JVP in Sri Lanka

[Saorsa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janatha_Vimukthi_Peramuna

Can anyone tell me anything about them I won't find from wikipedia?

They seem to have been a very interesting organisation in the past, but I'm hearing allegations they now make use of Sinhalese chauvinism and supported the war against the LTTE.

What's the story?

[Saorsa]

bump

[Sir Comradical]

I know that in the 70's the JVP used to position themselves as a group that wanted to overthrow the Bandaranaike government and end the marginalization of Tamils. However when the IPKF came to Sri Lanka, the JVP began claiming that India was using the Tamils to seize control of Sri Lanka and that the LTTE was an agent of Indian imperialism. They adopted Sinhalese nationalism and justified it as a kind of anti-imperialists war-cry. Today's Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa used to be a human rights activist and a JVP sympathiser when he was young (now he's a human rights violator). He also claimed that India was trying to seize control of Sri Lanka.


Anti-Indian chauvinism has always been a central strand of the ideology of Sinhala supremacist ideology. The JVP, which was formed in the 1960s on the basis of an eclectic mixture of Maoism, Guevarrism and Sinhala chauvinism, denounced Tamils as a fifth column for “Indian imperialism”. While India, under pressure from the Tamil population in southern India, did initially provide some assistance to the LTTE and other Tamil separatist groups, it quickly turned on them when the LTTE’s struggle threatened to inflame separatist sentiment in India. Link. (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/sril-j11.shtml)

The WSWS website claims that the JVP are anti-Tamil racists but to be fair, the JVP website has a slightly more nuanced position regarding Tamils. I'm not saying that anti-Tamil racism doesn't exist amongst the JVP leadership, but they're definitely not an openly racist party. Take a look:


The U.N.P government (2002-4), like all governments that came to power after 1977, followed the policy of “selling" and "dividing" the country. Therefore the "privatisation project" as well as the "project of dividing the country", known as the devolution of power, have become a national disaster. In particular the national problem has been moved towards a separate state. Without unifying Singhalese, Tamils and Muslims on the basis of equality and democracy, these governments have contributed to the increase of inequalities, provoking racialism and offering privileges to racialist leaders, with the result that the national problem in Sri Lanka has assumed the proportions of separatism. Foreign imperialist forces have been allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of the country through the agreement signed in 2002 between the L.T.T.E. and the U.N.P. government, and the policy of appeasement by the governments of Norway and the U.S.A. in the process. The so-called peace process seems to strengthen separatism rather than weaken it,, and a serious danger of the division of the country and the division of the working class along ethnic lines has emerged. Link. (http://www.jvpsrilanka.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105&Itemid=69)

In an other article, the JVP says:


Some may think that we had neglected Tamil masses after 1982 and we had forgotten them. That is wrong. There is a truth that has to be told. It is the JVP that raised its voice more than any other political party in the island on behalf of the rights of Tamil people and regarding a solution for the national question. We are the only political party that raised its voice for equal rights and equal opportunities for all Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims. There aren’t any such political parties in Sri Lanka. Link. (http://www.jvpsrilanka.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=280:jvp-was-the-only-party-that-fought-for-national-unity-comrade-somawansa-amarasinghe-in-jaffna&catid=1:local&Itemid=27)

Whatever the JVP says, there's no denying that they cheered the last war against the LTTE which killed anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000 civilians so it doesn't take a genius to see that their anti-imperialist rhetoric is nonsense.

[Saorsa]

Thanks, very good info. What about the allegations the JVP has been involved in starting anti-Tamil riots?

[Sir Comradical]

Thanks, very good info. What about the allegations the JVP has been involved in starting anti-Tamil riots?

Recently? I doubt the JVP would officially condone riotous violence against Tamil civilians, state violence yes, but probably not a riot.

[kalu]

The JVP could indeed be classified as a chauvinist party, but its history is a bit more complicated in terms of the political shifts it has undertaken.

When it first emerged in the late 60s, led by Rohana Wijeweera (who studied in Russia but was later barred from re-entry for ideological reasons), it famously began circulating the Five Lessons. Unfortunately, I'm only aware of the most (infamous) of these oral teachings, the lesson on "Indian expansionism." The JVP fell into the Sinhala nationalist narrative that Sri Lanka suffered under Indian imperialism and Tamil treachery in particular, as Sir Comradical's articles mentioned. This notion extended even to their views of the Tamil plantation workers (different from the Eelam Tamils), who arrived during the British colonial period. Wijeweera certainly espoused chauvinist sentiments when he made claims like, "no national minority could ever lead a Left movement" (cf. Kumari Jayawardena, Ethnicity and Class Conflicts in Sri Lanka). He had a majoritarian bias.

That said, the JVP was nourished by other currents, such as N. Shanmugathasan (Tamil) and his Communist Party-Peking Wing. After the first uprising in 1971--which occurred mostly in the south and attempted an overnight youth revolution attacking police stations and bases--was crushed, the JVP actually made enormous efforts to rethink its previous positions, on the "minorities," for example, in an amazing demonstration of self-criticism in periodicals such as the Janatha Sangamaya. Its cadres began to support emerging Tamil militant groups in the North, because they viewed the militants as opening a Northern front to liberate the entire island (thus moving forward the "dialectic of universalism and particularity"! Remember the previous Wijeweera quote about "minorities"?). I actually know a number of ex-JVPers who spent time in jail after 1971, who remain actively committed to this position, and who support "Tamil justice."

