Dear Comrades,

Fifth All Sri Lanka Congress of

New Democratic Party

25th & 26th of June 2010 at Colombo

We would like to communicate to your party that the 05th All Sri Lanka Congress of our New-Democratic Party, the Marxist Leninist party in Sri Lanka will be held on 25th and 26th of June 2010 at Colombo.

The attacks of Neo colonialism and Imperialist Globalization and as well as the suppression and oppression of fascist ruling classes of the Sri Lankan people are placed in a very backward position.

After the militarily defeat of LTTE the Tamil Separatist Militant Movement and the Presidential and Parliamentary elections held in January 2010 and April 2010 respectively the Sinhala chauvinist reactionary ruling classes have tightened their fascist belt to bundle the Sri Lankan people.

In the meantime the naked interferences of the Imperialist and regional forces are relatively high after the military defeat of LTTE. But the national question remains unsolved and people are more and more ethnically divided.

In these circumstances the forthcoming 05th congress of our party shall shoulder serious responsibilities to analyse the concrete contemporary situation and to arrive at a concrete decision to march towards working class revolution to overthrow this old system and replace it with socialist system a new system which leads to emancipation of the people from all the exploitations and dominations.

During the past 32 years history of our party it has not compromised with Imperialism regional powers and enemies of working class, reactionary nationalists and racists.

By standing by the people upholding the Red banner of Revolutionary Marxism – Leninism we are marching forward with our dedication and solidarity.

You are aware that we have developed our fraternal ties with the Communist Parties of other countries including your party in order to build up International Revolutionary Solidarity we are very much anxious to have your solidarity to strengthen our party and have the successful 05th congress.

In the present context we feel that the Sri Lankan atmosphere is not favourable for us to get down comrades from the fraternal parties to part take in our 05th congress.

Therefore alternatively we seek solidarity messages from fraternal parties including your party to make success the said congress.

Your esteemed message of solidarity is very highly appreciated.

Thanking You.

Revolutionary Greetings,

S.K. Senthivel E. Thambiah

General Secretary National Organizer

Roy was speaking at a Convention on Operation Green Hunt and Genocidal attack on tribals by Indian State’ organised in the city on Friday by the Federation Against Internal Repression. She said the resistance in central India was a fight against injustice and not a rebellion against the state as the government says it is. “The government is on the side of the corporates who want to take over the lands, forests, rivers, the traditional homes of the tribals. Operation Green Hunt follows the Bush doctrine of you are with us, or against us,” she said. “Anyone who resists this corporate takeover, whether Gandhian, tribal or Maoist, is branded a terrorist,” she said.

Turning her attention to the environmental impact of development, she said there was no ecological way to mine bauxite. “You can never mine bauxite and then turn it into aluminium without destroying the ecological balance of the mountains. The tribals have lived in harmony with the forests and nature for centuries,” she said.

From Pope to Barack Obama, everyone is feels the need for a New World Order and come out with statements every day. World’s most influential economists have been debating alternative economic policies. The economies of US and Europe have been protected for just three years from an imminent downfall.

This is not the first time a New World Order is being proposed. In the 1940s, capitalism and world economy were redefined according to the ideas proposed by economist John Maynard Keynes. When world economy took a hit in the 1970s, neo-liberalism and globalisation helped recharge a new world order.

The economic crisis of the 1990s aggravated globalisation. The structural crisis faced by global economy led to the downfall of capitalism.

In 2009, 150 years after Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital, leaders of world monopolies remember him for the third part of his treatise. The knowledge world requires both Marx and electronics to sustain itself in the new era of politics.

In 1940s, a summit similar to the present G20 summits was held to discuss the then economic crisis. The summit which was attended by 66 countries discussed a new world order. The conference created new superpowers and new alliances. The economic contradictions of the that era created Germany’s dictator Hitler.

As the new world order of 2000s enact several genocides, the then world order killed innocent Jews in its first genocide.

The acceptance of economist John Maynard Keynes’s proposals in the 1940s saw formation of International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, World Trade Centre and led to global dominance under United States.

When this economic structure faced a crisis in the early seventies, Marxism and its related dialogues witnessed a revival. The G5 meet held in Paris in 1975 discussed a new world order again. It was then that the concept of globalisation and related paradigms originated.

