BY Shantha Wijesooriya

The number of journalists who have been murdered, abducted and disappeared by successive governments in this country is around 125.

The police and the station master of the Fort Railway station master (manager), Wijethilaka, made a shameless attempt to disrupt the protest demonstration titled “January is still black” held in front of the Fort Railway Station on the evening of January 29th, demanding that the National People’s Forces government provide justice to the journalists who were murdered, abducted, disappeared and attacked.

Although the previous governments did not like the “ Black January” protests that have been held since 2012 to demand justice for those journalists and to raise awareness about the killings and kidnappings, they did not react seriously.

However, the conspiratorial attempt by the police and a government official to disrupt the “Black January is still Black” protest held under the NPF governments is a powerful attack on democracy and we call on the working class and progressive people to oppose its undemocratic efforts.

This protest was held on the 19 January at 4 pm. The writer and several members of the executive committee of the Sri Lanka Professional Journalists Association arrived at the Fort Railway Station at around 1 pm and began the decoration work. While the photographs of the murdered, disappeared and assaulted journalists were being hung on the iron fences and black flags were being hoisted, a Sub-Inspector of the Police came and requested us to remove the photographs and flags. We kindly requested him not to bother us for the two-three hour. The Sub-Inspector told us that if we did not remove them, they would have to remove them by force. One of our executive committee members told him in turn that we would not remove them and would not allow them to be removed. The Sub-Inspector of Police told us that if we were to decorate here, we would have to obtain the permission of the Fort Railway Station Master.

Later, the president of the association, Duminda Sampath, and the writer met the Fort Railway Station Master (Manager). He ordered us to immediately remove the decorations inside the railway premises. We informed him that the protest has been held at this place every year and that there has never been any such disruption, But the station master Manager told us that although you have decorated in the past, he could not allow it this time. He initially told us that it was an order from the higher authorities, but when we asked for the phone number of the higher authority who gave the order, he said that no such order was given. He again asked us to remove the decorations at the place and said that if there will be a problem he would not be responsible as the station master. When we came out of the room, he asked for the names of the writer and the president of the association and wrote them down perhaps anticipating to screw us.

Following the 2022 July 9 uprising, President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government was so afraid of protests, demonstrations, and marches that it used the police and military to curb up protests wherever they occurred. The National People’s Forces government (NPF) has also been infected with Wickremesinghe’s fear of protests.

Meantime the lecture, titled “How to defeat the IMF austerity program?”, organized by the Youth and Students for Social Equality and the students of the Political Science Department of the University of Peradeniya, was banned by the Vice-Chancellor of the university. The Vice-Chancellor banned the lecture, saying that the government’s policies cannot be challenged. When journalists, academics and intellectuals questioned the Minister of Mass Media and Health, Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa and Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasooriya, they said that they were not involved.

In another incident the Colombo Crimes Traffic Investigations Division’s, Smuggling and Maritime Crimes Investigation Division has issued a written notice to Yarlson and Nishan Madushana to meet them on 31 January 2024, alleging that they organized a protest opposite the Mullaitivu District Secretariat pressurizing the government not to hand over the Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.

A similar incident occurred when the government sent police force to disperse the protesters who held a protest in front of the Ministry of Education in Battaramulla, Colombo, by forcing the NPF government to recruit its members as teachers.

The School Development Economic Officers Association forced the NPF government to recruit its members as teachers. The government tried to disperse the protesters by using police in front of the Ministry of Education in Battaramulla, Colombo. The government’s attempt to disperse the protesters by using military intelligence officers to stab the police officers with knives was immediately exposed. Had it not been exposed, the government could have adopted more horrible tactics to curb public protests.

The driving force of the NPF government was not the working-class masses but retired military and police officers. The government has already deployed a larger number of spies in civilian clothes among the people than uniformed officers. The working-class masses have realized that the NPF governments have not only failed to solve any of the socio-economic problems of the working-class masses, but they have no intention of doing so.

The government is set to move towards military dictatorship, fearing a public uprising as it moves to implement the IMF’s austerity program. The President said in an interview with Sirasa TV that rice mills that do not follow government-controlled prices when selling and purchasing rice will be taken under military control.

The Sama Samaja Party, which betrayed the 1964 21 Demands Movement by infiltrating the capitalist government formed in 1965 under the leadership of Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the necessary conditions were created in that same year for the emergence of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (Peoples Liberation Front) The JVP grew and developed as a puppet of the capitalist class based on the Sinhala Buddhist petty bourgeoisie, which had embraced Maoism, Castro-ism and Stalin-ism. The JVP, wearing red, also imprisoned hundreds of thousands of young people in the capitalist camps in 1971 and 1988, using Marxist-Leninist slogans. The JVP has shown itself to be a peacock that is now shedding its false leftist garb and demonstrating its pro-capitalist nature.

The JVP, which rallied the middle class sections that were disillusioned in the face of the capitalist crisis, formed a government called the National People’s Front (NPF)  and engaged in a reactionary work of restoring the capitalist system. For about 70 years, it has acted inimically to Marxism by spouting leftist radical slogans and misleading the working-class and oppressed people of this country.

The capitalist system is an international system by birth and it has gone into crisis not only in Sri Lanka but also on a global scale. The crisis has reached such a high level that it is on the verge of a third world war to re-divide the world. The strategy of the Western imperialists led by America to conquer the Middle East by inciting Russia to invade Ukraine and having NATO forces swallow Russia, and by having Israel raze Palestine to the ground.

There is no solution to the problems facing the working-class masses or to environmental problems beyond replacing the capitalist system on a global scale and establishing socialism.