aid donor" countries are willing to give economic assistance to third world countries only if they carry out this type of IMF-style "economic adjustment". They also demand political stability and a "disciplined" labour force before they will encourage investment.
Most western govemments would prefer it if the Sri Lankan rulers could curb the 'excesses" of their more sadistic goons; but they are no doubt satisfied by the goverment's efforts to meet the IMP proposals.
In order to placate any mild criticism that may come from the more Liberal of the western governments, the Sri Lankan rulers make ritual gestures, usually just before the annual meeting of the UN sub-committee on Human Rights. Often this amounts to convening some form of all-party conference to seek solutions to youth unrest. But since the dominant powers on the UN sub-committee are largely the same ones that dominate the Sri Lanka *aid consortium*, everybody knows that this is just a cosmetic PR exercise, and that nothing will change other than the printing of more verbiage in UN documents.
It is not surprising therefore that the British media which so tamely take their line from its masters have chosen to give so little coverage to the activities of the Pol Pot-style regime in Sri Lanka.
For the moment things are relatively quiet in Sri Lanka because the govemment has made common cause with the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), one of the Tamil nationalist groups, against the more progressive Tamil groups. However this situation is not likely to last long. The Indian government is due to withdraw its troops (the Peacekeeping Force' IPKF) from the north and east of the island at the end of March and it is unlikely that the opportunist alliance with the Tigers will hold for long after that: armed conflict between the Tigers and the Sri Lankan army will erupt once more.
Contrary to the hopes and expectations of the wester powers it is unlikely that the Sri Lankan government can establish political stability: the laid" it receives from Britain and other countries will be squandered on armaments and the extension of the repres sive forces.
Neither state terror nor the op portunist policies of the Tamil Tigers the Sinhalese nationalists of the JVP can provide any lasting solution to the economic and social crisis in Sri Lanka. Nor can any meaningful discussion of alterative social and economic policies take place in the present climate of repression and terror. That is why it is urgent for socialists to campaign for an immediate moratorium on all British and European aid to the Sri Lankan government as part of the fight for the restoration of democratic rights.
Sunil Fernando Page 3
Tory NHS opt-outs hit by ballot
Soviets fight for unions The tour of Britain by SOTSPROF, a unique new independent trade union in the Soviet Union bas been a huge success.
The SOTSPROF гергеsentative, Oleg Volonin is an experienced trade union organiser from Irkutz in Siberia, where he has been in recruiting coal miners and workers on the Trans-Siberian railway to the union.
SOTSPROF is a small but real and substantial trade union organisation with 60,000 affiliated members in various regions of the USSR. The membership ranges from miners, railworkers, Moscow truck drivers to women in footwear and broadside AS THE TORIES congratulate themselves on forcing the NHS Bill in double quick time through the Commons (under cover of the ambulance dispute) they face more serious problems in implementing its provsions.
Labour MPs and union leaders may have given the government little or no cause for alam with their half-baked or non-existent campaign against the White Paper and the Bill, but even the £3m propaganda blitz from Kenneth Clarke's department has failed to swing opinion in favour of the keel of the Bill - the internal market and the op ting out of major hospitals as self-contained NHS Trusts'.
Wherever they get the chance to express their views, hospital workers are registering 9-1 op position to the opt-out proposals. The most recent proof of this (and politically the most damaging to the goverment) was the ballot conducted by the Hands Page 4
UPDATE clothing factories.
SOTSPROF is growing fast. A year ago it was only 10,000 members and within another year - if expected mass strikes break out in the spring - Volonin expects it to grow to several hundred thousand.
The most important part of the tour has been visits to workplaces, shop stewards organisations and trade union organisations, visiting Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and London and meeting national unions including the NUR, NALGO and NUJ.
Nor does Volonin stick to "trade union' issues. He opposes Off Guys! campaign in the flagship of a prospective fleet of op ting out hospitals.
Despite extensive management harassment of campaigners, a union-organised ballot of staff produced a 30%-plus participation and a huge 93% vote to reject opting out. The result is consistent with other unofficial ballots of staff at the Central Middlesex and North Middlesex Hospitals and St George's in London and at St George's in Mid Staffordshire. It should also be echoed on a larger turnout by the official ballot which West Lambeth health authority has ordered management to conduct under the auspices of the Electoral Reform Society at St Thomas's Hospital, right opposite parliament.
Nor is it only health workers who reject Clarke's plans:
BMA survey of consultants in the 74 hospitals on Clarke's hit list for opting out showed that a majority in less than ten hospitals
Soviet miners striking last summer in Norlisk perestroika, supports the right of self-determination for the op pressed nationalities within the Soviet Union, and calls for the withdrawal of troops from Azerbaijan. He is against radical marketisation of the economy -calling instead for planning under workers" self-management.
It is clear that British were in favour, while in no less than 50 hospitals most consultants were against opting out or undecided. In 19 hospitals the opt-out bid is proceeding against the express opposition of most consultants.
There could be an even bigger problem for Clarke: behind the press focus on the ambulance dispute, the financial plight of health authorities, brought about by deliberate govemment underfunding of pay awards and inflation, has been lurching (as predicted by campaigners) from disastrous to catastrophic. A
BBC national survey has shown over a third of health authorities overspent, with many already closing wards and cutting ser-
vices this year. But with cash limits for 1990-91 already fixed,
and the allowance for pay and inflation pegged at an absurdly low
5%, every health authority faces a major squeeze in the next 12
months. This is intensified by the
changes embodied in the Bill,
socialists have a duty to support a new trade union federation in the USSR being built on such a basis. This tour will be followed by a more extensive one at the end of March. Readers should be on the lookout for details and help to build the tour as well as raising the appeal in their workplaces and union branches.
Alan Thornett
which call for the elimination of all accumulated deficits - often amounting to millions of pounds - to create a "level playing field" for the internal market from April 1991.
Among the heaviest losers in all this will be the districts with opting out hospitals which - at least in London - are among the
heaviest overspenders. Worst of
all is St Thomas's, hit by the
worst-ever deficit in the history
of the NHS - and some E8.9 mil
lion in the red.
With his flagships holed and
much of the fleet severely
damaged. Captain Clarke may
yet decide to sail on towards op
ting out: but it is clear that some
traditional Tory supporters will
be among those keen to make
him walk the plank. There will
be plenty of chances yet for the
trade union and Jabour move-
ment (and even the left if it ever
wakes up to the issuel) to play a
role in leading the mutineers.
Harry Sloan SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 22, March 1990
Poll Tax: