Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna

Rohana Wijeweera's father was a political activist of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL). During an election campaign in the 1960s, he was severely assaulted by UNP members and in consequence he was paralysed.

The young Rohana Wijeweera was emotionally affected. When Rohana Wijewera's further education was in jeopardy as a result of his father being incapacitated, the CPSL arranged a scholarship for him to study medicine at the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow. There, he read the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Lenin, and became a committed Marxist.

By this time, the Communist Party of Sri Lanka was divided into two factions: the Chinese faction and the Soviet faction. Wijeweera broke away from the CPSL which was aligned with the USSR and joined the Ceylon Communist Party (CCP) led by N. Shanmuganathan.

After a visit to Sri Lanka in 1964, he was not permitted to return to the USSR. His student activism in favour of the Maoist line while in Moscow displeased the Russians. The Chinese faction was led by Premalal Kumarasiri. Through his father's political activities, Wijeweera came in contact with Kumarasiri and joined the party's staff. He made the trade union office of the Chinese faction his home.

Wijeweera increasingly felt that the Left movement (which is now generally referred to in Sri Lanka as "old left") that had existed up until then had not produced even a few professional revolutionaries and had never made a meaningful effort to educate the masses on Marxism.[12] The words mouthed by the leaders of the "old left" were accepted by workers as the final word. He also believed that the leadership of the "old left", aware of this aspect, utilized it to the fullest to blunt the militancy of workers. Wijeweera and others decided in mid-1965 to launch a new party explicitly revolutionary in character. They started from scratch, in contrast to the birth of most political parties in Sri Lanka, which broke off from other established parties. In the period that followed, the cadres engaged themselves in political activities that consisted mainly of trying to increase the political awareness of the working class.

Wijeweera felt that one of the more important tasks was to politically educate the masses. Following deliberations on this issue, it was decided that an uncomplicated Marxist analysis of the socio-politico-economic problems of the country should be the introductory step. The Marxist analysis was split into five discussions along with five main themes.

Throughout the rest of 1968, Wijeweera walked the length and breadth of the country conducting political classes for the members of the party. The five basic political classes were followed by an education camp. Precautions had to be taken to keep this educational camp a secret to avoid alarming the government as well as the "old left". The classes, all conducted by Wijeweera, stretched from 17 to 18 hours a day, interrupted only by meals.

By 1971, the JVP had established itself as a political party and offered an alternative to those disillusioned with the politics of the other left organizations. The majority of the members and supporters of the JVP, at that time, were in the young adult age group. Alarmed at the political potential and the political challenge of the JVP, the government and its leftist allies leveled a variety of slanders against the fledgling party. The JVP had later admitted that at that time, it was not a completely mature political party. There were many shortcomings, which they sought to rectify.

In the early 1970s, North Korea backed the JVP indirectly. As a result, diplomatic connections with Sri Lanka and North Korea was cut off and it haven't been established since then.[19] Following a US State Departmemt investigation, it was alleged for supplying weapons to the JVP rebels.[20] Many North Koreans who stayed in Sri Lanka was captured by the Security Forces of Sri Lanka. In an interrogation they revealed that some diplomats served as military instructors.[21] In the late 2000s Somawansa Amarasinghe (a former leader of the JVP), defended North Korean diplomats in Sri Lanka.[22]

In 2017 the Sri Lankan government imposed UN sanctions on North Korea and the leader of the opposition Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, criticised the procedure involved. He further claimed North Korea is Socialist and Sri Lanka should support it.[23]

In 1970 a North Korean trade office in Colombo became an embassy and started it is work the same year. While in Sri Lanka, North Korean diplomats cultivated links to the JVP. North Korea later helped the group directly through the office.

JVP first came into contact with Cuba in 1978, at a meeting of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. Cuban Communist Party has cultivated links to the party through the embassy like North Korea.

The JVP sectors before 1970s were limited to the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party of Iraq. Rohana Wijeweera and Shantha Bandara visited Iraq multiple times in order to meet the members of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party of Iraq, Shantha Bandara successfully formed the Inter-University Students' Federation to work as a liaison point between the two parties. When the Iran-Iraq War began, a few members of the JVP protested in front of the Iranian embassy, during the second JVP insurgency, the JVP received amounts of cash to fund the Patriotic People's Movement.[24][25][26][27]

The first five lectures of the JVP based on class and social struggle was about the "failures" of the old left and the "path" for a new left. Wijeweera who had a great anti-Indian ideology, gave lectures against Indian irredentism. The rest of the lectures are based on economy and unemployment.[29]

While the late lectures were not available after the second insurgency,[10] pro-LTTE Tamilnation.org described them as Ultranationalism and Autarky. What it claims is it launched an patriotic struggle against India.

