By Rajan Hoole –
Rajan Hoole
1989: The Eclipse of the JVP and the Perplexity of the Left – Part 4
Disillusioned Revolutionaries
Although the JVP did not realise it, the turning point in its fortunes came when it began to hound and kill its detractors from the Left. It was a tendency it shared with the LTTE in an effort to become the sole spokesman of the people. In turn the hunted who were placed in desperate straits were driven to form alliances, particularly with the State, and whence were attacked with renewed vigour as ‘traitors’. The society then paid a heavy price amidst confusion, mixed feelings and bloody vendettas. The difference is that while in the North-East the State’s legitimacy was almost zero and there were no political parties left that could convincingly hold their own in the face of LTTE hit men, in the South the situation was rather different. Even if one had a low opinion of the UNP, there were several other well- entrenched parties threatened by the JVP, and who by 1989 were desperate to see an end to it.
Sensing the JVP’s hostile attitude to ex- JVPers, several of the latter in 1985 went to Europe as refugees. The killing of ISU leader Daya Pathirana in December 1986 was a sign of things to come. Less known is the story of Vaz Thilekeratne. He, Mahinda Pathirana and Ranjith Peiris (Peera) were dismissed from the Party in 1983. A key member of the Party involved in the dismissal proceedings described them as close to Wijeweera, hard working and committed to the JVP cause. But, he added, that looking back, the Party did not take into account certain human needs that come with age. Some with growing family obligations were not paid to meet these. Peera was also described as jovial. Also having been senior JVPers at a time when the JVP functioned as a democratic party, they were on talking terms with several major political leaders of the day and moreover they knew the JVP inside out.
Vaz survived two attempts on his life at the end of 1986. The murder of Nandana Marasinghe in November 1987 was a further warning. Marasinghe, a much-respected member of the Party, had parted company with the JVP in 1981 to become a critic of Wijeweera’s leadership. He also became a social worker, culture enthusiast and secretary to the Anuradhapura Citizens’ Committee. He made a living to look after his wife and three children by selling sundry items. He was shot dead at the Anuradhapura fair in November 1987 by JVP agents.
Somawansa
Ranjith Peiris (RP) was then very close to Vaz. Vaz according to RP, decided that it was time for them to end the career of Wijeweera, who was prepared to destroy everything and kill his way to power. As for co-operating with the State, apart from other inhibitions, Vaz also thought it unsafe as the security services were infested with JVP sympathisers. He agonised and died of heart failure. Peiris knew the JVP were looking for him. From Gampaha he went to Amparai. The JVP came there, and missing him, killed his host most brutally.
RP thought of Vaz’s reflections, and decided that there was only one course left to him. He went to Colombo and about early 1989, started work with Colonel X of an intelligence unit. RP contacted Mr. Y, a refugee in Europe who shared his concerns. Mr. Y said that he would come in a week and asked RP to contact certain former JVP members, set up an information-gathering network and to make a list of prominent JVPers.
RP’s defence is that they were not killing innocent youth in such large numbers as the regular forces and others were doing. Their objective was to destabilise the JVP and get at the leadership. One of the first things done by Mr. Y who planned out political strategy was to issue a leaflet in Wijeweera’s name. Mr. Y knew Wijeweera and his style intimately. Within two days, from a denial issued by Wijeweera, they confirmed his presence in this country.
Another operative Mr. Z with good connections in the media-intellectual-NGO circles put together a political think tank. They met once or twice, but then worked individually and avoided meeting in a large group. They produced analyses, critical articles about JVP and about the dangers of the whole society becoming militarised. This group worked separately and autonomously of intelligence and military operations. But their productions were channelled into the propaganda work of RP’s unit, which used them in the form of leaflets, literature and radio broadcasts.
Colonel X gave them complete freedom to work on condition that he was kept informed of what they were doing. They operated two radio stations. With a view to confusing the JVP, they operated one in the JVP’s name and the other in the name of a Left Revolutionary Army. The latter was critical both of the JVP and the Government. A particular talent of RP’s was to talk to captured JVP area leaders, turn them against the JVP and release them to become informants. Having known RP well, Wijeweera is said to have become paranoid about JVPers arrested and released. Some of them are said to have been executed by the JVP. RP is also said to have taken steps to protect JVPers who turned over.
They once arrested an area leader who had possession of a receipt for some fans, a washing machine and a refrigerator. They found that the items were for Wijeweera. They identified the area and kept it under surveillance to discover the locations of the other leaders as well. About the same time Colonel Janaka Perera got information about Wijeweera from another detainee. He arrested Wijeweera and brought him down to Colombo from a bungalow in St. Mary’s Estate, Ulapane, where he lived under the name Attanayake. This was on 12th November 1989. Colonel Perera who met a clean-shaven man in an upper middle-class home had first thought that he was mistaken and turned back. He then went back and is said to have brought him along cautiously at first, saying that President Premadasa wished to speak to him. There was also the fear of an ambush, which, however, did not materialise.
