The following letter was sent by David North, the chairman of the WSWS International Editorial Board and chairman of the Socialist Equality Party (US), to the SEP in Sri Lanka on the thirty-fifth anniversary of the death of Keerthi Balasuriya.
Dear Comrades of the Socialist Equality Party in Sri Lanka:
Yesterday’s opening session of the National Committee of the Socialist Equality Party began with a tribute to Comrade Keerthi Balasuriya and the observation of a minute’s silence to honor his memory on the thirty-fifth anniversary of his death.
The passage of more than a third of a century since Keerthi’s death has not diminished the sense of the loss suffered by the international working class, the cause of world socialism, and his innumerable comrades and friends throughout the International Committee of the Fourth International. The sorrow evoked by the untimely character of his passing is still deeply felt by all those who knew Keerthi, worked with him, and respected and admired him. He was 39 years old. It will be only in November of the coming year that the International Committee will commemorate what would have been Keerthi’s seventy-fifth birthday.
And yet, today’s tribute to Comrade Keerthi is motivated not by sorrow but, rather, by deep admiration for the enormous contribution he made to the fight for Trotskyism, the defense of the International Committee, the building of its Sri Lankan party, and the fight for the liberation of the working class from capitalist...
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