Up the garden path with the JVP. Again?

by G. B. Morrel

In 1970-71, when I was enrolled at Maharagama Teachers’ College, the JVP, better known then as Che Guevarists, were active there, most noticeably in the hand-written posters they plastered on the parapet wall at the entrance. But we English trainees, the “kaduwa” group, had little interest in revolutionary politics.

Then, in April ’71, the JVP launched the insurgency. The college was closed for the April holidays. Amateurish and poorly organised, the insurgency was crushed within a few weeks.

I received a telegram from the principal, asking me to report to him ASAP. When I did, a police jeep took me to the Maharagama police station for questioning.  My crime? Playing cricket. Apparently, the team’s opening bowler was a JVP leader, and I had dropped-in at his “chummery” on the way to practice.

The police station had been attacked by teacher trainees on April 5, and three captured trainees were lying in the remand cell, beaten-up and whimpering in pain. Despite the repeated yells from the HQI next door to “give him (me!) the works”, the kindly sergeant who questioned me realised that this terrified “lansiya” had no terrorist motives, and I was allowed to go home that evening. But others weren’t that fortunate. When the teachers’ college reopened, the more active Che Guevarists were not to be seen. Taken up the garden path by the JVP, and duped into an illusion of taking over a country with old shotguns and crude hand bombs, they had vanished into prisons or unmarked graves.

I begin with this personal anecdote because, over the past 50 years, I have observed the JVP leading the people of this country astray, while committing atrocities that have brutalised our society. This is not a lengthy, analytical dissertation on the duplicity of the JVP, but a brief attempt to revive readers’ memories and warn of coming danger.

Intimidating higher education

My next encounter with the JVP was at Kelaniya Campus, where I taught as an instructor later in the 70’s. The students’ council was in the hands of the JVP by then, and, mainly through intimidation, they ran the campus. New students were ragged mercilessly, and staff members who opposed the ragging threatened. Once, passing the Vice Chancellor’s office, I saw that it was crowded with JVP goons, some even standing on his desk and shouting at the VC, who was seated, obviously terrified. A grandfatherly professor, he was no match for the thugs.

I also recall some young mathematics teachers who were admitted to campus for a diploma course. These teachers were dragged to the dark basement of the science faculty and brutalised (ragging is too polite a word for the violence that was enacted).

Due to strikes and violence, the campuses was shut down for months; I stayed home so often that neighbours assumed I was unemployed. Because of the postponements in the academic calendar, by as much as four years, some students preferred to go abroad for higher studies. Once bitten, many of them never returned to Sri Lanka, depriving the country of their talent and potential contribution.

Another short-sighted JVP move was against the North Colombo Medical College (NCMC), a fee-levying, non-profit institution that was set up by the College of General Practitioners. The JVP led a non-stop campaign against the college, culminating in a bomb attack in 1988. The college had graduated more than a thousand doctors by then. It was nationalised the following year.

Privately funded higher education was unknown in South Asia at that time, and had the college continued, it would have attracted international students from the region, bringing foreign exchange into the country, and leading to the creation of a high-quality medical hub, including world class medical schools and teaching hospitals. Instead, now, millions of dollars leave the country each year as fees by Sri Lankan students enrolled in foreign medical schools.

Years later, I came to know Dr. Sathis Jayasinghe, who was a founding member of the NCMC. Gentle and soft-spoken, a beloved family physician, he was called the “visionary who created 1,000 doctors” when he passed away last year. Had the college been allowed to continue, Dr. Jayasinghe would have created 10,000 doctors, saved Sri Lanka millions of dollars, earned foreign exchange, while providing world class medical care to everyone.

The insurrection

More Sri Lankans may have experienced the JVP’s second violent attempt at seizing power in 1987-89.  Better organised than the 1971 insurgency, the JVP resorted to “subversion, assassinations, raids, and attacks on military and civilian targets”. Not only were the police and security forces attacked, but even their families were not spared.

In essence, the JVP was being opportunistic, assuming that the government would not cope with two conflicts, in the north and east with the LTTE and with the JVP elsewhere. But they were proved wrong, instead forced to drown in a bloody retaliation that the government unleashed. For a moment, assuming that the JVP was victorious, how could they have fought the LTTE? With the help of their erstwhile friends, the North Koreans?

Two of the JVP killings still rankle me. One is the assassination of Vijaya Kumaratunga, who brought a sense of idealism from his heroic cinema roles into politics. The second was the killing of Premakeerthi de Alwis, who brought so much joy to music lovers like me with his lyrics describing the bitter sweetness of youthful love. Called “a lyric writing machine” by his first wife, Premakeerthi wrote hundreds of songs for numerous artistes, and would still be writing memorable lyrics if he had been allowed to live.

What was achieved by killing Vijaya and Premakeerthi?

