With so many Third World nations vying for a limited share of markets and investors, multinational corporations are largely able to dictate their own terms and the governments of these countries are more than willing to concede to them. Behind the gates of the Katunayake Free Trade Zone another country exists. Management of this zone is in the hands of the Greater Colombo Economic Commission. This Commission has almost complete and arbitrary control over employees. There is a private paramilitary security force operating within the Free Trade Zone.
Reports abound of workers being locked in the factories until quotas are completed.
The mood in the bus travelling to the Free Trade Zone with some of the demonstrators was light and jovial but behind the smiles and laughter was just a hint of apprehension. Many of the group were life-long activists in the struggle for human rights. One woman I met had seen her husband taken away and murdered three years ago for his involvement in the Communist Party. A man on the bus told me how he had fled Sri Lanka in 1989 and had ended up in the Philippines where he joined the peoples liberation movement in overthrowing Marcos. Most of the afternoon I had been in a house with them near the Free Trade Zone, where some fifteen thousand leaflets were being folded in preparation for distribution.