Page 1
SPECIAL Sarachich
'A'
Current
(Mark your
* Do you predict a re-shuffle aft
* What are the chances of an el
* What is the significance of the
* Why did Anura praise Prema ?
* Is it Wriggin's Dilemma or Ho is Wi the TULF join a National
* What do you think the LSSP is
* Is Anii GBS but not KGB ? (2)
is is the LSSP-CP front defunct 2
* Has the 5 party bloc become F
ls politics getting dharmysteriou
(Marks can be adjusted
Also A. J. Wilso
wiswa warnapa
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Indra on Tower Hall
༣༡
Vol. 2 No. 16 December 15, 1979
LEVEL
Affairs
own script)
er Galle (10 marks)
lection in 1980 2 (5)
UNP-SLFP coalition move 2 (15)
(3)
ward's End 2 (2)
Government (10)
up to ? (5)
(10)
tohana Vs the Rest ? (5)
s ? (20)
at Malay St. for a modest fee)
: Tamil awakening
Local govt.
Indian scene

Page 2
People like you are the 51are Olders Of Che T3 rex, the first People's Company. Спепапех герте Sents a bold at tempt to mobilise the sawings of the people and channE | them into productive effort. Our company is made up of small shareholdings held by the ordi mar y people of Sri Lärka. It is the small individual contribution that Takes Chertarex, with no individual or family controlling more han 5% of our shares. We represent the desire of millions of people like you to contribute to the Nation's progress by participating in business, in research and in development.
Chemanex the spearhead
for development
 
 
 
 

Page 3
Mathew Magic
"Some of my best friends are Jews'' (Or Negroes) is the answer of a WASP accused of anti-Semitism or colour prejudice. Industries Minister Cyril Mathew charged with sints-TIIII 5 entsmErt Wert One better. His top adviser on running his Corporation Empire, he sid, was a Tarrn II, that Fle dan t-Tarif, only anti-Eelam and anti-Tiger.
5 tandard
adding
W5 not
But he did receive a surprising cheer from the ranks of TULF Tuscany when Opposition leader, Amirthdlingam no less, congratulated him for the way he ran thլ: The budget debate sa w many such compliments
Corporations.
from Lunexpected quarters. Anura praised Premier Premado sa and sa did the TULF's Nawaratnam.
Asia Foundation
Wien is the "new look" Peace Corps, as the CDN called it, return ing to these shores! Although the Peace Corps is an Institution sponsored by the US government, some highly placed US diplomats in this part of the World frown on this organisation regarding it as a globe-trotters' club for do-gooders. On the other hand, Asia Foundation, a non-government agency which was also expelled by the Bandardna ske regime, may return with full blessings from Washington. When Asia Foundation Hayden Williams wist which
post-juvenile
boss
W5 here's included meetings with many Sri Lankan WVIP's
Was War Inly patronised.
Galle Pickle
With the gllfielding a non-UN. diw fided and Lunde end, and the LSSP p non-LSSP" er J, against a JVP W. erstwhile "ally' |ived 5 pагty bloc, Gge turned out
Though the U. recognised this critica test of thE prestige, the only q apped r to attract preoccupation of th ting parties dre: will be the gap UMN P rd SLFP who wis || Come 3 or WP?
Politics And TI
President Jayewa warning to the U a dramatic termin interests of a un ft with the Interests to which it is sare lessor was u
the CWC's Gene Mr. Sellasamy. Th חטnddmטMr. Th
Minister, the CWC strongly worded sett Jayewardene reques diate inquiry into
strong-arm tactics tion workers Trn 3! estates. Mr. Se about the ways st a re trying to force : In to Sum 55orthro
assaults. A bold
story headliпеd їп the current issue. NEWS says tha thugs masquera din; guards are running confirms the L.G. worthy Funera I' I r
5 L.

lowerful UNP P'er, the SLFP ded to the Lutting forward nd ex-JWP'er ich was its n the 5 hortWhat di pickle to e.
NP obviously Et EE as da t"sחEוחחWErטg : Le5 tons Whos the anxious e foшг сопре(a) how big between the wote and (B)
rej, the LSSF
Us
Irdene's stern
MP Lurnirn 5 f5; der that the in often clash of the party filiated. The inderscored by гаІ Secretary ough his boss, is di Cabret addressed a er to President =meוחז חE (Tחi: thuցքery and garist plantaa te-controlled asamy talks Γης ΠΙΠας Erς 7 de uniors 5 gh organised front page blood red in f CONGRESS gri-toting as Security rok. Tils eport "NoteUr Dec. Ist
TRENDs LETTERS
Double WW
Old soldiers newcr die - so our own irrepressiblic and unPredictable General Da Galle rides again!
The British said of Churchi during World War 2, Winston spells with a double W.W. A double sign of Victory." ls it ditto for "W" of Gao
H. E. R. Abayasekera
Not of CMU
| refer to the article that appeared in "Lanka Guardian' Issue Na: 14 of | 5th November 1979, under the captilon "SociaIsts and the Tamil issue". where in you have referred to Ine as "CMU Assistant Secretary Upali Cocray".
This is incorrect. I am the Assistant Secretary of the
(rே: ஏா Fge 2)
LAMRA
GUARDAN
Wol. 2 No. 16 December 5, 1979 Price 250
Published fortnightly by Lanka Guardian
Publishing Co. Ltd., First Floor, 88, N. H. M. Abdul Cader Road, Reclamation Road) Colombo 11.
Editor: Morwyn do Siwa Telephone: 21009.
CONTENTS News background 3. Foreign news 9 Tamil consciousness Two H 20) Book review 22 April Insurgency 모도 As I like it 고7
Printed by Ananda Press 825, Wolfendhal Street, Collibu, 13.
Telephone: 35975.

Page 4
Revolutionary Marxist Party and not of the CMU. I sha thank you to publish a correction
accordingly.
Upali Cooray
Galle by-election
The Illuch-talked of and much-expected "5 party united front", ha 5, foi a II intents and purposes, fallen apart soon after its for ration-a bit too soon I must say. The simpletons, Utopians and non-partisan "leftists' of the middle-class (i.e. the petit-bourgoisie) had pinned a lot of hope on this
seemingly favourable unity of the left.
And what was
the bust-up A This only show: parliament or
"Marxists' of the
Instead oforganis rousing them an in country-wide
their immediate
for IT LInted fr.
sole purpose
electios15! The e
processes of the expended in pl: contesting electi formation of
sole preoccupatio
to measu precision
Union Platform W. Counter Scales anc are man UI factuIred t international standa gUIarantee of absolu
Manufactured by
SAMUELSON
37 Old Moor Street,
 

the cause of
A by-election
how utterly
ieri ta tad thը
se partie5 a re. ing the masses, deading them
ag tations for demands, they
onts for the
of Contesting ntire thinking
Se parties are inning for and ons, (including fronts!). This
in with parlia
mentary politics, however, does -harangu וחסfr וחnot prevent the
ing about revolution. Excuses are given, justifications made and theoretical arguments
advanced to defend the parliamentary line. But a mere by-election is enough to make enemies of the one-title united
frort T1em Eb T5.
The only hope for the left lies in its ability to lift itself from the quagmire of Parliamentry politics. Parliament, is indeed, the opium of Ceylon's
aft.
Hatton Dr. M.S.Thambirajah
- a standard
re
by.
eighing Machines, í Spring Balances :o the highest
rds - your Ite quality.
Sg cOMPANY LAMATED
12 סbוחםCol
Tel: 3234 - A.

Page 5
Grand alliance,
design
Tr story of a major Cabinet
fe-shuffle is still in the air though the state controlled media maintains a discreetly died 5 i ence. But the morte enterprising columnists of the
Sun" group ("Cabinet re-shuffle — ColuTnrnist5 collide"", LG Now". It have pressed on with their teresting behind-the-scenes Ecorts and speculative commen- riet. The party newspapers
are carried the story much ther. The LSSP's 'JANADINA"
the CP's "ATHTHA" hawe hed front page items on top-level NP-SLFP discussions aired at a
New Coalition of the country's EC major parties.
The SLFP's "NATION' gave
te story a bolder (and morte ceful) twist and headlined its count "GENERAL ELECTION NEXT YEAR UNP CIRCLES FEDCT MARCH POLLS".
The "Nation' builds the story the resignation of a senior mister (MDH), the "first Sigris Ef dissension within the Cabinet." a the conviction af the UNP's visers that the government is become so 'unpopular" that "will mot have any chance of mining, if elections are held, as theduled in 1983".
Into the thick of this political Essip (sometimes, highly inspired, ce suspects), wild conjecture = - zerious speculation has been E TI
another confusing item — NP leaders hawe been 臀 secret talks with the top LSS
г. с "Absolute попsense snapped
a LSSP politburo asked for his co
Anura’s asides
IN A WRAPL month's developm END's political MIGARA made a to Arm Lura Banda Ett on to the The young SLFP (and raised som eyebrows) by c hard-working F The long-standi bitter feud bo Public knowledge alluded to their NSA and courtr
The Leftwing no love for An hinted that the
aike would get a from Mr. Prema
most Ingres|E55 í wits, if 2nd MP dld not Haye
"guardian" highe had to stand up
some wild heck backbenchers. S ha PPily surprised
longer their spe the House itself w Instructions from
5Uggetive Inquiry Snappy retort fra "I take instruct House and nobod
ТП в. relevancı remarks to this he ha 5 had a P going with the the Kala wewa he sought (unsu nomination on th the UNP High Promised mot i to: man against him, UNP'ers say jokir the "best UNP'e An Lira ha 5 neyer SLFPUNP Соорег
சரிவி rேr
 

grander
by Mervyn de Silva
member when
| TIThe C5.
JP survey of the ents, the WEEK
COTT T2T do pointed reference ramaike's contribudget debate. "er måde news le parlamentary ommending the 'rime Minister. ng and ofte EWeen them is Anura himself fights in the Jorn, and outside.
ress which has Lura ha5 , allways Young Bandarabigger battering lasa, easily the of Parliamentary for Nuwara Eliya a sympathetic --LP. - Anura has in the past to ing from UNP so he seemed that he was no cial target and was much quieter. the top? Anura's only drew a in Mr. Speaker: ions from the y else."
2 of Anura's discussion is that arsonal dialogue UN P ewer since Erouhaha when ccessfully) party e ground that Command had field a UNF While young gly that he is r in the SLFP', been averse to 1tfor1.
Another
Piece of the jigsaw was Premier Premadasa's own exchange with the TULF. While Mr. W. N. Nayaratnam showered
raise on the PM Mr. Premadas ມີກ. addressed a cryptic remark to the TULF leader about getting together soon.
Grand alliance
AT. A. PRESS conference held on the eve of the 1977 polls, a
foreign correspondent asked the UNP leader: "It is said that depending on the results you
may form a grand alliance... what exactly do you mean by a grand alliance?" Turning on the Sweetly inscrutable smile he reserves for such occasions, JR replied: "A gгапd . . . . . . alliance....' I
Schooled for so long in parliamentary politics and fully conscious of the "pendulum effect which ha 5 characterised Sri Lanka's own electoral experience, JR a master himself in oppositional tactics, has always revealed a special fascination for the idea of a grand alliance or a 'national government". Deep down, it is nourished by the maturity of a politician who has grasped the essential difference between the party Interest and the interests of the system (Marxists would call it "class') and knows that the demands of the latter must transcend the claims of the former whenever the stability (a key Word in the JR lexicon) of th system was in peril.
In 1965, UNP did form a selfstyled national government but Es credibility , was never high because the major opposition party (SLFP) and the traditional Left Were not constituent members.
In 1970 and more so after the | 97 || Insurrection, JR. vigorously canvassed the same idea though this time the move would hae to be in reverse, The UNP would
3

Page 6
hawe to emitet the U. F. This Was the begin ring of the acriTonicus JR-Dudley debate, which nearly led to some dubious strategems to have him expelled from a party he had served with a more unwavering loyalty than Some others who shared in good ti Ties the frLII Es of JR's labo Lurs in adversity. What is often forgotten is that there was no basic dispute between the UNP duo. What was the problem?
Leftwirard Turch 2
THE UNP was disturbed by what it saw as the dangerous leftward lurch of the UF's policies. The UF had 90 SLFP'ers while the combined Left could count on only 25 votes. Yet the qualitative balance seemed to support a near-dominance of "leftist ideas". By virtue of their intellectual Weight, argumentative skill, organisational muscle, their hold on important levers of government (finance, plantations, transport) and the support they received from left-leaning minis. ters of the SLFP (Industries, Trade), the Marxists were dragging the
SLFP, the government and the country leftward. In order to correct this or Inous imbalance,
the UNP should go in and prop up the SLFP, especially the "pire' SLFF.
Dudley sensed the danger and agreed with the analysis Eo Luc. would 30 UNP'ers suffice. The
UNP would be swamped; it would lose its identity, and there would ba no 'democratic' alternatiwa to the SLFP at the next Dolls. There the internal UNP debate ceased and with Dudley's death the tactic too died a natural death.
What is most significant in to day'5 context Is that Mrs. Bandaranaike achieved in her own t|The and in het own fashion what the UNP had perceived as its historic duty of saving democracy from the Marxists. The ease with which she booted out the LSSP in 1975 proves convincingly that far from being a prisoner of Machiavellian Marxists, she had been using them for her own political purposes. When their potential was exhausted and
her own purpose dumped them
Subsequent ewid sides shows that What she was
start - from th: distributing port the strategic Pla: IIETI C AssäjT: T1 LSSP claims that on pre-election portfolios.)
LSSP a:it
THE sacking o SLFP's compulsi the pressures c and external fa seismic shock of the naturation o geoisie (some SL Pro-Peking persu to it as "the pric Ebourgeoisie) wh nurtured by the policies of Imp. and had flouris he State patronage, this class were t alialis, the fiman the party, those alalis much Taligi usly threatened Oni election platfo tial class, as Sam bes it had arr gro With as an 3 geoise,5 intere hand changed, its ended. It looked next stage of fore and overseas ima exports. The sta being set for th policles (export which the UNP ordained to purs.
External pressur
THE OL CRISIS 1973 pressures on situation had for only to court We Japan but to st sources of aid Arab countries an N. M.'s last budg returned from Bon to the SLFP "I alisa Lion''
With the LSSP new Financa Minis Ing the Foreig Guarantee Law, an

