Colombo’s coming ‘Caracazo’ and the war that’ll change the world

Taking Ricardo Hausmann’s advice

Can he secure a Presidential election?

Waiting for elections

Warns Israel’s foes

The total blockade of Gaza by Israel and the resultant misery of its inhabitants shows what a cruel fate it is for a people to be hostage to another country/state for its supplies of energy, i.e., electricity, fuel, gas, etc. 

The Palestinians got there because they were subject to 75 years of invasion, dispossession, annexation and occupation. 

Sri Lanka will get there because of Ranil Wickremesinghe. 

We shall be dependent on India and especially to neighbouring Tamil Nadu for electricity (‘Madurai-Mannar’), fuel, gas, and therefore vulnerable to a cut-off, not because we have been invaded, occupied or annexed, but because of the unconscionable treachery of an unelected leader appointed by the Rajapaksa-run SLPP in Parliament (overriding Dullas Alahapperuma). 

Ranil’s revolution

Two criticisms in the IMF report on Sri Lanka’s performance, struck me: (a) the economy is still in constriction and is expected to continue to shrink, and (b) the tax exemptions and tax holidays are sources of revenue shortfall. Logically then, these policies did not come from the IMF. 

That leaves Wickremesinghe’s declared advisor, currently and during Yahapalanaya 2015-2019. That’s Prof Ricardo Hausmann, Venezuelan, Harvard academic and hero of Dr. Harsha de Silva. 

In Sochi, at the Valdai 20th conference, I checked out Hausmann with the Venezuelan Vice Foreign Minister in charge of North American Affairs, Carlos Ron. “It is precisely Hausmann’s policies that caused the Caracazo of 1989!” exclaimed Ron.

 “Hausmann…once served as planning minister, during Venezuela’s era of neoliberal reign known as the 4th Republic…In the late 1980s, Hausmann was part of President Carlos Andres Perez’s economics cabinet. They implemented an IMF-style austerity program setting off the 1989 Caracazo—a popular rebellion put down by a massacre claiming over a thousand lives...” (The Professor & The President: Who’s the Bully? - Venezuelanalysis)

I vividly recall the Caracazo (named after the Venezuelan capital, Caracas) for two reasons: Firstly, President Premadasa requested a note on that popular uprising of 1989 which confirmed to him the correctness of his alternative, equity-driven (Janasaviya-led) policy paradigm. In the wake of the Caracazo that Premadasa invited unorthodox Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto to deliver a lecture in Colombo. De Soto argued that the deregulation of service activities and service-related light industry undertaken by the urban informal sector, i.e., the poor and marginals in the urban slums, could do more to boost an economy than the big corporates and fealty to the neoliberal Washington Consensus. 

Secondly, it is the Caracazo of 1989 that catalysed the career of Hugo Chavez, then a young leftist military officer. Chavez famously insisted that “Jesus Christ was the greatest socialist in history”. He and his fellow military radicals had secretly supported the Caracazo and sworn to overthrow neoliberal economic model of Hausmann & Co. by overthrowing President Perez. After some jail-time, Chavez entered mainstream politics and was elected President.      

Triangulate the IMF austerity package, Ranil’s economic constriction policy and Hausmann’s voodoo economics, and it is evident that our own Caracazo – a fusion of Ceylon’s Hartal of August 1953, the worker-student alliance and General Strike of 1976/77, and a socioeconomic edition of Aragalaya 2022--cannot be far behind. 

President Wickremesinghe is combining economic constriction with political closure. The editor-in-chief of our sister paper writes that:

“…the Presidential Election which is expected to be held in November 2024, is likely to be postponed till the necessary amendments are made to the legislation.” (Will the Exe. Presidency be abolished before the polls next year? | Daily Mirror - Sri Lanka Latest Breaking News and Headlines - Print Edition)

This was confirmed by our Sunday sister-paper: 

“Is the talk about abolishing the executive presidency, gaining momentum, a trial balloon floated by an influential section of the government?

…The apparent rationale behind the move is to obviate the need for a presidential poll.” 

(Moves again to abolish executive presidency | Print Edition - The Sunday Times, Sri Lanka)

Historian Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, said on Amy Goodman’s show that Israel turned Gaza into a pressure cooker and expected it not to explode but it inevitably did. Ranil is committing the same colossal criminal blunder here. 

Wickremesinghe fails to care, and the Opposition fails to comprehend, that for a century, the underprivileged got anything which took the edge off their poverty because of and during electoral cycles. Functioning electoral democracy ensures the (Benthamite) “greatest good of the greatest number”.

When communities are in trouble, the elected members of the municipal councils, Pradeshiya Sabhas and Provincial Councils usually rush to their assistance. This was manifest during the tsunami of 2004, but also during lesser emergencies, national and local. Today that mechanism has been shut down by Ranil and people in urban and rural areas live as if in silos which are sinking. 

The converse is also true. No elections, no competitive bidding, no legislators, no functioning institutions, no opening, no compulsion to help voter-citizens, no services, no relief, no upliftment. The closure or induced coma of electoral democracy causes the greatest harm to the greatest number. Morally-ethically speaking, this deserves armed rebellion as response.