In Colombo RP and Mr. Y were brought to verify the identity of the man detained. Mr. Y wanted to be left alone with him, and within a short time Wijeweera is said to have broken down and pleaded with him. Mr. Y is then said to have checked out the information he had about other leaders and asked Wijeweera to go on a video recording and ask his men to lay down their arms.
According to RP and other sources, it was Ranjan Wijeratne who took the decision to kill Wijeweera and Premadasa was not told. Wijeweera, as told by persons who were there, repeatedly asked to talk to Premadasa. A senior police officer in Colombo told us that Wijeweera was executed by SSP Ronnie Gunasinghe. According to the same source, when Wijeweera was being led forward, the soldiers present were seen shivering. The cameraman who took Wijeweera’s appeal on video, it is reported, later broke down and cried, so giving himself away.
In his book A Soldier’s Version Major General Sarath Munasinghe (Retd.) gives a complementary account of Wijeweera’s final hours. He along with his superior Colonel Balagalle and NIB Chief Zernie Wijesuriya spoke to Wijeweera for about four hours. He was then taken away for execution. This was about 3.45 AM on 13th November 1989. Munasinghe reports Wijeweera talking easily about his experiences. When questioned in English, he answered in Sinhalese and reminded his interlocutors that his second language was Russian. He refused to answer questions when Ranjan Wijeratne walked into the Ops Combine HQ and spoke to him. When a “well known” police superintendent walked in, held Wijeweera by the hair from behind and tapped his cheek, Wijeweera looked at him and said sardonically, “I thought it must be someone like you”. When he was finally taken, Wijeweera gave Munasinghe a private message to be passed on to his wife and shook hands with him.
This interlude evidently took place after RP and Mr. Y had been with Wijeweera. The second encounter suggests a man who, unlike in the first, was collected and dignified. We have here a man going down in history leaving behind conflicting reports about his real self. Perhaps, in a man who was both a killer and unquestionably a leader with considerable charisma, the attributes of cowardice and valour, trivialness and gravity, the vulgar and the noble, and a deep affection for one’s own family coupled with a complete disregard for others, are not contradictions. There are also individuals who remember the late SSP Ronnie Gunasinghe as a courteous man and a sincere friend.
Most of the remaining JVP leaders including Gamanayake, Saman Fernando and Shantha Bandara were soon taken in and summarily executed. Of the senior leaders, only Somawanse Amarasinghe slipped out of Colombo with the help of influential persons and now moves between Paris and London. He is a brother of the wife of Premadasa’s lieutenant and cabinet minister, Sirisena Cooray.
According to RP, on the very day that Wijeweera was killed, Mr. Wijeratne called a halt to the mass executions of JVP suspects rounded up. A youth said independently that on that day he with several youths were loaded into an army truck in Bandarawela after nightfall and the truck began moving towards their place of mass execution. Then it stopped, and they were unloaded. Apparently, the order to stop all executions had just come in. Mr. Y left the country soon afterwards. RP told Colonel X, “Now I want to go and live like a man”. Colonel X has kept confidences and has not breathed a word about the persons directly and indirectly involved in what was on the whole a sophisticated operation.
RP went away and lived with his wife and children in Gampaha for a year. He then faced the problem of means to bring up his family. He needed a job. He went to Colombo and sought out his old friends, former JVPers and intellectuals, who were linked to the intelligence operation. RP felt that they were trying to distance themselves from him. He found that in conversations among themselves, they referred to him as ‘the Butcher’! We understand that RP recently went abroad. Most of the information here is drawn from testimony given to a journalist by several of the persons concerned.
To be continued..
*From Rajan Hoole‘s “Sri Lanka: Arrogance of Power – Myth, Decadence and Murder”. Thanks to Rajan for giving us permission to republish. To read earlier parts click here
justice / March 7, 2014
The army honed its expertise in mass executions on the hapless unarmed JVP youth.
Yet,doubt persists about executions recorded by armymen and shown on the Channel 4 videos.
Will Rajan Hoole’s account of the JVP, be a part of the history to be considered by a proposed International commision to inquire into the end-of-war fatalities,as,there is a also a proposal to investigate IPKF atrocities?
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Liberal One / March 7, 2014
Hapless unarmed JVP youth?
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Native Vedda / March 8, 2014
Liberal One
“Hapless unarmed JVP youth?”
Hapless unarmed innocent youth.
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Native Vedda / March 8, 2014
justice
“Will Rajan Hoole’s account of the JVP, be a part of the history to be considered by a proposed International commision to inquire into the end-of-war fatalities,as,there is a also a proposal to investigate IPKF atrocities?”
Proposed independent credible investigation must deal with all war crimes committed by all parties to the conflict between 5th April 1971 and now.
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Amarasiri / March 8, 2014
Native Vedda,
It needs to go back to February 4, 1948.
There were many crime committed between 1948 and 5h April 1071, as well.
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Native Vedda / March 8, 2014
Amarasiri
“There were many crime committed between 1948 and 5h April 1071, as well.”
Those were other crimes and cannot be classified under war crimes or crimes against humanity.
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Safa / March 7, 2014
Many of those who carried out these brutalities have received their dues and so will those who still carry on regardless.