25 changed, she unce remoniously. Ence fro|II. bath t Mrs. B. knew doing from the : very act of ifolios, retaining inning and Econistry etc. (The she even reneged
promises about
f the LSSP was e TCS POTIS? LO
If both Interna | tors. First the 1971. Secondly,
--t bourחבascחבf FP radicals of a Sol Siti || Tafar »gre 55 iwe national -h had been SLFP's post-1960 Ort substitutin d through party1
Prominent in hose SLFP. Iudcial backers of Self-same muded and murderoby UNP leaders rm. This potenir Am Fin descriiwed. With its Luthentic bour5t5 and outlook rogressive phase forward to the ign collaboration irkets for "new" ge the refore was in MF-oriented
platforms etc.) was historically
and the post| Our Payments ed the UF ot :St Germany and *arch for ne W. n tha oll-rich
di Iran. Before et, Mrs. B had II. LO 31 T1 TC III. CE
The latio
gone, FDB, the tert Wa5 drafin Investment idea reInforced
Mrs. Errike
and refined by the UNP to adorn Sri Lanka's now constitution. Dr. Segwalli Ratwatte, then Dirolctor General of Export Promotion, was working on the blueprint of the FTZ. A rearguard action by the "Left' in the SLFP-CP coalition helped by the mas terly diatribes on the muda
|alis and the multinationals by the SLFP rebel and Opposition 'onero , Mr. Ronnie de Me
(now the UNP's Finance Minister) together with Mrs. Bandaranaike's Preoccupation with the upcom ing 5th Summit stalled these moves. And after the Summit, it was time to prepare for elections.
Continuity
A PRE-ELECTION social event produced a remarkable coincidence which illustrates well the fact of continuity rather than discontinuity between the SLFP's last years and the UNP's first phase. The island's only genuing multinationalist Mr. Upali Wijewardena (first cousin of the UNP leader)
was appointed the FTZ's czar. His deputy was the one-time SLFP Export Promotion boss,
Dr. Seeval Ratwatte, brother of Mrs. Bandaranaike and Mr. WijaWardena's father-in-law. In centuries past, marriages of that kind ended wars between nations. (Or started them).
As for all those blood-curdling threats against the SLFP's financial backers, where have all the mudalalis gone? To the FT22 The 05 tentatious scions of what the UNP propagandists called the SLFP's "new class" hawe become ready converts to the new-look. Singapore-style economic policy, Through membership in Interlooking directorates and matrimon I

Page 7
a links, they have joined a growing entrepreneurial and trading group that represents the confluence of old and new wealth.
Objective basis
IN SHORT, there is an objective basis for a grand alliance. And broadly speaking it is in accord with JR's conception of national interest and reed, and his wi5ion of his own historical role, His reaction to the polls result was touched by a revealing paradox. No party leader could have dreamt of so spectacular a victory and JR, exulting in his triumph, must have appreciated the benignity of a fate that had crowned his long career with such glory. Yet, he was sufficiently sagacious to admit to a foreign correspondent
that he was "worried" by the magnitude of the UNP victory and the catastrophe which had
overcome its traditional opponents. The SLFP had been reduced to a humble 8 and the Left had been anni hilated. Would the UNP victory, by its own staggering scale, endanger the UNP's future and what is more imperil the stability of the system? JR's vision
TWAS, a disturbing clement of
another kind. It was the one factor which could not be accommodated in JR's grand Gaullist vision of his historical
role as the party politician who was destined to place himself above party politics; the statesmanin-the-making; the symbol of the nation, perhaps the State itself. Such missions need a mystique. For de Gaulle it was the restoration of France's wanished glory. Drawing from an Asian heritage, JR spoke of dharmista. Between Bonaparte and de Gaulle Asoka and i Dharmasoka, "JR Thought" wrestled with the great imponderable of Political philosophy and action, the perennial problem of Might and Right, trying to TECO melle what is possibly ir reconcilable, the exacting and harsh demands of power with the ideals of good governments. A2 Sri Lanka’s own Řrofessor S.J. Thambah Phrased it in a celebrated F-7, Dharma Raja and Raja Dharma.
Sut a II this in the rarificd FETs of personal vision. The
Prefer
realist, toughuna ble to rgy result to his cony to take some
nary steps. It
UNP emissaries
the SLFP laide SLFP participatic go Ye Tin ment. | the Leftwing p of fra 5h details o There were som ng Certain kay Bandarana I ke fam to respond to
іп equally iпі rejected the off ded to sit it out
From July 97 JR has also ti cordial relation: Long associatic decem cies do no for this attudi the parliamenta LSSP could "extremist" or "ex activity which stabilising factor
field to which great importan Lions.
New structure
MEANWHILE t t0 build brick edifice of powe tel EXCLtiva Presidency that 1983 elections a allow the pres his premier and рагliamentary d elections (d) a of his party po Mr. Panditarant
 

Way'ek'a reserte
minded politician, erse an election enience, proceeded practical, prelimiis no secret that made contact with rship to explore in in the July 1977 t recent reports, ress has been full f these discussions. le SLFPers, includIlenber of the ily who were ready
the offer. Others luential positions, er, Mrs. B. deci
and bilde her time. "7 to NM's fundra,
"ied to maintain ; with the LSSP. in and civilised
pt wholly account e. Shut out from ry process, the a tempted into :tra-parliamentary' may be a de, especially in a JR has attached e the trade
:he architect began : by brick, the -סipחוחם חr. (a) a presidency (b) а Will outlast the nid Will therefore ident to Choose cabinet (c) no efections, no byformal shuffling sition by making = UNF charman
(e) the PR system which in effect loads the pendulum after its last pro-UNP swing so that the next oscillation will deny any party
2/3rds majority (f) a corpus of new laws which were in part pre-emptive strikes on potential
sources of trouble, the unions, universities ect (g) the Tiger law which can be used against any other organisation, (h) the residentil I Commi 55ion Which can ead to the political immobilisation of those who abused power under the previous regime.
But this is only a structure, constitutional and legal. It is only the form. The content must
come from the realities of politics, the substance of power. The structure can be sustained only by power-relationships, by new alignments and re-groupings of organisations in which political power resides, the collaboration or co-optation of important personalities who al50 carry political influence.
Mr. Thon daman was won over and with him, one presuries, majority Support among plantation abour. Yet, the TULFCWC link, though now severed, was always a tenuous one. Mr. Rajadurai was also given a place in the cabinet to substantiate the government's claim that the E.P. did not support the TULF and Eelam, and to implement the government's strategy of physically isolating "eelamism' to the north. Then the emergency and the crackdown, and the offer of decentralisation and district deveopment. Stick and carrot.
The TULF leadership, mainly middle-class professionals, contains many conservative elements that would support a rapprochement with the UNP, its partner in the 1965 "National government". But if a party split is to be avoided the actual terms that the UNP offers the TULF, on the basis say of the Tennekoon Commission report, must be sufficiently substantial and attractive in the eyes of the majority in the north. Only then can the TULF "Sell' the deal to its peninsular constituency which it swept at the polls on the single strident cry of Eelam. The terms
5

Page 8
can be then justified as an "interim settlement" in a step-bystep solution. On the other hand, no TULF leader will leave himself open to the charge of a 'sellout". In such an event, the more radical wing, supported by the youth, will gain the upper hand. Though the parallel cannot be pressed too hard, the Camp David Accords only led to Egypt's isolation, and the greater unity and radicalisation of both Arab and Palestinian opinion.
Besides the political and psychological constraints of the
Eelam mandate (i.e. the TULF electoral base) the TULF learnt a les som from the l965-70
experience of participation. In the face of Opposition pressure (mainly SLFP) and the "Dudley ge badey, masalavadai" propaganda barrage, the UNP never honoured its pledges to the FP.
Many TULF members were not merely disappointed but dismayed by the SLFP refusal to nominate a person to the Tennekoon Commission. Some of them had honestly believed that the SLFP had made such a commitrilent and ex-Speaker Tillekerane would be the SLFP nominee. For obvious reasons, the TULF does not want to be caught in an intra-Sinhala UNPSLFP T-55sf Te
In any equation therefore the SLFP is a key factor.
Meanwhile the leftwing press had introduced a new figure into the ongoing discussion. Though no names were mentioned, the hints in the LSSP's JANADINA were so strong that no reader had any doubt that the accusing finger was pointed at US Ambassador Howard Wriggins. The Papers alleged that the US envoy had done his best to persuade top UNP'ers not to intitate any charges against Mrs.B because her elimination from the political scene even
for a few years will endanger the democratic system.
The allegations gained wide
currency for two reasons.
Firstly, the reports were not denied. Secondly, Ambassador
- .
Wriggins is no c The author of "C of a New Nati counts Illast of Sr politicians as his and his knowledge of our politics is
Besides, he is kn boy", a nomine F Breezinski, Presi national security of Columbia's Sol. department, Dr.
Breezinski belong circle. Wriggins r Elia next month.
Whethe Alba was a mere Wict propaganda or line of argument interestling article: well-informed Co. det of the FT Review (Sept. 28) a section of the g is watch ing the Left unity believ Better "to ens Continues' as SLF| the SLFP, he ad growing tendency he Bārda rānā ik Sinca o UNP hor conti Luced Eba a do La Trint forging a united SLFP, "the situa to some soft-pe. against her".
A grand allian could "chart a in the futherance Both the style sentienta resuch may have come prize-day perora
But the SLEF eager aspirants, old argument coalition. What 8 MP" | 3 fro SLFP WFL || ||
But the SLFP problems. (a) TF lem of party re. denocratisation. hawe led to si leadership level seeped down to t Arguments about of district organ for Galle (the S

.yסVחary eחrdIנ eylon, Dilemmas he (1560) "חס Lanka's leading Persona || friends, of the intricacies highly regarded. own as "Zbig's 3 of Zbigniew dent Carter's dwiser. As head th Asians studies Wriggins and to the cha Trined eturns to Colu
ssador Wriggins
rn of LeftWing flot, the same surfaced in an
: writren by the lombo corresponEastern Economic
He said that overnment which move towards 25 it would be Te that MI5. B. Po ledet. WiFi ded, there is a | ICL IC accept Word as gospel. may think that presence would to a united Left front with the tion could cad ialling of charges
ce, Says MIGARA, DOTT TOT COLTS 2 of democracy'. and the sublime that the sentence from one of JR's tion5 ,
', despite some
resort to Dudley's against a grand can be done with rt of 50. The
its identity.
a5 its ow, П sЕгiош5 he internal prob-organisation and Debates on this quabbles at the which hawe mitowy he rank-and-file. the appointment İSE 5. || Titi CT5 LFF "team" from
- "DNAKARA' paid
Colombo was actually gheraded by blue-shirts) bomb blasts in the trade union office and the long delay in holding a congress are the plainest signs that things hawe not settled down. Nonetheless it is clear that Mrs. B, is still the commanding personality although a triumvirate of Mrs. B., Maitri pala and TBI, controls PB decisions. (b) the damoclean sword hanging over the SLFP leaders. If the Commission lakes adverse findings parliament could impose civic disabilities. After Felix who? Would it be Mrs. B., or. 5omo other SLFP Stal Wart?
The commentarios in both the leftwing press and the "SUN group gawe Prominence to this una swer red question.
MIGARA (WEEKEND) took note of the fact that the SLFP daily 10 att21 LiO 1 to FDB's stataments before the Presidential Commission. After a byzantina in–fight FDB did succeed in having himself nominated Dompe organiser but his future role in
the SLFP is in the lap of the gods, and Mrs. B.
Behind a|| this is the 5 ha red
view (although not publicly stated by UNP"ers) that the UNIP's popularity curve is downward while the SLFP's, by the conventional wisdom of the parliamentary gama, is rising
This situation fram a work for a
betwy com Sri Laka's two most powerful personalities - pressure and counter-pressure, accommodation and confrontation, blufi and blandishment, with both bearing In Ilind the situation in their own parties (the challenges within) and the situation outside. Both working in 1980, keeping a vigilant .1983-4 nם yeם
In an effort obviously to put some meat into their story the "SUN' produced a prominently
provides the battle of Wits
displayed item on "JR-Sirima talks". Actually, it was no secret megting but a formal discussitin
With LFF Terbers āt urā elections. The SLFP sent a "correction' which was published in the NATION since the SUN itself had chosen not to print the COTTECDid II.

Page 9
OPSL
Radicals in com
he CPSL's present tactics and
strategy, the result of an ex25 Etive Self-critica || 5555 et of the party's post-war experience and Parliamentary PerFTITrance, hawe been outlined in 4- Part series of analytical essays
published in the weekly edition of the ATHTHA. The author is Jaya tilleke Silva, widely regarded
row as CPSL's top theoretican.
The main conclusion is that th= policy of political, programmatic and governmental alliances with the SLFP was a "Right opportu
istic e Tror."
time this aliance
1968 the author argues it was becoming evident that the "national" bourgeoisie which the SLFP represented, was linking up with imperialism while heaping burdens on the masses. The World capitalistic crisis of the 1970's accentuated this proless and the Sri Lankan" national" tourgeoisie (which unlike the InEl 2n bourgeoisie, is economically weak and the to for non-autonoTOU5 ) became a pro — imperialist to urgeoisie, Thus there is no longer a progressive, section of
Eyen 3t 3 was forged in
the local bourgeois le for the left to ally itself with, and, since the local bourgeoisie is promoting dependant capitalist
development, the anti-Imperialist sks at present, intertwined with the anti-capitalistic tasks.
Since the party is agreed that the anti-Imperialist tasks are w intertwined with the socialit ones, it proceeds to assert EEE the only form of stato that El accomplish these tasks is one which the working class plays the leading role. Though Jayathilaka E"s article states the need for
Socialist development and the litical report of the CPSL's -th League Federation's 8th
Eress (held recently in Galle) for a government committed socialist policies, the CPSL's =="=1 Eull=tin 5 and other docuEl EEl contan a somewhat
ambiguous formul which the prese revolution " 5 a from the "nation the 'socialist". of state which for, it would in other than the under the at but would not section of the State ha 5 not either as a "pri. ship or a "nat state" but is
Iodified for
As for the from the theori the CPSL's selfthe Right opport the party was the line of the 964 since it a 555 of t L.L.F. In a conte: hawe advocated for the Left, it only a leading r In the debate a ĈI ST1, 5eti T5 F leadership held Eh e CPSL5 erro acceptance of Mir in 1970, by part instead of junic TE T5 of the Eified tha Cerror ; of any Ministerial as a Whola. Rej: positions, the Int eventually prevail the chief error very formation alliance with the S The ascendent r: going much furth be gaining tentat their wiew that CP porturst wiew 1950's, specifically Hartal. Jaya Eilake States at one poin tary opportunism encompasses the p This poses an which is wheth Party has abando adopted by the
凸
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

mand
tion according to it "stage of the transitional one a democratic' to As for the for T hould be fought ude Social classes working class ter's leadership) encompass any bourgeoisie. This been categorised letariam dictatoronal democratic understood as a
the latter.
olitical (distinct tical) aspect of criticism, it says unist dawiation in wident awan in 7th Congress In ad an incorrect he role of the kt, when It should :he leading role instead envisaged ole for the Left. the self-critithe party's old the yew that resided in the listerial portfolios
front - rankers 35. Siti || other leadership idenas the acceptance post by the CPSL 2cting these two Ire militant Line ed, namely that resided in the of a political LFP in the 950's. dia 5 ar C TO W er and seem to ive acceptance of : CPSL's right dates back to from the 1953 Silva's Series t that parlamenwithin the left ost — || 948 period. other problem er or mot the ned the positions famous 4th con
Yzmir Iob LA தமி
跨g向°
gress in Matara 950 which provided a framework for CPSL strategic policy concerning the 'national bourgeoisie. It is unclear whether the 1950 theses are considered incorrect or merely outdated and whether they should be abindoned or modified. The party's attitude to the hard anti-capitalls line of the 948 3rd congress at Atureliya also rema Ins ambiguous.
The critical attitude to the SLFP and the national bourgeoisie originates in the post – 1971 period and was part of the thinking 5o - called hard line in the 1972 split. Obscured for several years, this critical viewpoint re - emerged in the post '77 run - Lup to the 11th CPSL congress. The anticapitalistic position is very visible in the Political Report adopted by the CPSL Youth League Federation's 8th congress hold a few months back in Galle. However, it is Jayathilaka Silva's series in the "Aththa" which
ticulates most clearly this antiSLFP line. The radical reinter
pretation and rescrutiny of the party's history, together with the new anticapitalist position, is expected to recieve the stamp of orthodoxy at the CPSL's 12th congress scheduled tentatively for March 1980.
A problem area in the CPSL's new analysis of the SLFP concerns the subject of the anti-family dissident group within the SLFP. The CPSL seems to identify this group as representing the interests of the "middle" and petty bourgeoisie who have a contradiction with the Pro imperialist, anti democratic big bourgeoisie which is best represented within the SLFP by the present Bandarana i ke leadership. Formulations are ambiguous on this question, and attitudes are provisional.
The CPSL's antagonism towards
the SLFP leadership has an ad
ded dimension - that of foreign (Carririirred cora Page 3)