Somehow the group is anti-Trotskyist claiming Trots to be traitors to the nation.[30] Tamilnation.org compares it to Pol-Pot thought due to the ultranationalist political line of the Khmer Rouge.[10]

Somawansa Amarasinghe modified the JVP from the roots and the group once again got more socialized with other democratic groups. It refused national affiliations but later joined some left-right alliances such as the United National Front. The group currently believes in democracy-based political lines rather than insurrectionist lines it appreciated since formation.[31] The JVP formed the National People's Power in 2015. It consists of various leftist groups which follows various leftist ideologies such as Agrarian socialism, Democratic socialism and Revolutionary socialism. The current ideology of the group is democracy and anti-imperialism.

JVP claims Sri Lanka never had a socialist constitution and even when it was claimed as the 'Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka'. It further says how Sri Lanka have remained a colony even after the British empire lost authority within the country. It believes that the Sri Lankan society should convert internally and learn self-reliancy. Anura Kumara Dissanayake during a rally stated:

The socio-economic policies that have been followed for the last 71 years have dragged our country towards destruction. As such, the responsibility of rescuing the country and our people from this disastrous situation should be shouldered not only by the JVP but by all of us. It is with this intention that we built the National People’s Power together with progressive, left and democratic organizations.[32]

JVP were not recognized as a political party until it is uprising. The party rejected being a democratic group following the military coup in Indonesia against the Indonesian Communist Party. They had complaints that Ceylonse government would try to militarily defeat the party if the group would stop arming itself. The government banned the JVP following the Ceylonese protests against the Vietnam War. The government blamed the protests on the JVP members.[4]

The brief conflict created turmoil in Sri Lanka's national politics and its international relations. As a result of the struggle, the United Front Government proscribed the JVP in April 1971. It became an underground organisation and in 1978 participated in the local government elections. In 1982 the JVP participated in the District Development Council (DDC) elections and the presidential elections. The JVP was the only radical party that contested the DDC elections in 1982.[33]

The United National Party had introduced the District Development Council as a solution to the ethnic conflict. The NSSP, CPSL, and SLFP boycotted the elections, but the JVP contested and won a couple of seats in the council's elections. It was during this period that the Election Commission of Sri Lanka formally recognised the JVP as a legitimate political party.

The government proscribed the JVP again after the DDC elections. In 1982, Rohana Wijeweera contested the presidential elections. The party expected to win more than 500,000 votes, but won only 275,000. Though it received more votes than the candidate Colvin R. de Silva, the party was disappointed by the results. The government again banned the party, and JVP membership declined as people began to doubt its electoral viability.

In 1983, after the ethnic riots, the government proscribed the JVP, CPSL, and NSSP (Vasudeva Nanayakkara's and Vikrambahu Karunaratne's Party) claiming that they were involved in the Black July riots that killed thousands of Tamils.[34] In order to attract the United States and the UK, the government had resorted to proscription of the three parties. Later, the proscription on the CPSL was lifted, but the JVP continued to be proscribed due to the lack of Tamil representation in the party. Although it is to be noted that CPSL was the first party to publish a Sinhalese article about the ethnic riots.[35]

After the JVP leadership was completely eliminated by a violent and ruthless State repression during the Premadasa government, the JVP was resurrected as a political party joining the mainstream led by Somawansa Amerasinghe – the only surviving member of the decimated JVP politburo. The JVP supported Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaranatunga's election campaign after withdrawing their candidate. The JVP contested the Presidential Elections in 1999 and their candidate Nandana Gunatilleke received 4.08% of the vote.

The high point of the JVP's electoral effort was at the parliamentary elections the legislative elections held on 2 April 2004, the party was part of the United People's Freedom Alliance that won 45.6% of the popular vote and 105 out of the 225 seats in Parliament. As the second-largest party of this coalition, it became part of the government with 39 MPs and three cabinet portfolios.[36]

In 2005, Mahinda Rajapakse was elected president of Sri Lanka with the support of his party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Some political analysts believed that the majority of support and endorsement to Rajapakse came from the JVP and the Jathika Hela Urumaya after he agreed not to divide the country into federal states as the LTTE had demanded. A few analysts reject this idea by saying that JVP and JHU were too small parties to have such a major effect. But some other independent intellects like Dayan Jayatilleka, Nalin de Silva and Mohan Samaranayake point out that SLFP's agreement with JVP paved the path to the victory.[37]

The party had an internal conflict between the two factions of Wimal Weerawansa and the party leadership in April 2008.[38] The party had decided to suspend the membership of Wimal Weerawansa as of 21 March 2008. The media reports said that Weerawansa had an argument with the leadership based on the disarmament of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) political party, which was contesting in the country's eastern provincial council elections to be held in May 2008 under the banner of the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA).[39][40]

A member of the party, Piyasiri Wijenayake, accused the opposition party, UNP, of conspiring against JVP at a media conference held at Nippon Hotel in Colombo on 8 April 2008. He alleged that Ravi Karunanayake, a UNP member who had attended a meeting with senior JVP leaders at his residence, was the main conspirator.[41] Piyasiri Wijenayake further told BBC that his and Achala Suranga Jagoda's vehicles were forcefully removed by the group led by Jayanatha Wijesekara, a member of the parliament from Trincomalee district.[42]

The dissident Wimal Weerawansa group visited the most senior Buddhist monks of Asgiriya and Malwatte chapters on 20 April 2008, to seek the blessings for their new political movement. Weerawansa also accused the UNP Kotte leaders of the conspiracy against the JVP.[43]

The breakaway group of ten JVP parliamentarians led by Wimal Weerawansa formed a new political party called the Jathika Nidahas Peramuna (JNP). Party activities began on 14 May 2008, the anniversary of the day Rohana Wijeweera had formed the JVP in 1965 and of the day the LTTE had killed 146 pilgrims during the Anuradhapura massacre at the Sri Maha Bodhi in 1985. The party leaders who addressed the inaugural ceremony at BMICH in Colombo said that the new political party was an alternative to the two main political parties, UNP and SLFP, but not of the JVP.[44] In December 2008, JNP joined the government. They claimed that the government should be supported in this moment as it was successfully fighting LTTE in the north of Sri Lanka. In commenting on this issue, JVP politicians blamed the government, saying that it had mishandled many problems. They further alleged that their rivals had joined the government for personal gain.

JVP formed a coalition with UNP to support Sarath Fonseka, the former army chief, in the 2010 presidential elections,[45] but he was defeated by the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapakse.[46] After this, the UNP left the coalition and the JVP contested the general elections along with Sarath Fonseka's factions under the banner of Democratic National Alliance. The alliance won 7 seats, of which 4 were won by JVP candidates. The party had 39 seats before the elections.

The party had a split in 2012 when a group of party members left the party to make the new Frontline Socialist Party. Although the FLSP was not quite successful as the JVP, they still participated in elections. FLSP would fail to overcome the popularity of the JVP but they remained more active by conducting protests and anti-American propaganda.

Premakumar Gunaratnam was an elusive leader and JVP leaders denied the existence of a party member as "Premakumar Gunaratnam". In April 2012, internal crisis within the party heated up between the hard core socialist Gunaratnam and the party leader Somawansa Amarasinghe. As a result, the party's media unit was shut down once a majority of the members extended their support to Gunarathnam. The women's wing and a majority of the students’ and youth wings have extended their support to Gunaratnam group.

A former politburo member of the JVP, Dimuthu Attygalle was the former head of the JVP women's wing and the party leader for several districts. Another former politburo member Pubudu Jagoda was an active member in the Socialist Youth Union that includes the education wing. He also played a key role in the JVP newspaper 'Lanka'. Several student union leaders like Duminda Nagamuwa, Udul Premaratne and Chameera Koswatte have also sided with FLSP. [47]

A pro-Democracy protest

JVP neither contested nor directly supported any coalition in the January 2015 presidential election, but it heavily criticized incumbent President Mahinda Rajapakse, which eventually assisted in his defeat. Later in August the party contested on its own for the parliamentary election and obtained six seats, receiving 543,944 votes.

The JVP candidate was Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, who contested under the symbol of the compass. The total votes received was 418553 votes which accounted for 3.16% of valid votes for the Presidential Election. For the election, party went as the National People's Power. Since then the party was called "NPP" or "JJB" (Jathika Jana Balavegaya) but also referenced as the "JVP" casually.[48]

The Jathika Jana Balavegaya participated in the 2020 elections which they became the fourth from the total vote. The party gained a total of 445,958(3.48%) votes which is the least the party gained since the second election in 1994.[49]

• http://www.jvpsrilanka.com/english

• Rohana Wijewera: The Killing of Sri Lanka's Stalinist Icon - BBC News
• JVP in 88-89,"srilankaguardain.org"
• THE 1971 CEYLONESE INSURRECTION - Fred Halliday
• SRI LANKA - A LOST REVOLUTION? The Inside Story of the JVP by Rohan Gunaratna
• Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka : The Role of India's Intelligence Agencies
• A Lost Revolution: The JVP Insurrection 1971
• Methek Kathawa Divaina
• Present Conflict (Tamil Version), Wathman Arbudaye Dutu Nodutu Pathi (Sinhala)
• Review of 'Satanin Satana' - Book on second JVP insurgency to be released on 20 December, Gamani Akmeemana, Daily Mirror, 24 Jun 2019
• Book on second JVP insurgency to be released on 20 December, Friday, 16 December 2016,
• ‘Comrade Lionel’ to be launched on November 5, Daily News, October 23, 2019