Working class must decisively enter struggle
By Tony Saunois, CWI
Mass protests and demonstration have erupted in Iran in protest at the apparent rigging of the Presidential elections by the Mahmoud Ahmedinejad regime. According to reports, the largest anti-government demonstration of over one million people took place in the capital Tehran. Reports coming out of Iran claim that over a dozen have been killed in clashes with the police and hated Basij militia.
Interview – Kandeepan, a Sri Lankan Tamil living in Ireland, who has assisted the Stop the Slaughter of Tamils (SST) campaign, spoke to the Socialist. TS – Why did you get involved with the Stop the Slaughter of Tamils protest? K – I love my people and my country the Tamil Eelam. The Tamils have been terrorised since 1948 by ...
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WITH THEIR dramatic surge into the predominantly Tamil north and east of the country since the beginning of the year, it appears the Sri Lankan army has inflicted a decisive military defeat on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). This does not mean, however, an end to the struggle for self-determination of the Tamil minority, nor the poverty and suffering facing the poor masses of the island.
Killinochchi, one of the key administrative centres of the Tamil Tigers’ de facto independent state in the north of Sri Lanka, fell swiftly to the army in late January. This made it clear that a decisive turn was being taken in this decades-long civil war. As we go to press, the Sri Lankan army is now in almost full control of all of the urban centres in former LTTE-territory, although guerrilla conflict is still raging.
Read More »By Kevin McLoughlin
THE G20 Summit in London was said to be the start of the “fight back against the global recession”; and the creation of a “New Economic Order”. Some of the leaders even said it was “historic”. Does the G20 agreement mean that a global recovery is likely soon?
While hailing the summit and “green shoots” of recovery, the G20 was mainly an orchestrated public show of unity, a papering over of huge economic difficulties. Like relatives at a wedding, on the surface the “leaders” were nice to each other but under the surface they are increasingly agitated.
Read More »By Daniel Waldron
“THIS PROTEST is for everyone. I have children, so this is for the future”, said a sacked car worker marching on 29 January, as France was rocked by a huge general strike in protest at the Sarkozy government’s attempt to make workers pay for the economic crisis, while giving bailouts to big business. An estimated 2.5 million took part in demonstrations across the country, with 300,000 out in Paris alone, making it the largest strike in the country for almost 20 years.
Read More »By Owen McCracken
BETWEEN 250,000 and 400,000 civilians remain trapped in the small area of Northern Sri Lanka still controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). This densely populated area is now being bombarded by the state military with indiscriminate shelling. With coming days likely to see the bloodiest period of fighting the island has seen, it is evident that a humanitarian crisis on a par with Gaza is unfolding.
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Economic crisis - cracks appear in bosses’ EU
Danny Byrne, CWI London
The international capitalist crisis, which has unfolded over the last months, has served to completely discredit the free market policies and ideology of the boom period, of the last twenty years or so. An element of the ‘un-challengeable’ arguments put forward by the supporters and ideologues of the free market was the idea that capitalism had entered a new phase of peace and harmony, characterised by the co-operation and ever-increasing integration of national capitalist economies and governments. The European Union was heralded as a prime example of the setting aside of national rivalries. The introduction of the Euro, ten years ago this month, as a common currency, in particular, was put forward as evidence of the new-found unity of European capitalism.
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By Matt Waine
NO ONE was happier to see 2008 come to an end than Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis. The brutal shooting in cold blood of a 15 year old school student by police in Athens on 6 December unleashed an enormous wave of anger that threatened to bring down his New Democracy government.
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Socialist Party (Ireland) Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism
