The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Sri Lanka are holding a public meeting on October 30. Entitled, “The threat of world war and the US presidential elections,” the event will be addressed by the SEP’s US presidential candidate Jerry White, via the Internet.

The SEP campaign in the US election, as the only socialist anti-war party, is of enormous political significance for working people and youth in South Asia and internationally. Sri Lanka, like all other countries in the region, has already been drawn into Washington’s imperialist war preparations against China, the so-called “pivot to Asia.”

US electoral laws and the capitalist media make it appear that the American people can only choose between two right-wing candidates—Democrat Hillary Clinton, the choice of Wall Street and the Pentagon, or Republican Donald Trump, a fascistic billionaire. Whichever of these two candidates wins the presidential race, US war provocations against China and Russia will intensify, along with domestic state repression, social inequality and economic insecurity.

India’s military attack against Pakistan last month brought these two nuclear- armed countries to the brink of war. With India backed by the US and Pakistan supported by China, war on the Indian sub-continent could quickly develop into a global conflict. Only the working class, mobilised on a program of socialist internationalism, can prevent this danger.

It is an open secret that the US was involved in the last year’s regime-change operation to remove Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse because of his government’s orientation toward China. The current government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is supporting the US and India as an active partner in Washington’s geo-strategic and military provocations against China.

The SEP and the IYSSE in Sri Lanka urge all those who are seeking a genuine alternative to imperialist war and capitalist austerity to attend the meeting and support the fight for an anti-war movement based on a socialist program, the only progressive alternative for the working class and oppressed masses of the Indian sub-continent and elsewhere.

Meeting details:

Date & Time: Sunday October 30, 3.00 p.m.
Place: Sausiripaya, 123 Wijerama Mawatha, Colombo 07.