13.06.1996

Police raids

Armed police officers raided the Columbo headquarters of the NSSP, the Nava Sama Samaja (New Socialist) Party, section of the Fourth International in Sri Lanka, on June 1 1996, while the central committee was in session.

About 30 policemen armed with automatic rifles, grenades and sub-machine guns broke into the building, saying that they suspected illegal activities.

The actual reason for this is that the NSSP is the key organisation supporting the electricity workers’ strike, which began on May 29 and resulted in a total blackout for four days. The whole 14,000-strong workforce went on strike demanding that the government give up its plan to privatise the Ceylon Electricity Board.

This is the second time the government has tried to intimidate the NSSP within a short span of one month, the first being a police attack on the May Day demonstration.

The President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, vowed on May 31 that she will resort to any means “short of killing” to get the workers back to work. She declared the strike illegal and ordered mass arrests of the strikers.

Within hours of her threat, unidentified gunmen shot at the main telecommunications union leader JBP Dissanayaka. He escaped unhurt, but it was clear that the attack was clearly aimed at intimidating other public sector trade unions which have expressed solidarity with the striking electricity workers.

Dissanayaka is also a leader of the public sector trade union movement opposing privatisation.

Several leading members of the NSSP have also received death threats. There had been attempts by pro-government forces, including some members of parliament, to rouse chauvinism among the masses by staging anti-strike demonstrations depicting strikers as a hindrance to the war effort against Tamil separatists.

The NSSP is calling a campaign against state terrorism, war and privatisation. It appeals to all socialists and trade unionists to write or fax the President of Sri Lanka HE Chandrika Kumaratunga, at the Presidential Secretariat, Colombo.

• Protest and condemn the raid against the NSSP headquarters
• Protest and condemn all forms of intimidation against electricity workers and public sector workers in general.

Please send a copy to the NSSP.

United Secretariat of the Fourth International, Bureau