Rohana Wijeweera - An Unbiased Story of JVP (1971-1989)

When watching ‘Ginnen Upan Seethala’, I felt it was quite one sided. I wanted to know both sides of history and their justifications. Recently I met someone who was a childhood and teenage friend of Rohana Wijeweera. She is a rare person with whom one can have an unbiased civil discussion about anything. Here is the story I gathered from her after an hour of discussion.

We discussed the events since his return from the USSR up to his death. Upon his return, he believed, a political reform is only possible through a violent revolution. The youth, who  lost trust in the govt due to the graduate unemployment crisis, saw him as their savior. He built bomb factories, trained the youth and simultaneously attacked 93 police stations across the country. However she said, Bandaranayake handled it well with foreign help (Even USSR sent their forces to defeat JVP). It was a "gun that did not fire".  She imprisoned him and rehabilitated the youth.

Then JR came and released RW. RW even visited her after that. She says, by then he had realized his mistakes and was moving towards a path of democracy. He wanted to become the president democratically and change the systems.

And then happened the 1983 Black July riots. Then-UNP and police helped the racist mobs with voting lists to find and burn Tamils around Colombo. This was a black mark on the international stage for the JR govt. He wanted a scapegoat, so he pointed the finger at the JVP (who was now trying to be non-violent) and branded them Naxalites. Basically, JR took one small problem (Tamils) and blew it into two big problems (JVP and Tamil Terrorism).

JVP, branded as terrorists and forced into hiding, chose the path of violence. They started shooting some prominent people. One of her friends was dragged out and shot in front of his wife. It was branded a JVP murder first, but upon investigation, he was found to be murdered by his relative, who held a grudge and used this JVP phobia as a cover. While JVP did a part of the shootings, other people and mobs started murdering and branding them as "JVP murders" to get away. This went on from 1986 to 1989.

Meanwhile Premadasa came to power. He was left with JR's mess and he chose the wrong way to solve it. The police checked NICs and started arresting and torturing all the youth who were Sinhalese and southern. To escape from being identified from NICs, the JVP started stealing people's NICs and then telling the police "JVP took my card". Premadasa brought the whole mess into control by 1989, through his authoritarian methods and brutally killed RW.

What I understood after an hour of discussion were the following:

No politician who had power in Sri Lanka has understood democracy.

That is because, people of Sri Lanka have never wanted democracy. We only wanted to be agitated and manipulated by emotions. Almost nobody in Sri Lanka can tell this story in an unbiased way. We lack the ability to have a civil discussion about politics. As a result, our history book talks about the British governors and ends with independence. Even they don't know how to discuss the JVP crisis and Tamil crisis in a way acceptable by all parties.

NOTE:

This post is composed from just the opinions and facts from two people. I hope this encourages a civil discussion here. If any dates or facts are wrong, feel free to point  them out. Let’s understand our history together.

First posted on Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/abarajithan11/posts/10216090069916007