The structural crisis created by globalisation helped Asian economies take centrestage. The basis of capitalism is maximizing profit and is a variable factor. Only if this factor has an ever-increasing quality, functioning capitalism is a possibility.

The varying nature of profit forms the basis of many factors defining functioning capitalism

Workforce and the process of converting money into capital.

The growth of technology which is an important part of the forces of production.

Mediating the varied interests of production relationships.

The process of maximizing profits ensures the continuance of functioning capitalism. During the period of Karl Marx, capitalism extracted all the work from labourers and made them as a class which has nothing to lose.

There was a clear classification in the society he lived. There were two classes: the capitalists and the workers. That is why he mentioned in the Communist Manifesto that capitalism exhibited contractions clearly.

But post-1940, the clear contradiction was deliberately altered. A new managerial class was created in between the two classes. The creation of a class beyond capitalists and workers brought about qualitative changes in the character of the classes.

A class without the ability for production.

A working class with the ability for production.

The managerial class without the ability for production has several layers and many inner contradictions. The direct control by the owner of the capital was made possible by the managers. From the top manager to the office assistant, a new class without production capabilities was born. The entire middle class was attracted towards capitalism by the creation of the new class. This has also made the owner-worker relationship an indirect one. This new capitalist order is called managerial revolution.

The owners of the capital acquired the power to create their own managers following the managerial revolution. Capitalist owners can convert governments into their agents or managers and this has led to the present structural crisis of capitalism. Governments have come to a point when they cannot even control owners of the capital in the interests of capitalism.

The unlimited powers acquired by the capitalists made them leave their high-ranking managers – the governments – in the lurch. They moved to Asia to maximize their profits. The capital which moved to Asia has made China and India superpowers in the region.

The production relations which formed the basis of Western superpowers created countries which are dependent on banking credit mechanisms. The owners of capital – who are not controlled by anybody – moved their capital from the western countries to Asia in order to increase their profits.

The neo-liberalism developed after the economic crisis of the 1970s created an all-powerful world capitalism. The neo-liberalism which established the power of the giant corporations across the globe has created Barack Obama in the US and Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka.

In the backdrop of the dominance of world capitalism, the future of Indian people presents a bleak picture. During the initial phases of globalisation, a part of the money earned by the monopolist owners in the third world countries went to the jobless and the poor in the West in the form of social security guarantees. In many western countries, the stipend for the jobless was as high as basic pay of regular workers.

The tax money required for the social security programmes was extracted from world corporates by their respective managerial governments or managerial states. As the production costs of giant corporations went up due to their contribution to social security schemes, they moved towards third world thereby creating a society without production capabilities in the West.

With the absence of production, the credit mechanism of the bank capital decided the relations of production at local levels. Bank capital also moved to the Asian countries at the behest of capitalism, leading to the downfall of western economic structure.

Giant corporations which moved to countries like India to evade tax in the West introduced massive structures of production in Asia. The corporations modernized the forces of production in agriculture, information technology, service sector and other areas. The class of people who lose jobs in this process of modernization will never get any social security in Asian countries.

If the large section of people alienated from production should be given social security, it should be extracted from large corporate organisations. If a social security amount is fixed, the basic pay of regular workers should be above that. It will lead to an increase in the price of labour. While fixing the basic cost of living, the tax on profits of the corporates will also go up. If such a development occurs, the corporates will leave countries like India. It will lead to another crisis and destabilise the new world order and Asian economy. This will create another structural crisis.

Capitalist countries like India who cannot offer social security programmes will only have solutions like annihilating the people living below poverty line (BPL). That is how two lakh farmers committed suicide. People are killed in Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh for the same reasons. Maoists who try to represent these sections are annihilated in police operations without any mercy.

While American supremacy is on the wane, a resurgent India is killing its own people. A research done by US intelligence center says that the biggest problem of India in 2020 would be unemployment.

If India follows the western model of social security to deal with unemployment, its economy and capital will slip away. In the coming years, Indian democracy will create an economy favourable to its upper middle class amidst countless murders without evidence and unprecedented bloodshed. All the sections of people who cannot withstand the upsurge of the economy are doomed to be annihilated.

