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The view from London

Somawansa Amarasinghe, the self-exiled leader of the JVP had sent a May Day Message from his cushy quarters in London.

One would have expected him to dwell at length on the plight of the working people and the fight against capital in the context of globalization and the new dispensation in power in Sri Lanka. After all, May 1 is the International Day of Solidarity of the Working People.

However, the "working class hero" doesn't talk a word about the workers or peasants, the downtrodden.

Reading through the jargon and perusing his style one wonders whether it is a document of the JVP or of the Sihala Urumaya.

The JVP boss virulently calls for street demonstrations. He is threatening to bring hundreds of thousands to the streets to abrogate the Ceasefire Agreement signed by the Government and the LTTE.

The JVP boss should be reminded that the people have long abandoned crass communalism of the type exhibited in his statement.

He says people are living in fear. The actual fact is they are freer than ever before. Perhaps, he may not feel the effect of the silencing of guns in London. The people of this country who have felt the horrors of war yearn for peace and pray for the success of the current peace initiative.

Blinded by jingoism, he cannot see the positive development. He sees only the black and not white.

Somawansa, like his own followers and comrades-in-arms in the Sihala Urumaya has failed to notice the readiness expressed by the LTTE leader to settle for internal self-determination, a solution that rules out a separate state of Tamil Eelam.

It is up to the Government and the majority community to offer a viable alternative. One must also note the clear stand of the international community against division of Sri Lanka. In fact, the whole negotiating process rests on that premise.

The tragedy of these people is they are living in the past. Yet they claim no responsibility for the present and the past. They are unable to perceive the problem from within. That is why they do not offer any solution but oppose whatever solution brought forward by anyone.

Peace is a challenge. It is a struggle. It is not a struggle for the meek. It is a struggle for the bold, for the daring.

It is necessary to take calculated risks in the search for peace. The Government is doing exactly that.

The JVP, which claims to be socialist, is championing the cause of ultra right. This type of socialism is more akin to the National Socialism of Adolf Hitler and has nothing to do with the teachings of Marx and Engels, the greatest internationalists of the Left.

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