JVP has forgotten its past

JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake seems to be perturbed over the news that the next presidential election would be held ahead of schedule. The Opposition should be elated that the polls would give them a chance to regain power, but Anura Kumara vehemently opposes the idea, fearing that his political nudity would be further exposed.

Dissanayake has said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa's third term of presidency will turn the country into a pool of blood. He told a public meeting organised by the JVP in Kantale recently, that the country is moving towards a political nightmare that would destabilise it.

The JVP leader said that the Government can legitimise President Rajapaksa's third term candidacy as the UPFA enjoys a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

This means that the JVP has already conceded defeat and their opposition for an early presidential election is due to the fact that neither the JVP nor any other party in the Opposition could prevent the incumbent President from winning another landslide victory. He said that the JVP would not let anyone go against the Constitution.

Dissanayake is acting like a saint as if he had come down from heaven. It is common knowledge that the JVP cared two hoots for the Constitution and introduced the jungle law during the 1988/89 insurgency. Turning the country into a pool of blood is nothing new for the JVP as the party had done it twice earlier, using innocent youth as scapegoats to achieve its petty political goals.

If Dissanayake wants to know more about these abominable acts he should consult his predecessor who had been a firebrand of the 1988/89 JVP terror.

During the 17-year UNP regime, the main demand of the Opposition was not to postpone elections and conduct them in a free and fair manner. Now that the Government goes for elections ahead of their due dates in a free and fair manner, the Opposition is shouting from the rooftops that there are too many elections and that the presidential poll should not be held before its scheduled date.

The election phobia of the Opposition is quite understandable. Having lost 30 elections, including four presidential elections and an equal number of general elections, the Opposition is unable to bear any more defeats. Leaders of all political parties in the Opposition are cognizant that they are no match for President Mahinda Rajapaksa at a Presidential election. Hence, it's quite natural for them play the cry baby role even before elections are announced.

The Opposition in any country looks forward to elections with open arms as it's the only way to gain power democratically. However, it is a different scenario altogether in Sri Lanka as the Opposition is entreating the Government not to hold early elections. This alone shows the losing mentality of Opposition parties.

The first of the two JVP uprisings was in 1971. Even before facing its first major election, the JVP began its operations with a jungle mission - to topple the then Sirimavo Bandaranaike-led United Front Government. Thousands of youth, mostly undergraduates and those from rural areas sans any political maturity lost their precious lives during the JVP's failed putsch, under Rohana Wijeweera in 1971. Former JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe had also been a ringleader of the 1971 insurgency.

After the party was proscribed, the JVP resumed its jungle life like a duck takes to water. The JVP intensified its gun culture in most parts of the island during its second putsch against the democratically elected government in the late 1980s.

Overjoyed by the UNP's 1977 landslide general election victory, former President J.R. Jayewardene granted a general amnesty to JVP activists behind bars and invited them to join the democratic mainstream. This helped the founder leader of the JVP, Wijeweera, to contest the 1982 presidential election. He polled a mere 273,428 votes, much to the chagrin of JVP supporters who had overestimated their position. This prompted the JVP to abandon the ballot and repose faith in the bullet. A large number of political, social and religious leaders were brutally killed by the JVP during its 1988/89 terror. The JVP gun culture was at its peak at the time and many people feared to say anything against them, as they knew that they would have to pay for it with their dear lives.

The mindset of most JVP members was to capture power at any cost. Although they project themselves as die-hard patriots, they had an ulterior political motive at every demonstration or rally. The JVP, more often than not, reposed more faith in the bullet rather than winning the franchise of the masses at elections.

The JVP was never short of funds as many hardcore JVP activists many of whom had committed murder in broad daylight during the 1988/89 terror and fled the country and made regular contributions. Those hardcore JVP activists during the 1988/89 insurgency sought asylum in Europe and some Asian countries such as Japan. They lavishly contributed to JVP coffers.

It is an open secret that those JVP activists who fled the country in the late 1980s had committed innumerable human rights violations, destroyed valuable public property and pushed the country to the brink of disaster in one of its darkest eras. Although the JVP now talks glibly about an agro-based economy and sheds copious tears over the plight of rural farmers, they themselves went on the rampage and burnt many Agrarian Services Centres, which rendered a yeomen service to the rural farmers.

The JVP, during its 1988/89 era of terror, also destroyed public property worth millions of rupees. They torched many Government buildings in the villages and set fire to many CTB buses. After Wijeweera's defeat, the Jayewardene regime went on an all-out offensive. The controversial Indo-Lanka pact signed by the Jayewardene Government in 1987 with India incited the JVP to accelerate their subversive activities and the party was proscribed again. This prompted the JVP to return to its jungle life.

During the 1987-1989 JVP terror, people across the length and breadth of the country underwent untold misery. Similar to its unsuccessful attempt to capture power in the early 1970s, the JVP made a desperate attempt to capture power through the bullet. During this black era, the JVP killed tens of thousands of politicians, religious and business leaders, media personalities, school principals, teachers and social leaders who did not support JVP politics.

It is still fresh in people's minds how the JVP issued death threats to kill those who opposed them. The JVP declared 'unofficial curfews', disrupting normal day-to-day life. It attacked the Security Forces and these so-called patriots killed the relatives of soldiers during its 1988/89 terror.

Almost all top JVP politburo members were vanquished by the Premadasa government in 1989 under the direction of the then Deputy Minister of Defence Ranjan Wijeratne. The only surviving senior member of that JVP leadership - Somawansa Amarasinghe, sought political asylum abroad and returned to the country after the UNP lost the 1994 presidential election to the SLFP-led coalition of the People's Alliance. The 1994 People's Alliance Government helped the JVP to emerge from its political wilderness. Nevertheless, what was uppermost in the minds of most senior JVP leaders was the gun culture which they had mastered.

The JVP, after its poor showing, at the recent Provincial Council elections have realised that its political bankruptcy would be fully exposed at the next presidential and general elections. Hence, the JVP's election phobia is quite understandable. Apart from the JVP, other parties too in the Opposition are suffering from the election phobia or Mahinda Rajapaksa phobia. They have learnt, to their dismay, that they could never win a presidential election as long as President Rajapaksa contests it. This is akin to demanding that the most fancied boxer of a championship be ruled out because the other competitors cannot defeat him.

It is up to the voters to decide who the next President should be. If the Opposition reposes faith in democracy, it must permit the masses to decide, rather than levelling wild allegations even prior to the bout. It is crystal clear that there would be barely any challenge for President Rajapaksa when he seeks a fresh mandate from the masses to continue the work envisioned in the Mahinda Chinthana.