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WSWS : News & Analysis : Asia : Sri Lanka

After the US election: the political issues

SEP/ WSWS public lecture in Colombo on December 5

24 November 2004

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The World Socialist Web Site and Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka) invite WSWS readers to attend a public meeting in Colombo on the vital political issues arising from the re-election of George Bush as US president.

The election result has shocked millions of people around the world and raised many questions. How did Bush win, given the exposure of all the lies used to justify the invasion of Iraq and the widespread anti-war opposition in the US itself? Why did the Democratic Party contender John Kerry make no appeal to this anti-war sentiment or to the deep-felt opposition to Bush’s right-wing economic and social agenda?

Further questions are posed by the cowardly response of the political establishment throughout the Indian subcontinent to the Bush victory. In Sri Lanka, President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse both sent fawning messages of congratulations to Bush, ignoring the ongoing US bloodbath in Iraq. Their coalition partners—the so-called Marxists of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)—did not object and have similarly kept silent on the crimes of US imperialism. The opposition parties and the Sri Lankan media have all followed suit.

The SEP’s sister party in the United States was the only party to fight for a socialist alternative. In public meetings in Colombo and Kandy, the SEP presidential candidate Bill Van Auken emphasised that workers around the world faced similar problems that could only be addressed through a common internationalist strategy. He stressed the need for a world party to consciously unite the struggles of workers against militarism and social inequality.

In the wake of Bush’s re-election, that essential conclusion acquires a burning urgency. We urge WSWS readers and party supporters to attend the Colombo lecture, which has been called to draw the necessary political lessons from the outcome of the US elections. SEP general secretary Wije Dias, a member of the WSWS International Editorial Board, will deliver the lecture.

Date: Sunday December 5, 3 PM
Venue: Young Men’s Christian Association Hall, Fort, Colombo