The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Sri Lanka are holding a public anti-war meeting entitled “The Ukraine War and How to Stop It” at the Political Science Department in the University of Peradeniya, on August 22 at 4.00 P.M. The event is sponsored by the Political Science Association in the university’s Political Science Department.

The meeting will discuss how to build up a movement of the working class to put an end to the US-NATO war against Russia and prevent a descent into a devastating nuclear third world war. The horrors of the escalating Ukraine war are already evident in media reports of nearly 200,000 Ukrainian deaths, while the Russian death toll is also in the tens of thousands.

Yet the US and NATO are intensifying the war, pouring more weapons and money into Ukraine. The Biden administration is sending cluster bombs to Ukraine and has approved $US113 billion for the war, including $70 billion directly on weapons.

At the same time, the US is escalating its provocative confrontation with China, providing $345 million in weapons to Taiwan.

India has been transformed into a frontline state in the US war drive against China. The state visit to Washington in June by fascistic Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s concluded with agreements on arms sales and joint military production.

US ally Australia is currently hosting wide-ranging naval war games alongside the chief military powers of the Indo-Pacific region—US, Japan and India. The Malabar exercises come on top of a flurry of US-led military activities throughout the region directed against China.

Preparations for a catastrophic third world war are underway with many countries wasting billions of dollars on boosting air, sea and ground forces at the expense of working people.  

However, the same objective crisis of capitalism fuelling war is generating workers’ struggles throughout the world.

The ICFI and its sections around the world are engaged in building a unified international anti-war movement of the working class, the only class that can stop the war.

We urge workers and youth to attend our meeting and participate in this important discussion on the program and perspective on which such an anti-war movement must be based.  

Venue: Lecture Hall No. 86, Political Science Department, University of Peradeniya.

Date and time: August 22 at 4.00 P.M.