KAMALIKA PIERIS
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna was created by Rohana Wijeweera, whose real name was Patabandige Don Nandasiri Wijeweera. He was a member of Sri Lanka’s Communist Party (Moscow wing) led by S.A. Wickremasinghe and in 1962 was awarded a scholarship to Lumumba University in Moscow, to study medicine.
In Moscow, Wijeweera had apparently changed
his loyalties from Moscow to China. When he came on a visit to Sri Lanka in 1964,
Russia did not permit him to return. According to Wijeweera, the reason given
was his new attachment to Communist China.
Unable to return to Moscow, Wijeweera had joined the Communist
Party (Peking wing) in Colombo. Wijeweera was given the task of re-organizing its
youth, but instead tried to promote his own ideas. He had apparently tried to
oust the Shanmuganathan faction in the party as well.Wijeweera
wasexpelled from the Communist Party
(Peking wing) in 1966. It is clear that neither Moscow nor Peking wanted
him. He was not valuable to them. Also
they did not trust him. Rohana Wijeweera, it is alleged, had been secretly
recruited by USA when he was in Moscow.
Starting
in 1965, Wijeweera set up a well
organized underground movement, initially labeled simply as’ Viyaparaya’. The Viyaparaya had become Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna
by May 1970. There was a political party called Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna led
by KMP Rajaratne In the 1950’s. This party is forgotten today.
Wijeweera
visited various parts of the country, to obtain support for his movement. The
movement gained support in the rural areas
where there were many alienated youth.
He was able to build a base among the educated Sinhala youth there.
Wijeweera
targeted O and A Level students and unemployed graduates. Only 19 per cent of
the membership was poorly educated, concluded Gamini Samaranayake. 79% were
from Maha Vidyalaya and 6.4% from Madhya Maya Vidyalaya.
The movement
received strong support from University students. The Socialist League of the
University of Peradeniya, the Communist
Party ( Moscow) breakaway faction from
the University of Vidyodaya led by M. Wijesekara and the Communist Party ( Moscow)
oriented faction of the Student society
of the University of Vidyalankara, headed by D. I. G. Dharmasekera joined the
movement. Arasaratnam observed that there were definitely more University students
in the JVP than the mere 156 given In Obeysekera’s sample.
Wijeweera
was looking for followers, whom he could trust and who were dedicated.
Recruitment of new members was therefore done at a personal level. ‘A’ brought in
‘B’ who had been a classmate and so on. Gathering new members into the fold was
referred to as “koku gahanava”. The term is revealing.
Those
seeking membership were initially exposed to a discussion on the prevailing
political situation in Sri Lanka. Those who passed this’ test’ were then
treated to a series of ‘classes’, which
were held in secret. “Classes were held in the night, in cemeteries for
small groups of five or 10, recalled a member.
Those who passed this hurdle were then
admitted to the fifth lecture which dealt with the JVP strategy. The
prospective members were thereafter placed under observation, to see whether
they would be loyal to the movement and then admitted into the movement.
These five ‘classes’ were on five different subjects. The first class dealt with the ‘economic
crisis’, the problems facing the peasant farmer and the rural worker. The
second was on ‘Independence’ giving a historical background into the
ill-effects of colonial rule. The third on ‘Indian expansionism’ focused on how
Indian capitalists were trying to spread their tentacles into smaller
countries. The fourth was on the failure of the Left movement. The fifth class,
which came later, was on ‘the path the Revolution should take’.
J. V. P. Members were
classified into two lists.List A
consisted of full time members, trustworthy, loyal, and identified only by pseudonyms. There were 500 full-time members in 1970, said
Samaranayake. We had a sense of adventure and never felt the
hardship. We would travel without any money for bus fare and walk into a
boutique, eat and walk out without paying. “Polu thibba,” recalled a JVP
member.
The B List
consisted of part-time
members, who were employed or studying, and were prepared to devoted their
spare time to the activities of the group.
These sympathizers were used mainly for
propaganda activities, such as poster campaigns. There was also a C List” of
those who could be approached for help. JVP established contacts in Buddhist
temples. They used them as hide outs after the 1971 insurrection.
The
strength of the JVP is not known. Samaranayake said that before 1970 the
membership was 2,000, but by 1970 it had increased to about 3,000. 98 % were under 35 years of age.
The JVP organization
consisted of a Central committee and Politbureau at the top, followed by
district leaders, district secretaries, village
committees, police committees, grass roots units and full time volunteers. Cadres
were organized according to police divisions and police districts. The grass roots unit was a group of five, in
each Police area, the ‘pahe’ committee.
