마루타이 탕가벨 동지를 추모하며

* "RCIT 스리랑카 지부의 마루타이 탕가벨 동지가 오랜 투병 끝에 67세로 운명했다는 부고를 주체할 수 없는 슬픔으로 알립니다. 탕가벨 동지는 타밀 족 노동자로 오랫동안 트로츠키주의 투사로 활동해 왔습니다. 그는 스리랑카에서 RCIT 지부를 창건하고, 투병에 들어가기 전까지 스리랑카 지부를 이끌며 평생을 노동자계급 해방투쟁에 바쳤습니다."

아래는 혁명적 공산주의인터내셔널 동맹 (RCIT)이 낸 탕가벨 동지 부고장이다.

-아래-

In Memory of Comrade Maruthei Thangavel (1954-2021)

Our comrade Maruthei Thangavel – the founder and a leading member of the RCIT’s section in Sri Lanka – has died after a long period of illness in August 2021. On this sub-page we publish orbituaries and pictures in memory of our comrade.

Comrade Maruthei Thangavel – Presente!

An Obituary by the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 28 August 2021, www.thecommunists.net

It is with great sadness that we have to inform the public that our comrade Maruthei Thangavel – the founder and a leading member of the RCIT’s section in Sri Lanka – has died after a long period of illness at the age of 67 years. Comrade Thanga – as everyone called him – was a Tamil worker and a Trotskyist militant for many years.

Comrade Thanga dedicated his whole life to the liberation struggle of the working class. The focus of his political work was the Socialist Plantation Service Union, a trade union which focused on the improvement of the living conditions of the Tamil plantation workers. This work was very hard and difficult. The Tamil plantation workers are usually forced to live in small, isolated and very poor villages with only limited access to electricity and water. They face very harsh conditions of super-exploitation by the landowners. Furthermore, they are oppressed as they belong to a national minority which has faced horrific oppression by the state for many decades. Add to this that trade unionists like comrade Thanga also had to face the bureaucratic apparatus of the official trade union which has close relations to the landowners and the state, and which tries to harass socialist activists by any means possible.

Comrade Thanga was not only a dedicated trade unionist but also a Trotskyist activist for many years. First a member of the CWI section, he went with the comrades who split in 2007 with the faction which remained loyal to the center around Peter Taaffe. This group became the Socialist Party of Sri Lanka (SPSL) and joined our predecessor organization (the L5I) in the following year. It was in this period when the cadres who later founded the RCIT met the Sri Lankan comrades including comrade Thanga.

In January 2011 an internal debate about the Tamil question began in the SPSL which was provoked by discussion at the Asian congress of our predecessor organization at that time. At this congress comrade Michael Pröbsting –a member of the L5I’s international leadership at that time and the RCIT’s International Secretary today – argued that revolutionaries should support the slogan of an independent socialist Tamil Eelam if the Tamil people in Sri Lanka in their majority support such a goal. This was an application of the classic Leninist position that Marxists support the right of oppressed people to separate and build an independent state.

Comrade Thanga was the only Tamil member of the SPSL’s Central Committee. He fully supported this position and argued with comrades about this issue. However, the majority of the SPSL leadership strongly opposed this idea and urged the L5I’s international leadership to censor comrade Michael for a supposed “breach of discipline”. The majority of the L5I happily picked up this ridiculous and bureaucratic accusation and formally criticized comrade Michael because he had raised the slogan of a socialist Tamil Eelam at an internal congress! A few weeks later, comrade Michael, comrade Almedina Gunić (the International Women’s Secretary of the L5I at that time and of the RCIT today) and other comrades were expelled because we had launched a faction struggle against the centrist degeneration of the L5I.

Comrade Thanga was not deterred by this outburst of bureaucratic chauvinism. He stood by the Leninist program of national liberation of oppressed people despite the massive pressure of the majority of the SPSL and L5I leadership.

One should bear in mind that this discussion did take place not in “free” Western country but in Sri Lanka where the right-wing chauvinist regime of Rajapaksa had brutally smashed the de facto state of the Tamil people in the North and East of the country (led by the so-called Tamil Tigers) and slaughtered about 40,000 Tamils within a few weeks in spring 2009.

But despite all these difficulties, comrade Thanga continued to defend the Marxist principles. After a short but intensive internal struggle, he left the SPSL together with a few other comrades.

When the founders of the RCIT began to build a new international organization in April 2011, comrade Thanga and his friends immediately joined us. Despite the small numbers of militants, he dedicated himself to the task to build a new organization with the same energy as he did before. Soon he came into contact with comrade Kamalanathan and his friends and together they went ahead with building the United Lanka Workers’ Party – the RCIT’s section in Sri Lanka.

Due to his severe illness, comrade Thanga could no longer do the same amount of political work in the last years as he did before. However, he remained a dedicated Trotskyist and a loyal member of our organization until his last breath. Physically, comrade Thanga is dead. But he continues to live in our memories and in the memory of thousands of Tamil workers whom he helped in their daily struggle for a decent living!

Comrade Maruthei Thangavel – Presente!

International Bureau of the RCIT