federalidea.com

BY Dr. VICKRAMABAHU KARUNARATNE

Rakshaka of Lakbimanews says “it is clear that the Rajapaksa administration is getting a certain type of tacit international support for its war on the LTTE. But today’s international community does not treat bad governments the way they used to-by censure. What they do now is execute regime change”. This is an interesting statement. But the problem is to ascertain what one assumes to be the international community. After the Second World War, in the era of the cold war, the international community was assumed to be divided into strictly antagonistic camps, Imperialists led by the Americans and the Reds led by the Russians. This notion was very popular with films, plays and cartoons consolidating the belief.

Political change

Battles were launched on economic, political and military planes with secret services playing very important roles. There were those who tried to explain every political change world over, in terms of these international battles. In the meantime, the global capitalist system developed into a MNCS system with unbelievable growth and integration. The economic management centres, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO became new power centres. The so- called communist system proved to be nothing but a degenerate, distorted and corrupt statistic entity that could not face the tide of global capitalism. Trotsky predicted a long way back, that there should be a political revolution to infuse new blood into these statistic entities or that these should leave history.

So, in the end, this so-called communism was thrown out every where except, perhaps in Cuba which has taken some positive steps to alleviate its deformations. Now there is a new trend towards challenging the hegemony of global capitalism, especially in Latin America. Since this is only a beginning, the real international community is global capitalism.
Sometime back, global power was seen as a political power reduced to the Washington /London axis or the Anglo- Saxon leadership. But Marx was proved right again; it is the economic needs of the system that has the final say. Accordingly American leaders have changed; and what happened in Australia is truly remarkable.

Yes, in spite of criticism, global capitalism is yet to reject the Mahinda regime. It may need a better person to handle the Tamil national problem. But that person has to survive against the rising social unrest. He has to continue with a wide range of projects that were initiated with the support of global capital. These projects have penetrated rural society and spread throughout the country, including the East.

[Dr.Wikamabahu Karunaratne participating at a protest condemning media rights violations-Pic by: Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai]

Suppress opposition

In spite of war and protest, the chauvinist regime of Mahinda has started a wide range of projects with international backing and continues to suppress opposition. Mahinda has a special link with the JVP leaders and that keeps most of the protests in check. He continues his special relation ship with old and opportunist Left leaders and that is an added advantage. Though social unrest is boiling from below, the unrest on the streets is still far below hartal level. Mahinda managed to keep both Thondaman and Chandrasekara within the Cabinet; thus controlling the pressure exerted by the estate workers. His populist tricks are still working and he keeps many worker based political leaders in his political dungeons. All these are important when economic stability is considered.

The time when economic analysis was done disregarding social unrest is over. Social indicators are included into the economic indicators for a proper analysis. In that sense all instruments that control social unrest are taken into account. Ranil is talking about corruption and inflation but he has no mechanism to counter the pressure of the JVP or the trade union movement. It is doubtful whether he is trusted by the Tamils or any other minority with his contradictory statements on their issues.

The international community is a matrix with a wide range of abilities. It can ascertain the true value of a statement using many monitors. This is the age of information and exploitative power is well equipped with knowledge. Loyalty to the system is irrelevant unless it is backed by solid perspectives.

Sometimes plain talk is more expressive than crafty explanations. Mahinda, I believe, falls into the former category. Maybe that is his strength in relation to the international community. He has managed to continue the war while controlling the unrest in the South. Economic development is going according to the agenda of the exploitative system. We are against it, but who cares!