By Sena Thoradeniya
(Continued from August 25, 2024)
Beginning from November I, 2023 we have posted 13 articles about the NPP, and now it is time to recapitulate what we have discussed.
We begin this two part article under the following sub-headings:
(1) NPP as the Largest and the Richest NGO in Sri Lanka: Its Funding Sources
(2) JVP/NPP is not a Marxist/ Socialist Party
(3) Rebranding and Repositioning of the JVP as NPP
(4 Presidential Election: The Impending Catastrophe”
(1) NPP As the Largest and the Richest NGO in Sri Lanka: Its Funding Sources
Nobody has investigated how the NPP has become the largest and the richest NGO in Sri Lanka. Contributions of its supporters domiciled in the West and Australia and of Ethera Api” fraternity in the Middle East, Japan and South Korea respectively are very modest compared to what it gets from undisclosed local and foreign sources. It cannot be ruled out that the NPP is also benefitted by black money.
One predominant local source of purported funding is the corporates. Chambers and foreign funded so-called Think Tanks” which have close links with corporates know how the NPP trade unions extort money from the business oligarchy. But these paragons of virtue, who think that they are the guiding lights of the industry and economy and the corporatesthemselvesare tight-lippedabout theseunderhand transactions. What can you expect from the good guys in Chambers and Think Tank industry” when they are the people who advise governments to increase taxes on one hand and give advice to businessmen as tax consultants how to hide income and avoid taxes on the other? Can the NPP stop these games they play? Never. As they are the main beneficiaries.
Why for the last so many years there was no strike or any other industrial action (go slows, work to rule, sick note campaigns etc.) in the private sector? It was teachers, principals, workers in the health sector, non-academic staff of universities and schools, Grama Sevakas, railway workers and employees in the power sector who resorted to industrial action. Were the workers and other employees in the private sector did not experience economic hardships as the employees in the public sector? They are paid better than the employees in the public sector, are entitled to better benefits and services (welfare) and there is no reason for them to resort to industrial action as a result is not the correct answer to this query.Only theNPP trade union leadership and corporates know the reason behind this fallacious industrial peace”. The fact was that the trade unions attached to the NPP did not organize any strike or industrial action in the private sector for reasons better known to them and the corporates.
Both these parties know how the negotiation process goes on for higher wages at the table; SMS and WhatsApp messages are being exchanged continuously between the NPP Union leader and his handlers while the negotiation process is on; this continues until the handler satisfies with the ransom money paid by thecorporatesto maintain industrial peace” without any disruption in the manufacturing process. Second stage of successful bargaining and wage hikes is collecting the first month’s added emolument from the worker to the NPP kitty which amounts to millions of rupees in one month depending on the strength of the work force in the business establishment.
Another modus operandi is getting inside information from banks from their men planted insideand buying mortgaged land and property at auctions, placed as security by those mortgagers who are unable to redeem their land and property. This is a party which promises to grant loans without collaterals when it comes into power!
In this context the NPP seekinga mandate to govern is only an eyewash. Now it is in a far better position than governing; governing is like tying a millstonearound its neck; it is said that the single life you are familiar with is preferable than unfamiliar marriage; for the NPP disruption, destruction and destabilization are more familiar than unfamiliargovernance. However, election results will increase its bargaining power with business conglomerates and overseas funding respectively.
Industry sources reveal that the NPP men and women in the manufacturing organisations, are over confident of their victory, now do not work to their capacity and as a result production has contracted and productivity diminished. As wages are not linked to productivity indicators as the Union opposes such a measure, workers are not losing monetarily. Is the NPP, which borrowed as an election slogan, the hackneyed phrase that, private sector is theengine of growth” mimicked by successive governments since 1977, trying to govern with such a lot in the manufacturing sector?
NPP leader has publicly stated that the private sector should play the pivotal role in industrial development and his government will only act as a facilitator and will not start doing business. This is also a hackneyed phrase mimickedby successive governments which is far from original thinking. But in this situation the NPP is very careful to allay any fears of their benefactors – the business conglomerates, thinking about their future deals regardless of coming into power or not.
