Let's be committed to defeat reactionary forces - LSSP

Previous Government initiated several policy measures that directly affect the working class in particular and the masses in general. These policies a part of the World Bank and I.M.F. package imposed on the third world countries that seek their aid continue to be operative even after the dissolution of the UNP government, said LSSP in a press release issued yesterday.

They are; the Amendment of labour law to enable employers to terminate the services of their employees free of the protection that has been legally provided for the benefit of employees:

The imposition of the Value Added Tax (VAT) and the subjection of essential food items to this tax:

Privatisation of state owned assets and services such as the nationalised plantations, Eppawela phosphate deposit, the Ceylon Electricity Board and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation; The narrowing of the free health care and education systems.

These policies constitute part of the economic and social programs of the forces of political reaction that operate on a global scale. Over the year, the masses with the organised working class at its head have sought to ensure their welfare through the democratic processes that they have secured for themselves and have jealously maintained against all reactionary inroads.

The reactionary ruling class in this country and the imperialist forces that stand behind it have since 1994 been denied the use of the dictatorial powers inherent in the executive presidential system. Political reaction operating through the UNP is once more reaching out to gain for itself the executive presidential powers in the forthcoming Presidential Election.

The primary task of the working class in the face of this strategy of political reaction is to commence the mobilisation of the masses for ensuring the defeat of this attempt by these forces. The long drawn out ethnic conflict and the dangers it poses to national unity have detracted mass attention from this all important task. The taking forward of the Peace Process as the means of achieving a lasting political solution to the ethnic conflict has to go hand in hand with the mass struggle against political reaction.

The LSSP affirms that in this struggle the working class has to take on itself the responsibility of mobilising the masses. May day 2005 should mark the commitment of the working class to this task, states an LSSP press release.