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'Bheeshanaya’ — then and now
by S. R. AbeywardenaThis essay is in response to the bare-faced lies uttered from time to time about Bheeshanaya (Terror) and who was responsible for its spread. During the election campaign prior to the General and Presidential election of 1994 and ever since up to the present day, People’s Alliance politicians led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga herself have repeatedly accused the United National Party for the terror or bheeshanaya that gripped Sri Lanka especially during 1987-89. It is also the PA’s position that this bheeshanaya ended no sooner the PA Government assumed power in 1994.
The second JVP insurrection, which was more violent than the first which erupted in 1971 when Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was Prime Minister, occurred during 1987-1989. In fact the island-wide bheeshanaya of the type that occurred in 1971 was introduced for the first time to this country only in 1971 by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna headed by Rohana Wijeweera and his Marxist extremists that included Athula Nimalasiri Jayasinghe alias Loku Athula, Mahinda Wijesekera, Podi Athula alias Victor Ivan, Jayadeva Uyangoda, Somawansa Amarasinghe, Gamanayake and others. After launching the "Revolution" on April 5th 1971, the JVP ordered its activists that they should attack the residence of the Prime Minister, capture her and bring her dead or alive to Campbell Park on the night of April 6th, 1971. Fortunately, Government received prior information and the sinister plan of the JVP was thwarted. ( For further details, see Rohan Gunaratne: A Lost Revolution? p. 95).
The United Front Government under the Premiership of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike ruthlessly suppressed the insurrection. In Appendix III of his book "Insurgency 1971", Justice A C. Alles (former Judge of the Supreme Court states: " Some of those arrested may not have been insurgents or were probably on the periphery of the insurgent movement or may have been falsely implicated by their enemies. Accounts from reliable sources indicate that many of these suspected insurgents were summarily shot by a panic-stricken police and their bodies burnt on pyres consisting of old rubber tyres impregnated with diesel oil, thereby preventing any kind of identification". Bodies have been seen floating down the Kelani, Gin Ganga and other rivers.
Rene Dumont who was in the country at the time observes that the police who had killed active or suspected insurgents, let the bodies float downstream in order to terrorise the people. Rohana Wijeweera in a statement from prison in 1972, has stated that 15,000 revolutionaries had been killed, but twice that number of innocent persons had also died. It will be, therefore, seen that tyre pyres with which President Kumaratunga and her followers day in and day out castigate the UNP, was the order of the day even during her mother’s premiership.
And when the lawfully constituted government of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was on the brink of being toppled in 1971, all possible steps within her command were taken by her to bring that very grave situation under control and the main UNP Opposition extended to Mrs. Bandaranaike and her Government all the cooperation and assistance to bring about law and order. J. R. Jayewardene stated in Parliament that the UNP placed itself solidly behind the Prime Minister and her government, not only in the House but also outside it when the JVP insurrection broke out in April 1971. Jayewardene pledged his whole-hearted support to the government to deal with the insurrection. ( A. C. Alles: Insurgency 1971 p. 212). Despite such public- spiritedness and the ability to rise above partisan politics on the part of J. R. Jayewardene unreservedly strengthening the hand of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike in her hour of grave danger (JVP planned to arrest her "dead or alive"), it is unbelievable that on her government’s orders Jayewardene’s son Ravi was arrested and imprisoned on the alleged grounds that he was a JVP supporter.
And now thirty years later her daughter, the incumbent President, says that J. R. Jayewadene did not have great qualities and is no great statesman, ( See The Island 4-1-99) but for whose Constitution, which sagacious has stipulated a two-thirds majority for all major amendments and not a simple majority, President Kumaratunga would have gone home long ago. What price gratitude!
At this point it is also useful to inquire why the JVP which canvassed for the SLFP during the run-up to the 1970 General Elections, attempted to topple the very Government which it helped to be elected to power, just one year after being so elected. Before answering that question,, a brief account of JVP canvassing on behalf of the SLFP may be relevant so that the hitherto uninformed general public would no longer be taken for a ride by PA liars. One of the earliest instances of SLFP-JVP collaboration can be traced to the run-up to the Parliamentary General Elections of 1970. When the date of the elections, 27th May 1970 was announced, Rohana Wijeweera issued a notice in the name of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna calling the anti-imperialistic patriotic people to expel the unpatriotic UNP.
