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A storm broke out this week over a statement made by JVP senior member Nalin Hewage on national TV last Thursday night. In a live discussion on Hiru TV ‘Balaya’, attended by SJB MP Asoka Abeysinghe, SLPP MPs Tissa Kuttiarachchi and D. Weerasinghe, and JVP’s former Provincial Council MP Hewage, Hewage declared with a smirk: ‘The JVP killed only rapists,  rogues and kassippu karayas.’

The callous remark said with a mocking contemptuous smile on his face in reference to the thousands the JVP had killed in ’88 during their reign of terror brought an immediate reaction from the two SLPP MPs.

JVP HEWAGE: Adds damaging insult to the dead

The reaction was, indeed, strong. But understandable in the circumstances. SLPP MP Weerasinghe’s own father had been killed by the JVP during this dark period when the JVP fiat enforced under the threat of death, had prevailed.  He demanded to know whether his father had been a rapist, a rogue or a kassippukaraya that he had been killed by the JVP. But answer came there none from Hewage who maintained a wry smile.

Kuttiarachchi joined the emotionally charged Weerasinghe, attacking the JVP for the whole catalogue of crimes committed in the name of their own brand of patriotism. But what really got their goat was when Hewage broke his mocking silence to say: ‘Like Lord Buddha spurned the insults  hurled at him and returned it to the one who had hurled, saying they do not belong to me, I too return it back to you and say I do not accept them.’

In the eyes of the SLPP duo, that was rich coming from Hewage whom they claimed, had once said, ‘If the Buddha had kept his back to a coconut tree instead of a Bo tree, at least, we could have eaten coconuts today.’ They mercilessly condemned him until Hewage rose and left the discussion.

The following day social media commentators with JVP leanings attacked the two SLPP MPs as being drunk on power and condemned their reaction while glossing over Hewage’s initial insolent remark which had added insult to injury to those killed and to their grieving families.

Wittingly or unwittingly, Hewage had, by his remark, raised again the spectre of JVP brutalities and destruction of public property which the JVP leadership were desperately attempting to bury in the sands of time.

The claim to justify the killings by branding all those killed as rapists or rogues or kasippu karayas, was an indelible slur on the voiceless dead.  The insult outraged their beloved families and caused old wounds to bleed afresh.

The question JVP’s senior member Nalin Hewage and the entire JVP leadership must answer is this: To what category do famed musical composer Premakeerthi de Alwis or Vice Chancellor of the Colombo University, Professor Stanley Wijesundera or Vice Chancellor of the Moratuwa University Professor Chandraratne Paruwathavitharana or popular film actor turned politician Vijaya Kumaratunga or ITN chairman and legendary Radio Ceylon broadcaster Thevis Gurage or Rupavahini broadcaster Sagarika Gomes to name only a few, fit?

Was Dr. Gladys Jayewardene, the first female director of the Medical Research Institute, and chairman of State Pharmaceutical Corporation who bravely defied the JVP command not to import medical drugs from India because of its anti-Indian stance, gunned down in cold blood by two  JVP assassins in September 1989 because she was a hooch merchant or rogue?

The pain, the grief rekindled with insult to inflame the hearts of those families the victims left behind was summed up by Weerasinghe in his reply to JVP critics, trying their best to contain the fallout from Hewage’s damaging remark.

SLPP WEERASINGHE: Dead father slandered

On Monday, SLPP MP Weerasinghe spoke out in a YouTube video. He said: ‘In the course of last Friday’s discussion, the conversation turned on JVP killings during the 88-89 period. JVP’s former Provincial Council member Nalin Hewage accepted they had killed many but he laughingly said they had killed only rapists, rogues and kasippu karayas. My father who was killed by the JVP was a Veda Mahaththaya in the village of Galkande. They came and warned him that if he didn’t stop treating patients, they would kill him. He told them he was treating innocent patients who came to him for medicines. He did not stop.’

‘They came for the second time to warn him again’, Weerasinghe said, ‘but still he would not stop. I was 8 years old then. When they came the third time they did not warn him but took him outside the gate and shot him, stabbing him 14 times at different places of the body and killed him. This happened before my mother’s and my eyes. It left her so traumatised that even today she is mentally affected and hardly speaks a word.  I impulsively reacted as any son would to hear his father also called a rapist, rogue or a kasippu karaya’.

Hewage’s callous remark to further slander the dead, led to a protest being staged on Monday outside the JVP office in Battaramulla by the Deshapremi United People’s Party, demanding an answer from the JVP leadership. Two complaints against Hewage were filed by them, one at the police and the other at the Human Rights Commission.

While on his visit to Sweden JVP-NPP hybrid leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake stressed to a Lankan expat audience that it was only through political means that changes had to be introduced.

How else? All other parties take it for granted that it will be so and never find the need to assure the people, that it will only be brought through the political process, and no other. Of course, how else but through the democratic way?

Unless, of course, comrade Anura Kumara wished to erase all doubts from the minds of his expat audience that the JVP did not fancy staging another repeat of its ‘71 insurrection nor its ‘88 killing spree to seize state control to implement its completely radical overhaul of the system.