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vishvajith / March 7, 2014
Is it Col. Janaka Perera or Col. Hettiarachchi who captured Wijeyweera ?
Reports indicated then, it was the latter, perhaps it was to hide Col. JP’s involvement.
Earlier, Col. Hettiarachchi’s brother a Planter was killed by the JVP for hoisting the National Flag on independence day.
Would someone opine.
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Wickramasiri / March 7, 2014
Interesting and brought back sad memories of friends murdered by the JVP. So far the JVP has not apologized for the atrocities they committed. I wonder how many people were killed by Wimal Weerawansa, MP?
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Lanka Muslim, UK / March 7, 2014
Articles of the Author seems to be discussing only the ‘consequences’ of the ’causes’and not the causes which could mislead the reader into forming a negative thinking only of those named ‘responsible’ for the consequences. Can it be forgotten that the atmosphere for political violence in Sri Lanka was set in by the state of Sri Lanka beginning with the Police shooting and Killing of Kandasamy on June 5, 1947; followed by the State violence during the 1953 hartal and then the various attacks on the JVP from the time it was launched in the mid 1960s. Will it be honesty to deny that the emergence of the JVP was due to the the failure of the ‘Old Left’ that preached ‘peoples emancipation’ through a socialist revolution led by the working class. The ‘old left’ betrayed the cause for which Kandasamy and others ‘let their blood’. The ‘old left’ only used those ‘blood letting’ to boost their image to become part and parcel of the ‘capalist and suppressive groups’ and ended-up abandoning cause of the ‘revolution of the working class’ that they preached. It is in these circumstances that the JVP emerged to represent the youth who felt that they have ‘no future’ in the country within the ongoing political process. Perhaps, Rohana Wijeera and his group used this frustration of the youth to lead them to wards ‘complicating objectives’ is one matter. But the ‘first use’ of violence by the ‘state’ comprising of ‘capitalists’ and the ‘renegade leftists’ to undemocratically suppress the JVP from its very inception that created the various tragic circumstances are the ‘initial’ causes of the ‘different’ consequences that followed and continue to follow. Therefore, it is necessary that the author should also discuss the ’causes’ in his articles.
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Amarasiri / March 7, 2014
Rajan Hoole –
1989: The Eclipse of the JVP and the Perplexity of the Left – Part 4
Disillusioned Revolutionaries .
Thank you. These facts, if facts, need to be described and disclosed, so that historians 100 years or more from now will have better references than myths to go from.
We all know what the Mahawansa myths, by Monk Mahanama, described as a Tissue of Absurdities, by a German Scholar, are creating in Lanka.
Please compile and publish in this age of the Third “Gutenberg” Revolution for the dissemination of information, both facts and myths.
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vishvajith / March 7, 2014
Hear Hear.
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Upul / March 7, 2014
As a Sri Lankan I am very curious and interested in understanding what has happened in my country in the last 100 years. Of course, the versions of history will be depend on the writer and it is said that history is written by the victor.
I think it is incumbent on all of us, whatever affiliations, lineages, faiths and color to get a reputed institution to document the good, bad and ugly so future generations will understand why things happened, how they happened and who made it happen.
Actually, if we could understand our immediate past, we should have a pretty good understanding of our present!!!
The description of Wijeweera’s capture and death although interesting does not spell out the full picture. 30 years later, why should X Y or Z be shielded. If they had a role and they were doing their jobs, it should be revealed. The people should know.
I never understood how Somawansa escaped or lead a charmed existence. Now I know. B.I.L. of UNP strongman Sirisena Cooray. How about that for confusing loyalties?
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karl singham / March 7, 2014
Hoole’s work in these pages is fascinating stuff and of immense interest,as Amarasiri says, to historians and social scientits.However,one would like to know the methods by which Hoole came to get all this information,some of them rather personal.
In any case,keep up the good work.
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Piranha / March 8, 2014
This mass murderer Ranjan Wijeratne received his just desserts when he was blown to smithereens by the LTTE. How many innocent youths were butchered by this evil satan. One of a few good deeds done by the LTTE for which the Sinhalese should be thankful.
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aratai / March 8, 2014
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Mahawamsa rewritten.
:-)
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Lanka Muslim, UK / March 8, 2014
Will Rajan Hoole also write on the operations of the ‘Felix Dias, Ian Wickremanayake and Jayawickrema’ trio who took the whole Srimavo Govt. of 1970 under their dictatorial control and cuased immense damage to the Rule of Law in the country.
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Fathima Fukushima / March 8, 2014
Good riddance to Wijeweera.
I like SL army for not being discriminatory.
When Singhala terrorists kill, SL army killed them.
When Tamil terrorists kill, SL army killed them.
Now we wait when Muslim terrorists kill, SL army to kill them too.
No ethnic problem.
Anyone gets the treatment.
Well done.
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aratai / March 8, 2014
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SL Army is good at killing innocent people.
In order to kill one terrorist, they kill 10 innocent civilians.
They never aim, they just shoot.
:-)
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pearl thevanayagam / March 8, 2014
Congratulations and thank you for your succinct and important series
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