The notice further stated that the UNP planned to remain in power by creating a security situation and then to postpone elections. If not, the UNP hoped to win the election by deceit corruption or terror. The notice appealed to the masses to organise themselves, to arm themselves and if an election is to be held to defeat the UNP by voting for the United Front". ( See Rohan Gunaratne: Sri Lanka: A Lost Revolution? at P. 82). This position is confirmed by another analyst, C. A. Chandraprema who writes: "The JVP proclaimed that the UNP was going to form a dictatorship and put out a statement asking all democratic and peace-loving people to support the UF (United Front) at the May 1970 elections. Many young JVP activists worked for SLFP candidates in various parts of the country.
Hence the 1970 May general elections created a certain amount of fellow-feeling between the JVP and the UF.. The UF, for its part, made good use of the anti-dictatorship hysteria of the JVP for its own political mileage." (See C. A. Chandraprema: Sri Lanka: The Years of Terror — The JVP Insurrection 1987-1989). It is quite apparent that the Bheeshanaya Dooshanaya propaganda ploy which the UF, in collaboration with the JVP used during the run-up to the May 1970 General Election was similarly used by the People’s Alliance, again in collaboration with the JVP, during the run-up to the Parliamentary General and Presidential Elections of 1994. The main reason given by the JVP for rising against the UF Government for which it so ardently canvassed throughout the country, was that the SLFP/UF had come to power, giving false promises and had been inactive for one year after assumption of office. During the 1982 May Day rallies, Nandana Bandara, President of the Wariyapola electorate Balakaya of the JVP, in his address stated: The SLFP gave false promises to win the general election of 1970 and did not deliver the goods during their term of office up to 1977. I, therefore, joined the JVP to serve the people." (See Rohan Gunaratne : A Lost Revolution? at p. 72). Strangely the general criticism levelled against the present People’s Alliance (PA) government which too was elected to power with the active support of the JVP is that the PA has come to power giving false promises turning its 1994 Manifesto into a legendary "Gajabinna Alankaaraya" of modern times. Apparently history has repeated itself with a vengeance even after seventeen years as far as UF/PA/SLFP electioneering tactics and governance are concerned.
Interestingly, Rohana Wijeweera writing in the JVP publication "Ginipupura" states: The first Republican Constitution of Sri Lanka enacted by the then Coalition Government of the SLFP, LSSP, and CP on 22nd July 1972 was the most repressive in the history of this country...." And referring to the period of the April 1971 insurgency, Rohana Wijeweera, addressing a rally at Panadura in May 1972, alleged that the LSSP with the CP and the SLFP (UF) tortured to death thousands of innocent youths of this country and imprisoned several thousands of others treating them in the most inhuman manner with the assistance of the armed forces." (See Rohan Gunaratne: A Lost Revolution? p 70-75)
If the PA supporters accuse the UNP of unleashing Bheeshanaya from 1987 up to 1994 then they should look back and also accuse the UF Government under Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike of unleashing Bheeshanaya from 1971 April. As a matter of fact the Opposition UNP at that time not only supported Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike in the counter-subversive measures she took, but did not appoint any Presidential Commissions of Inquiry to inquire into the rights and wrongs of such measures when the UNP was elected to power in 1977, unlike her daughter who has now appointed Presidential Commissions of Inquiry into involuntary disappearances of some persons but not all persons during the previous regime.