Making heroes out of murderers

Every year, the JVP holds a commemoration for “fallen comrades”. At this and other occasions, their founding leader is portrayed with a beret at a rakish angle and a beard, symbolic of Che Guevara and Castro. But the Che that they idolise succeeded only in Cuba. His attempts to foment rebellion in Africa and South America went nowhere. Likewise, Castro’s flawed policy – allowing Soviet ballistic missiles on Cuban soil, only 90 miles from the USA – lead to strict sanctions by the US that have impoverished Cuba ever since. I do not condone the sanctions, but what did Castro expect to achieve by confronting the US?

Wijeweera, and other leaders of his era, have blood on their hands. While they are romanticised as heroes, no collective commemoration of JVP victims is held. Instead, their families mourn these victims in private grief.

At least two mainstream Sinhala newspapers have been carrying those beret clad photos of Wijeweera, and, on a regular basis, describing the 1971 insurgency, even those pathetic, starving retreats through jungles, in romanticised, nostalgic terms. Mythmaking at its best, and fodder for the gullible.

India as the ogre; Lessons not learned

Having been in politics for more than 50 years, and with two crushing defeats under their belts, one would expect the JVP to learn some lessons. But, going by recent statements by Sunil Handunetti, a JVP leader, it seems otherwise.

One topic of the JVP’s infamous five lectures was India’s expansionist agenda. In essence, the JVP was virulently anti-Indian. In a recent statement, Handunetti appears to echo the past, when he criticised the leasing of some oil tanks in Trincomalee to an Indian company, and a proposed bridge to connect India with Sri Lanka.

Those oil tanks were built before World War II, when Trincomalee, with its deep harbour, was developed as a logistics hub by the British. The 100 tanks, with a total capacity of 1.2 million tons, far exceeds Sri Lanka’s needs, and only 15 tanks are used by the Petroleum Corporation. Fifty tanks were leased recently to an Indian company, but the JVP sees this as a loss of sovereignty; instead of earning foreign exchange, allowing the tanks to rust and decay is their preference.

Anyone who has seen the desolation and the hard scrabble lives of Wanni residents would support any form of development in the region. The shutdown of the ferry service between the two countries dealt a blow to the little direct commerce that existed between the Mannar area and southern India. Talk of a bridge connecting India and Sri Lanka has been in the air for years. Such a link would be a boon to low impact tourism and commerce, and improve the wretched lives of many Wanni residents. Even if the bridge ever gets built, these Indians will not be coming as “kallothonis”. Instead, they will be arriving through formal immigration and customs regulations.

But, the JVP only sees swarms of Indians entering this country, threatening our so-called security and sovereignty. This type of thinking is known as “island mentality”, and harks back to the narrow-minded thinking of the “five lectures”. Of course, “threats from India” usually draw headlines and votes.

Ever since the race riots of 1958, and later fed by other acts of mass violence (the Black July of 1983 comes to mind), the JVP revolts, and the civil war, a large section of our society has no doubt turned brutish. The 2500-year civilization is no more than a myth, and Buddha’s teachings have been tarnished by politicised monks. Corruption, endemic to our society, has turned stratospheric since the “Helping Hambantota” scam. From the lowly peon at a government office to the highest offices of the land, not much gets done without a bribe.

Thus, the yearning for change in the country is understandable. For most people, a radical change of government – power going to a group that has not held power before – appears to be the obvious choice. Hence, the giddy enthusiasm for the JVP, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake being anointed the coming messiah. (Ironically, that’s how Gotabaya Rajapaksa was hailed before the last election.) But, with just 4% of the total vote at the last Presidential election, a snowball has a better chance in hell than a JVP victory at the next election. Nevertheless, there is another danger.

The Ralph Nader Effect

Nader is acclaimed for his activism in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform. Seat belts in vehicles, which have countless lives and major injuries, are attributed to his critique of American automobiles. But he has gained notoriety for a costly run for the Presidency of the United States.

The US Presidential election of 2000 came down to the wire, with the State of Florida deciding the ultimate winner. George W. Bush, the Republican candidate, won Florida by just 537 votes over the Democrat, Al Gore. Nader, running as the Green Party candidate, received 97,421 votes in Florida. Undoubtedly, Nader was a spoiler. The cost of Bush’s Presidency – to the Middle East, to Afghanistan – in the hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the massive displacement and destruction caused, the trillions of dollars gone to waste, is beyond question. So is the degradation of the environment.

When the next Presidential election comes around, if the percentage of the vote gained by the JVP is 10% or more, the SLPP (Pohottuwa) may squeeze out a win, a repetition of the Nader effect. The JVP will be the spoiler.

The JVP has much to its credit. It is perhaps the least corrupt, the least racist political party. It does not kowtow to monks. It has built up a solid following among the youth, but support from a broader section of the population, one that has experienced the 1971 insurgency and the 1987-89 insurrection, is lacking. An apology for those costly mistakes, and a renunciation of ardent nationalism, may bring them to the mainstream. But, as matters stand, the JVP is unlikely to compromise.

People my age bear the burden of memory of having seen firsthand the duplicity of and the destruction caused by the JVP. They have not changed their ways. Instead, a new crop of young men and women are being led up the garden path.

Human beings have notoriously short memories, and “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”