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. |