Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Sri Lanka’s recently elected president and leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)/National People’s Power (NPP), was among the first of the South Asia leaders hailing Trump’s victory.
His X/Twitter message declared: “Warm congratulations to president-elect Donald Trump on receiving a strong endorsement as the 47th President of the United State of America. I look forward to engaging with your administration in realising common objectives of our relations that are beneficial to the people of Sri Lanka and the United States.”
Dissanayake’s congratulations are yet another assurance to Washington that his regime will maintain the policies of his predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and further integrate the island into the US and Indian geostrategic offensive against China.
The increased involvement of Sri Lanka, which is located alongside strategic Indian Ocean import and export shipping routes to China, including access to vital Middle East oil, is key to Washington’s geostrategic planning. Over the past two years Dissanayake has cultivated close relations with US Ambassador Julie Wang and last month held closed door meetings in Colombo with US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Steve Koehler.
This week the JVP’s Lanka Truth website published an article written by Dr. Amunugama, a former cabinet member in governments led by Wickremesinghe’s United National Party and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, echoing Dissanayake’s farcical claim that Trump’s agenda could benefit “the people of Sri Lanka and the United States.”
Sajith Premadasa, the leader of the opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and former President Wickremesinghe also joined Dissanayake in congratulating Trump. Premadasa expressed his wishes for “peace, goodwill, and meaningful cooperation” during Trump’s incoming administration. Wickremesinghe described Trump’s return to power as a “historic accomplishment” and an indication that American people “trust” in Trump’s reactionary, demagogic pledge to “Make America Great Again.”
The rush of South Asian political leaders to hail the fascistic Trump is no accident.
Modi, Dissanayake, Yunus and other members of South Asia’s ruling elites are well versed in whipping up communalism—their own versions of Trump’s racist attacks on immigrants—to suppress the inevitable struggles that will erupt against the austerity measures they are imposing in their own countries. And like Trump they will readily turn to dictatorial forms of rule to impose the dictates of big business, the banks and the billionaires.
Sri Lankan President Dissanayake and his JVP/NPP administration live in fear of a re-eruption of the multi-million strong movement of workers and the oppressed masses that emerged in 2022 against the austerity measures of the Rajapakse regime and threw it out of office. Their eagerness in backing Trump is a desperate attempt to reinforce their ties with what remains the world’s premier imperialist power and thereby strengthen their hand against the working class and rural toilers.
Workers in South Asia need to join with their class brothers and sisters in the US and internationally in a united movement against the escalation of imperialist war across the globe and the imposition of dictatorial forms of rule. Such a movement must be based on the fight for socialist internationalism and the overthrow of the capitalist profit system.
These are the foundation of the program on which the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Sri Lanka fights. The SEP is intervening in the country’s general elections to be held on November 14, running 41 candidates in three electoral districts—in the capital Colombo, Jaffna in the north and Nuwara Eliya in central plantation area—to take forward this fight. We urge workers, students and youth in Sri Lanka to vote for our candidates, support our election campaign and join the SEP.
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Publish date : 2024-11-08 15:50:00
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