HONDURAS

No To Coup in Honduras! Restore Demoracy! Reinstate the Democratically Elected President!

Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) strongly condemns the coup d’etat organised by military and ringht-wing political elite in Honduras on 28 June 2009, which ousted the democratically eletected President Manuel Zelaya.

The coup took place just hours before the people of Honduras go out to vote on a consultative referendum concerning whether to rewrite the constitution. The current Honduran Constitutionm which was written in 1982 during the height of the US administration’s dirty war in Central America, was designed to ensure the ruling elite who have closed ties with the imperialist US to consolidate their powers with little interference from the ordinary people.

The consultative referendum proposed by President Manuel Zelaya is merely an opinion poll for the Hondurans to determine whether they are prepared to enter into a democratic process to modify their constitution. The referendum though is a not-binding vote, has been viewed by many unions and peasant groups as a necessary precursor to economic reforms favoring Honduras’s poor majority. Yet, the right-wing political elites are threatened by it and used every mean to stop the people of Honduras to determine their future by themselves.

President Manuel Zelaya, elected in 2005, has increasingly come under attack by the right-wing forces in Honduras for his growing relationship with the ALBA countries. The coup is clearly a corwadice act by the right-wing political elite and US-backed economic interests which in fear of losing their grip on this Central American country when it move closer with countries which are now undergoing revolutionary process like Venezuela.

PSM calls for:

1) Restore democracy in Honduras

2) Immediately reinstate the democratically elected President Zelaya

3) People of Honduras have their right to determine whether to re-write the out-dated imperialist influenced consitution in order to restructure its society for the benefit of ordinary vast majority.

No to coup! Power to the People!

30 June 2009

Released by

Choo Chon Kai
International Bureau
Socialist Party of Malaysia / Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM)

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SRI LANKA

PSM’s Statement on Sri Lanka

1. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared victory over Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) as the last LTTE strongpoints crumbled. The victory is for no one but only the chauvinistic nationalist Sinhalese government led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, which has launched a brutal, merciless and cold-blooded military offensive against Tamil population for several months, inflicted nothing but death, destruction and misery. The victory which proclaimed by Rajapaksa, will not put an end to the conflict that has lasted for several decades, but signals new assault on working people in Sri Lanka - Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim.

2. The 26-year protracted civil war was not to eradicate “terrorism” as claimed by the Sri Lankan government but to defend the power and privileges of the ruling Sinhalese elites. While the LTTE’s separatist program, which included attacks on Sinhalese civilians and ruthless suppression of Tamil opponents certainly deepened the communal divide and played into the hands of the most reactionary elements of the Colombo establishment. But responsibility for the war rests squarely on successive Sri Lankan governments, which exploited anti-Tamil chauvinism to divide and rule the working population on the island-nation.

3. Since the independence of Sri Lanka in 1948, Tamil minority have suffered systematic discrimination linguistically, culturally and economically. Until 1970s, the Tamils of the North and the East of the island repeatedly demanded the respect of their culture and fundamental rights, but all were unsuccessful because of the chauvinist attitude of Colombo establishment. This has led to political radicalisation of Tamils and emergence of a militant armed struggle and finally escalated into a civil war.

4. While we condemn any terrorist attack on civilian, but we must also denounce all kinds of state terrorism like what Sri Lankan government has done over the last 26 years in the protracted civil war. State terrorism fuels individual terrorism, when a class-based revolutionary movement is absent.

5. Like all other oppressed ethnic minority around the world, the Tamils in Sri Lanka has every right to self-determination, and the struggle for the respect for Tamil rights and culture are pertinent. There will be no real democracy and sustained peace if there is no respect for rights of ethnic minorities.

6. For the last 26 years, the war in Sri Lanka caused significant hardship for the population, environment and economy of the country, with over 80,000 people officially listed as killed during its course. The Colombo regime had ruthlessly bombarded Tamil rebels and civilians. In the first five month of 2009, it was estimated 7000-8000 civilians killed.

7. Hundreds of thousands Tamil population were forcibly moved and placed in detention camps where they were not allowed to leave. Even after the “end” of the war, the Colombo government has refused to provide unrestricted access to its detention camps where at least 280,000 Tamil civilians are now being held in appalling conditions.

8. The so-called “war against terrorism” against the LTTE has served as a pretext to chauvinist Raksapaksa regime to trample democratic freedoms not only for the ethnic minorities in the country but for all citizens. There have been massive discrimination, racialisation of everything, massive censorship, the murder of journalists in the south and anybody else who speaks up against Colombo’s war policy.

9. The genocidal crime committed by chauvinist government against Tamil population has been condoned and supported by western imperialist powers like the United States and United Kingdom as well as regional powers like India and China, which all of them interested to gain more influence and control over Indian Ocean.

10. US has provided the Sri Lankan government with direct military aid through International Military Education and Training Program (IMET) and Foreign Military Financing (FMF), as well as financial aid that enabled Sri Lankan government to increase its military budget. US government also provided intelligence service to the Sri Lankan government in order to fight the so-called “war on terrorism”.

11. India has been assisting the chauvinist Colombo regime in suppressing Tamil rebels and civilians all the while. China also served as accomplice in the crime against humanity committed by chauvinist Colombo government, by becoming the largest arm supplier. The Chinese government even gave Rajapaksa’s government 6 Jian-7 jet fighters “free of charge”, to use in the cold-blooded assault against Tamil population. Beijing and Moscow repeatedly blocked discussion or any binding motion in the UN Security Council over Sri Lanka, like what Washington did about on Palestine. China and Russia also have tabled a counter-resolution in praising Colombo for winning a war against a “terrorist group” and calling for international funding for Sri Lanka.

It has shown again that all the imperialist powers and pro-capitalist governments care more about the interest and profit of the ruling class, than the life of ordinary people like the Tamils in Sri Lanka. They only interested in keeping the “stability” in the expense of the life and democratic freedom of ordinary people.

13. Only the people movement from below can reverse such policies in all these countries and put an end to the genocidal violence committed by chauvinist government like the one in Sri Lanka.

14. Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) calls for:
– Immediate withdrawal of all Sri Lankan troops from the North and the East of Sri Lanka
– Allow unrestricted access to all detention camps of Tamil, and allow all Tamil refugees to return to their homes in the North and the East.
– Respect the right to self-determination of Tamil in Sri Lanka
– All governments, especially US, UK, India and China, to stop providing military aid to Sri Lankan armed force.

15. Only by recognition of the right to self-determination of the Tamil people, there can be possible lasting solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka.

16. PSM extend its solidarity to the Tamils in Sri Lanka as well as all the oppressed working people in Sri Lanka in their struggle against chauvinistic nationalist regime.

27 May 2009

Released by

Choo Chon Kai

International Bureau

Socialist Party of Malaysia / Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM)