SRI LANKA: Marxist Leader’s Return Complicates Peace Prospects

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Nov 23 2001 (IPS) - The return from exile of a former rebel and leader of Sri Lanka’s biggest Marxist group is meant to boost his party ahead of next month’s poll, but analysts say his entry into the political scene is bound to further strangle the country’s peace effort, analysts say.

“The peace process would be further distanced with his entry,” Keethish Loganathan of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a local think tank, said of the Marxist leader Somawansa Amarasinghe.

In a brief statement Thursday, the Marxist People’s Liberation Front or JVP said Amarasinghe returned to Sri Lanka early Wednesday and would soon appear for the first time in 12 years before the Sri Lankan public.

The 58-year old leader fled the country in 1989 when the then United National Party (UNP) government launched a military crackdown against JVP rebels, who were trying to oust the regime through an armed revolt. Thousands of people died in the JVP campaign and in the counter- insurgency offensive by government forces.

Loganathan said Amarasinghe had hardline views on the ethnic conflict, triggered by minority Tamil demands for equal rights in a majority-Sinhalese country, and would be used by the ruling People’s Alliance to swing the Sinhalese vote away from the opposition UNP, which is confident of winning the Dec. 5 poll.

“The government would use him to the maximum. He would probably speak about the UNP’s so-called alliance with Tamil rebels and, having lived abroad for many years, about the Tamil diaspora that is supporting the rebels,” he said.

There is a lot of curiosity over the arrival of a man whom the present JVP and its supporters have not seen or know about. “The new generation of JVP supporters would flock to see him, even revere him. People may also want to see this mystic figure,” said Tilak Karunaratne, general secretary of the Sihala Urumaya (SU), a nationalist group stridently opposed to a peace deal with the rebels.

But he accused Amarasinghe of being a murderer and of responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of people during 1987-1990. “He should be prosecuted not only for the murders but also for leaving the country illegally.”

Karunaratne said the JVP ploy is to garner middle-class support, which it now lacks. “He could appeal to the middle class because he not the typical fire-breathing, bearded Marxist type politician. He is mild mannered and soft spoken.”

Amarasinghe is the only surviving member of the JVP politburo in the 1980s and escaped a security cordon with the help of a UNP minister, who is his cousin. He has been living in France and later in Britain living, according to Karunaratne, a luxurious life. “He has been driving around in an expensive Citreon and sent his children to universities in the west,” the SU leader said.

The JVP, Sri Lanka’s third largest political force, is contesting the December national poll and putting up a stiff fight to the ruling People’s Alliance and the main opposition UNP. The party is opposed to western culture and the entry of private universities in Sri Lanka.

Political analysts say Amarasinghe’s return has been guided by the ruling party in the hope that the JVP would help the PA to form a coalition government, depending on the election result. The party formed a brief alliance with the government just before elections were announced in October.

Amarasinghe was then issued a fresh passport by the government on Oct. 26, allowing his return to Sri Lanka. The JVP signed a memorandum of understanding with the government in early September and is believed to have urged the government to permit Amarasinghe to return in lieu for its support.

The JVP since then has been critical of both the UNP and the PA in the election campaign, imploring voters to support the party. But analysts say that the PA is hopeful of winning back its support in case the latter runs short of getting enough numbers to form a government.

Dr Jayadeva Uyangoda, a senior political scientist attached to the Colombo University, believes it is a tactical blunder on the part of the JVP to bring him back.

“Amarasinghe’s return is disastrous to the JVP. He is known to have a hardline approach and will revive old memories of the JVP’s strong- arm tactics in the 1980s,” said Uyangoda, himself a former senior member of the JVP in the 1970s.

He said the JVP leader’s return was negative to what he calls ‘the new JVP’, which has been trying to build an image of respectability to be accepted in the parliamentary democratic framework.

But SU’s Karunaratne says the JVP is unlikely to eat into his party’s vote base. The JVP and the SU are trying to capture the majority Buddhist vote, pushing the peace agenda out and presenting the military defeat of the rebels as the only solution.

“The JVP has stolen our slogans and ideologues. Earlier they accepted self-determination, which is part of classic Marxist theories, and are now changing their colours,” he said.

The JVP, earlier opposed to peace talks, has in recent weeks reversed its stand to one of accepting government-rebel negotiations conditional to a ceasefire by both sides, the laying down of arms by the rebels and their abandoning the goal of putting up an independent state.

“How this stand would fit in with Amarasinghe’s hardline views is left to be seen,” said CPA’s Loganathan. The PA, extremely conciliatory toward the Tamil political issue when it first took power in 1994, is also adopting a hawkish attitude on peace talks to also woo the majority Sinhalese population.

On the other hand, the UNP is the only party with a pro-peace agenda and is relying on the backing of a mixture of Tamil and Muslim political parties, drawing charges from the PA and the JVP that it has struck a deal with Tamil rebels.