Page 10
LSSP
The Ani
fter Galle, the LSSP-CP United Front will be dead. Only the obituary may take some time,
Since NM's funeral, the LSSP CC has been discussing the Present political situation and the party's future tactics. The seriousness of the LSSP's Inner party debate can be seen from the fact that it invited non-CC. members to address the C.C. Already the UF had shown some growing stresses. The CP seemed to be as, (or Timore?) interested in its rela Eichs with the so-called "New Left', the JWP, NLSSP and RMP, as in its partnership with the LSSP. This angered the LSSP which still regards itself as the major Left party. These emerging tensions helped to surface old ideological and internationalist anti-CP sentiments in a party that was once openly and proudly Trotskyist and anti-Stalinist, anti-Soviet.
When the JWP decided unilaterally to field its candidate for Galle and the LSSP replied in kind, without informing its UF partner, the CP in turn decided
to remain na Lutral in order to place the interests of a broad left front before bilateral telat|Df5.
The Trotskyist revival coincided with the Trotsky centenary. The below-the surface anti-Soviet feeling of these lapsed Trotskyist5 i5 also identified with the party's parliamentarists or local Euro-Communists. (The L.G. in one of its earlier issues published a very informative interview on Euro-Communism with Leslie Goonewardena, one of the LSSP's top trio).
The debate brought to the forefront Anil Moonesinghe, Minis. ter of Communications In the SLFP-LSSP 963 coalition. He is nol KGB (Kandyan Golgama Buddhist) but he is G.B.S. (Goigаппа Buddhist Sinhala). Together with this basic aggert, he is a Young educated politician of agreeable manners and organisational abili
factor
ties. As such considered a f joined N.M. LSSP g of when the p "Right' majority While the "Cer win, Leslie, Bt ΣΕΠΕ. Η O "" : The "Left' ed Samarakkody w
Today Anil secretary. The Secretary, ex-M rate stands f Anil still argue with the SLIFP | tical realism an
While An". does not find the "Centrists'' Posed by a ha T1 ember 5 Whorn Stalinist stoog liners". One was persuaded resignation from nou riced Anil ( most bitting te ed J R the mahi lism. ... our frie raja of Titoism This was a sin the fact that A tiwa of Minar had wisited Ch ready had talks leader and news Ey Per "programe" circulated in LSS sible. SLFP-LSSP
Radicals. . . .
(Cor: } policy. The SL
ar ti - Cubā, Ine is seen as
heavy influence Jake leadership China, West i Ger lavia. (Mrs. B's Pol Pot is Ehe recent example. Policy orientation corollary of the Poiri perialist b the SLFP, says ti

he has always been Litura leader. Ani I n 5upporting the coalition in 1953, Arty split. This carried the day intrists' led by col2rnard, Doric etc hird in the voting. by Tampo e and "alked out.
ls joint assistant : other assistant IP Athau da Seneyir left unity while s for an alliance | the name of poliId parlamentarism.
5 pro-SLFP line fu II favour with he is fiercely opIf a dozen C.C. Anil describes as es' and "Moscow f his critics who to Withdraw his the party dein Sinhala) in the rms. "Philip cal|- ina yake of capitand is the mahaand Pekingism." ide reference to Inill, as I am execujah. Organisation, illa. He has a |- with the SLFP of a Yugoslavis being widely P circles, as a posCommon program.
"JFF. Page F)
-FP anti - Sowjet, anti - Vietnamesa, a result of the On the Bandaraof the USA, "many, and YugosoPen Support of Clearcs, nost ) This foreign is the logical hegemony of the urgeoisi within he CPSL.
PITH
COMPLIMENTS OF
DISTRIBUTORS
OF
CITIZEN
WRIST WATCHES
& CLOCKS

Page 11
India - (2)
How war'
H黨 could such disparate people and political forces indeed live together in one party? In fact, for quite a while they did and the bickerings that went on after the Janata Party government came into power seemed no worse than what always had gone on among Indlan politicians. The factional alignments also seemed quite normal, with the BLP and the Jan Sangh factions dividing political control of the northern states among themselves and forming a kind of "rightist" alliance against the Socialists' "left'.
What changed after that was a result of the growing antagonisms in Indian society itself.
First, the working class began to use its newly rewon "democratic rights" almost immediately after the Emergency was retracted. It used them to attempt to roll back the speed-ups and wage cuts imposed on it during the Emergency and continuously facing, it since then. Strikes broke out and quickly rose to the level they had been for most of the preemergency years, about 20 million
Workdays lost a year. Worse, their ferocity increased. Workers were now ready not simply to gheraо (physically Sorround)
managers but also to occupy the factories, to collect tools and mach i na Parts with which to physically ီမျွန်ငုံ the police, and they were ready to go out for months on strike not simply for higher Wages but to oppose the firing of activists and the attempts to impose heightened work norms
This was an increasing challenge to the control of capitalists over
the production process itself. The result was both occasional police rampages resulting in
numerous deaths by firing and a relentless push by central and State governments under all political parties to bring in greater
state-enforced co ing class. Press Party compone LIm İÖ 15 Under : Sangh) leadershi united Commur against the Indust the Bhoothalin which sought to salary policy
reasures. The claim to a work their main Politic the Thost. Lead Fernandes tried Working class pres:
tira des against lies and by pr. like a "work
Threats to natio business like th Steel Company materialize given With in Janata, bLI men began to Col 5aw as the T1: Janata regimeclear stands and into the indus meeting of the Indian Chamber, and Industry (F| 1979 was marked hostility to the ge Wete ca||5 for organize for th finally the most of India's for businessmen, G. I took tho lead i "confused atmosp Janata. Businessm OPPOS ing the J: not because of because of Its ir "discipline" and m and Just as clɛ 5Wing ing to Indira 5ill res.
Rural conflicts equal Intensity.
st agriculture n rheW kulak5 to the led to efforts c numbers of agric

egan
by Gail Omvedt
trol of the worktre on the Janata its mounted as
ocialist (or Jan began to join is t-led protests
rial Relations Bill, an Cormission Impose a wageand other new Socialists, whose ng class base was alasset, felt this ers like George to deflect the iure by thunderous Indian monopoposing gimmicks rs' parliament." malise big Indian e Tata Iron and were unlikely to right wing power It indian businessndemn what they in fault of the ts inability to take to bring order
trial scene. A. a Federation of 5 of Corn Terce
cCl) on April 2, by un usual open wernment. There
"traders' to eir rights, and politically shrewd mer nationalist D. Birla himself, in attacking the here' caused by en clearly were ta partу OW its politics but ability to bring haintain stabilityarly, they are Gandhi for the
developed with Growing capitalit only brought e fore, but also if the growing ltural labouriers
These often repression" Agricultural labourers were beaten to death in police lockups, raped
to assert their rights. met with ferocious
and assaulted, burned to death by landlord gangs, murdered at night, or deprived of work and provisions from village shops under boycotts imposed by rural bosses. No country has "classes" free from the social identities of its past, and in India these identities are mainly those of caste. Thus the rural conflicts were expressed quite often as caste conflicts. Not only were those attacked mainly from ex-untouchable and similar low castes, but very often caste Hindu poor peasants and labourers either stood aside with indifference while the attacks were going on or actively took part.
This was bound to hawa it:5 impact on Janata. Specifically, the largest "peasant' caste in
northwest India, including kulak farmers as well as poor peasants and workers, are the Jats, spread over the Punjab (where they are Sikhs), Haryana, Western U.P. and Rajasthan (where they are mainly Hindus, sometimes Muslims). The largest ex-untouchable caste of the same area are the Charmars, whose traditional dut les included both field labour and show making and who were once almost family slaves of the at dominant peasants. Charan Singh is a Jat from wastern U.P., Jagjivan Ram a Chamar from Bihar (In fact he is from Bhojpur, the very district in Bihar where the Naxalites have won a strong base among ex-un touchable labourers by killing the thugs who rape their women). The ability of these two leaders and the political factions behind them to get along in the same party is naturally hampered by the bitter conflict between the class-caste social forces they represented. Once these forces- ex-untouchable labourers and Jat peasants - were together against the British and
9

Page 12
landlords; now they are ferocious enemies. It is not surprising, then that Jagjivan Ram would be able to acco modate with the superHinduistic RSS before he would go
along with Charan Singh, the man who represents the Jat peasantry in an almost naked fashion.
The increased ferocity of these Social Conflicts gawe diri Gandhi a theme to belay the Janata regime With (about this time she began to talk against "capitalist, casteism and communalism") and increased
tension inside the party. But since workers and agricultural labourers were only weakly represented in Janata, this was
not the basic thing to tear apart the party. Rather the contradiction which became bitter and finally decisive was that between the kulak firmer 5 and the urban
bourgeoisie. It was a conflict that first set Charan Singh against Morarji Desai as a represent
ative of the industrial bourgeoisie, then against the whole Jan Sangh,
Therchant-based faction.
Peasants, including rich peasants, once fought their main battles against big landlords, moneylenders and mercharts who kept them racked by debt and high rents, and against urban high caste intellectuals and bureaucrats. In some regions such cofflicts are still strong, for instance Bihar where Charan Singh's allies fought ferocious riots against high castes over issues of job reservations, But increasingly the kulak farmers, now in control of the villages, hawe found themselves confronting the state itself. The issues have been prices - government-set prices of agricultural inputs such as tractors and fertilizers and prices of crops especially those purchased by government levies - and the policies followed by the banks from whom they now drew most of their credit. But in the 5e damands they found themselves confronting the industrial bourgeoisie itself. For the big capitalist wanted the credit themselves for industry, and prefered, the opposition to the farmers, low prices for the food which fed their workers and the raw materials for their factories.
O
The kulaks see On the Cre 5 t o boom with good last few years, inci and even new god But the underly in agriculture, in adequate demandf small peasants labourers, mean inability to sell in The two-year pric Ing the end of E for the särmers at points declining crops. The steat. of gold in 1978, in October, enrich ԷլIt hit them bը, increasingly putti in gold and then for credit to get state banks.
Tho kulaks ne, political power, t sely 5 of T1 ETChill IS lric E. By the middle of to be expressed farer 5" Tits a the police, in throughout the co blocking demonst ing better Prices and ewan in the f Tio t5 , 5uch a5 orthodox (peasant (mainly merchal notorious NihangAnd In Delhi pushed by his "b to get higher crops, began to in Morarji Desai an resign in June, I by going forth te Indian peasants KI San Sammelan held in the capital to celebrate his to be the bigges meeting held in
Morarji was co Charan Singh cabinet In Januar Prime Minister an ter — for i fact most significant Janata party had Singh continued aggressive, pushed dem är d5 the

ned to be riding an agricultural hairwists in the eased production d gran exports. g crises of Indian art the lack of om impoverlshed and underpaid a frequent creased produce, stability followmergency li ta li t. a stagnant and return for their ily rising price which peaked ed the merchants :ause they were ng their surplus using the gold Ioan 5 from the
vly feeling their hus found themict both with he state itself. 1978 this began in the form of nd battles with peasant rallies untry and roadratio 5 domandfor their crops, orm of religious those botween t) and reformed nt) Sikhs - the -Nirahari clashes. Charan Singh, rother peasants' prices for their creasingly attack d was forced to 978. He reacted organize north culminating in a (peasant rally) on December 23 birthday - said t ever political Delhi.
mpelled to take back into the у 1979 as Deputy Face Milisthis was the rural basa Ehit But Charan to go on the by the clamorous farmer 5, At a
time when credit was tight and declining for both the public sector and private industry, the state began to borrow massive amounts from the reserve bank mainly to finance purchases of gran at prices set 2-3%, higher than the :* year. And Charan Singh's udget, announced on February 28,
reduced taxes on farm inputs and imposed increased taxes on middle class consumption items
of all kinds from soap to kerosene
and cooking gas. All of this led to be a massive transfer of resources to the rural areas and
to an 8% price rise in the following threo months.
This was a period in which stagnation in coal and steel 醬 and transportation attlenecks were leading to power
shortages which resulted in days of blackout in the most industrialized states of West Bengal and Maharashtra. And then, once again as in the Pre-Emergency period, the horror of inflation. "What can we do", said the very poor who could hardly afford cooking oil or kerosene lamps. 'We have to eat our food in the dark, what food we get." And all of this began to be blamed on Charan Singh and his farmers,
More significantly, the bourgeoisie, both big industrialists and traders, also were not going to stand for capitalist farmer a55ertion. The Same FCCI meeting in April which saw the big spokesman directing their guns against the Janata regime, heard calls for action: "If the kisans could come to Delhi and get Charan Singh reinstated in the Union cabinet, traders too should fight for their rights.'
It was then that the big fight broke out in Janata, between the Jan Sangh elements, representing traders and in this case the industrialists, and the rich pensant-based BLD, Throughout the Janata-ruled northern states the party divided, and the Jan Sangh factions withdrew their support from BED chief ministers. State governments began to topple. Unable to win their way inside the Janata party, Charan Singh's men began to withdraw from it