During his visit to Canada last month, he was egged on by a Lankan expat audience to explain JVP killings during the ’88 period for which he said a cursory sorry as if he was excusing himself for a social gaffe made at a formal dinner. Only senior member of the JVP politburo Lalkantha was frank enough to admit in a YouTube interview that the JVP killings in the late eighties were part and parcel of the rebellion and had to be done.

On April 28 while addressing a group of Lankan expats in Stockholm, JVP-NPP leader Anura Kumara declared, ‘Overseas Lankans who backed Gota in 2019 now totally back us’.  When Lankans abroad who placed their faith in the disastrous Gota five years ago as the man to save the country, now pin their faith on the JVP as the new saviours in town, can it hardly be vouched as a certified prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi that a new era of prosperity was set to dawn on Lanka under a Marxist JVP leadership that professes to have turned a new leaf?

As UNP’s Secretary Palitha Ranga Bandara duly noted in his May Day address, ‘the JVP in their NPP clothing has shown that, though the leopard may change its forest, it doesn’t change its spots.

May Day for workers usurped by politicians for themselves CMC labourers turned up early for work on May 1 to clean the streets before politicians and crowds arrived to commemorate the day reserved for workers at each party’s respective May Day rallies.As expected a sea of people thronged the streets of Colombo either to attend the UNP rally at Maligawatte, the SJB rally near Chatham Street in Fort, the SLPP rally in Borella or the JVP rally near the Colombo Town Hall. Each of the parties had promised either to make a grand announcement or stage a special event so secret it had to be kept hushed before it could be sprung as a surprise or manifest rival party members by telekinesis. With such dramatic theatrics given top billing, each party bagged its own fair share of the people flood. Of course, each party had brought their own supporters from various corners of the island by rented CTB buses, so that with or without the announcements or special hush-hush surprise event or black magic on the stage, they would, nevertheless, have come. WORKERS’ MAY DAY? Henceforth it should be named the day to indulge politicians But neither the promised grand announcements nor the special surprise event ever materialised on party platforms. Nor did any jack-in-the-box spring out on any stage. That is, apart from the presence of a lone disgruntled SLPP backbench MP whose appearance on the UNP stage went unnoticed and remained unsung. When so many have crossed over in Parliament from the SLPP, the addition of another was hardly earth-shattering news. At the UNP rally, President Ranil Wickremesinghe urged all parties to join hands with him in the economy-building effort which he had bravely borne alone so far at great personal cost to his own popularity and requested the SJB and JVP to vote for the bill he intended to present in Parliament shortly. ‘The proposed legislation,’ the President said, ‘will incorporate the conditions outlined by the IMF as well as the necessary provisions for the rapid development of our nation. I urge all to support this legislation. Specifically, I urge the SJB and the JVP to come to an agreement and lend their support to this crucial initiative. It’s essential not only to safeguard the economic stability of our nation but also to transition towards becoming an export-based economy.’ But it’s unlikely that Sajith will accept the presidential invite. At the SJB’s May Day rally, the Opposition leader declared: ‘We will renegotiate with the IMF to make the agreement more people friendly’. He also pledged ‘to implement the 13th Amendment in full, to freshly probe Easter’s bomb attacks, to create a conducive environment for investors, to create employment opportunities, to establish Silicon Valley type IT zones in every district and, among others, to set up independent anti-corruption entities that are created by entrenched clauses of the Constitution.’ As for the JVP, they, too, say they will negotiate with the IMF to amend the agreement in accordance with their line of thinking of homegrown solutions and dollars from Lankan expats abroad to restructure international debt.  At their May Day rallies, with no economic plan still unveiled to implement their utopian ideals based on a Marxist ideology, the JVP and NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake was reduced to speaking of their much-vaunted discipline in the May Day marches they held. He said: ‘We have proved in our four May Day rallies that we are the well-disciplined people’s force. The other political forces lack discipline. Our May Day rally is the well-organised May Day rally and the procession most disciplined. Can Ranil bring about discipline? Can Sajith do it? Neither of them can create a disciplined and law-abiding society’. JVP Politburo member Lalkantha painted his beautiful vistas and said: ‘My long-held dream of seeing a beautiful Sri Lanka with a beautiful people and a beautiful economy is on the threshold of becoming a reality.’ Leaving beauty aside, Lalkantha also vowed, in the full flight of arrogance, ‘to give the right to make laws and the right to enforce them to the gramiya Sabhas, including judicial power’. Wow! Kangaroo courts in villages to mete out JVP justice. Power to the people. That seemed to be the theme with a repetition of ‘we will win’ mantra. It was an exercise in self-glorification with hosannas sung in their praise. At the SLPP rally the expected grand announcement of revealing their presidential candidate never came. The SLPP complained of bringing more sinned against than sinning but vowed to make a grand comeback at this year’s elections. ‘If wishes had wings, then sheep would fly’ never seemed more apt than at this year’s May Day rallies. As politicians and party faithful went home with an affirmation of their faith re-instilled, they would have continued to dream the dreams of new eras of prosperity, spun at all rallies this May Day. On the following day. CMC labourers turned up early for work to clean the rubbish politicians and party devout had left behind. They were the symbol in whose honour May Day was commemorated. It was evidently clear that no more should May Day be reserved as the day of the worker but, instead, earmarked as the day for politicians to praise their own tails to a credulous party faithful.