NPP’s position regarding private sector is not different from the latest report of USAID-aided Advocata, released in August, getting the state out of business: the compelling case for privatization of state-owned businesses”.
During the protests against GR, leader of an NPP farmer organization led a demonstration of some farmers in Polonnaruwa in support of large-scale rice millers, dubbed as the rice mafia in Sri Lanka.
Sunday Times Political Editor statedon 25, September 2011, that JVP sold its VFM radio station for Rs. 100 million. JVP obtained the frequency free of charge to run its own radio station when it was a constituent partner of the UPFA.
NPP gets vast amounts of funds from overseas benefactors, all unaccounted.
It was reported that some social media portals and pages have been bought by some unnamed candidates to run their election campaigns.
Election Commission has set up a ceiling on campaign expenditure at Rs. 109 per voter and the NPP is also permitted to spend nearly Rs. 1.8 billion. They have already spent millions of rupees for their propaganda meetings held before declaring the election. Money spent for venues such as Courtyard Marriot, Monarch Imperial, SLFI and NYSC and other 5-star hotels in Kandy and elsewhere does not come under this. Can the NPP give an assurance that it will abide by the ceiling set up by the Election Commission and disclose its sources of funding?
2. JVP/NPP is not a Marxist/ Socialist Party
Ideology of NPP is neither Marxist, Socialist nor Social-democrat. It is not fighting for workers’ rights, emancipation of peasantry or for an egalitarian society. To what camp it belongs and serves now are not difficult to understand. It is only capitalist press in Sri Lanka and ill-informed correspondents in India colour it as a Marxist/ Socialist party. To understand different types of Socialism they do not bother at least to turn a few pages of the Manifesto of the Communist Party” which describes many types of Reactionary Socialism as Feudal Socialism, Petty-Bourgeois Socialism, Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism and Utopian Socialism.
NPP words and deeds do not conform with Marxist philosophy and political economy and any teaching of a Marxist theoretician from Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin to Mao Zedong.
Since the NPP does not quote any Marxist theory, does not admit that it is working according to such a theory, does not emulate any socialist country or distinguish how it differs from those and does not talk about a socialist economy, we should not worry ourselves whether it is Marxist or Socialist. It saves our time unnecessarily comparing their theory and practice with old and modern revisionists, turning the pages of Marx and Lenin if they claim that they are Marxists or Socialists. Only comparison we can make is with renegades of the Social-Democratic, Socialist and Communist Movements in different historical epochs.
What Marxist outlook we see in their utterances, policies and pledges? Nothing. Have they used Marxist political economy to analyse the current economic problems? Not at all. Have they adopted Marxist principles to Sri Lankan conditions as a guiding light to solve economic, political and cultural problems? No. Several times we have pinpointed that it professes a mixture of neo-liberal and Anarchist ideas.
In 1965 it began as a party of urban and rural petty bourgeoisie consisting of youth, students, unemployed graduates and urban white-collar workers. Rather than the peasantry and rural agricultural workers it worked amongst chena farmers in the Southern Dry Zone for the simple reason that they were owners of unregistered firearms, who defy government authorities as squatters in government owned reservations! Although it enlisted some workers from the industrial sector its emphasis was not on building a workers’ party. It did not have a nucleus of organised workers and from its embryonic stage rejected united front politics.
Thus, from its inception it was not a Marxist party although it paid lip service to socialism; what type of a socialism no one knew. Political education imparted to its recruits was not scientifically designed and with 5 classes it groomed a cadre to take up arms. The armed struggle and the line it followed to capture power did not conform to Bolshevik doctrine, again it was a hotchpotch of Zanzibar type capture in one night and adventurism of Che Guevara. It did not have any idea of what type of a government it will establish after capturing power.
During 1998/98 JVP and its military arm DJV targeted and killed its erstwhile comrades, Left party activists, Left trade union leaders, popular politicians, artists, journalists, professionals, academics, Buddhist monks and security personnel. In 1971 and 1998/98 it resorted to adventurism, pure militarism, killing,destruction of propertyrespectively, oscillating from Right Deviationist to Left Deviationist tendencies.
Now the NPP has become the party of upper segments of the middle class and technicians, technocrats, professionals and overseas Sri Lankans who are in the upper income bracket.