Page 13
accusing the "Communal' RSS forces of dominating it-and finally In June they formed the Janata (Secular) consisting mainly of the ex-BLD people and some of the Socialists... The rest of the Socialists Plus most of Jag Iwan Ram's group plus all of Morar| Desal's old Congress (O) faction stayed with the Jan Sangh-RSS group in the Janata party. But it was not enough to hold the government together, and Morarji Desai was forced to resign in July.
This was replaced finally by a government headed by Charan Singh and consisting of the Janata (S) in alliance with the original anti-Indira Congress party headed by Y. B. Chavan. Backing it were all the left parties (the two big Communist parties, the Peasants and Workers Party, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Forward Bloc) which describrid it as the crucial "anti-cornmunal' (meaning anti-RSS) and "anti-authoritarian" (meaning antiIndira) force.
In class terms this was essentially a government of north and south Indian capitalist farmers backed by the working class. Politically it represented what so many people had called for so long-a 'third force" different from the Jarnata and the "Indira Congress", allied with a 'united left'. In fact the CPI and CP (M)'s coming together was itself a major step, a thrust towards the ach levement of political unity for the first time since the Communist movement split in 1954. But the Janata (S)-Congress, left alliance had no positive program of its own, no credibility among the people, and, more to the point immediately, not enough members of parliament to 5g 5 Ea Eole. When it lost a wote of confidence, the President of India, Sanjiva Reddy, followed Charan Singh's advice to declare parliament prorogued and called for national elections.
And so the whole game has teen once again thrown open
and riding high the wave of Popular disillusionment with a these "politicians" is once again
Indra Gandhi, un repentant for
Emergency, able ple that she r thing different. the Janata Par Corte of RSS cad ring of socialists a "Harljan", an its leader: Jagjiv derice on Ca5 tetalists, has ne pread mass b: nation's volatilees, and Ind Ira stronger claim and minority v. fThird that Char: now called the to and does ri and rich fa Tme this force are t class parties of strongest charac alliance so far h Ting incapacity to produce any symbolizing that result Indira m
Il 5 le Ofta :
class centers suc
What does in to offer that the forces cannot simple-stability For the capital classas she can sufficient to giv пасy to form : Tent-a stable is necessary to rictions on the
class and discip Ters. A she base, 5o far E
consistently reco sity of appealin poor, because sh to giwe a few si type concessions, the lack of a rew cal alternative
feel "II are : gÇ Wern ment is ni

to ConwInce peoepresented someNey et mind Ehat ty has its sold res and its scatteand is projecting ex-um CCL cha ble as "an Ram's depen-Hindus and cap'er had a Wildc2515ẽ among the -untouchable masshas always had a to the low-caste stes. And meyer in Singh's party, I Lok. Dal cam5 зерге 5епt pea5ants 's and that with he major working the country-the te Tistic of this a 5 beri its seeto Unite at all positive program unity. As a ay well win also strongest working
h as Bombay.
dira. Gandhi, have other bourgeoise Something very and "discipline". ists and midde ofer a ma55 bagg e enough legitia stable governgovernment that impose firm restturbulent working line the big farholds tha na 55 ecause she has gnized the necesig to the rural e has been able ignificant welfareand because of "olutionary Politifor people who : rook 5 but Sole ecessary'.
One year Si 11: Local Rs. 60/- Rs. 40/- Asia Rs. 300- Rs... 150
USS O. US 50.
O. ÉE. Foreign Rs. 450- Rs... 300/-
USS30 USS 20
|| 5 O
Her own wiew 5 clgar. She told reporter Arul Louis just before her first big "comeback" electoral victory in Chikmagalur in 1978, "If there were no reforms there would be an upheaval
and it would be the rich who would suffer the most. The poor people would say go to hell
with everything and there would be a violent revolution. The rich should realize this danger."
The real quas tion is whether Mrs. Gandhi's efforts to hold back rewolution necessarily hawe to be at the cost of Indian democracy -something for which she herself has never shown much attachment. If it is, then in fact the likely completion of her own comeback from political defeat will not lead in the end to renewedi stability, but only to deepened and even more bitter, even brutal conflict. Young artists and students who joined the compaign against her in Chikmagalur did so by drawing thousands of posters themselves, posters frequently depicting the torture and barbarities that occured in jails under her rule-and the question still remains whether this is to be Ehe face of the fu Eure in India.
LANKA, GUARDIAN
Sић сriрrior rare . Viri effect fra rri TFF Jarl Harry" ir gar).
Chicques and Tinney orders to be
Til de Lut il fly. It of Lanka Guardian Publishing Co. Ltd.
The Con Tercial Manager,
Lanka Guardian Publishing Co. Ltd. N. 88 N. H. M. AbILul (CH2T Rud (Recla Tlation Rid), Collo Lubo II.

Page 14
INDIA
Trouble in the E.
tranquility of the wooded wilderness is shattered by the staccato of machine-gun fire that echoes in the surrounding hills, where rebel Naga and Mizo insur
gents have constant skirmishes With Indian security forces. This sensitive and volatile region of
North-Eastern India, about 600,000 sq. km in area, Cradled between Burma, China and Bangla Desh has been witnessing renewed spells of violence during recent months, Compromising five states and union territories, this is India's land of the rising sun.
Two of these five states, Mizoram and Nagaland, are seeking secession from India to form autonomous sovereign states. Mounting ಟ್ಗ:॥ಣ್ಣೆ guerilla warfare campaign on Indian government security forces, the rebels claim to have won the support of local people. The inhabitants of these are mainly tribal Christians of semi-mongoloid stock much like their Burmese neighbours.
The Nagas, 26 fiercely independent tribes, took arms in 1955. Under the leadership of the Naga National Convention ( NNC) and led by Z.A.Phizo they established the underground government. The Indian army moved in and crushed the insurgent forces within a period of twenty years. The Nagas signed a peace accord with the government of India in 1975. They renounced their claim to independence and deposited their arms with a neutral peace council of prominent social workers, chur
ch leaders and politicians. The situation, calm for some time sud
H
MAGALAh CHI NA LYT1 'ே 1-====== |*A M.5AM
፹låWlቐሀ፪ م۔م۔م۔م۔۔۔ آفات:
E.F.L.A. -- J \
FA
j է 1|EERM 『ー
denly turned w this year whe killed over 50 dawn swoop on in the neighbo of Assam.
The age ing N self exiled in ti citizenship, Briti the subject of hās rcfL5 d to tā ment officials if ditions are impi Foreign Ministry in its attitude a foreigner, be British passport Minister Morarji hold talks with and stated "w discU55 our int foreigners."
Eleven year: uprising, the under the ea National Front ( Laldenga rapidly the entire unior a district in the
It was several Indian army D rebel forces.
Special Powers a 1972, gives the freedom Lo sho dividuals withou Well a 5 el ter and conduct 'seat O Perations.
The insurge Army ( M NA ), Then trained in dressed in fat boots, are arme matic rifles, ste and grenades, in beliewed to be ob or stolen froT forces,
The recruits a border in group centres under the the galite force is said to shift
 
 

astern hills
olent in January in armed Nagas cople in a pre
sleeping villages ring Indian State
aga leader Phizo, të country of his חם intהוח1n, is ada negatiations. He k to Indian governany sort of Consed. The Indian is equally tough and Considers him cause he holds a Free PriTe Desai refused to Hi I'm Londo
on Wis to ernal affairs with
; after the Naga rebel Mizo army dership of Mizo MNF ) President liberated almost territory (then state of Assam). days before the ushed back the ዶኔm Amended ct, in force from Indian army the ot, kill, arrest inIt Warrants, as private premises "ch and destroy'
|lt5. Mi Io, National a force of young guerilla warfare, Igues and jungle with SLR autoп gшпs, bayспеts lost of which are taedro Child Indian security
Te sert across the s to the training central command, of the MNA, |L its location along
by Nalin C Meegama
with the MNF headquarters (which in turn is believed to move from
the Arakan Hi||5 in Burma, to the Chittagong Hills of Bangla Desh, to locations in Mizora
from time to time according to expediency.)
The hilly bamboo jungles of India"5. North-East, hawe eTd the reputation of being a prennial insurgent area. On the Burmese side of the border, insurgents are said to be running private armies and governments in separate "liberated' areas of Burma, especially in areas along the Indian border. Pockets fighting the Bangla Desh government are also said to exist at several points, with the highest concentration in the Chittagong hill tracts of Bangala Desh bordering the Indian states of Tripura Mizoram.
Fresh violence in Mizoram in the form of sporadic fighting ar som and looting, accompanied by a Mizo directive to all on - Mizos to leave the area immediately, have forced the Indian government to impose Curfew in what it has dEclared, "a disturbed area'.
Taking full advantage of the topography and terrain, the rebels
launched surprise hit-and-run raids on Indian border security outposts and are often believed to decamp with ammunition and weapons. After an attack, Impenetrable jungle and proximity
to the Burmese frontier enable them to evade capture and flee from pouring Indian security forces.
During recent weeks, signs of fresh violence in Manipur, another state in the same area, is giving rise to speculations that President's rule Will be introduced, with the administration of the state taken ower by the Central Government in New- Delhi, following their loss in confidence in the state GowerInent's ability to deal with the situation. In the mean time, the
(Солтlлшегі ол Page - губ.)

Page 15
Nicaragua (Sb)
Somoza’s isolati
by A Special Corresp
he power-bloc dominating Nicaraguan society underwent a significant reconstitution in this decade. It is important to note this and remember that the so
called national bourgeoisie did not ta ka an anti-Somoza POsition until the 1970's. Prior
to this Somaza was supported by large sectors of the upper and middle classes, but the 1972 earthquake and the Somoza family's gross misappropriation of foreign relief assistance caused a Cleavage. Writing In the L. G. Jan Ist 1979.
spoke of the link between natural disaster and social crisis and made the point that the
dialectics of nature lay bare the structures of society). Already an objective contradiction exist. cd since the dominance of the oligarchy (big bourgeoisie and large landowners), the competition of foreign imports, absence of state protection, limitations of the internal market and consequent stagnation of national industry had blocked the areas of development of the small and medium-sized industrial and commercial bourgeoisie. But it became obvious in 1972 that not onl was the imperialist backed |- chy blocking potential areas of development, but it was also extending its economic monopoly and en croach ing on the sectors hither to held by industrialists, shop-keepers, trán sport Owners, and even bankers and landowners belonging to the middle strata of the bourgeoisie,
Thus the power-bloc began to decompose, with layers of social SUPPO TE Peeling away. In the 1970's the power-bloc gradually became co-extensive with the oligarchy allied with foreign monopoly capital. The oligarchy itself became coterminous with the econo Inic empre of the Somoza family and its intimate friends. The gargantuan business and agricultural empire was worth tower five hundred million US dollars, comprised as it was of almost 400
Companies and 7 Country's arabla ness enterprises distribution comf CCSDL til
papers, a T.W. airlines and ar Clearly, there
Congruence betw and family power filty of the Nica
So, in the 97 Polity saw the bourgeois oppos Comprising those bourgeoisie, who the pressure ex class Interests the oligarchy b objectively antidemocratic positi El 23, 15 is that w a national bour, C01 text sincē - 5 Luc. did exist in Ni at that given co all, "the concept does not arise of its Ownership, Political Positio Ownership, has le the bourgeoisie. and not a geograph This point is m. Cuban Marxist Rodriguez in his im Portant article the Colonia Ques in February 1970), an excellent analys: problems of tha ni: sie and the stag tion. Marxist ri Country should unde analysis to ascert: Tot Such a "natior exists in their soc TIPOS ing scheme 5 : essentially differen
It is important the paradox in heren Positions adopted bourgeoisie or wh: analysts refer to class. In his cut or Vanguard?" (I Wrote of the "obje

O
Ondent
"O percent of the land. The bus. included vehicle la nies brewelries, .ies, TË T3ח הקוח Station, barik5,
entire port Was the closest een social class - another speciPaglian situation. 's the Nicaraguan emergence of a ition to Sormoza ! strata of the in response to erted on their irriper alism and egan to adopt -imperialist - and of 15. What this can speak of ge015|e in th|5 h a social group Paraguan Society ructure. After of nationalfrom the origin but from the to which this 2d a section of II is a politica | cal сопсерtioп." ade by veteran Carles Rafa
Interesting and on "Lenin and tion' (published which contains is of the related itional bourgeoof the rewoluli tants in each rtake a thorough ain whether or al' bourgeoisie lety, Instead of developed under it conditions.
to understand In the political by the national L. C. We to as the middlo
a: Exception 1961) Guevara 2ctive conflicts
H בשונים ל.
between the national bourgeoisies g t이 develop, am imperialism which inundates the markets with its products in order destroy in unsqual סםmקGLIElחס the national Industrialist. There are, as well as this, other manifestations of struggle for value and Wealth. In spilte of these conflicts, the national bourgeoisies are not capable, in generi, of SUSEālin ing a consequential struggle against imperialism. They fear the popular revolution Thore than the sufferings under the oppressive and despotic domination Of in Perialism, which de stroys nationality, affronts patrioticsentiments, and colonizes the economy.
The big bourgeoisie, for its part, openly opposes the revolution and does not hesitate in allyng itself with Imperialism and land owners to fight against the people and cut of their access to revolution."
A non-Trotskyist sections of the Left habitually profess recognition of the contradictory character, the dual nature and Consequently the vacillatory role of the Tial tiO::.. | bourgeoisie. This along is clearly inadequate, for our analysis of the national bourgeoisie must encompass a correct assessment of which aspect of this contradictory character achieves PгӀпасу іп each phase of the revolutionary process. The FSNL's own assessm. this and the tactics by which it enlisted the bourgeois םםםםsiLiחס in a subaltern răle within the national-popular bloc, is something that merits special altention When di SCLUSS Ing the al-Important question of United frons.
3

Page 16
IRAN
THE LAST
elf-interest and real politik, OPEC membership and the spirited revival of anti-US nationalism after the encouraging discovery of oil, prompted Mexico, once the temporary sanctuary of the Shah, to shut her doors to the fugitive Emperor. Toppled from his Peacock Throne by the mightlest surge of popular emotion 5 cen in recent times, the King of Kings and the Light of the Aryans found a home briefly in the Bahamas, the holiday resort of the world's wealthy.
Will Egypt be his last resort? Sadat is will Ing. If Egypt does become the final refuge of the runaway Emperer, the choice will make meaningful politics of recent regional developments. The Shah was not merely a tyrannical ruler. Just as the parwenu Pahllewi, dynasty was a creation of Britain, the second Shah was the client of the US and its regional gen
äftgr
di Trië American power replaced Pax Britannica. The steady US build-up of Iranian
military might was not only an exercise in recycling petro-dollars but also a determined drive to equip its regional policeman to do his ordained task. Helping Barzai and his Kurdish secossionist movement in neighbouring Iraq, a radical regime, and assisting Sultan Qabbus to beat back the threat from the Dhofari ibera LC1 T. Overtin Crla Were duties duly performed by the gendarme.
RESOR
One of the Uni manifest aims of Ca an alliance between dited agent in this and Egypt, Israeli's
able Arab foe; an : was better qualifie the increasingly as
til Te55 CE2 a 1 i fires of the Arab : tion. Israel-EgyptNATO sub-system be an admirable SL moribund CENTO,
When the Shah f stops were Cairo where he Was War by Sadat and King lies themselves in A5, Reuter and otl
Տիեի
reported at the openly offered to Shah's role and Safe interests. In the Wסח ,Camp David US hope, Sadat's ove confidence appeared the sheer shamele: highly publicised ca. "fake advertisement
TWAIN ON TERROR
THERE WERE two "Reigns Of TETTIOT." if "INTE Y7 Luld bluf Te= Ilember and Consider it; Lh č one wrough murder, in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the Other had lasted thousand years; the one inflicted LLa HH C S SLaLLL CLLCL CaS the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all
for the horrors" of the Illinor TETгог, the Шплепнгу Тегтог so to 5 pelik; where: si, "What is
the horror of swift death by the
axe compared with lif from hunger, cold, in
Til heart bråk?...... tary could contain filled by that brief." Yryce lisi Tree all been 5 taught to shier at over hut Hill France i Contilin the Coffins f. older and real un spelnika ble bitter TE TTT hii ile hten taught to see ness or pity as it
(A Connecticu
 

