Cartoon of the day , Dailymirror

The ‘March’ from Aluthgama to Kalutara today

Wednesday, 26 September 2012 07:08, Lanka Truth

The ‘March’ begun on the 24th from Galle by university teachers demanding 6% from GDP for education in the country and several other demands reached Aluthgama yesterday evening.
Today the ‘March’ will move from Aluthgama to Kalutara. It will commence from Aluthgama at 8.00 a.m.
Photographs show several instances of the ‘March’ yesterday.

Editorial

Ruining chances of reconciliation

September 26, 2012, 7:33 pm , The Island

The Federation of University Teachers' Associations (FUTA) strike has entered the third month and universities remain crippled, though open. Striking dons are staging protest marches and student unions have joined forces with them apparently in a bid to settle old scores with the government and gain some mileage. The government remains intransigent and there is no end in sight to the worsening university crisis.

The striking dons' resentment knows no bounds. All their agitations having failed to reach fruition, they are now all out to transform their struggle into a mass protest campaign. However, it is disadvantageous for them to shift their trade union battle to the political front where the government is very strong. In fact, the government is craftily goading them into taking that route so as to turn an otherwise trade union struggle into a political battle.

If the striking dons make the mistake of getting too close to the wily politicians seeking expediency they might taint their cause and be seen as pawns in a political game. Their long march from Galle to Colombo, however successful it may have been, had the trappings of a political circus owing to the presence of many politicians who grabbed the limelight, eclipsing the genuine protesters much to the detriment of the FUTA's interests. Solidarity protests by radical student groups with a history of disrupting universities, killing university teachers and undergrads, violently suppressing dissent and peddling a not-so-hidden political agenda will do more harm than good to the striking dons’ trade union struggle.

The government's battle plan is clear. It wants to make the FUTA agitation out to be an attempt to create a political upheaval to pave the way for a regime change. The government propaganda mill is using some utterances Opposition politicians made to that effect during and prior to the FUTA's latest protest march, to support their claim and a plot is being hatched to topple a democratically elected government at the behest of some western powers.

Not caring a damn about the adverse fallout of the university teachers' strike on the higher education sector, the government is playing a waiting game in the hope that the strikers' frustration will lead to dissension within the FUTA ranks and some of the strikers might break ranks sooner or later causing the strike to come a cropper. It apparently expects political differences among the strikers to surface threatening their unity, which is the be-all and end-all of the success of their struggle. Determined to win its demands, the FUTA is all out to crank up pressure on the government and its resilience is to be admired.

How long it will take for universities to return to normal is anybody's guess. Students have been the losers.

Regrettably, the government has not cared to engage constructively with the strikers. It has so far had only a few rounds of talks with them––that too in a bid to resolve the crisis on its own terms. Its attitude which smacks of arrogance is an impediment to confidence building essential for a negotiated settlement. Discussions haven't lasted long enough for both sides to realise the need to make compromises in keeping with the ground reality and in the national interest. As a result, they are still trying to railroad each other into submission, aggravating the crisis.

The onus is on the government to resume talks with the FUTA immediately and keep negotiating until a compromise formula is thrashed out. There is no other way out. Protest campaigns by the strikers and vilification campaigns by the government only ruin the chances of reconciliation and a negotiated settlement.