People will topple pro-US Arab dictatorships

The Lanka Samasamaja Party congratulated the people of Tunisia and Egypt for rising against the pro-American dictatorships that had been suppressing them for decades, said the party issuing a press release yesterday.

The release said: All indications are that the people of Algeria, Jordan and Yemen are ready to follow as part of a liberation "domino effect" that threatens to sweep through the Middle East, dealing a blow against the hegemony of the US Empire in the region.

This is another manifestation of the decline of the US Empire worldwide. It draws nearer the day when one of the greatest violations of human rights the world has known will be brought to an end and the Palestinian people will get justice through the re-establishment of an independent sovereign state.

The American ruling class achieved economic development in the region on the Neo-liberal model that would benefit the giant US and European Multinational Corporations, while retaining their stranglehold on Middle East oil and gas.

The local elites in the Middle East countries also grew rich, leading to GDP growth, but little of the benefits flowed down to the people, particularly the large mass of unemployed youth.

In the face of mounting resistance, the US Army backed local military and police sought to maintain the stability of the regimes through the gross violation of human rights and suppression of democratic rights, including widespread systematic torture. The people were denied freedom of information and expression.

It is humorous to see the local advocates in Sri Lanka of the pro-US neo-liberal policies, which are being rejected in the Middle East and whose only wish is to implement them in Sri Lanka, like the UNP and its Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya, trying to make out that such a fate awaits President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The latter is following diametrically opposed, anti-Neoliberal policies.

The LSSP deplores the isolated violations of human and democratic rights, much of which is a consequence of the war and the resultant gun culture. If Fonseka, whom the UNP and the JVP championed, had become President the path of economic and political development would have been identical with what the people are rejecting in the Middle East.