In 1971, long lists of counter-revolutionaries were prepared by the JVP and the order had gone to kill all of them after state power was captured. Ditches were to be dug alongside roads to dump the dead bodies. Had that uprising succeeded, we would have experienced what the Kampucheans went through under Pol Pot during 1972-1975 (C. A. Chandraprema: Sri Lanka: The Years of Terror . The JVP Insurrection 1987-1989 at pp 37 and 45)
Having failed to capture state power unlawfully at its first attempt in April 1971, the JVP launched its second so-called "revolution" in 1987. The scale and magnitude of terror-bheeshanaya-spread islandwide by the JVP was quite unlike the situation prevalent in 1971 and unprecedented. Unlike in 1971 period, the JVP deliberately recruited to its cadres underworld contract killers like Adiris Costa and Lionel Ranasinghe to carry out murders during the 1987-89 period. And in unleashing its second phase of bheeshanaya the JVP made the elimination of political opponents an integral part of its plan to capture state power instead of once again waiting till power was captured to do so. Terror was unleashed on July 28th 1987, just the day before the signing of the Indo- Lanka Peace Accord to combat the LTTE. The JVP which had consistently condemned Indian expansionism was infuriated when President J. R. Jayewardene had agreed to sign the Accord on July 29th. On 28th July 1987, the JVP, the SLFP, MEP and several other organisations launched mob violence within the city of Colombo and despite a curfew being imposed, the violence spread to Matara, Galle, Hambantota, Kalutara, Kandy, Ratnapura and Polonnaruwa. To a large extent the SLFP and the MEP crowds were manipulated by the JVP. Between July 28th and August 2nd 1987, some 2527 incidents of violence were caused, sixteen persons were murdered, forty injured, 529 government and state corporation buildings and 1005 vehicles were damaged ( For further details, see Rohan Gunaratna: Sri Lanka: A Lost Revolution? p 234-237 Rohan Gunaratne makes a further important observation that " thereafter violence in Sri Lanka never died down. It was only the beginning. Throughout 1987 and 1988 violence continued and escalated in 1989. Violence dropped only in early 1990" These are observations made after considerable research by a distinguished analyst who knows what he is talking about. The bheeshanaya during the previous UNP regime was masterminded and spread by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna to which the SLFP, the MEP and other organisations gave active support both overtly and covertly during the early stages as described above. But as terror escalated the JVP went on a killing spree, sparing neither the UNP nor the SLFP nor the SLMP led by Vijaya Kumaratunga who was gunned down by the JVP on 16th February, 1988 and his murder was a high-water mark in the JVP’s campaign of terror. Why did the JVP kill Vijaya Kumaratunga? There were several reasons. Vijaya Kumaratunga was a committed socialist who could change history simply by the force of his personal charisma. Another distinguished analyst , Chandraprema observes that Rohana Wijeweera was very apprehensive of Vijaya Kumaratunga’s rising popularity and this observation is confirmed by Justice A. C. Alles who states that to Wijeweera any person who was a threat to his leadership was a doomed man and Vijaya Kumaratunga was killed because he was a potential rival to Rohana Wijeweera (See A C. Alles: Insurgency 1971 at p 280). There were other reasons why the JVP decided to kill Vijaya. On 18th January 1988, the JVP issued a statement under the title of "National campaign to punish traitors to the motherland" which named Vijaya Kumaratunga and his SLMP, LSSP, CP, NSSP, the Independent Students Union (ISU) and sections of the Samastha Lanka Peasants" Congress as traitors to the motherland and the statement further stated that to wipe out these people is an inseparable part of the struggle against Jayewardene and the Indian imperialists. We have identified the enemy. They will be punished accordingly". After the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord was signed, Vijaya Kumaratunga had written to the "Sunday Observer" welcoming the Peace Accord and had further expressed very sanguine hopes about its ability to solve the ethnic problem. From this time onwards, Vijaya Kumaratunga was a marked man by the JVP. As the JVP’s October 11, 1987 issue of "Vedihanda" had announced, their criteria were not along pro-UNP and Anti-UNP lines but pro-Accord and anti- Accord lines. The JVP had earlier issued orders that all whom they considered as traitors, including national figures like Vijaya Kumaratunga, should be killed. It is also on record that earlier in January, 1988, Vijaya Kumaratunga had been the main speaker at the commemoration of the first death anniversary of Daya Pathirana, undergraduate student leader