Whither JVP? Shape of things to come?

My piece “Whither JVP?” (The Island, 28 February) seems to have irked Brigadier (Retd) Ranjan de Silva very much, judging from the personal insults he has hurled at me in his reply printed in The Island of 4th March, including questioning my intellectual abilities!

I would have completely ignored his reply but for the unsympathetic reference to my dead uncle, murdered in cold-blood by the JVP. Perhaps, he is trying to justify his killing by referring to my uncle’s party but had he read my article he would have realised that my uncle did not go canvassing for a party. He simply went to meet his relatives to get support for my brother, which seems to be a crime in the teachings of the JVP!

He states” Unable to bear the pain, he migrated to the UK forsaking the people he claims to love so much” which again is his own interpretation as I never stated as such! In fact, we left for the UK before the murder of my uncle, fearing our own safety and to give our children an uninterrupted education.

The learned brigadier blames me for accusing the JVP of 60,000 deaths. Again, had he read my article with due diligence he would have realised that what I stated referring to 60,000 deaths was a quotation from the JVP website!

If just a JVP supporter and an admirer of AKD like the brigadier, who holds no position in the party by his own admission, goes to the extent of attacking a critic, not with facts but with distortions and personal innuendoes, one can imagine the ferocity of attacks by the JVP high-ups on dissenters, once they get power. It is not without precedence; JVP killing many innocents for not carrying out illegal orders sent via their ‘chit’ system. After all, many school principals who refused to close schools were murdered!

Is this the shape of things to come? Critics of the JVP, beware!

Dr Upul Wijayawardhana