SUMMARY
The JVP (Janatha Vimukti Permamuna; People’s Liberation Front) was a rebel group that fought an intermittent intrastate armed conflict over government against the Government of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in the 1970s, and late 1980s. The group was established in 1965 by Rohana Wijeweera as a revolutionary movement driven by a combination of Marxist/Maoist and nationalist ideology. The group focused particularly on promoting the interests of the Sinhalese peasantry. JVP also had a military wing, the Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya (People’s Patriotic Organization). Its nationalist ideals took the form of strong anti-Indian sentiments; the JVP viewed Indian economic expansion in Sri Lanka as the continuation of British imperialism. The anti-Indian sentiments also translated into an anti-Tamil orientation, because of the perceived cultural and political ties between Indians and Tamils. The JVP was also strongly opposed to the idea of an independent Tamil state; at the time, there was a burgeoning demand among the Tamil ethnic group for independence, which later evolved into a separatist armed conflict. The group’s militant radicalism attracted mainly disgruntled youth within the Sinhalese part of the Sri Lankan population.
In the early 1970s, the group was primarily active in the rural parts of southern Sri Lanka, where the Sinhalese majority ethnic group was most prevalent. Following a failed revolt by the JVP in 1971, the group was banned, only to be legalized again in 1977. Wijeweera even ran for office in the 1983 presidential elections, coming in third. Soon after this, the group was banned once again, following anti-Tamil communal riots in the cities of Colombo and Jaffna; JVP was blamed by the government for having instigated the violence. When the JVP re-emerged as a violent revolutionary movement in the late 1980s, it obtained considerable support not only in the rural areas like in 1971, but also in more urban areas such as the area around the capital Colombo.
The JVP was also able to bolster its popular support thanks to public discontent over the Indo-Sri Lankan Agreement signed in July 1987. The agreement was intended to stop the fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil minority group, which at the time was firmly engaged in a separatist conflict, with the latter striving to form an independent “Tamil Eelam”. The agreement stipulated a devolution of power to the Sri Lankan provinces and withdrawal of Sri Lankan troops from the Tamil-held northern parts of the country. JVP claimed that this agreement gave too much power to the Tamil minority group. After gaining increasing popular support, the group attempted again to overthrow the Sri Lankan government in 1989. However, this conflict-episode ended in a decisive defeat for the JVP in 1990. After this, the JVP transformed itself into a political party and re-entered constitutional politics in 1994.
The group was led by Rohana Wijeweera until 1989, when he was killed while in custody of the Sri Lankan military. In 1989, the Sri Lankan authorities also captured most of JVP’s Politburo, and many of its local commanders.
The JVP did not have an external support network, a fact it took pride in. The group’s aversion to the idea of a Tamil state also meant that it did not cooperate with any of the Tamil insurgent groups active at the time, such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