The police committees were charged with preparing an armed attack on the local
police station.
The Politbureau was not elected at a party congress. But was probably appointed by Wijeweera.
There was even a doubt as to how many it contained. The leaders, when questioned could not agree
on the number. Each gave a different figure.
The
politbureau met every month in Colombo and the district secretaries would take
the decisions back to their district and from there to the cadres. Couriers,
the “mallis” who knew the hideouts would take the messages to the
cadres. Communication was by code.
But decisions were not made by Central committee or Politbureau.
All matters were decided by the Secretarial committee composed of Wijeweera,
Sanath, Karunaratna and Loku Athula.Sanath” was Wijesena Vitharana,
a teacher from Kalattawa, Karunaratna” was W.T. Karunaratne from the Inland
Revenue Department, ‘Loku Athula’ was Nimalsiri Jayasinghe.
The high degree of security consciousness introduced into each of
the JVP committees, is significant, said Godahewa Indradasa of Sri Lanka
Intelligence, who had been assigned to investigate insurgent activities. JVP conducted their political affairs in
secret. The leaders used aliases to prevent identification.
The ordinary
members of the JVP did not know the structure of the organization. They were
kept in the dark. It was only after I came to prison, that I came to know, that
the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna had a politbureau, one JVPer told the police.
The JVP
had four working
divisions, propaganda, education, organization and arms, with each division
headed by one of the four members of the Secretarial
committee.JVP started a propaganda section to conduct meetings all over the
country, except North and East. JVP impressed the public through its poster
campaigns. The same poster appeared island wide overnight.
Several ‘farms’ were established, not for farming but for
conducting secret classes and storing weapons.
The first were in Anuradhapura, Tissamaharama and Kirinda. The Kirinda one was a poultry farm. The
first educational camp was held in Akmeemana in 1967 followed by one in
Tanamalwila. Education camps were thereafter held secretly
in remote parts of the country. Camps were held in Kurunegala,
Anuradhapura Tissamaharama, Elpitiya,
Akmeemana, Tanamalwila, Tambuttegama, Kataragama and Middeniya. Each camp taught about 25 to 100 cadres. Food was obtained from chenas.
The trainees had to be up by 4 a.m. for military-style drills and
arms training by navy personnel who had been drafted in. The youth were told
that armed struggle was necessary, and they must be prepared to fight. Instructions in the use of arms were done
through diagrams. A rudimentary form of
military training was given at the camps, with sketches of guns on the
blackboard, pictures of rifles being circulated and rifle drills and karate
being taught. The inadequacy of the military training was clearly shown in their
attack on the Polonnaruwa police station, said Samaranayake, where 39 JVP were
killed and many were wounded compared to few government casualties.
The JVP
also started making bombs. Bombs were
made using condensed milk tins. These were collected in large quantities and
sent to remote areas. JVP cadres
were collecting fused bulbs and jam
bottles, tins and similar-sized containers to make bombs and Molotov cocktails.
The containers were filled with kerosene or petrol and had a fuse.
Bombs were
also being made using cheena chatti, cast iron shells, dynamite and had an
elementary mechanism to blow them up. In
September 1970, Rohana Wijeweera ordered the distribution of 1000 bombs and
1000 Molotov cocktails (petrol bombs) to each JVP police division unit.
Every member was asked to have a gun and 10 cartridges ready. Due
to this, there was a spate of robberies of guns and cartridges in 1970. They
were removed from houses, taking nothing else.
There was an unprecedented increase in the theft of guns in the country,
said Indradasa.
By early
1971, recruitment to the JVP was stopped and members were urged to collect as
much money as possible, through whatever means to arm the movement. Several
heists were carried out, such as the Okkampitiya bank robbery, the Badulla mail
bag robbery, the Ambalangoda bank robbery and the York Street robbery to raise
funds. There were robberies also at branches of Peoples Bank, Bank of Ceylon, a
CTB depot, a Mail train and the Urubokka sub-post office.
Although the movement was supposed to be secretive and undercover,
JVP openly conducted political debates, contested University student council
elections, and organized University student strikes. Between July and December
1970, Wijeweera addressed some twenty public rallies in places like Kegalle,
Wellawaya, Tangalle, Negombo, Moratuwa and Elpitiya. The JVP also published its
own paper, the Janatha Vimukthi, which was widely read. JVP held 16 public meetings between August 1970 and February 1971.In
March 1971 Wijeweera travelled around the country, visiting Hambantota,
Colombo, Kandy, Matale, Dambulla, Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa.