షా
declared ELit mp David Was
Israel, accrestrategic area To5t formidilliance which H. C. Clta Gortiwe Palesd quench the social revoluran : a strong which would Estitute to a
led his first and Rabat, mly embraced Hassan, close North Africa. 1er agencies
Sadat
timբ:
assume the guard Western cuբhoria of
a fast fading rweening selfto rede em sness of this пdidacy. (Iп а titel FMIDDLE
Telong death 5ult, Cruelty", եւ ըity tը լուthe coffins Terror which o diligently Lirid i Lu Ti բեLild liHrtlly illed by that
Trrand yn ful OT LI 5, 115; in i 15le 5e Tves.
it Yankee)
The wheels of justice
SS T S S DDS
Pastar proclaims: "the revolution makes its own laws'
-EAST WACANCIES, the L. G., mlocked his obsequous application.
Sadat had been already doing the dirty work in less Preten
tious ways. Not only by selling out the Palestinian cause but helping Hassan fight Polisario,
the II beration moyement of Sāh arou people whose right of selfdetermination has been recognised by the UN, the non-aligned and the COA U. Hassan has also been promised stepped-up US arms aid and money, He has also French and Israeli arms.
Meanwhile, Iran's uninterrupted revolution has taken another exciting, if puzzling, turn. As the L. G.'s comprehensive commentaries on Iran ob 5 erwed, the revolution Unleashed a host of social forces, with conflicting interests, expectations and ideals. Even the major force, Islamic nationalism, had several strands, progressive and backward-looking,
liberalis ing and puritanic, antiImperialist and anti-leftist.
Which force will become dominant finally? Which tendency in each group will prove the stronger, and which groups will align themselves at any given time on which issue. Unless
these questions are resolved as the active, often violent political process advances, the basic issue of a dominant political will (and therefore "order") will remain
Seed.

Page 17
The Shah's stay in the US reintroduced in to the ratian situation the single potent combination of mass emotions which made the revolution work — ha tred of the wenal dispotism of the Shah, and his acknowledged patron, the LS.
Certainly, the seizure of emibassies violates the accepted Canons of diplomacy and renders normal diplomatic life İmpossible, For this reason, almost every government will refuse to condone 5 Luch Conduct. But om the moral issueof "terrorism", Mark Twain's wise thoughts (see 'Twain on Terror) are a happily enlighten ing Corrective to the smarmy outpourings on Incorality and civili darion in the Establish ment Press here and abroad.
The Shah oppressed his people and plundered their wealth. And he tortured his opponents and
critics. His instrument was the sawage SAWAK. The documentod evidence does not come from
Iranians alone.
In the Washington Post' an American businessman recounted his nightmarish days in the Shah's Prisons, Earlier this year Seymour Hersh of the NYK Time5 a5 kad a senior US diplomat who had served in Iran and had been a link-tan with SAWAK, whether it was true that US diplomats actually watched the torturers at work in SAVAK's chamber of Horrors. Yes, it was true. And Why didn't they protest, object...? "'But SAVAK was our side.'
The Shah made his own rules. That is why outside the Islamic Revolutionary Court a 16 year old boy tortured by SAVAK, can
Palestine Da Camp UN’s ““
A large adw the advert Peared in Sri Lan
papers on Palest pensive add E outstanding cont Palestine cause. Contribution it w the Camp David
On the same J. R. Jayewardena tionally well wri which he extent steadfast and unre Palestinian self-d the right of all return to their
A day later
Assembly declar. David accords be Israel had mo walit the future of the This Wa5 the fir: had rejected th W CEG. The wote
rejected all provisi which "ignore, in late or deny inal the Palestine ped
So much of a champion of the Immediately after L.G. described th "Sadat's Sel - ou
say "The revolt own laws..." (se Senator Edwar
now castigated t oppressor and a
Trouble in . . .
(Corrirried front Page ra)
Indian Government has barred four Marxist Organizations - the Revolutionary People's Front, the People's Liberation Army, the People's Revolutionary Party and the Red Army - which are believed to be openly resorting to violence with the declared object of securing independence for this state
Militants of the Meitei tribe, who inhabit the valleys of Cen
tral Manipur are at the back of which is directed Naga, Mizo and the security for
IC)T1.
The disturbed India's North — Ea fact that an atten to boycott the fi tions, apparently реасе і5 поt Imг Could be quite sic calm descends of his.

David : No’
rtisement, minus er's name, apa's leading newsne Day. The exublicised Egypt's ribution to the Part of this great as claimed was accords.
day President issued an exceptten message in ed Sri Lanka's erved support for termination and | Palastinia 15 to 1Ճmeland,
the UN Genera | ed that Camp tween Egypt and ity in determining Palestine people. st t|ITle the UN Le accords in a was 75 to 33. It ons of the accords fringe upon, vioienable rights of ple ". Egypt's claims as Palestine people. Camp David, the he agreements as
ution makas it:5 e picture)
d Kennedy has he Shah as am
th|ef.
believed to be this insurgency, much against the other tribes, as Ces in the re
conditions in it, including the 1 pt is being made rthcoming elec
indicate that minent, and it me time before the troubled
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Page 18
The Tamil
A great Tamil leader once spoke on a more powerful and related theme but with a shorter heading. It was on "Our Political Needs' and his speech became the manifesto of the nationalist movement of all Sri Lankans that he headed at that
time. It was 1919 when the Ceylon National Congress was about to be inaugurated. The
man was Sir Ponna mbalam Arun 2chalam. Helived to die adisappointed man. His equally famous brother, Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, thought likewise. Both believed in cooperation with the Sinhalese political elites. By elites I mean the power-holders in a given society or to be a little more loose in my definition, the influential middle and upper class seeking positions of influence in such a given society. Ramanathan chamPioned the cause of the Sinhalese Buddhists and in the process antagonized the Ceylonese Muslims and their political leadership.
My view is that both men looked on the Ceylon Tamils as one of the two founding races of this island of ours, major partners as Ponnambalam AFunachalam referred to the two races, hoping presumably that they would cooperate in a joint endeavour. I think both brothers, the cine, that is, Arunachalam, with more depth and profundity In wisdom. and liberallism, the other Ramanathan, more a politician than a statesman were simple men who believed in the simplicity of the Sinhala race, They, in their innocence, probably thought that they, that is these two great brothers, would, in preference to their Sinhalese counterparts, be chosen Prime Ministers of an
This was a talk delivered by the Chief Guest Dr. A.J. Wilson, Professor of Political Science, University of New Brunswick, Canada at the Annual Prize Giving of Jaffna Central Gollege held on Thursday the 18th of October 1979.
COS
independent Sri
inisters in a Sl colonial-type selftion. They proba if a Scotsmani Bute could be a of George II such as Lloyd Ecole War ti fm In the second l World War over constitute the m: society, then Wh effect both A Ramanathan had of not being fars yed to realize calculations. Yet Tamil followed bolder path. felt that with balanced represeп it, and with backing, he could
ment as aga inst Sinhalese a dw i time, Dan Step
only to be di like his famous
In effect what сопvey to yoш 1 Our leaders We the airns, the the desires of th whose views the ion to. The fi to win their cooperation wit majority, the that by constit the same obje realized. He eFort and he f: his two famous ach lewed am impo not deliberately. consciousness. Ai ress could nol contained. It is were only to regionalism und up and now so in the nation
Costly blunde the first two lea Witחסם חthel וחסיןf

iousness
Lanka, or chief ni-swaraj British govern ing situably believed that ke the Earl of Prime Minister or a Welshman George could 2 Prie Mini5 tert half of the first Englishmen who ajority in British ly not they. In runachalam and commited the Sin eeing. But both he folly of their another great a similar but G.G. Ponnambalarn "fifty fifty" or tation as he called British imperial I form a governthe shrewdste 3rsary of all hen Senanayake, isillusioned again predecessors.
I am tгуіпg to s a simple truth. 'e only reflecting aspirations and e eitist Tartis ly gave expressrst two hoped way through h the Sinhalese third expected Lutional jugglery, ctive could be made a valiant illed. But unlike predecessors, he rtant goal, though He raised Tamil ld that consciousthereafter be illed ower", as it ake the form of er a federal set rereign statehood f Eelam.
's were made by lers-partly arising tion of the possi
by Dr. A. J. Wilson
bility of a partnership of the two major races. I am personally sure that they even thought in terms of a Sinhala goliga ma-Tamil wel la la partnership, Ramanathan fought and defeated the sophisticated and urbane Sinhala karawa medical doctor, Sri Marcus Fernando for the Educated Ceylonese Seat. The Simhalese goiga mas were reputed to have supported him because of their dislike of the kara Wa. Arunachalam nearly outsmarted another equally famous Sinhalese karawa in St James Pieris ower the Colombo Town seat. But om this occasion the Sinha ese took Arunachalarn's 'no' for an answer while Arunachalam in the oriental
tradition had hoped that his "no" would not be taken for an outright refusal and that the
Sinhalese of the Ceylon National Congress would fuss over him as an elder statesman and persuade him as being the only man of the hour. But the kara Wes Were rapidly learning their lessions-the dangers of Sinhalese goigamaTamil vel lala cooperation. To cap it all, as it were in 942 another well known Ceylon Tamil, Sir Ponnambalam Armachalam's son Sir Arunachalam Mahadeva, defeated another equally reputable karawe |leader in H.W.Amarasuri ya for the post of Minister of Home Affairs vacated by Sir Don Baron Jayatalika under the Donough more Co15titution of 93-947. You will understand now why the Sinhalese karawes were in the forefront of the leadership of the anti-Tamil Sinhala only, Sinhala Buddhist nationalist movement-the F.R.Jaya suriyas, P de S Kularatmes and L.H. Mettananda5. It was not for nothing. In the process we lost the goodwill of the karawes and were used by the goigamas.
In Like manner Sir Ponna mbalam Ramanathan by his stance during the Sinhala Buddhist-Muslim riots of 95 permanently alienated the support of the Tamil-speaking Muslim15 for the Tam|| cause. The irony is that the Muslims have a

Page 19
greater affinity to Tamil culture and the Tam il-language than to Sinhala culture or language. And in no way different from Ramanathan, G.G. Ponnar balam and the major section of his All-Ceylon Tamil Congress deserted the cause of the Indian Tarn i 15 when the question of their citizenship and voting rights came up for decision in Sri Lanka's post-independent Parliament during 194849. The sum result is that the Ceylon Tamils themselves, or rather their political leadership and elites contributed towards their own isolation, towards the formation of a united front of Sinhalese against them and towards a convergence of Tamil-speaking Muslim and Indian Tamil feelings of despair and indignation against thern because of what was obviously a major let down of their interests.
The Sinhalese leadership must bear a greater share of the blame. In 1948 G.G. Ponnanbaarn's Tamil Congress made the effort at "responsive cooperation' only to be let down by the 'Sinhala Only" decision of the Kotelawala Gowornment and the United National Party in 1956, in 1957, Prime Minister Solomon Bandaramai ke concluded a solemn pact with the Federal Party leader, S.J.W.Chevanayakam, only to abandon it under Sinhala Buddhist pressure in || 358. In March-April 1960 there was an unwritten Sirima Bandaramai keChelwanayakam pact similar to the one signed by her husband in 1957, to be honoured only in the breach.
In 1965 there was the Dudley Senanayake-Chelvanayakam Pact which collapsed under Sinhala
Buddhist pressure in 1968.
The Left Wing in Sinhala politics has been no better. In 1948-49. they were the vehement defenders of Indian Tamil rights. In 1964-65 and 1970-77, their leaders were overly anxious in their defence of the Sirima-Shastri Pact providing
for the repatriation of more than half the Indian Tamil population from Sri Lanka. In 956, Lhe
Lanka Sama Samaja Party was firm like the rock of Gibraltar on parity of status for the Sinhala and Tamil languages. In 1964 that position shifted when they entered into a coalition with the Sri
Lanka Freedom of Mrs. Srina 970 the Lanka and the Comm Lanka abandon on parity of st languages when å Commo Pr. Sri Lanka Frë coalition with Freedom Party fr the LSSP and the CP, did a the hopelessne: problem. In fa. ence of the unwillingness the Tantnil dermā ing of the Si occupation of t provinces were catalysts that demand for the of Tamil Eelam Tamil separati nationalism W never to be re: never be the s
What is the
The Ceylon Tamil: in complete isola burgeon ing nation; that may never tained, The fau with the Sinhalap My father-in-law, nayakam, the f nationalism and
of Tari I nationih 1958 in the afterm Sinhales e-Tami r that his firm con the Sinhalese Wer to rule uS Tam not be more tru the events since. situation where t warring within th In effect we are b: the pre-western times before the Portuguse in 150 there flourished Tamil kingdom. posed no threat Buddhist that if neighbouring kir The Tamil king everrun the kin with the support Drawidian hordes But that did not the arrival of in 505. Sinhale

arty Government Bandaranaike. In ama Samaja Party hist Party of Sri their position tus for the two they formulated ramme with the dom Party. In the Sri Lanka T 970-75 neiLEr rom 1970-77 mor tittle to remody of the Tamil : the intransigleft and their :0 aCCOIT10 date hd, their condonhalese military he Ceylon Tamil the principal produced tha sovereign state The forces of SITT arid TaTi 1 ere unleashed trained. It can ame again.
position today?. i find themselve5 |tion. The Te is a alism among them perhaps be con| tt || es main litical leadership. S.J.W. Chelwaather of Tani
the progenitor od told me in ath of the bloody its of May 1958 illusion was that поc big enough ls. That could !, judging from We have today a WC nations arg bosom of one, :k to the days of
ionquerors, the arri wall of the Up to 58. in the north a That kingdom to the Sinhala Irished in the
dom of Kandy, m could hawe om of Kandy if the so-called m South ndsä. pën ewen after e Westerners
Buddhism, the
Sinhalese language and Sinhala culture were not only preserved and maintained in their pristine purity but were the mainstays of the kingdom as a Sinha le 5e sociologist H.L. Seneviratne ha5 remarked in his book. The Rituals of the Kandyan state. In short what I am trying to tell you is that nothing changes though there was change between say 505 and I948 when the island was und er western occupation. In the brief period, the latter half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we experienced the golden years of Sinhala-Tamil cooperation. That can never happen again. We are back to the period of the pre-505 years. What was entrenched for centuries cannot be u ndone by a few years of Sinhalese-Tamil elitist cooperation. Really it was not Sinhala-Tamil cooperation but the cooperation of a ho megenous class of Englishspeaking native Ceylonese.
All this brings us to the principal que 5tion | hawe been endeavouring LO a 15wer. How best am our political aspirations be satisfied? A5 || Said earliert Wa hawa to take into account the fact that Sinhala and Tam nationalism hay e come to stay. It is unlikely that the two nations can Gewer come together, Economic palliatives may ease the tensions but wounds created, the riots of 1955, 1953, 95 and 1977 cannot be easily healed. Nor can the blatant discrimination practised against the Tamil people in the post-Sinhala Only years since 1955, Nor can the Tamil people turn a blind eye to the Sinhalese army of occupation in their midst. Take these a
away, and I would still doubt that Tani nationalism will ever be stilled. There might
be solutions like the present one that is being attempted by the President but these can succeed only if they satisfy three conditions. Firstly the Tamil political leadership must get something really tangible and substantial in exchange for their demand for a sovereign state of Eelam. Secondly that solution must prove acceptable to the Tamil people who invested the Tamil leaderahip with the mandate for Eelam. If it fails
7