of the Colombo Campus, brutally killed by contract killers hired by the JVP. (Chandraprema gives a graphic description of this killing in his Book referred to above at pp 148-153). At this commemoration meeting held at the Town Hall premises in Colombo Vijaya Kumaratunga had declared publicly in a way no left leader had the courage to do so before, that "whatever anybody may say, Pathirana was murdered by the JVP" (C. A. Chandraprema at p 205). At the funeral procession of Vijaya Kumaratunga the undergraduates of the Independent Students Union (ISU) were heard chanting vociferous slogans against the JVP, the most frequent being "Vije Aiyawa Maradapu, Wijeweera Maradamaw". These undergrads knew exactly about what they were shouting for. At the JVP politbureau which met in Colombo to take a decision to kill Vijaya no member present had opposed the decision to kill him. The killing had been carried out on the orders of Algeria Munasinghe, the JVP district military leader for Colombo. Rohan Gunaratne records that Saman Piyasiri Fernando, alias Keerthi Wijayabahu, head of the JVP military wing had instructed Pahala Mullage Lionel Ranasinghe alias Jayatilaka, alias Gamini alias Mahinda who had already killed 49 persons including Vice-Chancellor Professor Stanley Wijesundera, DIG Terrence Perera and Nandalal Fernando of the UNP, and who was a hard-core JVP activist to kill Vijaya Kumaratunga. And immediately after the killing, the JVP issued a statement accepting responsibility for the killing of Vijaya Kumaratunga. This statement has never been denied by the JVP up to date.
The state of the country by November 1988, gripped by the bheeshanaya unleashed by the JVP can be gauged by the following description by Rohan Gunaratne: "It was the order of the JVP- the unseen government-which ran the country. A state of near anarchy prevailed. People were threatened and kept away from work. No transport was available as several bus drivers who defied orders of the JVP were killed. Shops were closed for weeks on orders circulated by the JVP on scraps of paper. Banks, Postal and Telecommunication facilities came to a virtual halt. Schools and work places were forcibly boycotted and no persons were to walk or drive on JVP imposed "Protest days" or during JVP imposed "curfew" days. On such days all lights, radio and television sets were to be switched off. Streets were deserted, no radio,, television or cassette player was heard throughout the length and breadth of the country and the people waited at home helpless and gripped in terror. ( Rohan Gunaratne at pp, 288-293). C. A. Chandraprema describes the JVP terror prevalent up to the end of 1989 in equally graphic terms: "The very mention of the JVP or DJV (Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya) was enough to evoke blind and unthinking fear among the general public. People unquestioningly obeyed their orders-a letter or a telephone call was sufficient to get people to close shops, stop work, call strikes. The JVP shook the government to its foundations in a manner that the Tamil insurrection in the North and the East was never able to do. The business community and the bureaucracy found themselves in a quandary not knowing whom to obey-the government or the "little government" (punchi aanduwa as the JVP was known at that time). It seemed the government would collapse at any moment". (C. A. Chandraprema: at p 4)
That was the size of the JVP manipulated bheeshanaya that gripped this country from 1987 up to early 1990. Can anyone in his or her proper senses say that after Rohana Wijeweera and most of the other JVP leaders were wiped out by the UNP Government under President Premadasa, bheeshanaya of the kind described above prevailed in this country? In fact it was reported in Parliament that by 15th April 1990, the number of killings had dropped to 28 (See A. C. Alles at p. 303). And by 9.10.92 the killings had dropped to a single digit of 9 (from a recorded 4715 in 1989) according to a report of the National Intelligence Bureau). In fact after President D. B. Wijetunga assumed office in 1990 there was total absence of killings and disappearances of the kind that prevailed during the JVP bheeshanaya period. The simple explanation for this absence of killings was that the cause for such killings and bheeshanaya namely the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the principal perpetrator of such killings and terror was effectively wiped out by the UNP Government under President Premadasa and certainly not by the entry of the PA Government headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga. When Chandrika Kumaratunga was reliably informed that she was the next target of the JVP, she promptly took off with her two children from Sri Lanka to London where she was in hibernation and came back to Sri Lanka after President Premadasa and President Wijetunga had cleared the way for anyone