No Western power will worry about these annihilations. Indian Establishment rehearsed only this in Sri Lanka. All the massacres will be enacted in full public glare of the United Nations (UN) and other human rights organizations of the West. The genocide in Sri Lanka and the police operations in Singur only proved this.

Thus, the world constructs a new world order with a new power configuration. The creation of a new Indian upper middle class, the poor who lose their jobs and production capacity and driven to death, Indian capitalism which stands tall with world capitalism, the disintegration of feudal system, the new power configuration – all these have to be studied and the new means of struggle have to be devised accordingly to safeguard people from the upcoming human catastrophe and to win power for the oppressed people.

With the new monopolist capitalism emerging as a mature and experienced form, the people opposing it are equally experienced and mature. This gives us a new hope. Open debates, new research and the coming together of progressive forces on a common minimum platform is the immediate need of the hour.

External Affairs Minister G.L Peiris told the media that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has decided to pardon journalist Tissainayagam.

Tissainayagam was convicted on three counts including editing, printing and distributing the publication North Eastern Monthly magazine during the period between June 1, 2006 and June 1, 2007 and was arrested in March 2008 and released on bail in January this year.

Tissainayagam stands charged on the count of inciting communal disharmony which was an offence punishable under Prevention of Terrorism Act and was also convicted for collecting money to run the magazine and thereby furtherance of terrorism, an offence punishable under Emergency Regulations.

Tissainayagam was arrested in March 2008 when he visited the Terrorist Investigation Department in search of his colleague and publisher V. Jasikaran. He was held without charge for almost six months and was charged only on August 25 that year.

Following a trial that lasted one and a half years, Tissainayagam was convicted for 20 years hard labour on August 31, 2009.

Within past three one year several  anti government journalist were killed.

It is expected that President Mahinda will change the constitution during his current term. Political pundits say it will be another arrogant exercise of a leader to produce an inwardly looking change to extend term of the present Executive Presidency, with the view to give Mahinda Rajapakse three successive terms in office. A wise thinking citizen of Sri Lanka can only assume this is an effort to groom the President’s son Namal Rajapaksha to become his successor. The process has started already with him being elected as a parliamentarian in the latest general election.

The unfair and dishonest practices of changing the constitution to their own fats and fantasies in order to trick people was heavily practiced by none other than the foxy J R Jayawardene, anticipating never ending honeymoon for his party. This has only produced political decay and bankruptcy for his own UNP and a political enemy like Mahinda Rajapakse to joyride on the excessive and unchecked power base given to the President in the constitution. The very same constitution that was brought into safeguard the JRJ’s United National Party has given all conditions to destroy itself.

The euphoria to extend the term of term of this government is not matched by any broader appeal of the nation’s leadership to set its targets to arrest the decaying politico-socio-economic culture in Sri Lanka. The current petty political maneuverings are no different to hate politics of yesteryears. The continuation of the present regime is the starkest choice of the emotive people of Sri Lanka. It is unfortunate that petty emotions and deep rooted historical animosities have played their due role to prop-up this government that is hell bent on further marginalizing the minorities in the country.

The previous governments were not so ruthless than the present one, which had shown total disregard for the minorities. By dangling the carrot in an impossible manner, they keep on kicking the minorities backs with their wide grinning face reflecting their innermost arrogance. There are plenty of bum suckers in the minority communities that they extent their hand of friendship for their own selfish petty gains. The benefit transfers happen in two ways. These pseudo minority leaders are good in providing some benefits in kind for the enjoyment of their masters to get their kickbacks. The naked arrogance of the rulers not to think nationally to deal with the deep rooted problems in Sri Lanka is expected to decay the country further. The present regime is seeking to continue its historical way path that the Sinhalese are enjoying for thousands of years.

The campaign during two recent polls reflects how Rajapaksha will rule Sri Lanka for the next few years. The appointment of new ministers recently excluding the hardcode SLFP members and taking a questionable team on his visit to Bhutan for the SAARC summit speaks of his intent of governance. Even more, there is suspicion that the constitutional change envisaged will be a tinkering work to the present constitution to arrogate more powers for the President.