Page 20
to satisfy, the present Parlamentary leadership will be swept away in a storm and be replaced by an extreme leadership which means business. And this could mean writing off all the Tamils in the seven Sinhala provinces. Thirdly the Sinhala political leadership must show a desire and Willingness to work out the arrangements in a meaningful manner should these be acceptable to a majority of the Tamils. The Tamil districts should be encouraged to develop on their own and be provided with the necessary financial and economic supports. That way Tamil economic needs might be satisfied, the unemployed Tamils may find employment, Tamil culture might be preserved and above all Tamil nationalism might possibly be contained within the confines of a single state. A Wrong move here or there can throw the whole exercise out of gear. And there are three component factors that could stoke the fires of Tamil nationalism and Tamil aspirations for sovereign statehood. Firstly there is what I would ca| te domomistration effect-the examples of Bangladesh, Cyprus and possibly Quebec among others.
We | iwe in a World of mini states. Eelam will be no exception, Secondly there is the
expatriate Tamil component of the Tarni nationalist Inovement. I would go so far as to refer to this element as ultra-nationalists. They have the burning desire to see their country a separate sovereign state come what may. In my travels I have not come across a more single minded set of compatriots determined to achieve the goal of liberation. Thirdly there is no gainsaying that the big powers or to be more precise, major foreign powers are interested in what is happening in the Ceylon Tamil areas. None but those who refuse to see will not realise that the United States. the Soviet Union, the Peoples Republic of China, India and the United Kingdom are anxious witneises to the turn of events. would leave it to you to draw your inference from all this great power interest,
I have touched on the fringes of our political and economic
B
needs saying a pg articulating it all i Nkru Tah oce | ye first the Polit the rest shall be : You ca not ex Pe movement to dr: plans and blue
kingdom that is
are too involved struggle to hav spare. There is a of the Indian N to draw from.
early in its exi It would be unW to divide an people on C Cono: question of e Conco 5 no doubt fu
stated earlier,
Intertwined wit and political ref
There are nearl speking person 5 and Eastern provi of the Jaffna. Pe a middle-class Education for wh ment or for | continues to be Tamils aspiring mobility. Parti C this craze is the education that W beca L5 e at LITER 'N and while our C. the Sinhalese h; of plentiful abun had to look for Lastly since the to yield easily ugus effort, the e to beco T12 thrifty in comr S|1.[5e COLI 1 t { is now a thing sense that th Policies of Sinh since 1956 has from the public ed them adminis5i wersities and thi the way they w in the golden a ed by. Just as S was conta Ingd by mel to obtain in the colonial World War | LE imperialism, Ta which was alway domaint until educated Tari

roat deal without
TELE LETTE, emarked, "Sock ical kingdom and added un to you". ct a nationalist ICוחסnסEC קw uג prints for the Eo come, They in the political the til tO lso the experience ational Congre55 That Congress stence felt that rise and im politic ther w Ige united Tic Issue 5. The 2mic development diamental but as It is in extricably :H constitutional
"Til
y a millon TamillIn the Northern nces. The Tamil5 15ula constitute oriented society. ite collar employprofessional jobs the Mecca of all towards upward if the reason for a missionary-type e received, partly ya 5 Lukid to US 5חסוחterparts aחuנ ud smiling lands dārc, the Tāls state employment. arid plains failed 2xcept after strenTamil Tian learnindustrious and arison with his irpartit. All this of the past in the e Sinhala Only a goverts bushed Out Tamils Services and demon 5 to the unia professions in ere a ble to do ge that has slippcottish nation Iism permitting Scotsprize positions | empire before Erminated British 5 || il milltiaiוון is there retained 255 because the was still allowed
Ito and
a certain undsturbed entry the island's public services the professions.
We are now obliged by the turn of events to re-orient our outlook. Whatever rights we might obtain to own territories 驚 therefore have to be exploited for the purpose of absorbing our employable population. That can be achieved by a skilled and dedicated leadership. Not only has this employable population to be found outlets but we may hawe to take steps to transfer a fair percentage of the population of the Jafina penis nla to other parts of the Northern and Eastern provinces. The Water resource experts have repeatedly caut Fored LIs that the water deposts of the Jaffna peninsula are being ruthlessly exploited, that the peninsula in about quarter to half a century could become an ecological disaster, in one effect semi-desert conditions could result. The penins Lula Will not be even able to supply drinking water to its own population. If that were to happen there will hawe to be a shift of population. It will only be some state apparatus located in the Tani areas that will be in a position to Interest itself in such a problem. Government and administration today ara far too Colorbo-cente red and we are all in the grip of the octopus-state.
now come to the last of my
questions and this has to do with the future of our Society. In the past, we used to think
in terT5 of Jaffna Tamils, Mannar Tamils, Trincomale Tamils and LSLLLLLLLLlL LLLLLLLLS aLLLLLLL HauLLJS nalism has helped to elimate these differences. Tamil nationalism has closed the gaps and we all low refert to coursely es as the Tamil nation or as a single collectivity of Tamil-speaking persons. Again in the past we looked on the Indian Tamils as a separate entity of recent arri wall. That difference too is being gradually reduced. Our political vocabulary now uses the term "hill-country Tam|| "" to describe the Indiar and Indians are being welcomed to populate the Tamil-speaking territores. We Have However

Page 21
yet to give up our village loyalties and cease inquiring from each other as to which local parish we were born in, who our parents are and what they are doing
c. etc.
But apart from all this there is one question that beggars a
solution and that is the problem
of the so-called depressed castes. It is true that political leaders hawe taken steps to combat discrimination against the se un for
tunate people. It is also correct
that the Constitution bans the imposition of social disabilities, But these alone are not adequate. A state of mind or a mental condition cannot be legislated away orchanged by token measures.
Something more tangible has to
be done if political and social unity are not to founder in the morass of castleism. I would suggest protective discrimination written into any constitution. This will ensure the so-called depressed castes quotas in respect of admissions to the public services and the universities. The members of these groups must also be assured proper representation in the various legislative bodies, not by nomination but through the democratic electoral process. It is only then that a nation can become a nation, when It closes its own tanks and does not permit the growth of deep dissatisfaction in its own heartland.
I am not quite sure whether
have been indulging in the gloomy lamentations of the prophet Jerer liah . But I think I hawe from the angle of my own discipline and my own sampling of opinion in this Island of ours indicated to you the problems that beset u5. It is in that Context that sought to outline what I feel are our immedia te political, economie and social problems, But let me end in an optimistic note. I believe we have the capabilities, the skills, the dedication and a honest leadership at various levels to golwe these issues. When that happens, and I am deliberately avoiding saying, if it happens, we would have begun our entry into the millenarian society, the Promised Land .
 
 
 

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9

Page 22
TOWER HALL : tradition of Sin
the last twenty five years or so there have been, in my memory, two or three attempts made, with the blessings of the government in power to revive what is believed to be a tradition of Sinhala theatre, if not the tradition, centred at the Tower Hall and symbolised by it. The Tost recent of these attempts is the renovation of the Tower Hall theatre and the establishment of the Tower. Ha || Theatre Foundation with funds from governmental and Private sources. In spite of governmental patronage and wide publicity in the progovernment media, the previous attempts failed. The future of the present attempt is yet to be seen.
Why did the previous attempts fail? lesson that has to be learned is that theatre cannot be kept going by government sponsorship or by media publicity or even by the expenditure of large sums of money on costumes and lavish display. Theatre can be sustained only by audiences who enjoy and respond to what is put on the stage, and who are moved by the revelation of plot and character in the plays they see. If the plays do not move audiences, they will not come to the theatre any more, And no amount of songs and dances, extraneous to the main purpose, will succeed in drawing them for long.
Nor can the spectacle provided by sumptuous decor and costLimes be a continuous source of attraction. Some of the best thetre traditions In the World, li ko those of Japanese Noh and Peking Opera dispense with stage decor entirely. And in Periods of the highest creative activity, the theatre was poor and was patronised by the common man. As was the Elizabethan stage and the
O
theatre of Shake : on the efore the eyes and had no use other example t ly to mind is th; of the Greeks , external trapping rast the decadem Lihat followęd w hi
came the most
ent.
The Tower
theatre began in 5 of the ninetee thE arryal in Parsee musical5 Efter tiIITSnt O. of Bombay. The ed by Parsee t who had learned craft and were the first time stage. The music lar because of t they used, for t dies in them, an a debased for II they threw in fo holding the atte Ces. Parsee mus cities of India, as well, but at they held in hig tics in India or In a belonging to tradition.
The musicals, : ed in Urdu and came popular in where there w; entertainment of Sinhalese-speakin soon the songs lips. Plays of th cty were being Certain parts o these wete fas fashion because nate length, bec ness of the meld

ls it
a genuine
hala Theatre ?
peare which dedrama enacted of the audience for decor. Allat comes readit of the theatre which used few s, and in contRoman theatre are spectacle beimportant elle
a tradition of the last decad:nth century with this country of meant for the f city audiences y were performDuring companies western stage introducing it for on the Indiam als beca ime Popuhe stage tricks the catchy melod for the dances, of Kathak, which ir the purpose of tion of audiencals toured other "Is iting Sri Lanka tirTel WW2 T2: gh esteem by criTegarded as draa genuine Indian
although performHindustani, beColombo as well, as no theatrical any sort for the g classe,5 and were on people'5' e Nadagam warir erfor Ted in
the city, but t going out of of their in ordau5e of the 5 animedies, and b C causa
by Ediri wira Sarachchandra
there were few plays with any originality in them. Some producers of Nadagams like C. Don Bastian, took up the new form, using the Indian melodies and stringing them together with stories -ulled from SInhalese myth and legend. This is how the form now known as the Nurtya, to distinguish it from the Nadagam, came Into beling.
Although in the hands of C. Don Bastian the Nurti ya Was little more than popular entertainment, men like John de Silva tried to use the form for more serious purposes. John de Silva was a prominent figure in the Sinhalese Buddhist revival led by the Anagarika Dharmapala, and he set about employing the cheatre as a wehicle for arto u5ing in the people a sense of national identity. By basing his plays on historial themes and Buddhist legends he hoped to bring the heritage of the Sinhalese people closer to the audiences of his time. He was the counterpart in the cheatre field of Piyada sa Sirisena who used the novel and poetry for the same purpose. Charlos Dias who followed hill (the Tower Hall was originally Ebuilt for Charle 5 Dias and it was later that the plays of John de Silva were performed in It) Continued in the same strain.
But John de Silwai Wa 5 m 0, more a playwright than Piyadasa Srisend wä5 d nowelist. Bath of ther were sincere nationalists, but that is a different matter. Unfortunately for the Nurtiya, long of thos a ho Wrote in thi5 style had the slightest idea of how to treat their themes dramatically. All they did was to string together their stories by means of Borrowed Hindustani songs. There was neither any

Page 23
organisation of plot or any del IIneation of character. And anyone who reads the texts of these plays will see that the dialogue is so la me that is does not prowide the actor with any scope for character delineation.
The Nurti ya was a form of urban entertainment that Was confined to the Iower midd|0 cla55es in the city of Colombo. Its writer-directors ignored or looked down upon the genuine folk tradition of Sinhala theatre that was emboldied in forms like the Nadagam, Kolam and Sokari, and took as their model the vulgarised theatrical form that was brought to Sri Lanka by the Parsee Companies. And since the plays themselves do not have any dramatic content, no amount of padding or embroidering can make audiences of today, who have been treated to better fate, want to see then.
The only service the Nurtiya performed was to bestow upon the Simhalese a mLJ 5 ical traditio based on the North Indian system of Raga music. E is a form of light but good music, and to expose people to it would be one of the ways of initiating thern to the more Seriou5 classical music of lindia and of en å bling them to cultivate their taste for someth ing better than the "Pop" songs of today.
The genuine traditions of Sinhala theatre are embodied In the work of the younger playwrights and theatre men that has been going on for almost a quarter century without any patronage
from governments or the rich. These th care men hawe their roots in the village and were
inspired into creative activity by the style of the folk theatre.
They have amor wrights of genius of morte than i They have gather young men inter: cillary theatre ar decor costumes music, who are worthy contribui fields, The fact produce and put all the hardships
today is in itse their devotion it to their spirit c
They are able to cause middle class spite of the fact di re economic 5 tr port them and fl plays, paying eve rupees for a ticke of their me agre ir they enjoy the from them an e: value.
This is the the poor, but abound and un doubtedly it theatre of the futu pendent and that and it does mot s nage of Mudalalis. it is not entirely coincidence that sur ments hawe ignore sought to resuscita Ha || "tradition. "" Hall theatre is a It turns it eyes a scit social evils ar up the social ort other words, a establishment par politicians, little si |SLic matters, WOL brace it for its go tent. The theatre con the other han d out of their compla people think. But better if they are many opportunities

