Sri Lankan police arrested three people and unleashed a violent attack on a March 31 demonstration marking the first anniversary of the anti-government protests that began outside the house of former President Gotabhaya Rajapakse in Mirihana and led to a mass movement that forced his resignation.

Security personnel, including 3,000 policemen, were deployed to the area, well before the event. Police attacked the protesters, attempted to grab their placards, and forced them towards the nearby town of Nugegoda.

Police physically attacked and tore the shirt of journalist Shantha Wijesuriya as he was photographing the police violence. Vindana Prasad Karunaratne, a Sirasa TV journalist was also threatened by police.

Anuruddha Bandara, Sudara Jayasinghe and Dhanish Ali, leading figures in last year’s Galle Face Green protests, were arrested but released later that night on condition that they take no legal action against the police.

After the police chased away the crowd, protesters congregated at Nugegoda junction, carrying placards and chanting slogans “Don’t postpone elections!” and “Hands off the rights of people!”

Notwithstanding the Socialist Equality Party’s principled opposition to the pro-capitalist policies of the protest organisers, we strongly condemn the violent government-ordered assault. The Wickremesinghe government is attempting to suppress all popular opposition to its International Monetary Fund-dictated austerity policies.

One year ago on March 31, President Rajapakse ordered a vicious police attack on a protest in the same area. The mass uprising demanding the resignation of Rajapakse and his government erupted and spread nationally in the aftermath of that attack.

Millions of workers called for an end to power cuts and for adequate supplies of food, medicines, petrol and other essentials and took part in two one-day general strikes on April 28 and May 6. Rajapakse ignominiously fled the country on July 13, and then resigned.

Confronted with this mass movement, the ruling elite handed over the task of defending the capitalist state to Ranil Wickremesinghe, a notorious pro-US stooge and International Monetary Fund (IMF) enforcer, making him president.

The Wickremesinghe government, in exchange for the recently announced $US2.9 billion bailout loan from the IMF, is now implementing a new round of social attacks. Even the IMF has described the agenda as a “brutal experiment.”

This is provoking a new round of struggles with workers in telecom, petroleum, education, post, bank, power, ports, water supply and other sectors taking action in recent weeks.

Haunted by last year’s mass anti-government uprising, the Wickremesinghe government, backed by the capitalist class, is attacking basic democratic rights, so as to preempt strikes and protests by workers, students and other social layers.

Violating the constitution, the Wickremesinghe government has postponed local government elections, while using the Essential Public Service Act and deploying the military against anti-privatisation protests and strikes by petroleum workers. Last month the government announced a new Anti-Terrorism Bill, which, if adopted, will ban and harshly punish anyone protesting against government policies.

In this situation, it is critical to draw the political lessons from last year’s popular uprising.

Leading figures in last year’s Galle Face Green protests, which politically diverted workers and youth into support for an interim bourgeois government, are at it again, this time to “pressure” the Wickremesinghe regime.

Those involved in last month’s one-year anniversary protest included, Eranga Gunasekera, national organiser of Socialist Youth Union, which is affiliated to the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP); Lahiru Weerasekera, the national organiser of Youth for Change led by the pseudo-left Frontline Socialist Party (FSP); and Dhanish Ali and Anuruddha Bandara.

These formations have no fundamental differences with the IMF-dictated austerity measures. The JVP and its National People’s Power (NPP) front are attempting to win political power, claiming they can resurrect Sri Lankan capitalism more effectively than Wickremesinghe. The JVP and its FSP breakaway insist that their “solutions” can be achieved without challenging the parliamentary framework and the profit system.

Addressing the Nugegoda protest on March 31, following the police attack, FSP youth leader Lahiru Weerasekera cynically declared, “We are acting on earlier lessons learnt with [new] experiments” and called for more struggle. The FSP’s perspective is to pressure the government by building alliances with the trade unions and various opposition political parties to form “people’s councils” to win concessions.