cwi lobbies of Sri Lanka embassies in Stockholm and London
Stockholm lobby
On Friday 20th of October members from Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna, CWI in Sweden, held a protest action in the street outside the Sri Lankan embassy in Stockholm. With placards and slogans we informed the people passing by about the conflict and our demands: end the war, the resumption of peace talks, immediate end of kidnappings and killings of the Tamils and the full respect of minorities.
We also handed over a letter to the second secretary of the embassy, Sunil Premaratna. Our eight city councillors in Sweden had signed the letter, explaining our concern about the situation in Sri Lanka in general and of the government’s blocking of food and other emergency supplies to the northern part in particular.
In Sri Lanka, the last week has seen the worst violence this year and the hopes for a ceasefire are fading. But since peace talks are supposed to be held by the Norwegian government, we hope that any protest or solidarity action carried out in the Scandinavian countries can get extra attention and put extra pressure on the negotiators.
We send our strongest support to the United Socialist Party and the Independent People’s Commission in Colombo: stop the killings, end the war!
London lobby
On Monday the 23 October nearly 20 members of the Socialist Party, the CWI in England and Wales, gathered in front of the Sri Lankan High Commission in London to protest against the war and the abductions and killings in Sri Lanka. We had a banner, placards and leaflets to hand out to by-passers and we also wanted to hand over a protest declaration signed by the two Lewisham councilors of the Socialist Party.
Through a megaphone we kept demanding an explanation from the High Commission about the abductions and killings of mainly Tamil people in Colombo by the so called "Karuna group", that seems to enjoy protection by the government.
For twenty minutes the embassy doors remained closed to us, than finally a delegation walked out. The diplomats, clearly nervous about the attention, first played ignorant to our questions about the killings and abductions and then denied them all together, calling it "foreign propaganda"!
The diplomats riddle didn’t make a big impression, on the contrary! We ended the protest with the statement that we will continue to build the solidarity campaign, support our sister organisation the United Socialist Party in Sri Lanka and support the work of the Independent People’s Commission in Colombo. If necessary, we promised, we will protest again in front of the Sri Lankan High Commission!
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