Attacks on people in Sri Lanka must end!

People's Voice strongly condemns the aerial bombing conducted by the armed forces of Sri Lanka on a school camp in Mullaitivu in the northern part of the island on August 14, in which scores of people, including more than 60 school girls, lost their lives, and hundreds were injured. Many of the children lost their limbs and have been mutilated for life. This particularly horrendous raid is part of a sustained aerial assault by the Sri Lankan government forces that have devastated normal life in the region.

People's Voice condemns the excuses trotted out by the Sri Lankan Government which claims that those killed were "actually LTTE recruits" and that the place bombed was "being used as a training ground". What kind of government can it be that justifies the massacre of innocent schoolgirls, because they allegedly belong to the LTTE, or even worse, because they happen to be in an area controlled by the LTTE? This is fascist logic which no civilised person in the world can accept. It is the logic British colonialists used to suppress anti-colonial uprisings in India, the logic which Indian state uses to justify slaughter of civilians in Kashmir and North East, and the logic being used by the US, Israel and others today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon.

The killings in Mullaitivu reveal the increasingly grim situation that has been prevailing in Sri Lanka in recent times. Not a week goes by without the killing of scores or hundreds of people from all walks of life and belonging to various communities. Life has become terrible for all the people of Sri Lanka, with the Sri Lankan government unable to ensure security for the people. Neither the Sri Lankan government nor the LTTE have shown the wisdom, courage and statesmanship to seek political solutions to the outstanding problems which will open the path to progress and prosperity for all the people of Sri Lanka by enshrining their human, national and democratic rights. Instead, over the years, numerous foreign powers have been allowed to intervene in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka, such as India, further complicating the situation, and making a political solution that much more difficult.

What is most unfortunate is that the indiscriminate killings, which each side blames on the other, has had the effect of greatly shrinking the space for political discussion and action by the masses of the people, which is absolutely necessary for a lasting solution to emerge. In these difficult times for all the people of Sri Lanka, the communists and peace loving people of India fervently support the people and political forces in Sri Lanka who are trying to seek a political solution to the long standing problems confronting their country without outside imperialist interference.