ng them playas Well as actors ordinary talent. ed round them asted in the aEs like make-UP, and theatre making a notaIon in the 5g that they write, con plays amidst they oncounter If evidence of o theatre and if self-sacrifice. Carry on Ebeaudiences, in Lihat they face aits, still supock to See the in twenty-five it (a sizable part comes) because lays and gain Kperience they
1 tre of today, ing in wi tality, Will be the Te. It is rde'ght-provoking, eek | the patroAnd perhaps a fortuitous cessive Ego Wern| it and hawe :e the Toweг. The Tower safe art form. "ay from pred it bolsters er. It Is, In теatге саf the xcellence, and Sitwe to it. H Ike to amidy-goody conof the young, shakes people ency. It makes
Perhaps it is not giwen too to do so.
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Page 24
Decentralisation,
and politics
LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND DECENTRALIZED ADMINISTRATION IN SRI LANKA. By G. R. Tressie Leitan -
(Lake House Investments Colombo 977, pp. 27?)
Ltd,
he tendency on the part of
our research scholars, to COTICET1 traite 01 constitutional developments, resulted in the neglect of a vital aspect of political development-the development of administratiwe institutions. Though an attempt has been made in the recent past, guided largely by the need to generate economic development, to study the administrative institutions, it st||| Temains an unexploited field which is one of the richest in terms of the availability of primary data. Sri Länka, Lumike most of the developing countries, produces all sorts of reports; there is no Department or Statutory body about which there is no published document and the production of reports is a part of a growth industry. Re5earch in Public Administration, though it becomes an interest of the large variety of visiting experts who make a quick study to understand the administrative apparatus, is still inadequate. Neither the Ministry of Public Administration nor tha Academy of Administrative Studies has shown any interest in research
in this field. The Academy of Administrative Studies, in particular, has displayed an
attachment to techniques and methods which arte currently employed in Cybernatics and computer-oriented administrative systems of the highly advanced industrialised societies. The management and training institutions associated with Government Departments have not exerted efforts to promote research in this figld. Now an Institute of Development Administration has been set up with foreign collaboration to promote re
admi
search, and th who seen to proliferating in: their blessings tures even if til tio al in the C In this backgr Letan has made examine the r government inst context of the ower-decentralize. пiпistration in 3 study is not exclu ation of the Institutions; the this study lies ir to the total pat Italized administra this aspect, in deserves analysi:
D|5 trict Admin course of its hi wery inception and Agents of early British per a series of ch which accelerate decades after in Ilinated in the politico-adminis ture. "The con 5 for rapid econom (p. 40) has bei factor in the E district administ the leadership resides with a Parallel departim E gгоwth of Depa quasigovernmenta Rural Developme interfered with supervisory fur Government. A Kachcheris, thou the focal point administrative : ind an e Tosio The entry of t METIE ET 5 of PElr district decision began with their tion I the D) ting Committee

inistration
by Wiswa Warnapala
e bureaucrats, find enjoyпment stitutions, give to these struchey are dysfuncing run. It is o Lund that Dr. an atte TPE to nature of local tutions in the decentralized-or |-system of adSri Larkā, Her isively an examinocal government
importance of its relationship tern of decenttion and it is my view, which .tחEוחוחםם and 5
stration, in the story from the F CitCate5 Revenue in the iad, under-went anges, Some of d In the thTEE dependence, CU|- arrival of a tir ati We 5tt Cciously felt need lc developmento 2n the primary volution of this Tativo 5tructute
of which now politician. The 2ntalism and the rtment-sponsored | institutions of nt Societies type, thը overall CtiCT1 of the gent, and the gh it геппаined in the District Ipparatus, experof its functions. he politician-the liament-into the -making process formal participIstrict Coordinaof the early
fifties, and this body, though it gawe the parliamentarian the opportunity to decide priorities and solve problems relating to coordination in close association with the respective heads of Departments at the district level, established no effective control over the district bureaucracy. The need to organise and expedite the food production programme and the general emphasis on an accelerated Programme of agricultural development brought into existence the District Political Authority (DPA) in September, 1973 and this represented an unique innovation in the district administration of the island. Tha DPA, with its integral relationship to the decentralized budget and with its direct responsibility to the Prime Minister's Coordinating Secretariat, gave birth to a new form of administrative leadership resulting in minimising the leadership role of the Government Agent. The DPA's direct relationship with the PM's Coordinating Secretariat immedia tely weakened the role of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which from the days of the Donough more Constitution, maintained a hold ower the district administrative appara LLIS. The changes introduced by the present Government in the area of district administration. including the appointment of District Ministers, hawa more or less completed the process and the present Ministry of Home Affairs is a misnormer and anachro
li i5T
The innovation of the District Ministry System, with its integral relationship to the Kachcheri system of district administration. has created a situation in which the district machinery is now
directly controlled by the President. The Prime Minister has been going round activating
the District Ministers and having conferences in Kachchers. and

Page 25
this again has been done bypassing the Ministry of Home Affairs which traditionally, held the function of supervising the Kachcheri administration. The Ministry of Home Affairs has now been reduced to a single Department -Registrar General's Department. Administration Branch, Accounts Branch and the Record Roon of the Kachcher is are the only sections which hawe some relationship with the Ministry of Home Affairs while the remaining functions are handled by the branches of the respective Departments. The functions of the Kachcheris, except in the cases cited above, are those relating to Ministries other than the Home Ministry, The establish ment of the Ministry of Plan Implementation with its respective Planning Units in the Kachchers reinforces this argument that the Kachcheri is no more a coherent unit. The recent shift in development planning mechanisms from central planning to regional plan ning and the controlling of regional development programmes has added a new dimension into the area of district admini 5 tration,
The local government institutions, which played a vital role in the political development of the country in the period after 1931, experienced no significant changes in the last two decades. The need to control these institutions by a Ministerial fiat led to a variety of anomalies, some of which were represented in the Special Commissioner system which the previous regi The inaugurated with a view to politically controlling the local bodies: Though this aspect has not been carefully treated in this work, Dr. Leitan subjects the evolution of the system to a detailed examination in Chapter II (pp. 46-72). It is this Chipater which assists us to di gCoyet 5o me rele wat reference5 to the proposed changes in the structure of local government institutions, and the Provincia | Councils, the establishment of which was proposed by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike as the Minister of Local Administration, h == Ebeen discu 55 ed. This 155Luc
becarine a Conti such magnitudo ch was able to im SLFP, while b so-called Banda showed no ove to this though an ardent ad proposal. Dr. refers in the : the Draft Regi of 1957; this y Ճn the famou Chelwanayakam munal tension ar mism, which to "death fasts a march to Kand) of the UNP 2. Warderne, Te5LIIté2c of Լիը Pact in } main source of the restructuri government in from the UN the same politi introduced an establish Distri the basis of : Again politics Chauwu nism inti strategy and t abandoned. The Tinent has now task to a Presic sion. Does i provide any inc would devise devolution with solving the pr Tamil communi
Dr. Letan's v 5ists of Seven useful epilogue, h (Chapters W, WI In my view, are problems in a dec of administratio the basic charac of economic devel W (pp 27-||64) r iWE XILOT tral ti Wea organis Departments wh move towards ec development, ex pansion. Functic case, hawe beel irrational distrib is yet another organisation w birth to a system alism (p. 129).

towersial one o 3 C o Goyerret lement it. The elieving in the raпаike policies, TË COTI mittlerit its founder was WOCA te Of the Leitan rightly all Coltext to апа|| Сашncil. Bil || was partly based S Bandaran äikePact Tha co1 d. Si Halla cha uwik such forms as ld the abortive by a segment by J. R. Jayain the abrogation May, 1958. The opposition to ng of the local stitutions came P and it was cal party which ther bill to et Councils on | similar pact. of Sinhala rfered with this he move was I present Governentrusted this lential Commisis composition lication that it a schere of a view to oblerns of the ty?
work, which coChapters with a as three Chapters and WII) which, integral to the 2ntralizad system 1 Which retains -er of the agent bpment. Chapter lakes an exhausof the adminis1 է|յրl f thբ ich, with Every Doric and social 2riented an oxy aחs, In milח duplicated and I tion of funto 15 feature of this 1ich has g|wen of departmentt is at this eye
of the administrative apparatus that institutions and field organisatioas have been proliferated to such a degree that lines of demarcations could not be easily determined and the other important defect is that local bodies "are not really associated in any great degree with the district administration". (p. 137) it is this feature, in my view, which should partly guide the re-demarcitid of local government of the country. Dr. Leita, il the course of her discussion on the system of departmentalism, doas not fai || to examine the Departments-sponsored 15. Lutional structures which constitute the plet hora of willage-lewel bodies. They are both development and welfare-oriented and It forms yet another aspect of the system of departmentalism. No rational criteria has guided the creation of these institutions and some of thern are utterly dysfunctional and useless. The functional and are ral considerations relating to the 53 ins El Cution 5 hawe been neglected and Dr. Leitan exposes their weak inkage with a highly bureaucratised administration. The changing rolo of thea Government Agent ha 5 been analysed in Chapter W II (pp. || 6520I) and its development rolemore than the regulatory administrative role-has been emphasised with the sole purpose of focussing on the changes now taking place in the district apparatus. His lead earship role in the area of coordination is presently the basic character of this institution and even this aspect has been minimised as a result of the establishment of 5 tructures which are expected to maintain a close liaison with the elected member of Parliament. Chapter WI exposes with some clarity the established tendency within the politico-administrative structures of the district. The member of Parliament, generally within the last two decades, got his 15elf inducted into the formal administrative a PP a ratus and this role, though it creates certa in amount of resentment within the burgaucracy, has now been accepted. The ploiticians do not hesitate to show their "concern" in the
3.

Page 26
area of recruitment, transfers and promotions, political interference, about which there was lot of opposition a decade or two ago, is now part of the administra: tive process. In this kind of context, certain formal leasures hawe been taker to socialise the Tcle of the MP to thig formål administrative structure and the Job Bank Schene is one of the best examples. The MP's infamous "ch it system' has been given a lega | status through the instrument of the Job Bank which in my view, was the Worst political | Im We Tht | O ||1 of this decade. No administrative criteria can explain its existence, Dr. Leitan seeks to explain this a spect-the a Trival of the politiciam in to the forma | scene of the administration-in terrils of constituency politics (pp. 204-206) This, in my view, is inadequate a formula because the problems within the entire social fabric strengthens his present role as the accepted trouble shooter. No political party opposes this role and its acceptance has, to a certain extent, weakened the entire foundation of parliament
alry government in the political Gowerinriënt Cän Lures with CLIC, Important adjustm system. PR schen tion has been E reduce the impac the MP, and it that this objective These characterist administrative sys' by Dr. Leitan, conflict-relationsh bureaucracy and t the atter's fail distinction betwe and politics has number of dysfu uences. The role in all spheres of be justified on the phrases such as tion, participatic etc. Yet a Othé the politician's ro has heavily deteric of the O. Wett Trial role a5 an 3-tiV the administratio
Dr Leitan, in not failed to exa
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work, has the dewe
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opments in the island's administrative structure from the Point of view of the mass of theoretical formulations on the subject of decentrā || zation. She has com Sul Eed
all the available sources on the subject and certam relevant references to systems. In other
parts of the world have been made with a view to assessing the efficacy of the Sri Lanka system which is fast moving in the direction of a formal administrative organisation with less local government oriented participation. In other Words, the democratic base of the local authorities has disappeared to a great extent, resulting in a system akin to a parallel departmen tal structure. This study of Dr. Lean, hrefore, Could have
been limited to the process of decentralization and this aspect stil|| Tema i 15 a vita | arca, which de 50 rye 5 examination. Despite
such limitations, Dr. Leitan's study
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Page 27
April Insurgency 1971 - by Podi Athul,
Splittism and
SE hawe been a Com Thon occurence within the left movement throughout the world, but Sri Lanka has had more tham it's share. One reason for this seemingly ridiculous feature is the fact that our local left parties most often idelogically, and, sometimes organisationally, are linked to some other party or political
centre abroad. This naturally creates a situation where any change or split in the latter
finds its reflection in the former. But splits which occured within the JWP took an altogether different character. As the WP never had a parent-child relationship with any party in any other country, its splits had no casual linkage with the disputes or splits occuring in such parties.
The first split in the ranks of the JWP took place somewhere in March 1970, with Dharmasekara's expulsion or breakaway. The Wijeweera-Dharmasekara feud is an important area of study, because it sheds light on some of the peculiar aspects of the Lankan radical left at this particular period of time. Firstly, one can guage the political issues involved in the dispute. Secondly, such an examination will show the particular psychology under which they acted, and reacted to each other, during this phase.
Were there real political issues in the Wijeweera-Dharmasekara quarrel Podi Athula's book unfortunately gives very little help in finding an answer to this question. Of course, there was a political issue: Revolution? Yesthen, when and how? It was precisely this question that was under dispute. As Pod Athula Correctly describes (though presently a Sinophilic Maoist) Dharmasekara's political thinking at that time was basically influenced and shaped by the revolutionary romanticism of the Cuban experience. Though Dharmasekara joined Wijeweera,
he and his gi attempted to identity within fore, it was no the part of W. some apprehensi activities of this of the newly con Y to Pod Athula, ded the expuls the significant the "cutting off", a leging that t plarined and prej an attack on 5 or in the days of S of 1970 and to Sinharaja forest. real issues involve of differences bet and Dharma sekar: that it was not the but the technic; the Lankam rewoli a decisive role bifurcation of the point, it is rele that in Russia, splits occured i tionary movem which Were di to the fundane of the revolutio strategic slogans
ments (tc.
Secondly, this the so-called thr revolution'. Both Dharma sekara bi counter-revolution of state-power WC on the eve of th Elections. And that such a Tow of the ruling clas prelude to the a or to the rewol Lumdarstood li t... N created in the people by the counter revoluto cipation of a resu was such that it Wijeweera and D have suspicions reservations abot

(4)
uritanism
by J. Uyangoda
up had always maintain their he WP. Thereunjustified on weer'a to hawe 15 regarding the articular cluster rted. According Wije weera defenor Co L52 WP terminology, of Dharmasekara, e latter had ared to launch a police stations, Inhala New Year retreat to the If this were the d in the climax ween Wijeweiera it again shows social dynamics a problems of ution that played in the initial WP. At this Want to recal all the major in the revolunt on issues ectly related ntal problems , such as basic class align
"as the time of ut of a "counter Wijeweera and iewed that a "y take ower ld be imminent 1970 General ley anticipated on the part is would be a led struggle - ion, as they w the tension nds of these treat" of the and the antiarn t re Wolutiorn "as natu Tal for T Thasekara to ld, at least, each other's
credibility and capability.
On the one hand, Dharmā5ekā ra had lost
confidence in Wijeweera because he (Dharmasekara) thought that Wijeweera was not prepared to launch the armed struggle at the earliest possible opportunity. On the other hand, Wijeweera was highly suspicious about Dharmasekara, because he belived that the latter would attack some police stations with the aim of destroying the JWP and himself (Wijeweera). It is interesting to
recall that both charged and counter-charged each other as "false-pretenders' to the revolu
tionary leadership of this country. However these suspicions and reservations may be justified or not, it te weals the extent to which the tension, excitement and monentum that was developing in the psychology of these two personalities and their followers at that particular period.
The second major split, or more accurately, factional struggle in the JWP, began to develop in the latter half of the year-1970. This time the people involved in this quarrel were Wijeweera's closest lieutenants. It is interesting to note that in this second split, no political, theoretical or tactical issue at all Was involved The Immediate con Cern was some minor issue regarding so-called "'revolutionary ethics'. Though it may seen irrational and childish, this antipathy tow
ard5 Lowe and Sex 15 not sonnething new and strange. When the leadership, cadre and the
membership of the movement come mainly from the geographical areas where indegenous traditional culture and values still prevail, the old puritanism filters through the communistic ethics. This is exactly what happened as far as JWP puritanism is concerned.
Having read Podi Athula's exceptionally long and detalled des
(Cராசரி ரா Fge 28)
고도

Page 28
FREE IS SCHOOL TE
The Govellent as decided to issuc School Textbooks free of charge to all students in Gover Ilment Schools from Kindergarten to Grade 10.
2. It is proposed to begin the distribution of text books on the 16th of January 1980, which will be the date on which schools will-open for the IleW year.
0S LLLLLLaLLLL LLLLL HLLlSLLL HaaLLLLL LLLL attLLLLS HLHHLaaaLa GLLLLLLS HHHLHHL with School children and book sellers, this Ministry proposes to re-purchase the following books published by the Educational Publications Department at the rates indicated below:-
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).illa 0LSLLLL S S LS SSS L L G.OחחSi Sinhall 5 (Book Five) 5.üዐ Sinhala G.Ncw Textbook Series of the Ministry of Education 5,00 Sinha la 7 , II 55 Similala E - LLL SLLSS LLSL 6.00 Sinhala 9 , LSSL LSSYYSLLSLLL 7,5) Garlitha PլլհLImւIWii - Deveni Sreniya A. () Gamitha Puhumu wa -- Tumi weni Sremiyal } Gamitlha Puhunu wa — Hatha Taveni Sreniya 4. U Ganit hal Puhunu wa — Pas vėIni Sreniya 451)
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Saraith Am Linn Lugama, Secretary,
Ministry of Education Services. 26th November, 1979,

Page 29
Of scripture and
hintaka replying (LG, Now 15) t my COOTTTTT 5. O | argument by quotation, says this is necessary when discussing a question
like "What is the correct MarxistLепіпist positioп оп . . ..?"
This was precisely the view
was arguing against. For me, advocating X as "the correct MarxistLeninist positions' on Y involves demonstrating that X is consistent with or leads to the goal of socialist revolution. For Chintaka, it involves showing that X is in keeping with the teachings of the prophets.
Since Some of Chintaka's Prophets are anathematised by other Marxists, this approach usually leads to disputes as tire some and sterile as the theological battles between rival sects of Christians about which of them represents the true Chillsith.
As far as I am concerned, an argument about what is "the correct solarxist-Leninist position " on Some question is not one to be Settled by appeal to any authority - mot awem Lenin" 5. After a II, there have been great Marxists (e.g. Rosa Luxemburg) who hawe disagreed with Lenin on several matters. It so happens that I think Lenin was right on most of them, but I would still regard this as something to be established by argu = ment, not assumed by an act of faith in Lenin's infallibility.
I regard Marxism as simply the most useful tool of social analysis that has been Wolved, and believe we should be able to apply it in the light of our reason and our understanding of the World and society. We can certainly take les sons from the great Marxists in the methods of using this tool, but to go to them for ready-made answers seems to me In consistent with the proper critical and creative spirit of Marxism itself.
To treat one or the other Marxist movement as the sole repository of unquestionable truth as Chintaka and many others of
various Marxist pi to ELIT MITxis
complete with heresies, dogmas Saints and devils - course, one of thi tures of many Ma the World over.
But another characteristic espe ka Marxism, is th posed on us Len Stalinist, Maoist models of theory Which Weren't d analysis of the par of production and of Sri Lanka 5oci belief That one what is "the cit Leninist position by looking up in what Lenin said said in 1924 is WIS LETI in him.5i celebrated occasio "Theory is grey, tree of life is a
Black and White
What was said urT II about th a Soi moted by childre bearing on Hand film released foi guys are dark-sk behave and talk slum kids ; the g; skinned and look, like well brought children (althoug 5 han Ey with a di and they have a his Sm || 5 or to
think it also nate that in a midget with def: be cast as a willian und 25ra ble littitut Sical aboralite children. And in children too that of the Sinhala ser who talks. Sinhala ratedly comic acci IC 523 a Si Hall Muslim character Wise.)

prophets
ersuations do) is into a religion, orthodoxics and and anathema 5. - and this is, of e depressing fearxist TowerTents
result, which is cially of Sri Lanat we hawe imInst, Trotskyist,
and Guevatist and practice er i wedi'i from 1 a 'ticular relations class structure iety, Chintaka's
cm de te Trile rect Marxi 5—
on any question the sacred books 97 or Stan symptomatic. It elf who on a n quoted Heine, my friend; the ways green."
in my last colcial attitude 5 pron's fiction has a aya, the Sinhala
YC. The Ed inned and look, like authentic
bod guys are fairbehalwe and talk - up middle-class h they live in a runkard father), white man and befriend them.
Tatha T U Infortu = children's film Jrmed legs should because it creates les towards phyin the minds of Jst we bring to stereotype figure em - the USim - with an exagge2nt (I have yet a film with a treated other
Touchstone
Those who saw the children's films screened earlier this year by two visitors from the British
Children's Film Foundation will remember how carefully these films avoided anything likely to create class or racial prejudices, or combat such prejudices without becoming didactic and without sacrificing anything in story intrests, excitement or humour. If we are going to make children's films regularly (and Titus Thotawatte must be commended at least for making a start ), we must be watchful about the social images and attitudes they create or reinforce in child
TE ’5 mind 5.
Solution
Here is the solution to the palindrome problem in the last
Colu Mish :
In answer to Adam's introduction of himself, "Madam, I'm Adam,' Eve simply bowed and said, "Eve."
Cannibalism - White & Black
In the article by W. P. Vittachi on the above subject Para 2 in Column one should have read:
'"]*0'w, although neither idi An in nor Bokassa can be said
to adorin the image of the African race, and no doubt between the rim kill cd offrhou
sands Of Innocent hurTan EE Ing, they certainly did not achieve th levels of fagitiousness of a Hitler and 5tal in who counted their victims not in thousands but in Tillions. But HItler Was Whitc. Despite well-documented evidence no one believes that a white can be cannibal where is in the case of a black All Ya Li ha W2 It do is show an Unus I till degrCO3 of wickedness in him for everybody to be ready to believe he is canniba. listic. Ha Wolver hated and TěWilled Hilar and Stalim wyer in their day (except by the trwy e-bicille Weris) . no come ever thia Lught of accus, ing the IT of cannibalisin."'
- Ed.
27

Page 30
Lenin - Stalin dis
"I MUST SAY that I write without adherence to any cultStalinist, Trotskyist or any other." This statement of Mr. Reggie Siriwardena is most heartening,
My Interpretation of Lenin's disagreements with Stalin have an un impeachably anti-Stalinist
source of confirmation: — Georgi Pitakoy. Piatkow, 5 Mr. SiriWarden a doubtless is aware, was a Bolshevik leader once closely a55ociated with Bukharin. He was also a leading personality of a 'leftist' faction (headed by Trotsky) which included Radek, Serebriakow, Krestinsky, offe
and Rakowsky. This 'Left' faction
finally encompassed 75 leading Bolshevik5, who weTC la er expelled from the party. (Piatakow
was of course executed in 1937 after having been convicted for treason.) In 1928, Piatakow wss appointed Soviet trade representative in Paris. Here he had long conversations with N. Walentinow, who in 1904, was a constant companion of Lenin in Geneva, prior to joining the Mensheviks. (After the Rewolution, Walentinow returned to Russia, worked in the early 1920's for the Sowjet government, then went abroad and spent the rest of his long
life as an emigre). Walentinov published an account of his 1928
discussions with Platakov in an article which MT" Siriwardena could profitably peruse in the original Ru55 ian. ("Sut" bol "shewiz mr w izobrazro mi i Iu. Platakova"- Novy Zhuanal, No 52, 1951).
Piatakow admitted that he himself and many others of the Bolshevik Politburo, considered
leadership.
Lenin's last a nate'. They w said, under til Lenin's depress No One who | Could take thi represent his r authentic Outlt expression on! last articles: "'
T5 wEW | corro Bo Tate 5 t } offered. Stalin a-mouldering in th= KrefT|r Wä|
Splittism . (Cării ined fr
cription of the mance and be tr; might ask himse a big Crisis occ. ya matter? THE plied by Po di A follows: This though it seem: outsiders, had a ing Lupon the Co Ճf the IWP, and the wiolation of by the leader h an unbearable shock to the d as well as to
Yet, aspect of the
TO O TE GATTIG thought so far, this second fa centred on puri actual chronolog metamorphosis o We cal see that crisis within the ime vitable and : egan in 1967 a movement and of 970 tea leaders, cadres, b£20 m: trairied ar work essentially mcer. || Marc is. La kom i to movement begin a t lea 5 t, to a |im1

agreements
rticle5 FunforELIere Written, he e influence of ing final sickness пеW him veII ir Cotets to "eal views, His ook had found. in one of the Our Revolution.'
F Piatakow, fully le intepretation. 's body may lit: the grave beneath
by Chintaka
Krushchchey consigned it), but his face is back on the Sowtict calendar and screen, his portrait continues to adorn Peking's Tien An Mien Sqnare, his statue remains in Albania and Mongolia, while his name is present in the Writings and speeches of Vietnam's leaders. My view that Stalin's errors were far outweighed by his positive historical achievement, is in accordance with the views of all revolutionary leaders from Castro ar Chile, to Hoxha, Mac, Ho Chi Minh and Lee Dua n.
(not quite where
αrη ΡαEP 55)
Incidents of toayals, the reader f: How did 5 Luch rt on such a tri: explanation imAthula may be as ultra-puritanism, trivia to the i tre Teil dous barlective psychology that, therefore, holy principles' imself had been and unexpected rdinary members the second-rank there is another roble to which to have given We We set ctional struggle, tanism, against the ical setting of the f the lowerment,
some kind of
OW logical at this tחeוחWeטוח E. The s an underground till the early part ined so. At the and Ternbers had d accustomed to in a cland estine 1 1790, Wije weera, custody, and the s to work openly, ited Oxtent. From
July 1970, it officially begins to function "above ground". Now the developments in the transitional period between two phases-clandestine and open political activitiesand the first few months of the second phase, Tnight hawe had a crucial effect on the minds of the JWPers. Accustomed to the dark weil of secrecy, now they are exposed to the fresh winds of open politics. The JWP as a movement, and its members as individuals, had to adapt to the new situation. It is not Luisafe to a 55 u Te that some should hawe beer able to adapt and some not. As for Wijeweera, beginning at the Wid蠶 University in the evening of the 14th July, 1970, the new role as the lower ent's foremost public speaker was very much an easy going One. But hi5 lieutenants, such as Sanath, Katunarathne and Laku Athula, Werfaced With a new dilemma. According to division of abour decided upon, their activities were still to remain underground, although the movement now goes open. They might not hawe been able to adjust themselves to this new dua tole of the Tower Tiet. It was precisely this maladjustment that began to he expressed as a dissatisfaction towards Wijeweera. In a situation where the persons involved were not capable of posing their challenge politically or theoretically, it was the question of "revolutionary ethics" that becaFie Ehe vehicle of di 5 comte E.

Page 31
PION
, , in AI KY
CEYLON RESNO
64, Ananda Cooma COLOM
Phone: ,

E E RS
D RESINS
PLASTICS LTD.,
aswamy Mawatha, O - 7.
86 73.

Page 32
Trustees: Co
Cyril Gardiner Mrs. Mavis Gardiner haritable @ Mrs. Anne Aloysius Mrs. Mangalam St. help ዘh 蠶A Al இர Josep , Aloysius Dr. Dennis Aloysius υ/o be 7V7 (7 ZA Dr. Hubert Aloysius Peter Aloysius Rs. 656,863,00 9) ay in Donations up to
7-7-79. 1, FOUIR OBJEC President's Cyclone
Fund 125,000.00 A. To assist roo of the St. Joseph's College g
171,993.00 B. To provide employme A Solo C. To minimise the evil St. Peter's College improving mental, phy
5,000.00 young persOnS. All Saints' e G St. Jude's D. To perpetuate religion Fatima 8 x 10,630 2. Rs... 100,000 31,890.00
St. Anthony's Rs. 100,000 will be invest Christ Church Galle Face Họtel and the
Jiffry Mowlana Trust 3. MAJOR REligions
London Vihare
ಸ್ಲೀಗಳ್ಲma Mission The families will be chose ဆွီး ဂိုဂါ order; Buddhism (YMBA Manila sami Christianity (Christ Churc 58.535.00 Islam (Jiffry Mowlana Trus Child & Youth Welfare 55,290.00 4。 INVESTMENTS Prithipura Rs. 100,000 would be in 22,915.00 institution acceptable to Leprosy which should be between 1:00 assist 100 of the poorest
1. 17,902.00 5, YEARS OF BRTH 器伽 Applications should be m: CNAPT by each of 5 institutions, 17,700.00 four (making 20) should Children's Conval. 15,975.00 6. NO ALCOHOL, TOBA Crippled Children The families chosen must 10,000 00 Retarded Children 7. EMPLOYMENT 5,000.00 Preference will be gi
given
Rights Fund the GFH and Autodrome, Miscellaneous tobacco and don't gam 3,992.00 acceptable in regard to c Rs. 656,86300 Giving does not Rs. 100.000 00 1.1.80 Not giving does not Rs. 756.863.00
SUPPORT CHARITIES O GROW FooD
O AVOID ALCOHOLISM O
 
 

Cables : TWOSEVENS CBO. Telex : 1160 TWOSEVENS CBO. Phone 26181 Regd. Off: BOX 330
323, UNION PLACE, COLOMBO 2, SRI LANKA CEYLON.
7und of 78. 700, CCC to e poorest of the poor. gurated on the 7 at 5°oya
the 80's Jue. 7, 7.8 C.
TIVES
poorest of the poor to help themselves. at for IOO persons.
of Tobacco, Alcohol and gambling, thereby 'sical, spiritual and economic health of IOO
is harmony
ed for 100 families chosen from the vicinity of the
Autodrome,
In by the major religions given below in alphabetical
Col. 8), Catholism (Holy Rosary Church Col. 2), h Col. 3), Hinduism (Ramakrishna Mission Col. 6), t. Col. 2), to whom applications should be addressed.
vested in the National Savings Bank or any other each institution. The annual income from the Fund Rs. 8,000 and Rs. 24,000 will be used exclusively to of the poor.
de to these institutions and 20 families will be chosen making 100 of the poorest of the poor, of which be born in one of the five years 1967-71.
CCO OR GAMBLING not permit alcohol, smoking or gambling in their homes.
to these 100 children when choosing employees for provided they are total abstainers from alcohol and le and are physically fit, adequately educated and ara C telf”.
make you poorer What we gave, we have: make you richer. What we spent, we had:
What we left, we lost:
O CONSERVE WATER O STOP SMOKING
KEEP FIT O DON'T GAMBLE,