[Debate] New left party in Sri Lanka: Frontline Socialist Party

[glparramatta]

By *Niel Wijethilaka* and *K. Govindan (Nava Sama Samaja Party)*

April 14, 2012 -- More than 5000 people packed Colombo's Sugathadasa 
stadium (photo above) for the inaugural conference of the Peratugami 
Samajawadi Pakshaya (Frontline Socialist Party, FSP) on April 9, 2012. 
Most were members and sympathisers of this new left party -- a breakaway 
from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (Peoples' Liberation Front, JVP); but 
many representatives of other radical left parties, left intellectuals 
and progressive social activists were also in attendance. The emergence 
and consolidation of the FSP is an important and hopeful development for 
the revival of peoples' movements in Sri Lanka in the post-war era, 
following decades of retreat of the labour and left movements.

Full article at http://links.org.au/node/2829

* * *

*Sri Lanka: Lionel Bopage, former JVP general secretary, on new left 
party, Tamil rights and state repression*

April 17, 2012 -- The Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) was launched in 
Colombo, Sri Lanka, amidst international media outcry about the illegal 
abduction of four of its activists in the lead up to the launch by 
security forces... The FSP comes from a major split from the Janatha 
Vimukthi Peramuna (Peoples' Liberation Front, JVP), a group which led 
two bloodily repressed insurrections in 1971 and 1987. Socialist 
Alliance's *Peter Boyle* interviewed *Lionel Bopage*, a former general 
secretary the JVP (1979-1984) who left the party because of the JVP's 
opposition to the Tamil minority's right to national self-determination.

Full article at http://links.org.au/node/2833

*********************************

Subscribe free to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Or join the Links Facebook group at 
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.fahamu.org/pipermail/debate-list/attachments/20120417/cf9540f1/attachment.htm