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Sri Lankan government mobilises army to break health workers’ strike
The Rajapakse government this week mobilised the military to break a national strike by thousands of junior hospital staff who walked out in a sick-leave campaign on February 24–25.
The blatant repression of health workers’ democratic right to take industrial action is a serious warning to the entire working class. The deployment, which involved a total of 185 army personnel across almost 15 hospitals, including the Colombo National Hospital, Colombo South, Peradeniya, Gampola, Badulla and Mullaithivu, was initiated by Army Commander Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva
. The government falsely claimed that the military strike-breaking was in order to “avoid inconveniencing” the general public during the industrial action. While the deployment was not large enough to replace all the striking workers, it was a clear dress-rehearsal for wider state repression against workers taking industrial action.