Rival shows on JVP anniversary recall gory days

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, APRIL 6. The Sri Lankan Government and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which is emerging as a powerful opposition to the ruling People's Alliance (PA) coalition, locked horns on the 30th anniversary of the failed 1971 armed insurrection with rival shows that gave dramatically different versions of the events before and after it.

The anniversary, which fell on Thursday, was marked by the JVP, the group that staged the insurrection, with a well- attended public meeting where its leaders extolled the virtues of the party and gave out assurances that it was now a democratic force that would never take to arms again.

The 1971 rebellion was an attempt by rural youth armed and organised under the radical left banner of the JVP to capture state power. It was crushed by the Government, then headed by Sirimavo Bandaranaike, with the help of India and Pakistan.

But the rebel group reared its head violently again in 1988, this time in a Sinhala nationalist garb. Once again it was put down with a heavy hand by the Government.

The JVP estimates that over 10,000 of its cadres were killed and over 20,000 imprisoned during its two failed attempts to overthrow the Government.

On Thursday, half-burnt red shirts decorated the entrance to the party's meeting venue, in an attempt to recall the methods by which the uprisings were put down.

Literally rising from the ashes, the party announced in 1991 that it had given up militancy, and contested the 1994 parliamentary elections where it won a lone seat, improving its performance to 10 seats in the 2000 elections.

``The success of the party shows that those who laid down their lives did not do so in vain,'' said the party general secretary, Mr. Tilvin Silva.

But its electoral success has been a cause of concern for the ruling PA. Both parties share a common vote base among the rural poor, and the JVP voters in the last elections were mainly those who were disillusioned with the Kumaratunga Government's economic performance.

In the six months since the parliamentary elections, the JVP has been identified as the main force behind a rash of strikes, some of which have turned violent, in factories and university campuses across southern Sri Lanka.

On Thursday, the Government too marked the 1971 anniversary with its own show and a warning of another JVP conspiracy to paralyse the country. The venue was the National Art Gallery, strategically across the road from the open-air theatre where the JVP held its anniversary bash.

Outside the gallery, a float depicted armed JVP cadres standing over a bleeding monk, while another showed a village funeral scene. Inside, there were photographs and press cuttings vividly recalling the violence and the killings of 1971 and of 1988-89, when the JVP tried to overthrow the Government through a second armed insurgency.

Though not as well-attended as the JVP show, the exhibition drew its own share of the public, including school children who filed past the pictures of severed heads and bullet- riddled bodies silently.

``We want to remind the people of the JVP's violent history. The JVP has not severed its bonds with the ghost of terror,'' said Mr. Chandana Kaththriarachchi, Deputy Minister and the organiser of the exhibition.

Another senior Minister, Mr. S.B. Dissanayake, who participated in the inauguration, warned of the JVP's ``secret plans'' to launch a third insurgency.

According to the JVP, the Government was trying to defame the party and push it back to militancy so that it would not have to deal with it at elections.

``But their hopes may not become a reality because the JVP has learned that the military path has become an obsolete method of struggle during the last 30 years,'' Mr. Silva said.

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Section  : International
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