Nothing about imperialism, colonialism, capitalism or patriotism in their jargon. The predominant colour of their flagsand banners at all rallies and propaganda material have turned intopurple.This cannot be an accident.
Anura Kumara orbiting around Julie Chung and other Western diplomats and his trips to Western capitals and to India signify present JVP’s right deviation from ultra” Leftism in 1971 and killing spree in 1988/1989, capitulation to Indian regional hegemonism shedding its anti-Indian rhetoric.
There are poodles who do not bark much. Rewards and recognition can be used to help the poodle to learn that there are better ways than barking.Julie Chungand India have done it!
As we have stated earlier it is only capitalist press in Sri Lanka still labelNPPers as Rathu Sahodarayas”. Enough for what they understand by Red. Its political philosophy is Anarchism. By any chance if it comes into power, anarchy, a reign of terror, internecine – fighting among its own ranks will become order of the day. They will call it the purple revolution” and all those who oppose it, will be hounded, arrested and summarily executed as counter-revolutionaries. In such circumstances NPP turning into the most oppressive, tyrannical, anti-people political formation and common enemy of all anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-hegemonic, anti-neoliberal, national and patriotic forces cannot be dismissed.
It has become the party savored by Julie Chung and other Western diplomats, Indian hegemonists and their agents. If not how can NPP invite MohanMunasinghe, JRJ’s energy advisor to address the launch of its Energy Policy and Illeperuma, Professor of Chemistry to formulate its Science policy?
NPP mobilizing different segments of the society during the last two years and the pledges made at the Presidential election rallies have turned it to a populist party seeking refuge in welfarism. What the NPP pledges had been experimented in the last seven decades, Sri Lanka lagging even after 75 years of its Independence”.
3. Rebranding and Repositioning of the JVP as NPP
According to old timers of the JVP, old JVP had died a natural death after the Tsunami.According to them, a top leader currently holding high office is a person who surrendered with his T-56 in 1988/89 at Wadduwa. Another high-ranking leader retreated with some of his fellow sympathizers to a mountainous hideout to escape arrest, began to cry as he could not undergo any hardship. Later he was handed over to his mother with Rs. 500. Some other present top leaders were billas” or goni billas” (cowards, betrayers and informants) who helped the security forces to identify their own cadres and sympathizers, who assisted to intensify suppression, for them to escape arrest, torture and death, either to live as rehabilitated” insurgents or to come back to the political arena when the things turn right. The former ended up in tire pyres.
Some of these billas” migrated to new areas far away from their localities. They established themselves in new localities and entered mainstream politics. Some of them were lucky enough to win parliamentary seats from their adopted districts.
Goni billas” who covered their faces with gunny bags having little eye holes were taken to playgrounds or other public places where the arrested suspects were kept surrounded by security forces. Goni billas” movingtheir heads up and down (confirmation to say ‘yes’) or shaking the head from side to side (denial) decided the fate of the suspects. Most of the other leaders were arrested, tortured and killed; some decamped; some others formed their own political parties or joined mainstream political parties.
Except a handful of present JVP leadership the entire rank and file consists of those people who joined the JVP when it entered mainstream politics. JVP Oldtimers say that still the JVP maintains a set of underground sleeping cells for its anarchicalactivities. It was evident that this force used its might on May 9, 2022 as a helmet brigade and retreated immediately after engaging in arson and destruction. JVP sought arms and ammunition from Tamil Tigers; JVP/DJV obtained technology to detonate claymore mines in the South.
NPP is a different outfit, a haven for old Samasamajists who later became RW-Sirisena Yahapalana apologists, driftwood from old left parties, careerists, mediocrities, nobodies, unknowns, those who were attracted to NPP for personal gains and office, seekersof glory and ego-driven attention seekers.Ironically Tilvin Silva General Secretary of the JVP is not a member of the NPP National Executive Committee while all other leaders represent both JVP and the NPP. Anura Kumara keeps his position as the leader of both outfits. Only about half of the 28 JVP Central Committee members, and only a handful of the 73 of the NPP National Executive Committee (most of them areJVP Central Committee members), are NPP public orators. This provides some interesting data to understand the façade of the NPP. Harini Amarasuriya, its Prime Ministerial aspirant is not a member of the JVP Central Committee.
