Present day rulers are taking decisions at state-level to rid the country of its elders, alleged the FSP.
They are doing so after having falsely claimed during the 1971 struggle that old people would be exterminated in a socialist society, said its education secretary Pubudu Jayagoda at a seminar in Anuradhapura on February 27.
On the previous day, he said, the cabinet decided to bring in laws to nullify the pensions of state sector workers, in effect deciding shamelessly that elders are a burden on society.
The government avoids taking the responsibility for elders, Jayagoda charged, and noted the shortage of medicines and the putting off of so-called non-essential surgeries endangered their lives further.
In the end, it is capitalism, not socialism, that wants to rid them, he said, adding that life has fallen so low as to struggle even to survive, leaving alone to win more rights.