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Sri Lanka: Daily Massacre of Civilians, Can the Trade Union Movement Remain Silent?

by Linus Jayatilake, 27 March 2009

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Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009

To All Peace Loving People of the World,

An Appeal on behalf of the Unarmed People Trapped in the Civil War in Sri Lanka

The war situation where direct confrontation between the Government and the LTTE, is taking place in the Pudukudiyiruppu in the Mullaitivu District, is
daily deteriorating. The Government media gives only one-sided information
of the 58th battalion moving slowly from the direction of Pudukudiyiruppu.
Simple imagination would give us the death toll of innocent Tamil people,
the Sinhala soldiers and the LTTE militants.

In a situation of a massacre taking place daily, can the organized section
of the Trade Union Movement remain silent?

The unarmed people trapped in this war, should be the main concern to put
an end to this war and press for a political solution.

It is disgusting to see how the world powers are exploiting this situation.
The European Union takes a very partisan view on this issue demanding the
LTTE to lay down arms which the LTTE has already rejected. But later there
seems to be a softening of their attitude when they demanded a cease-fire
both from the LTTE and the Government. The British government demanded a cease-fire though it was not clear of the nature of the cease-fire.

In principle, we never tolerate any foreign intervention in the internal
affairs of a country on any issue. However given the fairly rational
position, the EU has since taken on a dire humanitarian issue, there is no
question that the GOSL has to take it seriously and act upon it.

The air bombing seems to have reduced due to the civilian people in the
area. The Working Class should defend these unarmed and innocent people and demand both the Government and the LTTE to agree to a complete cease-fire and allow the free movement of these people trapped in the war to get back to their areas.

The majority of the peace-loving people in the South would give their
blessing for such a non-partisan position to demand both the Government and the LTTE to a no-fire situation and to help the unarmed, innocent people to get back to their villages.

Though this war against terrorism is being carried out to defend the unity
and integrity of the Sri Lankan State, it is daily becoming evident to the
Tamil People that this war has turned out to be an invasion and a grabbing
of their land of red soil which they will never forgive for generations to
come.

If a National Struggle has ended up in an armed struggle in a civil war
which has led to a horrible humanitarian crisis, all the Governments in
South Asia should realize that if justice is not meted out in time to these
communities struggling for their National Identity and added with economic
injustice, the whole of South Asia will turn out to be a fertile breeding
ground for brutal violence and individual terrorism.

We sincerely appeal to peace-loving people and organizations every where to express their support to the position taken by some of our Trade Unions.

Linus Jayatilake
- President - UFL
- United Federation of Labour
- Sri Lanka