The return of JVP

THE JVP is back. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the party with Marxist roots which fuelled two failed insurrections in the country in 1971 and 1987-88 that led to the killing of tens of thousands, has emerged as a key player in the Sri Lankan political arena following the recent elections to five provincial councils.

The ruling People's Alliance (PA) won the highest number of seats in all the provinces in the 6 April polls, but it faced a tough contest in two of them. In the densely populated Western Province, where a quarter of the country's people live, the PA and the main opposition United National Party (UNP) each won 44 seats, and in the Central Province, the second biggest in terms of population, the PA took 24 as against the UNP's 23. And due to election rules that give the highest vote-getter in all five provinces two bonus seats in each of the provincial councils, the PA ended up with the most seats. Even so, the balance of power in the Western Province (which includes the Colombo metropolitan area) will be determined by the JVP, which won eight of its total haul of 15 seats there.

For the moment, the party which once said "a plague on both your houses" to the country's two contending power groups, has no plans to prop up either side even in return for provincial ministerial offices. "We are not supporting anyone to form a government," said JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva after the results were declared. "But we will use our power to work for the country and support development."

That may be easier said than done, for the jvp has a gory past to come to terms with first. During the 1970 elections, the then emerging JVP helped Sirimavo Bandaranaike and her United Front (UF) sweep the elections. The UF alliance — the   precursor to the present PA —included the country's old   left,   the Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Communist Party, with Bandaranaike's own centrist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) calling the shots. But a year later the JVP had turned against the government and launched its first insurrection. Armed with home-made bombs and shotguns commandeered countrywide, JVP fighters of both sexes, many barely out of their teens, captured police stations in many parts of the country in a surprise onslaught in April 1971.

With many parts of the country in the control of insurgents, a frantic Bandaranaike sought and obtained foreign military help to put down the revolt. Indian soldiers were used to secure the main Katunayake air base, while Indian and Pakistani pilots flew logistical sorties. (Foreign troops, however, were not deployed directly in anti-JVP operations). The 1971 uprising was brutally suppressed with an estimated 20,000 young people killed.

The JVP, or what was left of it, got back at the UF government in the 1977 elections when it supported the huge landslide for the UNP that swept Bandaranaike out of office and annihilated her allies of the old left which had been a romantic and vigorous presence in the Sri Lanka polity even before Independence in 1948. The victorious J.R. Jayewardene government released the JVP leaders from jail on their undertaking that they would enter the political mainstream. Asked what would happen if they resorted again to armed insurrection, president Jayewardene had said ominously, "Let them first find a place to hide."

Jayewardene lived to rue those words. Embattled with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam gaining ascendancy in the North and the East, the president brought in Indian troops in 1987 to deal with the Tamil Tigers. This was sufficient provocation for the JVP to leap on to the SLFP bandwagon in anti-government protests. Adopting a fiercely anti-Indian stance, the JVP launched its second armed adventure in 1988.

Compared to the violence of the second revolt, 1971 turned out to have been a picnic. The war in the North-East had militarised the country, and the JVP used weapons and deserters from the army with deadly effect. The JVP's ability to kill at will created a fear psychosis and the government was virtually brought to its knees.

A beleaguered Jayewardene who had been flirting with the possibility of a third term decided to retire, bequeathing the UNP leadership to prime minister Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1988. The country was on the brink of anarchy and the government hardly in control when the JVP made a monumental blunder. It threatened to wipe out families of members of the security forces if they stood loyal to the government. That threat sparked a brutal campaign to root out and destroy the rebel movement. Thousands were killed with the security forces bumping off anybody suspected of having even the remotest connections with the rebels. Tyre pyres with burning bodies were a common sight on roadsides. A specially commissioned rapid deployment force of the army eventually liquidated the JVP leadership in 1989 and Premadasa was quickly able to restore normalcy. Human rights organisations estimate that up to 60,000 were killed.

For now, the JVP, emboldened by its strong showing at the recent polls, expects to do even better in the forthcoming election in the Southern Province, a traditional JVP stronghold. However, the party, outlawed first by the UF in 1971, and then by the UNP in 1987, knows it has to correct its violent image. Says General Secretary Tilvin Silva: "The government wants to project the JVP as a violent group. That is not correct. The JVP was not responsible for the insurrections. It was done by a group of former JVP members who were angry over the proscription of the party."

Although that claim may not wash in the minds of the electorate, the JVP is particularly attractive to urban youth and has significant support in the universities. With both the PA and the UNP committed to market economy and divestiture of state enterprise to private ownership, the party has its attractions for 'disadvantaged' young people whose best job prospects lie with the shrinking state sector.

For the Sri Lankan polity, however, the elections had another message, besides the JVFs rising popularity. Out of the total 5 million votes polled, nearly 350,000, or 14 percent, of the votes were marked invalid. Many of these were the votes of people who have tired of both the PA and the UNP, but do not wish to vote for the JVP as an alternative. That they still took the trouble of going to the booths to invalidate their votes is something to be noted with the seriousness it demands.