Some other upstarts are not in the NPP National Executive Committee. We do not think that there is a membership drive in the NPP, party branches, political work and political and ideological education, party discipline, criticism and self-criticism among the members and any linking with the masses (mass line). Most of these people and those who identify themselves as NPPers do not have any political line or political education, joined the NPP because of the favourable wave for them to paddle their individual boats. They will be the first people to run away when things go bad to NPPfrom current glory days. This will intensify as there is no party membership and party discipline.
Also, it is difficult to comprehend the power base of the NPP and the organic relationship between the JVP and the NPP. For its rallies it mobilises various segments of the society as a show of strength excluding working class and peasantry; today the NPP works closely with the capitalists, upper middle class, diaspora, cooperating with the Indians and the Western block.
In the capitalist world business conglomerates use rebrandingand repositioning as amarketing strategy; change their company names, logos or symbols, marketingstrategies and advertising themes; change the geographical areas of operation and market segmentation; create new designs for established brandswith the intention of developing a new identity in the minds of consumers and other stakeholders; such changes are needed to reposition the brand and to distance itself from any negative traces of previous branding,changing market’s perceptions of a product or service whichwere detrimental to its business.
What the JVP has done is rebranding and repositioning of its business” is easy to understand. Rebranding the JVP as NPP removes thenegative connotations, the stigma ithad as the mother of notorious killer group Deshapremi Janatha Vyaparaya(DJV). Rebranding also helps it to reach upmarket consumers”; see the new classes, higher segments of the upper middle class the NPP was able to attract, how it changed its target market”. It is evident that the JVP has contracted a topnotch advertising agency in Sri Lanka or abroad to do this, paying the advertising agency a thumping amount.
For electoral purposes it has changed from bell (Seenuwa) to magnetic compass (Malimawa). The magnetic compass has not increased its electoral gains;but has increased its popular appeal.Noweverything is being done in the name of the NPP and Malimawa.The governmentthey are going to form is an NPP or a Malima government. This marketing strategy has helped them to obliteratetheir murderous past, past politics, ideology, strategy and tactics and appear as a metamorphosized creature, helping it to attract a wider segment of the society.
The party which encouraged university students to strike, protest and disrupt university education system concealing their past now talk of digital platforms and industrial parks. That is rebranding and repositioning in simple terms. The late Sunil Perera of Gypsies fame, becoming an NPPer signified not that Sunil Perera had embraced NPP politics; it signified that NPP had embraced Gypsies. That is rebranding and repositioning in simple terms.
Formation of the NPP is a vulgar representation of the Marxist United Front. Basically, a United Front is a political front of all oppressed classes, strata and social groups formed in different countries in different historical periods. Therefore, a United Front is not a coalition of heads of political parties formed for a short-term objective as for an election. One should study Manifesto of the Communist Party” (1848) of Marx and Engels, Lenin’s What the ‘ Friends of the People’ Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats” (1994), Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution” (1905), ’Left-Wing Communism’ an Infantile Disorder” , Mao’s On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism” (1935) to understand what the United Front is and the necessity of organizing a broad National United Front. It was Stalin who forged an international front between the Soviet Union, Britain, Unites States and other countries which were opposed to the fascist rulers of Germany, Italy and Japan. During this period the Communist party of China preserved Kuomintang-Communist cooperation to drive away the Japanese imperialists out of China. So Anura Kumara and his cabal should study these tried and tested experiences.
JVP from its inception refused to seek out allies in the name of independence, total purity and opposition to any compromise” as Lenin stated in ’Left-Wing Communism’ an Infantile Disorder”. What the JVP did was and now the NPP does is, aiming not the principal enemies, but lesser enemies and would be allies. Both outfits failed to single out the principal enemy and to draw to their side those who would become their friends.