The JVP itself, however, underwent a significant shift back to the Sinhala nationalist position after it was banned from participating in national elections in 1982, along with Tamil groups like the TULF, by the authoritarian President Jayawardene, and especially after the intervention of the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) in 1987. The IPKF proved less-than-salutary to the Sri Lankan situation, killing Tamil civilians in the north, and losing many soldiers itself. The JVP responded from the Sinhala nationalist line though, and built on popular resentment of this "violation of sovereignty." During the period of 1987-89, the JVP undertook an insurrection which led to many brutal killings of Sinhala civilians, including school teachers, in the south. The party proved itself not much better than a Pol Pot-style group, though not alone as the Sinhala state engaged in awful acts of state terrorism employing ruthless squads like the "Yellow Cats." This was known in the south as the "time of terror", beeshana yugaya. Of note, however: there were still elements of the radical southern left during this time, like the Vikalpa Kandayama, that attempted to link with Tamil militants like the PLOTE, in order to bring an island-wide socialist revolution, a new "Cuba." They obviously failed, partially because they were wiped out by groups like the LTTE in the north. Wijeweera was eventually killed (in 1989 I believe), after being caught and tortured by a state squad, while masquerading as a civilian on a plantation. The loss of its top commanders crushed the JVP as an effective military force. The last "ethical" actors in the conflicts, of course, had been previously obliterated by groups like the LTTE (which ruthlessly eliminated other Tamil militants and activists) and the reactionary JVP.

Today, the JVP is a very marginal party. It has undergone several shifts in party alliance. It first helped bring Mahinda Rajapakse, current President, to power along with the JHU (a nationalist monks' party) in 2005, because of its discontent again with "violations of sovereignty" as a result of the Norwegian-administered Post Tsunami Operating Mechanism (P-TOMS), which shared administration of resources with the Tigers. It remained heavily critical of international and Norwegian intervention in mediating the conflict between the government and Tamil separatists, and frequently lambasted human rights NGOs as "neo-colonizers," from a nationalist and majoritarian angle. Currently, it's a very marginal party because it broke with Rajapakse, and is now accusing him of becoming a "dictator." Its spokesman, Wimal Weerawansa, left though to create a new party that is more fully in sync with the Rajapakses, the National Patriotic Front or some such garbage. I remember once reading an article interview with him where he claimed something like, you need to establish "sovereignty" before pursuing socialism (completely misconstruing anti-imperialism by employing analogous rhetoric to shore up postcolonial state sovereignty, and totally eclipsing socialist arguments for self-determination of, or at least equality and reparation for, oppressed peoples!).

Unfortunately, the JVP was the last group in the sad decay of the Sri Lankan Left; which actually had quite a remarkable career, especially under the golden years of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, bringing such things as universal tertiary education to the island. What remain today are remants, like the Nava Sama Samaja Party. The JVP's cadres, at least initially, were predominantly educated, unemployed youths.

[Pulasthi]

NEWS - JVP has split again.This time a group led by Premkumar Gunarathnam - an ethnic Tamil with a considerable number of cadres and follwers has challanged the official party line and They have announced that they will initiate to form a broad leftist movement in the near future.This faction identifie themselves as the "left" faction of the JVP.In the moment i write this,the official JVP which accuses the dissents of becoming "factionalists" have announced that they have been expelled from the party already.Dissents have raised two main questions regarding the line which the Party adopted during the previous period.The questions were raised regarding

1. Coalition politics of the Party - The JVP though in it's inception it's leader Rohana Wijeweera was a strong critic of Coalition politics of the "old leftist" LSSP/CP adopted a coalition line since 2001 both with the two main bourgeoisie parties.Dissents accuse the official JVP leaders for betraying class struggle and for aligning themselves with a class collaborative line.

2.The stance which the Party adopted towards the National question - JVP became a supporter and an advocate of the war which the state operated against the separatist LTTE since 2006.It has been estimated that around 30 000 Tamil civilians were killed during the conflict by the state forces.This support,according to the dissents is a clear deviation from leftist principles.They question the Sinhalese chauvinist stand which the party adopted regarding the issue and have expressed their concern of initiating a broad alliance between both sinhalese and Tamil Oppressed sections.The Dissents accuse the party leaders of becoming pragmatic and betraying leftist values on behalf to survive in the political mainstream.

This is the nature of the latest split.Though in it's outlook especially in the recent period the JVP was viewed as a Nationalist force,their party structure and their cadres within inner circles of the party considered themselves as leftists and socialists.They used to claim that their popular relationship with sinhalese nationalism was just a tactical one.But in practice these cadres had to engage in various activities which came out as logical outcomes of this so called tactical relationship.This lead to a serious discussion and debate within party ranks and the present split can be narrated as a conflict between the Official party line and the leftist tendencies within the cadres.