If mature governance is not adopted by the Chithanaya President, it is expected Sri Lanka will experience the situation like Cambodia under Pol Pot. Mahinda’s best ally the brutal General Than Shwe of Burma, is there to help Mahinda to run a replica of Burmese state in the island nation.

The fundamental thought is that the exercise of extreme power by Mahinda will be a recipe for disaster as it will put the foundation for discontent and violence in the country. The modern history of Sri Lanka is a testimony for this. Most of the leaders start their journey jockey riding on peoples’ power, and they soon become a merciless junta. They become expert in manipulating the very same democracy that made them the leaders. Free and fair in a democracy becomes a burden as the ruler will only enjoy the free and fairness for his dictatorial conduct. This is what President Rajapaksha is exactly doing now and the real taste of this regime is starting to unfold. Typical of the starter is the appointment of a Goonda (Mervyn Silva) as the media minister to steamroll the media with his underworld connections.

The famous Russian novelist Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn once pointed out in his ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ about the situation in Russia. That situation mentioned is similar to the situation in Sri Lankan. “And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” —( Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago )

This comment aptly reflects what is exactly happening in Sri Lanka today. After the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, people were told all their problems have been solved and that the big lion will do miracles to further Sri Lanka into to prosperity. Democracy is experiencing testing times in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has reached the edge and the route causes behind all the frustrations in the past is starting to show its ugly face again. Within the next few years the entire Sri Lankan society will fully understand the reasons for the uprising of the Tamils and Sinhalese youth. They belong to deprived low castes is not the problem. Unfortunately, Sri Lankan’s lacks understanding of real democracy and freedom. And even more – we have no awareness of the real situation as Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn says in his book on Russia.

In the present context of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksha can easily change things to his fats and fantasies in a personal manner. Manipulation of constitution change is also one of his egos centric points that will further his authoritarian power and his family.

Who knows extremism of Rajapaksha’s will not end only with three terms, and it may go beyond on the basis that “Once elected President he/she can be stay in power till end of his/her life.” Thais is not impossible in Sri Lanka under the present context. Mahinda will create circumstances for people rise against him and it will not like the French revolution or the brining down the regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu.

( The writer can be reached at nilantha@srilankaguardian.org)

The United States and European countries, which dominated every nook and corner of the world by constructing their own system of social justice, are now in a state of shock. The uncertainty about future has made experts convene meetings by the hour in European and US capitals. They spent billions of dollars of hapless taxpayers to bail out giant corporations.

They blame the inevitable failure of capitalism on excessive borrowing and consumption. They find fault with the “have-nots” and have started drafting policies to exploit them more. Imperialism is a system that serves the powers that be. It has no connections with democracy.

The present scenario has once again has proven economist’s observation that the capitalist system based on exploitation of the people will not sustain itself. World’s superpowers, which colonized other countries using military power for creating new markets, restructured their politico-economy after the first world war.

Unlike the feudalistic social structures of the past, capitalism has witnessed several falls within a short span of its birth.

Structural Crisis

The economic crisis of the early seventies created the neo-liberal models which are crumbling today. The new order of liberalism and globalisation was created to withstand the economic crisis of the seventies. Italy’s former finance minister Giulio Tremonti who saw in globalisation a big hope, later (within a span of few months) wrote a book on the dangers of globalisation.

As socialist countries emerged as a challenge to western capitalism in the seventies, capitalists started moving their investments to Third World countries in order to make more profits and to weaken the labour force in the US and the Europe.

The price paid by Western labourers for globalisation and neo-liberalism is unemployment. This rampant unemployment helped capitalism create a reserve army of labour in their own countries. The excessive profits capitalism earned by exploiting third world’s workforce went a long way in funding the social security guarantee schemes to please the unemployed.

The structural crisis of economy which began in the seventies lasted till early eighties. Reduction in industrial productivity, lesser growth rate, unemployment, macro instability of boom and recessions forced would-be US president Ronald Reagan and would-be British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to frame globalisation as a policy, according to George Soros. Further he elaborates that today’s economic crisis has several unsolvable features within an entirely different capitalist structure.