Unfortunately, these theories and practical experiences do not apply to the NPP as all groups affiliated to it are JVP proxies or JVP front organizations. Many of the other organizations are NGOs. We have in detail described the relationship between the JVP and the NPP in our article posted on 30, January 2024, entitled The strange tale of NPP (Malimawa) and JVP (Seenuwa): Vulgar representation of Marxist united front politics”. There we have discussed the true features of the NPP and how it does not represent a united front. We have stated that the JVP- NPP combine has become the largest and highly-funded, cash -rich NGO in Sri Lanka and asked whether the voters of Sri Lanka want to give power to an NGO.
With the formation of the NPP, JVP got its Janus-face (the double face). NPP is not an independentgrouping or a partner in a JVP-led United Front. It is the dual face of the JVP, a platform to hold a few artists, writers, academics, so-called professionals including Black Coats, ex-leftists, ex-Revisionists and Trotskyites, and now ex-servicemen and police officers.
Metamorphosis of the JVP in its thinking, attitudes, behaviours, dress code and political work is the result of rebrandingand repositioning.
4. Presidential Election: The Impending Catastrophe”
We have stated in our article posted on 30, January, 2024 that the NPP is the neo-liberal arm of the JVP funded to be rabble-rousers and ground campaign contractors propped up by the US and India. When the NPP men and women come to the streets American and Indian forces will land here to bring normalcy” and install a puppet regime.
The dress rehearsal was on May 9, 2022, arson took place with the aid of drones and Molotov cocktails; nearly 100 private residences of government politicians were set ablaze; a set of underground sleeping cells was used for its anarchicalactivities.Kuragamage Don Lal Kantha called for storming theparliament in July 2022.
Now the helmet brigade is dormant, gone into hibernation. There is no guarantee that the JVP/NPP would not vacillate to resort to such acts of violence if they win with state power in their hands.
If they win a reign of terror will begin; those who were against JVP/NPP will be hounded, arrested, tortured and summarily executed without any trialbranded as traitors andcounter-revolutionaries. A repetition of 1988/89. The ex–servicemen, Tri Forces Collective” or Thrivida Hamuda Saamoohikaya” and retired police officers would provide them with tactical mastery and combat proficiency what they lacked in 1971 and 1988/89. Why the NPP mobilized ex-military officers and other ranks? Is it a para-military force to engage the government forces? Or for training NPP’s stormy petrels?
According to a video going viral these days some NPP- attached ex-military officers wearing NPP tee shirts were seen threatening all other party men, retired Generals and Army Commanders with punitive action to end the 76 year- curse. Who are the members of the NPP Election Monitoring Centre? There are 5 retired police officers.
Kuragamage Don Lal Kantha’s utterances about their readiness for an armed struggle should not be ignored in this context; he gave warning signals at public rallies that they will make the final judgement; ranaviruwas have joined the malimawa for the second war”.
Lal Kantha’s utterances suggest that there is a clandestine military wing in the JVP; the role of the ex-servicemen joining NPP should be questioned under these circumstances; Lal Kantha again asked his people to come to the streets and demonstrate if the government does not conduct presidential elections, knowing very well that the presidential elections cannot be postponed; he was silent when RW evaporated the local government elections.
OftenLal Kantha had said that his party is even ready for an armed struggle if the need arises and he will not shy away from such action. His statements should not be taken lightly as it comes from a person who was active in Polonnaruwa area in 1988/89, although he did not reveal to the journalist how he saved his skin. He bellowed that they will definitely unleash repression once they capture state power (Rajya balaya aawoth api anivaryayenma mardanya karanawa”).
Lal Kantha in a YouTube interview said that they will suppress those whooppose their government; they have marked them who they are; people give them a mandate not only to take decisions, but to implement those; they will use both state power and government power; if you do not use state power there is no point of getting power; when they come into power contradictions will grow thousand times he said; all the big businesses will be taken over by them.
Furthermore, he said that they will empower each village with judicial authority to summarily hear cases and mete out immediate punishment to the guilty, to settle disputes at village level; he threatened a Kandy Municipal Council employee who carried out his duties according to the rule book that he will be rehabilitated” when they come into power. Samarasinghe, JVP/NPP Trade Union boss threatened the media personnel that they would not be allowed to flee the country and even if they manage to flee the country in the event of their victory NPP cohorts abroad would look after them and only place safe for them is a lunar cave. Anura Kumara said their electoral committees will be turned into peace committees”.
