JVP, SLFP AND THE UNP
It is not clear whether it is the UNP as a party or a section of the UNP that is going to support the government. What is clear is that the SLFP and the JVP have already begun their journeys on different paths, and unless it is corrected soon the country would be dictated by non national forces in a way not seen at any time in the history of the country. The balance of forces is tilted against the nationalistic forces, and unfortunately the JVP does not appear to have learnt from its past mistakes.
The Sandhanaya or the alliance that was formed between the SLFP, the JVP and the other parties, was welcomed by the nationalistic forces and it turned out to be the best that happened to this country after the formation of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna just before the 1956 general elections. However, all these alliances were short lived and Sandhanaya appears to have had even a shorter life than the MEP of 1956. Ironically Mr. Nandana Gunathilake, who happens to be the President of the Sandhanaya, appears to have been sacked by the JVP. However, technically as Mr. Gunathilake himself has claimed they are all MPs belonging to the Sandhanaya having contested under the symbol of beatle leaf, and Mr. Gunathilake does not have to spend sleepless nights thinking of his Parliamentary status. On the other hand if the JVP MPs leave the Sandhanaya they would be under the threat of losing their Parliamentary privileges. It is not clear at the time of writing whether the JVP has left the Sandhanaya or not.
Mr. Nandana Gunathilake in an interview given to a Sunday newspaper claims that even in 1987-88 the JVP did not join the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA), in spite of the fact that Mr. Rohana Wijeweera was supportive of joining the alliance. Mr. Gunathilake is of the opinion that had the JVP joined the DPA, Mr. Wijeweera would have been alive, and the politics of the country would have taken an entirely different path. According to Mr. Gunathilake this time too the Party leadership in the form of Mr. Somawansa Amerasinghe is in favour of joining the government but the central committee of the JVP has decided otherwise. It appears that the JVP has an aversion towards alliances, and in that respect the Sandhanaya is a special institution as the JVP came within an alliance probably for the first rime in the history of the party. Thus it is the duty of all the other nationalistic parties within the Sandhanaya to make sure that the JVP does not leave the alliance, and if it has left the alliance already to bring it back to the fold as early as possible.
It is the JVP more than any other party that can finally save the Mahinda Chinthana, from being dropped by the government due to the pressure from the so called international community and India. However, it can be done only by being within the Sandhanaya and not by leaving it. The JVP may not be in agreement with everything that the government does, but whether in Parliamentary politics or in domestic matters one does not leave an alliance, simply because one does not agree with the other party on all counts. The JVP could have learnt from the way the LSSP and CP had been working within the Sandhanaya. Neither the LSSP nor the CP is in favour of a unitary state but they did not leave the Sandhanaya the day Mahinda Chinthana was adopted. They are still waiting patiently working towards a federal state and hope they could influence the SLFP to adopt their line.
It was a mistake for the JVP to submit their 20 point programme to the SLFP in order to support the SLFP. The non national forces were weak at that time and the JVP with their thirty odd MPs were in a position to apply pressure on the government to adopt their thinking on a number of issues by being within the Sandhanaya. The people had voted for Mahinda Chinthana and it was on the strength of the policies mentioned there that the Sandhanaya was able to form a government. There was no need for an additional twenty points, and the JVP could have gradually worked even to abandon the so called ceasefire agreement (CFA) signed by Ranil Wickremesinghe and Prabhakaran. The CFA was for all purposes a dead letter with the LTTE attacks and limited operations begun by the armed forces, and Norway was losing its influence on the government. In fact the so called international community including Japan could not say much, and it was left to India to make all the pronouncements on Sri Lanka. However, Nirupama Rao immediately got into problems and the situation was not good at all for the non national forces.
It was at this stage the JVP began its journey on a different course by making undue demands to the government. We hinted in these columns as well as in the column in the Irida Divaina that CFA could be left as it was as it was a dead letter, but the JVP is not a party that would listen to such advice. However, the JVP was ready to adopt a confrontational attitude towards the government, and if anybody was happy at the turn of the events it would have been the "international community". The government most probably on the advice of the non national forces turned towards the UNP in order to obtain the support that it was not getting from the JVP. Who could have thought soon after Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse was elected the President of the country the SLFP would sign a MoU with the UNP. It has happened in less than a year, and this is surely the moment of the non national forces, unless Mr. Karu Jayasuriya has other thoughts.
There appears to be a leadership crisis within the JVP. Mr. Tilvin Silva is becoming the strong man, and the days of even Mr. Somavansa Amerasinghe are numbered. Mr. Tilvin Silva is more Marxist than many others in the Party, though it is not his brand of Marxism that has made him the most important personality within the Party. The JVP from its inception had been vacillating between Marxism and nationalism, and it is about to go back to a Marxist stand. However, like the pendulum it will go to its extreme form of nationalism before it turns towards Marxism in its oscillations albeit neither simple nor harmonic, and the nationalistic forces in the country would have failed if this trend within the JVP could not be corrected.
In the 1987-88 period the JVP was behaving much the same way in respect of the DPA. The JVP took part in the discussions to form the DPA but was coming with conditions day by day that could not be incorporated within the manifesto. No nationalist would have agreed with the manifesto of the DPA in its entirety but in politics or anything else for that matter one cannot think of achieving everything that one wants. It is quite possible, as Mr. Nandana Gunathilake claims had the JVP joined the DPA listening to Mr. Rohana Wijeweera he would be still living among us.
In spite of the Marxist rhetoric the strength of the JVP is neither in its trade unions nor in the student movement, but in the SLFP. As we have said both parties (and the JHU and the MEP) have children of fifty six (panashaye daruwo) among their members and they are strong when they are together. It is unfortunate that some children of fifty six have refused to grow making the other children uncomfortable to say the least. If Mr. Karu Jayasuriya turns out to be a child of fifty six (it is not ruled out that there can be children of fifty six in the UNP. It has to be remembered that the UNP of the Senanayakes had nationalistic leanings.), then it would be of service to the country. However, it is the attitude and the policies of the JVP that has made the MoU between the UNP and the SLFP possible. If Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe is also in the group of the UNP MPs joining the government or helping the government at this crucial juncture then there would be nothing that Mr. Karu Jayasuriya would be able to do to help the nationalistic cause.
The country is at cross roads and we are going through the most important period in the contemporary history of the country. We are about to take a non reversible step and the JVP should have been in the government in spite of all its deficiencies. The JVP outside the SLFP is not a strong force and there is nothing that it can do, being outside the government, to see that the non reversible step is taken in the direction that the nationalistic forces would most welcome. If the JVP can learn from its mistakes it is the country that would benefit.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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