Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Sri Lankan Masses Remain in the Streets, despite New President and Military Raids

The mass movement in Sri Lanka has rejected a new prime minister and president, and the state’s response is to raid protest camps and arrest movement leaders. Workers around the world must continue to show solidarity with Sri Lankans and their uprising against austerity.

Samuel Karlin

July 22, 2022
Facebook Twitter Share
Security personnel stand guard next to a barricade near the Presidential Secretariat after a raid on an anti-government protest camp early on Friday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka
Image: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Sri Lankans continue to fight in the streets against austerity, even as the state cracks down on protests, using cops and the military. Following the people’s overthrow of the country’s leaders parliament has appointed Dinesh Gunawardena as prime minister and Ranil Wickremesinghe as president. The movement opposes both men.

Wickremesinghe, the new president, has already overseen the Sri Lankan state as prime minister six different times — and the movement understands him as one of officials largely to blame for the economic crisis Sri Lankans face. These new leaders represent the corrupt political caste that protesters have been mobilizing against. Protesters know they won’t be solving the crises afflicting the working class and poor.

Al-Jazeera reports that protesters rallied in the capital city of Colombo after parliament voted to confirm Wickremesinghe. Students are at the forefront of the protests, and they intend to keep opposition in the streets. As one student leader said, the president “is not new to us” and “the people’s mandate is in the streets.”

On the morning of July 22, the state unleashed military raids on protest camps. Soldiers destroyed tents and arrested several protest leaders. At this writing, the movement’s response to the severe repression is unclear, but the rejection of the new administrators of the state and the massive support for street protests means that the uprising is likely far from defeated.

The eruption of class struggle in Sri Lanka is the result of a historic economic crisis years in the making. The economic policies of the ruling class bankrupted the import-dependent country, and the government hasno foreign reserves with which to make essential purchases.So, Sri Lankans have spent months enduring power cuts while schools and hospitals close down or greatly limit their capacity. In the midst of all this, Sri Lanka’s ruling class pursues an IMF bailout that will impose even greater austerity.

The movement in Sri Lanka is part ofa larger, international phenomenon of strikes and uprisings against austerity — with workers and oppressed people fighting back as well in Argentina, Ecuador, and Ghana, to name just a few. This is unfolding as the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and the war in Ukraine fuel an economic crisis for which the capitalists are making workers pay. In Global South countries, Western imperialism — often through the IMF — subjects workers and oppressed communities to especially terrible conditions, depriving them of food, fuel, and other basic needs.

But it is not just in the Global South that people are resisting. Strikes are surging in Europe in opposition to austerity and rearmament. Meanwhile, a unionization wave continues throughout the United States. Class struggle is growing globally.

The uprising in Sri Lanka is one of the most advanced rebellions against austerity taking place right now. It should come as no surprise that the state is using violence as it tries to put an end to the mobilizations in the streets — repression that will likely become even more severe. The masses in Colombo and other cities throughout the country are providing a powerful example of the role workers and oppressed communities must play to fight the economic crisis capitalism has imposed on us, no matter where we are in the world. Like the people of Sri Lanka, with whom we must continue to show solidarity, all of us should be in the streets and fighting in our workplaces.

Facebook Twitter Share

Samuel Karlin

Samuel Karlin is a socialist with a background in journalism. He mainly writes for Left Voice about U.S. imperialism and international class struggle.

Asia-Pacific

China’s Rise, ‘Diminished Dependency,’ and Imperialism in Times of World Disorder

In this broad-ranging interview, originally published in LINKS, Trotskyist Fraction member Esteban Mercatante discusses how recent global shifts in processes of capital accumulation have contributed to China’s rise, the new (and old) mechanisms big powers use to plunder the Global South, and its implications for anti-imperialist and working-class struggles today.

Esteban Mercatante

September 22, 2023

Strike for Wages at Chevron-Australia Could Hit 5 Percent of Global Gas Production

Chevron workers in Western Australia are escalating a strike at two of the world's largest gas facilities. They are demanding wage rises and better working conditions.

Arthur Nicola

September 14, 2023

The Roots of the Rebellion at Foxconn

Jenny Chan is a researcher and professor at the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong. She is co-author of the book Dying for an iPhone. She spoke with La Izquerda Diario about the causes of the rebellion by workers at the Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, China.

Josefina L. Martínez

December 7, 2022
Participants in a memorial ceremony lay flowers to pay respect to a deceased 23-year-old worker in front of the SPC headquarters in Seoul, Thursday. She died in an accident at a baking factory in Pyeongtaek affiliated with SPC on Saturday.

How Workers and Socialists are Responding to a Workplace Death at One of South Korea’s Largest Food Manufacturers

Following a workplace death at SPC group, one of the largest food manufacturers in South Korea, a consumer boycott quickly gained traction. Organized workers and revolutionary socialists are playing a role in this struggle.

Samuel Karlin

November 12, 2022

MOST RECENT

The World Kissinger Built Must Die Too

Henry Kissinger died at 100 years old. But his legacy remains in the brutal world system he built and the future generations of imperialist ghouls he inspired. They all must go.

Samuel Karlin

November 30, 2023

Fact Check: Did German Leftists Try to Bomb West Berlin’s Jewish Community Center in 1969?

Answer: No. The bombing was undertaken by West Germany’s domestic secret service, originally founded by Nazis.

Nathaniel Flakin

November 29, 2023
Protesters in NYC for Palestinian liberation.

Uniting Workers for Palestine Is a Fight for the Future of Labor

The struggle for Palestine shows the potential for the rank and file to push unions to break with imperialism and to build a new, combative, and internationalist unionism.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

November 27, 2023
Haverford College student Kinnan Abdalhamid and Brown University students Tahseen Ahmed and Hisham Awartani, Palestinian college students who were shot in Burlington, Vermont.

Haverford Faculty for Justice in Palestine Releases Statement Supporting Pro-Palestinian Students

Haverford College Faculty for Justice in Palestine have published a statement following the shooting of three Palestinian students in Burlington, Vermont.