The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), no doubt, has ostensibly emerged in their new avatar as the National People’s Power (NPP) in order to bury its unsavoury, murderous past and present a new image to the voting public. However, few among the discerning voting public, particularly among the older generation,has banished the lingering memory of the 1988/89 period that was marked by unprecedented bloodletting by the Rathu Sahodarayas and the counter insurgency launched by the Government to protect democracy and saving the country from sliding into anarchy.
Particularly, the recent pronouncements by two of its prominent members certainly has redoubled these doubts in the minds of the public with pious claims made by the JVP that the bloody past is behind them. Speaking at the recent May Day rally of the Party its veteran and one time member of Parliament K.D. Lalkantha declared that under a future NPP Government they would decentralise judicial power in the hands of their party cadres at village level – a declaration that triggered a huge furore in Parliament which Parliamentarian Harini Amarasuriya had to bear the brunt of it. An audio clip containing the statement was played in the House by MP Harshana Rajakaruna while Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe went onto recall how a JVPer in the 1988/89 period intervened to resolve land disputes, in a bid to demonstrate how JVP cadres took the law into their hands during that time. Meanwhile MP Mahindananda Aluthgamage went on to describe how JVPers killed those who voted at the1988 Presidential Elections and coffins containing the remains forced to be carried below knee level.
The statement of Lalkantha only served to reignite the memories of that bleak past when the value of human lives were lowered to the levels less than that of beasts. Lalkantha, in not so many words, only went on to describe how the JVP cadres at the time had complete control over the lives of innocents. That was a time when a mere chit issued by the Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya (DVJ) of Saman Piyasiri Fernando was as sufficient to have all shops in the towns shut down until further notice. Those who defied orders only did so at the expense of their lives. All grassroots level ruling party politicians were ordered to vacate all posts held by them in the local bodies or as organisers and as confirmation required to put up banners in front of their homes, announcing the fact.
This by a party who now claims to have entered the democratic mainstream. For good measure, the Chairman of the UNP Harsha Abeywardena and General Secretary and District Minister G.V.S De Silva, MP Jinadasa Weerasinghe and others were gunned down. So were some leaders of the Left parties which were supportive of the Indo-Lanka Accord.
Not only that. All Indian films were banned from exhibition throwing employees out of their jobs while all goods imported from India including big onions were ordered to be taken off the shelves of the shopkeepers on pain of death. Now we see party leader AKD making pilgrimages to India and other Western countries which at the time were poised to invade this country, according to the JVP’s own propaganda machine.
One would like to ask Lalkantha the exact role his cadre will be entrusted to play in enforcing judicial powers at the villages under a future NPP Government. Will they be assuming the role of judges or magistrates to dispense justice, according to the party’s own views and interpretations as to what constitutes an offense? Are the official law Courts to be shut down under such an eventuality and where pray will all our lawyers and the rest of the legal fraternity stand? For when JVP cadres in the villages are given the job of passing judgement on ‘wrongdoers’ our judges and lawyers will be left redundant. Where pray, will the Attorney General and the Attorney General’s Department going to be placed under such a set up? Will the recently conferred posts of President’s Counsel by President Ranil Wickremesinghe on senior Instructing Attorneys will be so much water under the bridge? If not Lalkantha, we ask his Leader AKD to clarify matters, since this statement made by a senior party member who was also a onetime MP could not have been made lightly. The people ought to know where they are going stand under a future NPP Government if justice is going to be served on them by a bunch of callow youth whose only qualification to do so would be to hold membership in the JVP and nothing more?
Meanwhile, the declaration made by another NPP frontrunner Nalin Hewage that only rapists and ganja sellers were bumped off by the JVP during the 1989/90 period too is another demonstration of the lawlessness that could be anticipated under a NPP administration. The remark was made during a heated TV talk show the other day where one of the participants SLPP MP D. Weerasinghe declared how his father, a Vedamahattaya, was shot dead by DJV for defying orders not to treat patients. Following this statement there were many demonstrations where the protestors wanted to know in which category did persons of the calibre of Thevis Guruge, Premakeethi De Alwis, Sagarika Gomes, Ven. Kotikawatte Sri Saddhatissa Thera, Colombo University Vice Chancellor Prof. Stanley Wijesundera, actor turned politician Vijaya Kumaratunga, Senior DIG Terrance Perera, SPC Chairman Dr. Gladys Jayewardene belonged to. Were they also rapists and ganja smokers? Are we witnessing a foreshadow of things to come?
