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The birth of the JVP and its political journey
View(s):The Sunday Times today publishes an edited account of the JVP’s history as given in the party’s official website jvpsrilanka.com
Six decades ago, as the country wwas facing a deep economic-political crisis with leftist political parties losing their support bases, a new leftist movement emerged among the youth and trade unions in the South—the People’s Liberation Front (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna—JVP) in 1964.
The movement was led by workers and trade unions of the left parties that were on the verge of bringing down the then government and taking the United Left Front to power.
At this critical moment, both the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) joined the government against the will of their trade unions and hundreds of thousands of people who supported them.
The betrayal of the workers in particular and the wishes of the people in general created a very favourable situation to launch a new left movement, JVP.
As the son of a member of the CPSL, Comrade Rohana Wijeweera was influenced by his father’s politics when he was young and received a scholarship to study medicine in Russia, where he had the opportunity to study Marxism-Leninism.
On the14th May 1965 at Akmeemana in Galle district, Comrade Rohana Wijeweera held a discussion with six other members of CPSL (peking) to launch a campaign to correct the party ideology
Initially, the organisation of workers, farmers, students, and youth had to be carried out in a semi-clandestine manner in order to avoid the suppression of this new government led by the United National Party (UNP) that came to power in 1965 following general elections.
On the 12th of May 1970, Comrade Wijeweera was taken into custody without charges, and the government propaganda machine carried out a campaign against him and about the new movement. The new movement was labelled as the Che Guevara movement.
The coalition of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the old left came to power in May 1970. In July 1970, the courts found Comrade Rohana not guilty on all charges.
The Coalition government, intensifying its repression, took steps to arrest activists of the JVP who carried out political activities such as poster campaigns and conducting educational discussions and camps.
On March 6, 1971, a growup of government supporters organised a march against America’s war in Vietnam and a petrol bomb was hurled at the Embassy of the United States during the protest march.
Within a few hours, the government declared a state of emergency giving sweeping powers to the armed forces and the police, including disposal of bodies without holding a post-mortem or judicial inquiry.
Under emergency regulations, Comrade Wijeweera and many other members and sympathisers of the JVP were taken into custody. He was taken into custody on March 13, 1971 and kept incommunicado in Jaffna Prison.
By April 1, 1971, more than 500 members and sympathisers of the JVP were taken into custody and kept in prison camps. The JVP leadership decided to take up arms against the repressive measures of the government, which had provoked the armed forces, police, and the people against the JVP.
The JVP was compelled to take up arms on April 5, 1971, against the unlawful, unjust repression of the government. As a result, the government lost control in certain areas when nearly one hundred police stations were attacked and abandoned by police officers.
Following a brutal repression launched by the government, the April uprising was totally suppressed within a month after killing nearly 10,000 members and sympathisers of the JVP. Over 20,000 JVP members and sympathisers were also taken into custody and released after the rehabilitation process.
Following the passage of Criminal Justice Commission Bill in Parliament, Comrade Rohana Wijeweera was prosecuted and sentenced to lifetime imprisonment in 1975. However, later it was amended to 20 years.
In 1981, JVP contested the islandwide election of the District Development Councils and was able to win 13 seats.
President J.R. Jayewardene hatched a conspiracy against left parties, including the JVP, blaming them and the Soviet Union for instigating anti-Tamil riots inw 1983. The JVP and two other left parties were proscribed undemocratically, unjustly, and illegally.
The crisis created led to the direct interference of India into the internal affairs of Sri Lanka. The JVP took every attempt to convince India, ourfriendly and the closest neighbour for centuries, not to get involved in the political mess in Sri Lanka.
With the Indo- Lanka Accord signed in July 1987, the JVP then had only one option to prevent the abdication of sovereignty and the division of Sri Lanka by launching an armed struggle to defeat all enemies of Sri Lanka.
The majority of people in Sri Lanka supported the patriotic struggle until it was crushed by the UNP regime, which engaged paramilitary groups and state-sponsored killer squads to kill more than 60,000 people.
Most of the members of the Central Committee, along with one member of the political bureau of the JVP, were arrested and killed while they were in custody.
The only surviving member of the Political Bureau, comrade Somawansa Amarasighe, fled the country and re-organised the party from abroad.
The Sri Lanka Freedom party (SLFP) and the JVP formed an electoral alliance called United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) in January 2004. The Cabinet of Ministers of the new Alliance government consisted of four members from the political bureau of the JVP.
However, in June 2005, JVP left the alliance in protest against the then government’s decision to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on establishing a Joint Mechanism to manage tsunami- affected people in the country, particularly in the Northern and Eastern provinces.
The JVP established a new political culture during the last four decades in the country where party volunteers served the people without receiving a salary or an allowance from the party.
All the elected representatives of the JVP transfer their salaries and other allowances to a Common Fund which will be distributed for public projects.
The JVP is the first political party in the country that has transferred the taxpayers money back to the people in the form of various services to the people, including saving public funds by stopping waste and by rejecting luxuries.
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