The
Movement was now gathering momentum. Each member was instructed to collect his
uniform and kit consisting of a gun, box of cartridges, boots, stockings, black
trousers, blue shirt with pockets, an army belt, black running shorts, black
vest, steel helmet, knife, torch, Lighter, haversack, first aid box, and canvas
cloth.
The
subversive activities of the JVP had come to the attention of the intelligence
services and a special unit has been formed in the CID to
watch them, said Indradasa. The first
police report of the existence of the JVP underground movement was presented to
the Cabinet in 1968. In 1970 the government set up a
special police unit nicknamed the `Guevara Bureau’, through which all
intelligence pertaining to the subversive movement was channeled.
From January 1971, at Kegalle, police
intelligence and the spy network floated by SP Seneviratne with the special
vote of Rs. 50,000 started receiving significant information. Reports came in
from grama sevaka, DROs and school principals in Kegalle district, of young
boys going ‘missing’ from home for days. Tailors in the area told us how orders
for a large number of uniforms had been placed.
There were reports in Kegalle of small groups
of youth meeting in secret in lonely places,
the ‘desana paha’ being delivered, collection, manufacture and storage
of weapons, jungle training of fighting cadres, testing of devices in the
jungle, shooting practice, strange explosions. Six-foot lengths of barbed wire
were being removed from fences. These were subsequently cut into pieces and
used in anti-personnel bombs
At the Government Agent’s residence in
Kegalle, one could hear at night, the tell-tale ‘clink-clink’ of the insurgents
making their way through the forest behind the Residency. They were carrying
‘Molotov cocktails’ in their haversacks and as they walked over the uneven
terrain, stumbling over rocks and roots, the bottles and cans would knock
against each other.
Kegalle authorities informed the government
.Daily dispatches were sent through special messengers, but no action was
taken. Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike discussed the intelligence reports
at her Cabinet meetings with MPs from the area. The MPs said repeatedly that
our boys” wouldn’t do such things.
Then in February 1971, a clear warning went to the authorities
that something was brewing among the university students. The JVP had hidden a
large number of detonators in the ceiling of Peradeniya University’s Marrs Hall
and due to the heat, they began exploding like firecrackers. The explosions went
on for five days.
In March
1971, there was a massive blast at Nelundeniya in Kegalle. Five died. The
authorities found a 15′ x 20′ pit with many tunnels leading from it. It was an
arms dump. The army was alerted. The
police began raiding JVP hideouts police arrested about 500members and sympathizers of the JVP. Wijeweera
was arrested on the 13th March and sent to the Jaffna jail. On March
16, the government declared a state of Emergency.
The JVP was not deterred by these developments. The JVP inner circle
met in secret On April 2 at the Sangaramaya temple of Vidyodaya University,
Kelaniya and decided that all police stations in the country would be attacked
at 11 p. m.on April 5th. This decision
was communicated to the district cadres and local leaders.
Wijeweera had sent a message that posters and leaflets should be
published calling for his release and 500 comrades should be sent to Jaffna to
secure his release. The plan therefore was
to launch a simultaneous night-time attack on the police stations. Also to
attack concurrently the Jaffna police station, Jaffna naval base and Jaffna
prison and rescue Wijeweera.
The police
station attacks were to be launched by 15 separate groups, each consisting of
40 to 50 JVPers.The attackers were armed with shotguns, locally-made hand
bombs and `Molotov cocktails’. They were in home-sewn dark blue uniforms, military boots, and
carried haversacks. They were ordered to fly the JVP flag, a lion on a red
background, on captured police stations. Their
attack approach varied. Some launched frontal attacks arriving in buses
and Lorries which had been forcibly commandeered, while others resorted to more
surreptitious approaches.
But things
did not go according to plan. Wellawaya Police Station was attacked prematurely
at dawn, 5.20 a.m. on the 5th April. Two policemen were
killed. This attack alerted the
government. An all-island curfew was
declared on the 6th of April.This curfew lasted until
mid-July. It continued till the end of November , 1971 in the Western Province.
This
curfew prevented JVP attacks in Ampara, Nuwara Eliya, Badulla, Ratnapura and
Monaragala,but did not deter the JVP elsewhere. JVP continued to attack police
stations, in the rural areas till the 11th
of April. Police stations around the country were placed on alert but they were
ill-equipped to face the sudden onslaught. Police stations in remote areas were
temporarily closed.