to live peacefully and engage in political activities peacefully, without bheeshanaya. There is no bheeshanaya today not due to any cleverness of President Kumaratunga or her PA supporters who were hiding under their beds during 1987-1989, but simply because there is no such JVP terror. Suppose there was such JVP bheeshanaya which President Kumaratunga attributes solely to the previous UNP regime purely for cheap political mileage, would the President squat before her illustrious father’s statue on Galle Face Green and observe satyagraha while the country was burning? It would be a very graceful act on the part of a Head of State not to take credit for ending the bheeshanaya but acknowledge with gratitude that she is able to freely get about and even make empty boasts about what others had done and even paid for their lives. And finally, if the UNP perpetrated bheeshanaya ended after the entry of the PA, how is it that she was elected to power after very peaceful elections in 1994, thanks to President Wijetunga and the then Prime Minister Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe who conducted the elections in such a fair manner that he himself had to go home? If there was bheeshanaya after she returned from London, how was she able to enter into the mainstream of politics, become the Chief Minister of the Western Provincial Council that paved the way to her becoming Prime Minister and President of the country within three months? If there was bheeshanaya during this period she would have rushed off to London again, not for anything else, but for dear life.
The Third Millennium - A response to Mr. Neshan Fernando
Mr. Neshan Fernando, in his letter appearing in today’s Island has invited me to respond. His attempts to find a solution is genuine. He starts well, but confuses himself after a certain point. I will help him. I expect by now he would have read my letter to the Island which appeared on Monday, 18 January titled ‘The third millennium begins in year 2000 - an explanation’.
Let us take his continuum starting from 4 B.C., proceeding to 10 A.D. and beyond, marked as Figure 1. Let us now proceed to the point X A.D. where X is the year, on this scale, when the decision to fix the point of reference on the time scale, with the Birth of Christ, was taken many centuries after the event; and mark it as X on this scale. The events around the Birth of Christ were recorded not in B.C. or A.D. (which did not exist at that time) but according to the Hebrew Calendar that prevailed at that time. X would be around 400.
We now take three strings of nearly equal length and call them String I, String II and String III. On string II, we mark the years as in Figure 1 proceeding from 4 B.C. through 0 to 10 A.D. and beyond to X A.D. String II represents the sequence of years, in a continuum, according to the conventional method of counting. We now place the three strings, in parallel, and tie all of them at the point marked X in String II. On string I, starting from X, the common point where all the strings are tied, we count down, on the same yearly scale, the events that took place according to the Hebrew Calendar.
By placing the strings I and II, in parallel we are able to correlate the events in the Hebrew Calendar (String I) with the events in the conventional calendar (String II). The events around the Birth of Christ, recorded in the Hebrew Calendar are thus correlated with the new conventional calendar. Let us now take String III as the Western Calendar identified by Dr. Arthur C. Clarke. On string III, starting from X, the common point where all the strings are tied, we count down, on the same yearly scale, as the conventional calendar marked String II. As Dr. Clarke insists that the Western Calendar begins with year 1 A.D., and not 0 A.D., we cut the string III at the point 1 A.D.- the beginning according to his reckoning.
We now place all three strings in parallel, having the common point X.
We now see that the string marked III is a year short, because the conventional count down is to O whilst the Western Calendar count down is only to 1. The error is seen in the first year itself. This error, caused by a mistake in counting down to 1 instead of 0, and which gets buried in the sands of time even before the Western Calendar was adapted from around the 4th century A.D., is now attempted to be recussiated.
In the conventional calendar (String II), the third millennium begin year 2000 and not 2001.
A confusion has arisen because there is a reluctance to name the point of reference 0. If we look at a watch, the start is 0 although it appears as 12, the end of the previous cycle. If we enter a building, the 0 floor is called the Ground floor (G) or the Lobby (L). The year 0 A.D. may be called Anno Domino, the year of the Lord. Its presence cannot be ignored.
I Hebrew Calendar X II Conventional Calendar - 1012 X III Western Calendar 12 X
