Marxists, UNP mark women's day, NGO flops

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 March 2001, 16:30 GMT]
The women's wing of Sri Lankas radical Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) staged a street play in the heart of Colombos business hub to mark International women's day.

A spokeswoman for the Socialist women's Front told TamilNet that the play portrays the suffering of working women and their children in Sri Lanka, with particular reference to the abject conditions in which women are compelled to work in the islands free trade zones. The play began at 10 a.m. Thursday morning near the Fort Railway Station in downtown Colombo. It drew hundreds of spectators and sympathisers of the JVPs cause.

The JVPs women's wing is one of the fastest growing sections of this radical Marxist organisation that has emerged in recent years as a powerful third force in Sri Lanka's politics, analysts in Colombo say. Thousands of disgruntled women working in firms owned by the foreigners are swelling the ranks of the JVPs trade unions and women's wing they said.

Meanwhile the women's day demonstration organised Thursday by Sri Lankas main peace NGO, The National Peace Council, was a fiasco, with not more than twenty women turning up for the event and the handing over of a memorandum to Sri Lankan Prime Minister at this official residence in downtown Colombo.

Auto rickshaws hired by the National Peace Council.

The National Peace Council hired about 76 auto rickshaws to make its International women's Day program impressive, a journalist who was at the venue said.

The United National Party held a demonstration at the Viharamahadevi Park in Colombo Thursday. Women held placards denouncing the Sri Lankan government for the soaring cost of living.

The UNP women urged the government to bring down the cost of milk food, medicine and essential goods. More than seven hundred took part in the UNP's International women's day demonstration Thursday.

The women's wing of Sri Lankas radical Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) staged a street play near the Fort Railway Station in downtown Colombo to mark International women's day.