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Unity in disunity

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna was originally created by the split-off of a split-off of a split-off. The Communist Party, formed when the Lanka Sama Samaja Party expelled its pro-Moscow faction in 1940, in turn expelled its Maoist wing, led by N Shanmugathasan and Premalal Kumarasiri, in 1964.

Rohana Wijeweera split from Shanmugathasan a year later (Premalal had split already), to form his own monolithic hybrid post-Maoist-nationalist group, which became the JVP. Wijeweera hewed the new party in his own image: essentially schizophrenic and lacking in political theory, paranoid and wont to empty sloganeering.

This body in its turn generated a series of spin-offs, most of which incorporated the word ‘deshapremi’ (patriotic). The latest of these by-product groupuscules is the ‘Jana Aragala Vyaparaya’ (Movement for People’s Struggle), led by the dissidents who recently broke with what remains of the JVP.

The JAV, which its Secretary of Political Affairs Pubudu Jagoda says that is not a political party, held its inaugural rally on December 13 at Hyde Park, Colombo. Its first action was to file a petition with the Colombo District Court seeking an injunction to prevent the JVP from holding its convention at Debaraweva on January 1.

Dissident group

Reacting to the news of the plaint, JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva commented that the dissident group had originally raised an outcry, demanding a convention and that their objecting to one now was hilarious.

He said the convention was being called because the membership had demanded it in light of the recent rift in the party.

Colombo District Court judge Ranjith N. Wathupola refused to grant an injunction and the convention duly went ahead last Sunday. The JAV decided to boycott the meeting, with Convenor Chameera Koswatte citing concerns about the security of their members as the reason for their non-attendance.

As expected, the convention resulted in the removal of nine members from the JVP Central Committee: Koswatte, Kumara, Jagoda, Dimuthu Attygala, Waruna Deeptha Rajapakse, Duminda Nagamuwa, S.K. Subasinghe, Dimuthu Abeykoon and G. Kularatne.

The new Central Committee appointed a truncated politburo, removing Jagoda, Attygalla and Kularatne and not filling their vacancies. The new politburo consists of General Secretary Silva, Somawanse Amarasinghe, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Wijitha Herath and K. D. Lal Kantha.

Meanwhile, the JAV had already appointed as office-bearers, apart from Koswatte and Jagoda, six of the other seven eliminated CC members: Kumara as National Organizer, Rajapakse as Media Secretary, Attygala as Secretary of Women’s and International Affairs, Nagamuwa as Operations Co-ordinator and Subasinghe and Abeykoon as members of the 'National Operations Committee'.

Apparently the only senior member of the dissident group not selected for any post is G Kularatne, who seems to be the eminence grise of the movement.

Whether or not the dissident group is qualitatively different from the JVP remains to be seen. For example, Rajapakse, commenting on the new youth front of the group, ‘Youth for Change’, which is due to be inaugurated on Monday, had this to say:

‘Today’s youth are generally called a “lost generation” and we aim to put an end to this belief’.

Which sounds more like the words of a youth counsellor rather than those of the leader of a youth movement. Indeed the JAV, like the JVP depends very much on emotive vocabulary rather than serious political thinking.

What, for example could be said of the following words of Chameera Koswatte, spoken during a meeting commemorating Wijeweera in October?

Party membership

‘Whilst the Samasamaja Party and Communist Party have become the very old left, the JVP has become the old left. The politics of the old left was limited to the distance where they can reach by vehicles. They went to the towns which had auditorium facilities to hold discussions and seminars. Comrade Rohana Wijeweera started a new tradition. That is the tradition of talking about politics in the light of oil lamp with those who come after their hard work at their own place.’

Apart from revealing that Koswatte knew very little about how the LSSP and CP conducted their affairs, these words disclose that the JAV has as great a fetish about external appearances – as opposed to the internal reality – as its progenitor-foe, the JVP.

Meanwhile, the leadership of the United National Party also took action to consolidate its victory over its own internal dissenters. On Thursday, Dayasiri Jayasekera was removed from his post as Deputy Chief Opposition Whip and replaced with Ajith P Perera.

This move followed on from Ranil Wickremasinghe’s rout of the UNP ‘Reformist Group’ at last month’s leadership election. It is also likely to be followed by the removal of four leading members of the dissident group from their posts as electoral organizers: Dayasiri Jayasekera (Panduwas Nuwara), Sujeewa Senasinghe (Kaduwela), Buddhika Pathirana (Akuressa) and Asoka Abeysinghe (Kurunegala).

There was prior warning about the move. Sajith Premadasa, de facto leader of the reformist group, went public with it last week, saying the action against Jayasekera followed the disciplinary action already taken against Senasinghe and Pathirana.

He went on to say that he would not allow those who were trying to abuse the powers received through a Working Committee which was unrepresentative of the peoples’ opinions to act against the party membership. However, it seems that the party leadership took little notice of his objections.

So, the New Year begins as the old year ended, with the two main Opposition parties in tatters, the only thing uniting them being their very disunity. Perhaps they can both take comfort from the old adage, that misery likes company.

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