A social media post goes viral these days that the NPP has threatened with death a mainstream journalist if not he burns every copy of the book authored by him recently.
NPP knows very well that it cannot come into power legally. They are funded not to take power but to create havoc, mayhem and instability in the country. The other side of the coin is that this is the most favourable opportunity NPP got to increase its voter base or perform well electorally as an aftermath of the Galle Face protest. If it fails this time its local and international funders, expatriate Sri Lankans will lose faith in it. NPP leaders know that this is the Gordian knot that remains tied until cut, either to come back or fade into oblivion.
As there are five strong candidates in the present scenario not a single candidate would not poll 50% and 1 vote to be elected as the President. Result would be decided by counting of second preference or third preference. We don’t know how many days will be taken for the counting of 2nd and 3rdpreferential votes as we have never experienced a similar situation in the past.
If there is no winner in the first round of counting, it will take a very long time to count the second preference and if needed the third preference. Until the end of this process RW will remain as the President. During this interregnum NPP will put their people into the streets, to clamour election malpractices and requesting people not to accept the results creating chaos and turmoil.
As the NPP is so confident of its victory as they have said that they will top sometimes 70-80% mark, andIf the election results are not favourable to NPP itwill refuse to accept the final verdictrefusing to concede defeat and accept the verdict and mobilise its men to come to the streets questioning the validity ofresults as Trump, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Edmundo Gonzales of Venezuela did in the recent times. Remember in 2010 when SF,the horse theyjockeyed wasdefeated, JVPcried computer jilmart but could not go any further. This time they have money and resources, external backers, ex-servicemen and policemen, have a digital platform” to tabulate their own results, and to run wild after the election as in Venezuela. The role of ex-servicemen at this time will be crucial to watch. Will there be clashes with government forces?
Why the Cabinet of Ministers authorized all MPs to acquire two 12 bore repeater guns each in addition to the firearms already in their possession? Government MPs had vowed that they would not permita repetition of May 9, 2022.
In Venezuelaopposition volunteers managed to collect copies of voting tallies from 80% of the 30,000polling booths nationwide showing opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzales had won the election; foreign observers including observers of American Carter Centre determined the results announced by the authorities lacked credibility as in Bangladesh.
Before conducting its press conference on 31, August EU Election ObservationMission (EU-EOM) headed by itsChief Observer Nachos Sanchez Amor, Deputy Chief Observer andEU Ambassador met Julie Chung on 29, August to discuss the vital role of free and fair elections in Sri Lanka”. No process is more essential to a democracy, ensuring that every citizen’s voice is heard in shaping their future”, so messaged Julie Chung.
Commonwealth Observer Group (COG)led by former President of Seychelles Danny Faure declared in a statement that it will determine whether the upcoming elections conform to regional and international standards. These good guys should be taught that Sri Lanka has conducted many numbers of elections in the past successfully without any Observer Groups. Commonwealth Observer Group said that it will assess all factors impacting the credibility of the electoral process including counting and tabulation process. When they say credibility of the electoral process it is sure that they are prejudiced and file a report that there was no credibility of the electoral process, helping outsiders to intervene.
It was reported that a cyber-attack staged by hackers from North Macedonia delayed the vote counting and release of results in Venezuela. It was reported on 12 August that a US based Google server mimicking the website of the Election Commission of Sri Lanka attempting to gather personal information. What plans the NPP digital brigade has is not certain.
India and US will allow their elements to run riot by claiming fraud as in Venezuelauntil India and US strike a deal. They will try by every means to bring normalcy”and install a puppet government as their protégé as they have installed Nguyen Cao-ky deposing Ngo Dinh Diem their own making in former South Vietnam, Lon Nol in Cambodia and very recently Yunus in Bangladesh. There is a likelihood to enthrone RW again (as he is the incumbent President until the release of final countdown) or install a puppet regimeheaded by eitherHarini Amarasuriya orSajith Premadasa, whoever theperson mostamenable to their geopolitical interests.
NEXT: Obstacles for an Anura Kumara/ NPP victory; Outcome of the election: Impending Catastrophe and how to combat it”