In the last twenty years, globalisation has become so widespread that one feared of every nook and corner of the world would become the backyard of American imperialism. When globalisation, the highest form or manifestation of imperialism, is shaken, it is natural for economists and common folks to raise a question if the imperialist structure and its dependent countries could sustain themselves.

Every time capitalism collapsed, a new order such as the neo-liberalism of the 1970s was created to sustain it. However the present situation is completely different. Many capitalist economists have admitted that an all-new restructuring appears to be impossible. Many predict that the dominance of the US and the Europe would last only for a few more years.

Karl Marx’s Vision

When Karl Marx predicted this crisis 160 years ago, he was depicted as a terrorist and a mischief-monger. Karl Marx’s thoughts on economics referred to popularly as ‘Trajectories a la Marx’, explains scientifically why capitalism cannot sustain itself. Marx and Engels, establishing this by dialectical method, say that a communist society would be born from the ashes of a capitalist society. Karl Marx, who introduced to the world scientific socialism, is now remembered not just by capitalist magazines but also by religious leaders. “Karl Marx is proved right. Capitalist economics is suffering blows from all sides,” says the editorial of The Guardian in Britain.

“The criticism of capitalism by Karl Marx, the father of modern Marxism, is partly true,” says the religious leader from Canterbury. Keeping the capital and property under individual ownership is one aspect of capitalism; agency of capital is the other side of the same coin. Macro economic features help this structure sustain itself.

Capital will be accumulated in one place, either with individuals or with giant corporations. The owners of capital want to save it up. Credit Mechanism is born here. It is carried out through banks and money distribution. The nature of money distribution, being an endless one, becomes a threat to the capital accumulated through profits according to Gerard Dumenil and Dominique Levy in their essay Neo Liberalsim: It’s nature and contradictions. The present economic crisis has its roots here.

As Karl Marx rightly pointed out, one of the basic requirements of capitalism is buying labour force. Periodic replenishment of army of labour is central to determine the price of labour from time to time. Creating unemployment for a section of workforce and thereby stopping the pay hike of the rest of the workforce is a strategy to keep up the profits. These two aspects of capitalist mechanism has led to the 2008 economic crisis and the fall of capitalism. The economic crisis of the seventies and its resultant globalization helped free movement of capital. Giant corporations moved to third world countries such as India to increase their profits. Western giant corporations flourished. Capital kept accumulating.

The basics of today’s crisis

Capitalism drafted new plans after its crisis of the 1970s. They found new ways to circumvent the protests of the organized labour force and the struggles of the trade unions for pay rise. A new order is created to overcome the threat of Marxism and the united struggle of the oppressed sections.

Capitalist economic structure, which has profits as its basis, escaped from the well-organised workforce of the West and moved to poorer countries in search of cheap labour. This is what Karl Marx termed as the agenda of creation of unemployed labour force. This jobless army of labour helped control the pay hike of existing workforce in Britain. For instance, the oil tanker drivers of Britain did not enjoy any pay hike after 1992. If the present workforce is sacked, there is an army of labour waiting outside to fill up the vacant posts. This modus operandi has naturally created a change. This has driven capitalism to plunge into the present crisis. The crisis began when the capital and production were moved to third world countries.

With industrial manufacturing sector literally off-shored to third world countries in the last ten years, small productions, banking capital became the source of capital in imperialist or English-speaking countries. After the digital electronics boom of the 1990s, IT became widespread. 80 per cent of the population in Britain and US handle computers and are familiar with them. But the manufacturing of computers by giant corporations such as HP, Dell take place in countries like India and China. While the production was carried out elsewhere, it was the money from sales which helped accumulation of capital in the West. The owners of the capital, which was accumulated by exploiting cheap labour, found in their governments protectors. The governments created credit mechanism to please their people and help the movement of the capital.

Credit Mechanism through the banks

Credit mechanism is the business dynamism of providing the capital invested in stock markets and savings as loans to people and making profits from it in the form of interests. Housing loans are the highest form of this mechanism. As the interest rates of housing loans were slashed, the number of people opting for housing loans went up. The demand for houses increased. In US and Britain, the prices of homes went up by 60 per cent in 10 years. This helped increase the capital of corporations in the housing sector and that of the banks offering home loans. As a result, the dynamism of the capital went up and helped save capitalist economic structure. Thus capitalist credit mechanism helped rotation of the capital and capitalism. The profits associated with the capital invested in third world countries increased. Though there was a guarantee for the pay hike of the European workforce, it was deducted in the form of interest for loans and taxes.

