{"id":105489,"date":"2020-08-14T15:23:55","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T22:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=105489"},"modified":"2020-08-14T15:23:55","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T22:23:55","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-17-c-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/08\/14\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-17-c-4\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 17 C 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The April 1971\nJVP insurrection took the country by surprise because it was against a popular, SLFP government which had just one year\nbefore, won 91 seats out of 151 in the 1970 general election. The JVP\ninsurrection of 1971 was met with stunned disbelief, said Suriya\nWickremasinghe. It was marked with confusion, bewilderment, rumor and\nspeculation. How such a situation could have come about. Was there a foreign\nhand behind this extraordinary event?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Of course there was.   It was obvious\nthat this was no home grown insurgency. But JVP was able to hide its\ninternational links. “<\/strong>We were\nhome-made revolutionaries, with no proper arms and ammunition and bombs made of\ntinkiri tins,” said JVPer Sunanda Deshapriya. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We in the CID were asked to probe whether and\nhow the JVP was funded, said Gamini Gunawardene.  But no\ndefinite avenues of financial assistance to the J. V. P. were established, said\nSamaranayake.The international links maintained by the J. V. P were\nvague, said Samaranayake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a scapegoat was needed. The public   were told that North Korea was responsible\nfor the insurgency. <\/strong>Implicating\nevidence was found and the North Korea Embassy was immediately closed down and\nthe diplomats banished from Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Experts knew that North Korea had nothing to\ndo with it, so did seasoned politicians. Rohana Wijeweera, it was alleged, had\nbeen secretly recruited by USA when he was in Moscow.\nN.M Perera stated that the insurgency was a CIA operation. Several   politicians,\nincluding N.M. Perera   thought the JVP\nwere CIA agents, added H.L.D. Mahindapala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The JVP also said\nso, accusing each other of being CIA. Dharmasekera, who was dismissed from the\nJVP, accused Rohana Wijeweera of being a CIA agent. Rohana Wijeweera said that Dharmasekera\u2019s\norganisation \u2018Mathroo bhumi Arakshaka Sangamaya\u2019 was CIA. When, \u2018Vikalpa\nkandayama\u2019, another splinter group of ex JVPers, emerged, Wijeweera said its\nleader was a CIA agent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts observed that when the government,\nappealed to foreign governments for assistance \nthe assistance from the US government was very little. However Prime Minister Sirimavo had been\ntold to ask for help from the US Seventh Fleet which was exercising in the\nIndian Ocean at the time. The Sri\nLankan Government received significant military assistance from the U. S. S.\nR., including five fighter air-craft and six helicopters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne, who was GA, Matara at the time\nsaid that in the days immediately after April 5, 1971, \u2018when we were holding\nonto the coastal strip at Matara,\u2019 a very large ship appeared on the coast and\ncame very close to Dondra. Sri Lanka did not have a ship of that size.  Watching the drama through binoculars from\nthe Army camp I saw a number of boats being lowered to the sea and things being\nput into them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dondra\nwas under JVP control at that time except for the police station and the\nadjacent areas and there was no possibility of conducting checks in the area.\nWe radioed Army Headquarters and one of our planes came, hovered around the\nship and we heard machine gun fire for around fifteen minutes. The ship\nvanished just afterwards. This episode is known only to me and the Army on duty\nat that time, concluded Karunaratne. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government responded strongly to the Insurgency\nand suppressed it successfully, using army and police. We have learned too many\nlessons from Vietnam and Malaysia. We must destroy the insurgents completely.\nWe have no choice, said an army official. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there were criticisms. Senator S Nadesan\ndrew attention to the Emergency Regulations enacted at the time, particularly\nRegulations 19 and 20 which dealt with arrest, detention, cremation and burial.These Regulations say that any police\nofficer may arrest without a warrant a person suspected of an offence under the\nEmergency Regulations.  The earlier\nsafeguards that such a person must be produced before a magistrate within 24\nhours and also that police must report to magistrate if they arrest a person\nwithout a warrant were removed. When the Parliament met, many MPs,\nmainly government MPs, brought in many allegations of abuse against the police. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was Sri Lanka\u2018s\nfirst insurgency, and the country, naturally, had no laws to deal with it. A\nSedition act had been prepared in March 1971, said Samaranayake   and this was to be used for arrest and trial\nof insurgents on charges of sedition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attorney-General\nstated that there were no provisions to prosecute JVP members who had been\ntaken into custody without arms. The government therefore passed the Criminal\nJustice Commission Bill. The Criminal Justice Commission conducted\ninvestigation into the 1971 uprising. Critics said that the Act violated\nnatural law.  