Avoid petty partisan policies that caused JVP insurrection

The Patriotic National Movement reported that its Treasurer, Dr. Sumith Vanniarachchi was assaulted by a JVP Provincial Councillor and a group of party activists for hosting the 10 rebel JVP MPs to tea this week.

Last week, PNM’s Kalutara District organiser, Hemantha Perera was reportedly assaulted and the Front’s President Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera said it was the responsibility of the JVP leadership to prevent such incidents. A fortnight ago, JVP’s Trincomalee District MP Jayantha Wijesekera and two others allegedly drove away two vehicles belonging to JVP dissident MPs.

The spectre of violence, following the internal divisions within the Marxist JVP, is a grim reminder that the party has, not altogether, given up violence as a weapon to sort out its differences.

No doubt, the JVP did learn a lesson, albeit the hard way that a subversive approach to politics only results in death and destruction and popular antipathy towards it. Using violence as a means to achieve socialism, even though under capitalism, the poor became poorer and more became impoverished, is not tolerated by the marginalised in society.

The JVP managed just one seat in Parliament in the 1994 General elections, fives years after unleashing violence to further its aims. The party increased its parliamentary seats to 10 in 2000, 16 the following year, and 39 in the 2004 polls. This progression suggests there is increasing space for socialist leftism as the two main southern parties are embodiments of capitalism and have little to offer, as welfare.

It is evident that people abhor violence and political upheavals within a party, even if engineered by shrewd politicians from the ruling party, the chief opposition party or outside forces, must be reacted to in a non-violent manner.

But, the government should be cautioned against creating the space for another violent uprising, as the country could ill-afford it even as it fights the LTTE on several fronts.

Depriving the JVP of political representation in Parliament was the result of the 1983 Referendum, a year after party leader Rohana Wijeweera secured a mammoth 350,000 votes at the 1982 presidential polls. The party was set to increase its vote base at the general elections the following year, as presidential polls for minor party candidates attract less votes.

President J.R.Jayewardene’s myopic policies of resorting to a referendum to extend the life of parliament and banning the JVP in 1983 led to the party going underground and the second bloody insurrection.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa must avoid such a repeat of history by reining in his party men and avoid further inroads into the Marxist party that first lost Nandana Gunathilake in 2006 and now Wimal Weerawansa and nine others, this month.

For a healthy democracy there should be parties like the JVP which would stage non-violent protests and demonstrations and lead trade unionism against policies that affect the masses. These are democratic spaces necessary for a healthy country.

Hartals and other civil disobedience campaigns by Tamils in the north against the central government were suppressed and state violence was the response. The result: A 25-year separatist war that has bruised, bloodied and broken a once peaceful nation. Let the eastern provincial council elections not be a sham and a mockery of democracy, for it has the potential of creating a third militant uprising, this time by the Muslim brethren. We have had Sinhala and Tamil uprisings thanks to short-sighted petty partisan policies of the UNP and SLFP leadership; the country can ill-afford a third Muslim revolt.