Only the rigid Constitutional deadline for a Presidential election this time next year prevents armed rebellion from being morally legitimate today. If that earliest mandated election is removed, then John Locke’s Social Contract theory makes armed revolution necessary, inescapable, and legitimate. 

Myopic opposition 

Eran Wickremaratne’s vapid inanities on foreign policy (Eran moots adoption of multilateral foreign policy | Daily FT, Sri Lanka should be neutral over Gaza conflict: SJB - Breaking News | Daily Mirror), make me balance my endorsement of Sajith for President with a pivot to Anura and the NPP-JVP at the Parliamentary election. 

Gaza bombed

Much more crucially, the SJB, NPP-JVP, FSP-JAV and FPC know the bloody tragedy that befell this country consequent to the Referendum of 1982 which forestalled the parliamentary election scheduled for the next year. However, they aren’t mobilizing a campaign (unitedly or separately) to combat and countervail Ranil’s imminent confiscation of the first available and most important national election: Presidential election 2024. 

There is no contradiction between opposing the executive presidency and voting ‘NO’ at Ranil’s referendum to abolish it. I like Parmesan cheese, but if I were a rat I’d avoid it when I see it in a mousetrap—which is what Ranil’s proposed electoral reform/abolition/referendum is. 

However, the Opposition parties don’t pledge that they will: 

(a)Unequivocally oppose any ‘reform’ which prolongs Ranil’s unelected, illegitimate rule, be it as President or (executive) PM. 

(b)Unambiguously campaign for a ‘NO’ vote at any Referendum that Ranil calls (Chile’s Pinochet was first beaten at the Referendum of 1988). 

NPP and FSP are mistaken

Anura Dissanayaka has no battle-plan to protect political democracy against Ranil’s tyranny except to move an amendment to Ranil’s forthcoming legislation. 

His rival Kumar Gunaratnam has a Rubik’s Cube strategy to achieve direct ‘council democracy’. 

Both are being turned by history into today’s NM, Colvin, Shan and Bala (Tampoe), unmindful of thousands of rebellious youngsters in their audiences who may be new Rohana Wijeweeras in their 20s, or potential Hugo Chavez figures, with their patience wearing very thin. In 1970, N.M. Perera, Colvin R. de Silva, Pieter Keuneman, S.A. Wickremasinghe and N. Sanmugathasan didn’t know that ‘1971’ was coming.

On October 8th, Anura Dissanayake addressed an impressive crowd of young people at the Vihara Maha Devi Park in commemoration of Che Guevara’s death anniversary. It wasn’t an especially significant anniversary (the 56th), so AKD either wished to mobilize a youth audience to counter the FSP-influenced IUSF and Jana Aragalaya Vyaparaya (JAV) or stiffen the fighting spirit of the JVP-NPP youth base in case Ranil withholds the presidential election. 

Anura’s speech was sharply intelligent but misleading. He portrayed Che one-dimensionally, as “Asammuthivaadee”, i.e., “uncompromising” or “intransigent”. While true as concerns commitment to strategic principles, aims and goals, this was not true in terms of tactics and united fronts. 

 Che unified through discussion, all the armed anti-Batista groups he encountered in his liberated zones and on his column’s march through Santa Clara to bifurcate the island. His sole condition was the acceptance of his lead and command.

The notes of President Kennedy’s special envoy Richard Goodwin’s discussions with Guevara, aborted by JFK’s assassination in 1963, shows Che’s realism and flexibility.

Che visited Moscow and Beijing in late 1965 and held discussions with the top leaders including Mao in vain efforts to form a united front in support of Vietnam. 

During the Cuban Revolution and throughout Che’s missions in Africa and Bolivia, the political egotiations with diverse groups were conducted by Fidel Castro and Manuel Pineiro.

The Tricontinental Conference of January 1966 and the OLAS meeting of August 1967 were for the purpose of weaving a supportive united front among diverse leftists for Che’s continental project. 

In his valedictory Message to the Tricontinental, Che made an impassioned plea for unity in action of left forces bypassing ideological differences, and for reconvergence between Russia and China. 

It would be a mistake if Anura Dissanayake selected Che’s ‘uncompromising intransigence’ as implicit justification for the JVP-NPP’s sectarian refusal to form a united Left front or forge left unity in action.  

As postscript I might mention that I was the only Asian whose essay on Che Guevara’s 40th death anniversary (2007) was featured in Granma International, the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. (Che’s Visage on the Shroud of Time (granma.cu))

The JVP-NPP and FSP-JAV sincerely declare that the historical era of armed struggle ended with the 20th century. They are only partly correct. 

They are right if they mean armed socialist revolution; revolution aimed at instituting socialism. 

They are wrong in their conflation of ‘armed struggle’ with ‘revolution’, and ‘revolution’ with ‘socialism’. 

They wrongly assume that all armed resistance is armed revolution, and all armed revolution is socialist revolution. 