It was intended to\nprosecute persons for an offence committed in the past. It was retrospective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senator Nadesan made a long speech in\nParliament about the JVP insurgency. He took pains to project the insurgency as\na home grown operation.   Senator\nNadesan\u2019s speech      was used as an\nappendix in the report made by Lord Avebury, who came   on behalf of Amnesty International, to\nreport on the 15,000 people kept in detention without trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his speech, Nadesan attributed the rise of\nthe JVP to population growth, higher education and unemployment. The insurgents\nwere mainly poor undergraduates who saw no future for themselves, said Nadesan.\nThere were no jobs awaiting them.  They\nwere studying because there was nothing else to do. Politics was the principal\ndiet of the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nadesan agreed that the   armed uprising had attacked a duly\nestablished, democratically elected, popular government. But he listed several weaknesses in the government,\nsuch as nepotism, favoritism when it came to jobs and compulsory retirement of\nthose over 55. Very violent speeches were made by the sons of these dependants,\nobserved Nadesan. Also said Nadesan, there was unemployment. People were thrown\nout of jobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MPs gave themselves pensions, enhanced\nallowances and wanted to import Peugeot cars for official travel. The Senators listening to Nadesan helpfully\nadded at this point, \u2018there were also objections to MPs foreign travel and\nsafaris\u2019. Nadesan said he   did not know\nof those and was speaking only of what he did know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nadesan listed a series of allegations\nregarding criminal behavior on the part of the armed forces dealing with the\ninsurgency. Allegations have reached my ears from  reputable sources  whose names I will not disclose here, that\ninsurgents who surrendered or were captured were shot in a large number on the\nground that there was no way of keeping them in prison and there were no\nfaculties for transporting them or for accommodating them. Whether this\nallegation is true or not is a different matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Allegations\nhave been made that in areas far away from the place of actual confrontation\nbetween security forces and insurgents, a number of youth were arrested on\nsuspicion. Some were shot summarily, others assaulted, tortured, taken away and\nshot. Suspects were asked to run away\nfrom the police station and then shot when running. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allegations have been made that in some police\nstations torture and sadisms have been indulged in by some police officers,\nthey were deprived of their wrist watches and then sent off. Nadesan had been\nable to verify one such case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allegations have been made that the houses of\nparents of a large number of young persons who were suspected of being\ninsurgents have had their houses burnt down. Allegations have been made that\nsome members of the police force and army have in broad daylight gone to shops,\nmarkets and other places and helped themselves to goods and in some cases they\nhave indulged in looting of shops and boutiques, taking away jewellery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allegations have been made that after curfew\nhouse in places close to Colombo like Nugegoda and in faraway places like Badulla\nmembers of security forces have gone into boutiques and shops and carried away\njewellery and cash to the extent of Rs 5,000, 6000 and 7000. Allegations have\nbeen made that people\u2019s residences, shops and boutiques with all valuables have\nbeen burnt down, concluded Nadesan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neville Jayaweera,\nthen GA Vavuniya, said the JVP were not mean criminal types. They were decent\nand most respectful,  very young and idealistic. They were fighting for a new society. They\nwere a couple of thousand starry eyed youth armed with shot guns and homemade\nbombs, with a charismatic leader. They had\nno idea what they were to do after capturing Vavuniya police station and\nKachcheri, added Jayaweera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My encounters\nwith them in 1971 in Vavuniya had been wholesome ones, he said. Jayaweera had sent some money to his wife\nthrough a trusted bus driver.  JVP had\nstopped the driver, detained him, used the bus, and then sent him on to Colombo\nwith the money intact.    Jayaweera was full of praise for their\nhonesty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neville Jayaweera\nfelt sorry for the dead JVP. They were misguided but they had caught a vision.\nThe loss of their lives was no less tragic, their deeds no less heroic. For\ntheir dead no bugles, no volley in salute, only the indignity of tyres.  JVP leader attacking Vavuniya police station took\nover three hours to die, it was heartrending\nsaid Jayaweera.  I was left with a pang\nof conscience at the wanton killings of their cadres carried out by the\nsecurity forces, said Jayaweera. (Continued)\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS The April 1971 JVP insurrection took the country by surprise because it was against a popular, SLFP government which had just one year before, won 91 seats out of 151 in the 1970 general election. The JVP insurrection of 1971 was met with stunned disbelief, said Suriya Wickremasinghe. It was marked with confusion, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}