The October 21, 1972, issue of the Workers Press, the official organ of the Central Committee of the Socialist Labour League, carried a slanderous attack on Bala Tampoe, the general secretary of the Ceylon Mercantile Union. The author of the article, one Jack Gale, asserts that Tampoe is "known to have associated with the CIA."
Why should the imperialist spy agency want to associate with Bala Tampoe? Washington is certainly not preparing to overthrow the Bandaranaike regime — at least from the left. Gale offers no explanation. Nor does he explain what interest Bala Tampoe, who opposes both imperialism and the Bandaranaike regime, could conceivably have in associating with the CIA.
The author of the article indicates as his source of information only Edmund Samarakkody, a former factional opponent of Tampoe. An investigation undertaken by us in 1969 showed that the slander was cooked up and put into circulation originally by the former Trotskyists in Ceylon who betrayed the movement and accepted posts offered them by Bandaranaike, and who were under heavy fire for this from Bala Tampoe.
How did this bit of ancient garbage happen to finally end up gracing the pages of the Workers Press, which makes a great show of its repugnance for the former Trotskyists in Ceylon and all their works?
First of all because the technique of the "big lie" has been utilized with increasing frequency in recent years by the leaders of the SLL under the guidance of their general secretary, Gerry Healy, and this item looked particularly suitable for such use.
The smearing of Bala Tampoe, a leading Ceylonese Trotskyist, in this way is on par with the beating that stewards of the SLL inflicted on Ernest Tate, a leading British Trotskyist, while Healy looked on. Tate was "guilty" of hawking Trotskyist literature in front of an SLL public meeting. Tampoe scorned inducements to line up with the SLL.
These are signs, among others, of the deep degeneration of the SLL. Incapable of meeting criticism with reasoned arguments, the leaders of the SLL borrow from the arsenal of Stalinism — which also calls for labeling political opponents as "spies" and "agents" of foreign powers and subjecting them to physical assault.
The timing of the attack on Bala Tampoe is worth noting. Tampoe is one of the main attorneys for the defense of the young revolutionists of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, who are now being processed in the courts by the repressive Bandaranaike regime. Coinciding with this defense, various unions (among them the Ceylon Mercantile Union) initiated the first big action by the toiling masses of Sri Lanka since the "state of emergency" was decreed by Bandaranaike a year ago. This action was a nationwide, twenty-four-hour hunger strike. And the bank workers, in defense of their wage standards, called a strike in defiance of the coalition government composed of the bourgeois Sri Lanka Freedom party, the reformist Lanka Sama Samaja party, and the pro-Moscow Communist party.
All the reactionary supporters of the treacherous coalition regime rallied in support of its efforts to railroad the JVP revolutionists to long terms in prison, to smash the bank workers' strike, and to keep the masses cowed.
This was when the Healyites found it necessary to make their contribution. They did not solidarize with the Trotskyist-led bank workers' strike. They did not solidarize with the legal defense of the young revolutionists of the JVP against the frame-up charges of the coalition regime. They did not solidarize with the hunger strike taken as a step toward arousing mass resistance to the abrogation of democratic rights in Sri Lanka.
Instead, the Healyites singled out the "main enemy" for their bucket of mud.
What does Healy hope to gain from this? Something of great importance to him. In view of the latest developments in Sri Lanka, curiosity in the ranks of the SLL over his real reasons for splitting from the world Trotskyist movement might become troublesome. A fast prophylaxis was required. Hence the poisonous article against Bala Tampoe and the Fourth International.