Non-revolutionary armed resistance or rebellion is possible—indeed French Resistance militant, writer and thinker Albert Camus argues in ‘The Rebel’ that rebellion, being self-limiting, is philosophically preferable to revolution. 

Armed revolution which is democratic and not socialist, is also possible.  

Hamas and Hezbollah prove that Marxism-Leninism is not imperative and can be irrelevant in powerful armed resistance/rebellion. 

Joined at the hip

Aragalaya 2022 didn’t comprise mostly of Left or NGO activists, but simply of average citizens, especially youth. 1/100th of their number of July 9th 2022 can constitute the “single spark that starts the prairie fire”. The Hamas uprising showed what can be done by 1,500 young men, bitter, determined, enraged, and able to wield firearms. 

If the earliest scheduled national election, Presidential Election 2024, is ‘disappeared’, armed democratic rebellion won’t be unthinkable in a country that fought two civil wars over 30 years and has a vast reservoir of veterans to study skills from.

‘Two, three, many Vietnams’ 

The Netanyahu-Biden-Blinken equation of Hamas with ISIS/ISIL and al-Qaeda is grotesquely absurd. 

To draw on Carl Schmitt’s important distinction in The Theory of the Partisan, Hamas is a ‘telluric’ partisan movement organically springing from and laying claim to a specific local homeland, i.e., Palestinians fighting for an independent Palestine, while ISIS and al-Qaeda are nomadic multinational Islamist groups fighting across borders for an Islamic caliphate, i.e., ideological international terrorists with whom you cannot negotiate because there is nothing specific you can negotiate – and compromise--on.    

Israel’s impending ground invasion of Gaza will have uncontrollable consequences. 

Hamas fighters killed two topnotch commanders of elite IDF units, the Ghost battalion and the Nahal brigade in firefights on Oct 7th. If they could do that across the border in Israel, they could maul the IDF while fighting on their home turf. 

The US has exhibited that there is no daylight between it and Israel. This is a shift from the Realist model (Kissinger, James Baker III) of retaining a degree of autonomy so as to play the role of ultimate arbiter. This means moral opprobrium for any massacres in Gaza by the IDF would stick on the US-UK for generations. 

Sending two carrier strike forces, the US has warned ‘other’ players not to get involved. The UK is following suit. This is most ironic because the ‘others’ are native to the region, unlike the US-UK. The US-UK warning is lopsided also because Israel has already attacked Syria’s airports. 

The US sees its power-projection as an axiomatic guarantee of deterrence. Others could see it differently. 

Any militia would see the US as the sole superpower which went to war against Afghanistan, threw everything at it, and finally rode the last chopper out as in Saigon 1975, retreating before the Taliban, leaving billions of dollars of equipment and thousands of allies behind. 

It would also recall the USA surging into Iraq and then creating a Sunni-Shia civil war to back out the saloon’s swing-doors, leaving Iraq under the influence of Iran (and Russia). 

The US carrier strike groups in the Eastern Mediterranean may not serve solely as a deterrent but also a magnet for Hezbollah’s array of rocketry. Hezbollah can afford a considerable number of martyrs in an asymmetric confrontation which will assume mythic status, but the USA can’t afford too many dead sailors in an election year.   

The US carrier strike groups may become a target for every regional formation/proxy which might have scores (Fallujah, Suleimani) to settle. 

Israel’s current Gaza campaign appears animated by the Irgun-Stern Gang spirit which caused the massacre of 250 Palestinian men, women and children in Deir Yassin in 1948, decades before Hezbollah (1982) and Hamas (1987) appeared.

In 1956 when Israel, backed by the UK and France invaded Egypt over the Suez Canal nationalisation, the US objected, boosting American prestige among the Arab middle classes and the newly-independent nations. In 2023 the US is doing the exact opposite and will hemorrhage moral-political capital in the Arab and Islamic world. 

Israel’s Gaza War is impacting the Arab and Islamic ‘street’. Saudi Arabia has paused ‘normalisation’ with Israel and contacted Iran on Gaza. 

In an interview given to Anna Louise Strong in 1946, Mao Zedong identified with extraordinary perspicacity, Islam as a powerful, emerging global political force. 

In The Clash of Civilizations Prof. Samuel Huntington’s main threat-perception was an interface of the Sinic and Islamic civilisations which could tip the balance. 

By its blatantly partisanship in the Gaza crisis, the US is setting itself to enable its peer competitors China and Russia to pick up the slack.      

If pulled by Israel into a long, wide war in the region, America will fulfil Che Guevara’s grand strategic vision: “Crear Dos, Tres, Muchos Vietnams!” (“Create Two, Three, Many Vietnams!”). 

Muhammed Deif

The head of the Hamas military wing the al-Qassem Brigades is Muhammed Deif, born in 1965 in Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp. Gaza is composed of generations of refugees. Israel’s current military offensive is turning refugees into refugees. 

How many little Palestinian boys living under bombardment these days will transform into the next Muhammed Deifs? Generations of Muhammed Deifs are being born or made. As long as the Occupation exists, the Resistance continues.