According to economist Michael Robert, home loans were the prime mover of European capitalism as there was hardly any investment in the manufacturing sector. With most of the industrial manufacturing sector moving to the third world, the credit mechanism-dependent structure is crumbling down. Capitalism which kept itself going by reinvesting its profits, earned in the third world, is now struggling to find an alternative.

The consumerist society without the capacity for manufacturing in Britain has left each family with a debt burden of 59,350 sterling pounds. The debt has increased by 10.6 billion sterling pounds in the last 12 months. During 2007, the average per capita income was 1338 pounds and the average daily expenses were a little higher than this.

The ever-increasing cost of living in the West and the inability of the people to pay up their debts created a crisis for the banks. With the prices of homes increasing at 90 per cent rate, people stopped buying houses and the prices of homes hit an all-time low. The giant corporations and business tycoons started withdrawing their shares from the banks and the banks started to fall.

In the US, banks started take a beating since 2006. Yet the crisis accentuated only in 2008. Savings banks took the first blow followed by the commercial banks.

What do we do now?

Capitalism is attempting to create an illusion that the present crisis is just a credit crisis. It has been taking efforts and doing the campaign to avoid any pessimism arising among the public in the system of capitalism.

The dynamics of imperialist capitalism has come to a screeching halt. With the production capacities of manufacturing forces coming to a standstill and no alternative economic models in place, the capitalist structure presents temporary models to buy time. US government paid 700 billion dollars of taxpayers’ money to bail out banks. Britain’s Gordon Brown government acquired 50 billion shares to overcome the crisis temporarily. They are still searching for other coping mechanisms.

Imperialist countries talk about controlled capitalism and cooperation between banks; they don’t even whisper about the huge capital accumulated by giant corporations. They cannot exploit poorer countries like before by devising new schemes. The boom of Chinese capitalism and the modernization of manufacturing sector in the third world have become new external factors while dealing with the crisis. US-led economic monopoly is coming to an end. It will try to regain control again. What alternatives do the Leftists have? The mere boasting that Karl Marx predicted movement of capitalism from the West to the East and the fall of capitalism will not suffice.

Bibliography:

Britain: The housing tsunami: Michael Robert. 2008
The politics of financial service revolution: Michael Morgan. 1991
The Globalisation Decade: A critical Reader : AAKAR BOOKS. 2006

Financial Time UK
The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means : George Soros.2008

Comrade SK Senthivel, General Secretary of the New-Democratic Party issued the following statement pointing out the need for the Tamil, Muslim and Hill Country Tamil political parties and the left parties to field a common candidate at the forthcoming parliamentary election.

In the present context, the correct choice for the parties of the minority nationalities and the parties of the left will be to put forward a common candidate of unity based on a common programme addressing in the form of clear demands the issues confronting the Tamil, Muslim and Hill Country Tamil nationalities. The New Democratic Party emphasises that the time has not passed for efforts to that end and for decisions to be arrived at.

Tamil, Muslim and Hill Country Tamil political parties had met in Zurich recently for a two-day conference. Why couldn’t they put forward a common candidate based on their unity? Putting forward such a candidate could prevent the leading candidate from securing 50% of the votes cast, thereby create a constitutional crisis, and force the existing executive presidential system face a dilemma. Besides, that could provide the opportunity to emphasise the problems faced by the minority nationalities and to put forward demands.

Hence, talks should be initiated to put forward a common candidate representing the Tamil, Muslim and Hill Country Tamil political parties and the left parties. The time has not passed for that to be achieved. Parties deciding on which of the two main candidates is to be supported or individuals declaring themselves as candidates amounts to political deficiency and politics of selfishness. Hence the New-Democratic Party pleads with the Tamil, Muslim and Hill Country Tamil political parties and the left parties to arrive at a consensus on a common candidate.

S K Senthivel

General Secretary, New-Democratic Party, Sri Lanka