Ninety two
police stations across the country were attacked and five, Deniyaya, Uragaha,
Rajangane, Kataragama and Warakapola were
taken by the insurgents. Fifty-seven police stations were damaged.
43 police stations in Kegalle, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Galle and Ambalangoda
districts were abandoned. Police
stations at Akuressa, Hakmana, Kamburupitiya and Mawarala were closed and the
personnel were brought down to Matara. In the Matara District all police
stations other than Dondra and Matara were attacked and several policemen were
killed.
After the initial attack on the 5th of April
1971, there came a second phase which
was confined to the following districts: Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa in the
North Central Province, Kurunegala in the Central Province, Monaragala in the
Uva Province, Kegalle in Sabaragamuwa
Province, Matara, Galle and Hambantota
in the Southern Province. Kegalle and Galle were hotbeds with over a thousand full-timers
each. Badulla had around 500 members.
JVP occupied several major towns in semi-urban
and rural areas.In some cases the JVP
by passed towns to secure the
surrounding countryside, thereby isolating the government forces in the town centers. There was long-term occupation, protracted
guerrilla warfare and open fighting with
the military.
JVP assumed command in areas where the police
had withdrawn and the civil administration was in disarray. They took over
whole areas , disrupted the transport system, telecommunications, power
supplies.Main roads and rail tracks were damaged. They ran the post office, distributed food from
cooperative stores and even held
their own courts of law.
The JVP
entrenched itself in Kegalle district. The Kachcheri area, where
the police station and the Courts of Law are located, was held by the
armed forces while the JVP dominated the rest of the district. There were fierce confrontations along the main road from
Kegalle to Colombo. Tholangamuwa Central College, located some five miles from
Warakapola on the Kegalle road was the JVP headquarters. A bulldozer was parked
across the entrance to the school so that no one could storm them.
All petrol stations in the Kegalle district
were sealed ,by the government to
conserve fuel and police guards deployed at water supply stations, electrical
sub-stations and the telecom exchange. But the JVPers were one step
ahead, said KHJ Wijedasa , who was GA, Kegalle at the time. They felled trees across the power lines,
plunging whole areas into darkness. Cycle chains were thrown over high tension
wires to cause short-circuits. Phone lines were cut and roads blocked with
uprooted trees and lamp posts.
By midnight on April 5, there was a total
blackout in the district. There was no transport, no communication, no vehicles
on the roads, and no water. Kegalle was deserted,” said Wijedasa. The police radio was the only link with the
outside world. Within the district, all 14 police stations had fallen. There
was minimal resistance by the Police. The cops just vanished.
JVP
fought in certain areas in the Anuradhapura District,and
in the small towns of Elpitiya and Deniyaya. Elpitiya was under the JVP for nearly three weeks. At Batapola, in Ambalangoda, the JVP had barricaded
themselves with trees and lamp-posts. Sentry points had been set up and big
bungalows and walauwas commandeered. Some 300 shotguns had been stockpiled like
firewood. The cadres got around on bicycles, with couriers going from one
stronghold to another. Villagers were only allowed to leave their homes to find
food. The JVP held Batapola till April 23. Then the army with the help of
villagers attacked their camp.
At Matara a lorry-load of bombs entered the fort. The moment we found the lorry of bombs we
clamped a curfew and everyone chased away from all roads by the army.
Later we found evidence of two other lorries coming with bombs. The cadres
could not group and the lorries could not reach the cadres and Matara was saved
from a bloodbath, said Garvin Karunaratne, then GA Matara.
At Deniyaya the police station was repeatedly attacked and the
police retreated all the way to Rakwana and Embilipitiya as the roads to Matara
had been taken over by the JVP. Deniyaya
was ruled by the JVP for around three to four weeks. In Deniyaya many well to
do people were killed. This included Dr.
Rex de Costa. it was his murder that made Prime Minister dispatch a platoon of
soldiers to the Matara District, said Karunaratne.
Akuressa was under the control of the insurgents. The army was
ambushed about ten miles from Matara and the JVP fire power was so strong
that the army had to retreat. the Government had lost control of most of
the Matara District for around three
weeks during which period the JVP ran their kangaroo courts
arresting, charging people and punishing them even with death, said
Karunaratne.
