Sri Lanka It's Happening

July 11, 2008

Once upon a long ago, the JVP was able to organize massive strikes at the drop of a hat. People would stop work at the slighted provocation and inisist on absurd conditions to return to work. Judging by the result of yesterday's token strike. It seems that those days are long gone.

The government claims that the strike was a total failure while the JVP claims it was reasonably successful. The Chief organizer, MP Lal Kantha goes so far as to quantify it as being 70% succesfull. However just a day earlier he promised that he would give up his seat in the parliament if the strike was anything less than an all out success. It doesn't look as if he intends to keep his promise and that will not suprise anyone.

The government for it's part, abused state power to the maximum possible extent to ensure that the strike was a failure. Goons were sent to intimidate union leaders and other were asked to report to police stations. Military personal were used to man organizations that had a staff shortfall and some ministers even went so far as to accuse strikers of being traitors.