The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) will hold a public meeting in Jaffna on August 26 to discuss the degeneration and crisis of the Tamil bourgeois nationalist parties and the necessity to build a revolutionary party based on socialist internationalism.

All the Tamil capitalist parties—the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Tamil People’s National Front, Tamil People’s Forum, Eelam People’s Democratic Party and Tamil United Liberation Front—have been discredited among working people.

The TNA acts as a de-facto partner of the pro-American Sri Lankan government and supports US and Indian geo-political interests, with the other Tamil political parties following the same line. Terrified by working-class unrest, the TNA has united with Colombo, which has used military-police repression against striking workers, as highlighted during the recent petroleum workers’ strike. In the island’s North and the East, the TNA backs the military occupation and the government’s repressive measures.

Nervous about what this exposes about Tamil nationalism, some leaders of these parties and the media have begun a “debate” about the need for a “new Tamil political leadership.” This is aimed creating fresh political traps for workers, poor and youth.

Workers and youth must break from every faction of the Tamil bourgeoisie, reject Tamil nationalism and learn lessons from the defeat of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The SEP and its forerunner, the Revolutionary Communist League, has a long record of fighting against anti-Tamil discrimination and the Colombo governments’ wars. The democratic rights of Tamil people can be established only in the unified struggle of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala workers across ethnic lines and for socialism.

The SEP, which bases itself on Leon Trotsky’s program of Permanent Revolution, is fighting for a Sri Lanka Eelam Socialist Republic as part of struggle for socialism in South Asia and internationally. We invite workers, youth, students and intellectuals to attend the meeting and participate in this vital discussion.

Meeting venue: Weerasingham Hall, 2nd floor, Jaffna.
Date and time: Saturday August 26, at 3p.m.