The armed
forces delayed launching a counterattack
. Initially, the government did not send
army troops to the affected areas when the GAs asked for them. Garvin Karunaratne,
then GA Matara and Neville Jayaweera, then GA Vavuniya, said, independent of each other, that the
government ignored their requests for
security forces when the JVP
attacks were at the initial stage. Army units were sent much later.
However, by
the end of April the government forces had got their act together. the
JVP ‘s entire plan of attack had been revealed to the security forces by an
informant. JVP ‘s camps were attacked by air and
land. Mortars were used. Military co-
ordinators were `appointed to govern the districts previously held by the JVP.
JVP retreated to
the jungle or national park nearest the areas they were in. They went, in the south to Sinharaja , from
Anuradhapura, Kegalle and Kurunegala districts to Wilpattu, Ritigala and from Dambulla and Polonnaruwa to the
surrounding jungles. By the end of August 1971, 69 were hiding in Wilpattu and
about 50 in the forest surrounding Dambulla. They did not know how to survive
in the jungles.
At Haputale, the 100 cadres
who had gathered to attack the Haputale Police Station, retreated through
Attampitiya to Uda Pussellawa and on to the Walapane jungles, heading for
Hunnasgiriya. One they way, the seized guns from people who possessed licensed
firearms.
200
from the Kegalle and Kurunegala
districts retreated to Wilpattu National Park in two lots under the cover of
darkness and along unpopulated tracks. During the day they camped in isolated
areas either on the mountains or in the jungles. A. C. Alles observed that this
retreat was marked by murder, arson and looting. only about 30 reached their
destination.
A special
Department under former IGP, Aleric Abeygunawardena was
set up to investigate the insurgency. OICs and ASPs were asked to send
their investigation files direct to this office. Under Emergency Regulations,
admissions made to ASPs by suspects were made admissible in courts. State Counsels and other lawyers were asked to
prepare cases for prosecution and advise the police officers on further
investigations. Cases were filed in courts without delay. CID and Intelligence
officers were recruited to help with arresting the rebel leaders in hiding.
In May and
June 1971, with the backbone of the
uprising broken, Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike offered an amnesty to
those who were willing to surrender. It is reported that 3,978 surrendered in
response to this amnesty. Yet another amnesty was offered from the 7th to 9th
of June when 236 surrendered. It appears that another ten day amnesty was declared
thereafter and ‘thousands surrendered to local DROs
and temples.’
There were
approximately 18,000 in custody by the end of 1971, said Samaranayake.11,748
arrested and 6,025 surrendered.Not all of them were JVP. On the contrary, it is obvious that some
of them were never involved in the armed struggle, said Samaranayake. He suggests that only about 20,000 to 25,000,
actually participated in the insurrection. According to Indradasa, 8000 JVPers, out of a possible 14,000, were
arrested by government. The last JVP
fighters were not captured until 1976, observed Samaranayake.
The JVP in custody, were kept in detention camps in the Universities, under army volunteer
officers. Some
200 state officers were mobilized to question them and record their statements
on ‘pink’ forms for those who had been arrested and ‘blue’ forms for those who
had surrendered. charges were brought against 3,872 persons who were believed
to have been involved in armed attacks on police stations and other acts of
political violence.
A Criminal Justice Commission comprising five
judges of the Supreme Court, including Justice Alles was hurriedly set up, in
May 1972 to try those prisoners,
dispensing with the normal laws of evidence, to deal with the heap of
cases. when the C. J. C. trials concluded in 1975, 92 of the accused had
been acquitted, 2,519 had been released on suspended sentences, and 365 had
been sentenced to prison terms.
According to Sri Lankan Government statistics,
about 12,000 suspects were placed in rehabilitation camps Those not involved in the insurgency were released’. This
process was slow. Nevertheless, compared
to release rates in other Third World countries, the rate of release in Sri
Lanka was quite fair and timely, said Samaranayake.When
the U. N. P. Government came to power in
1977, the remaining detainees, including Wijeweera, were released.
The human cost of the JVP insurrection was high.
Fifty-three Security Forces personnel had died and 323 were injured. 37
police officers were killed and 195 wounded.
Though the government gave the figure for JVP as 1,200 dead, it could be safely
claimed that the actual number of deaths ranged between a minimum of 6,000 to a
maximum of 8,000 said Samaranayake.it was estimated that some 8,000
-10,000 JVPers were killed said another source. According to Wijeweera, 15,000
of his cadres had died and twice that number of civilians had lost their lives.
JVPers who escaped death and custody
went underground with the objective of re-organizing the JVP. ( continued)
