Violence of the Oppressor

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back, there were two kingdoms in the island - a Tamil kingdom and a Sinhal kingdom.

But when the British came in the 19th century they unified the island into one state structure. They also brought in indentured labourers, who were Tamils from the south of India, to the plantations. First it was coffee, and then tea.

So you had the traditional Tamil areas in the north and east, and the Tamil plantation workers Two pamphlets summing up the ideas of Socialist Where We Stand - 20p plus 16p postage. 'How to fight the Tories' - 10p plus 16p postage. Or the to petter for $5E MELONE Socais irar sE I Vode Lane, London NE in the Central Hills.

When independence came (in 1947), the British transferred power to the Sinhala elite.

This elite built up a Sinhala ethnic consciousness. The first thing they did was to disenfranchise the Tamil plantation workers. And then they started state-aided colonisation of Tamil lands. In 1956 Sinhala was made the only official language.

There's been 35 years of national oppression - discrimination in education, in employment But the Tamil people started PORGANISER acidist How to fight the Tories Then Where agr socialist policies!

waking up to the fact they were oppressed just because they were Tamil. They started with nonviolent protest. At first it was led by the Tamil Federal Party, with an ideologically conservative, bourgeois leadership - the leadership of the middle classes.

But against these non-violent struggles, the state unleashed military brutality. People were killed, burned alive...

As always, the oppressed go through non-violence, and the oppressor uses violence.

Then in the Tamil Stucent Federation some of the activists started saying that non-violence is useless against an oppressor who Nirmala Nithiya-Nandan is a feminist and writer from Jaffna in Tamil Eelam, aged thirty.

She was arrested on November 18 1982 by the Sinhala armed forces and has been held ment and possibly torture.

Nirmala is one of the latest victims of the infamous 'Prevention of Terrorism Act' which decies ina u! eury and allows • ciessions extracted by torture a admisable evidence.

Nimaia supported the freedom struggle of the Tamil people to gain their right to self-determination.

She wrote and produced uses violence. I think it opened a new era for the Tamil people, who were always told to be lawabiding - always licking the boots of the British and licking the boots of Sinhala.

In 1972 there was the birth of a movement called the New Tiger Movement. In 1976 they renamed themselves the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. They started a guerrilla struggle.

In 1977 all the Tamil middle class parties went into the election in a coalition, called the Tamil United Liberation Front, asking for a separate Tamil state. All the TULF candidates were returned."

plays, translated literary and political works. Her translations introduced the national and socialist struggles of the Latin American and African people.

One of Nirmala's primary concerns has been the emancipation of the oppressed Tamil women. To this task she dedicated herself fully in actively organising and participating in women's liberation campaigns.

The Tamil Women's League asks for letters demanding the release of Nirmala and the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act to be sent to President J.R. Jayawardene, President's House, Colombo, Sri Lanka, with a copy to 'Repeal PTA Campaign' , 42, Sickert Court, London N1 2TE.

job, at least, though they work in dreadful conditions. In the Free Trade Zone they have to work 12 hours without a break on the night shift, standing up in the dim light, on assembly work. The employer won't give them a stool to sit on in case they fall asleep.

But Tamil women mostly don't even get a job.

Wouldn't you be in a stronger position to get the Sinhalese Left to support Tamil self-determination if you were able to unite with them on common issues of women's rights and workers rights?

We're in favour of unity We are a separate nation. international level. - on an The workers of my nation fight for their rights - and will support the workers in the Sinhala nation to fight for their rights. But it's international unity between two nations, not unity in one nation.

Does the Tamil Women's League see itself as organising primarily against the national oppression of the Tamil people, or the specific oppression of women?

We are tackling a dual oppression. We feel we have common interests with women all over the world, especially with women who fight national liberation struggles in Eritrea or Namibia or Palestine ...

How has the feminist movement developed in Sri Lanka?

There's a magazine called Voice of Women. They are middle class women and there are no Tamils left among them now.

They're leftists, offshoots of the (ex-Trotskyist] LSSP and [would-be Trotskyist] NSSP. They came out of the traditional left.

Some women also organise

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women in Sri Lanka JE OPPRESSE RESUED s in Sri Lanka. The Tamil minority 1 population - were the victims. ny: and the police promoted and ination for many years. And not 1 nationalism and state-capitalist exclusive domination for the cultur ity. the Tamils' rights, but many of f Sinhalese chauvinism. ›pression — as Tamils, and as it in the Tamil community sanctimas interviewed Rajes BalasubraFamil Women's League in London essarily the views of the Tamil Sumatra Rd, ald there, but they have no warm clothing.

They face the highest infant mortality and maternal mortality rates, malnutrition, anaemia...

When Mrs Bandaranaike brought in her land reform, they look plantation land and gave it to the Sinhalese peasantry - not to the people who had worked and died on those plantations. The Tamil women were just sent away.

During the 1983 pogroms it was very bad in the plantations. So the Tamils either wanted to go back to India, or to go to the north and east of the island.

What about the the plantations?

The main one is a sort of business union. There is also a small Maoist group, the Red Flag inion and a [Sinhalese chauvinwoman I thought it was wrong. Women sometimes bring the husband a dowry. Think of it - marrying a man whom you never knew before, and giving loads of money to him, and then you've got to work for him and cook for him. You have to work in the kitchen SLFP union.

This business union became strong because the left groups betrayed the plantation workers. Then the workers thought that the business union leader was going to deliver the goods, because he came from among them. But he is a millionaire. He owns his own estates! And he is with the UNP government.

What are the aims and activities of the Tamil Women's League?

We started because of the racial riots and the feeling of the Tamil women here in London that we have to campaign.

Rajes: And we also fight against the racism in this country. Most of the Tamil Women's League members are socialist feminists.

Although financially we are better off here than our sisters in Sri Lanka and India, socially in some ways we are more oppressed than them.

The oppression of women, as women, in Eelam is as bad, or worse, than here - the oppression of caste, the dowry system ...

At least here there is some sort of recognition of women's rights. But everything is a lie here, too.

Rajes: The main thing we are campaigning about here now is the fact that the British government is helping the Sri Lankan government to kill Tamil people in Sri Lanka.

We don't identify with a particular political group -we campaign on the general issues. If we can stop money going from the British government to the Sri Lankan government, we should do it.

The Sri Lankan government could not do what it is doing unless it was backed up by the Americans and British. Tanks in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo

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incommunicado. ever since, subjected to indignity, harass-