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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EXCITE" data-source="post: 17418510" data-attributes="member: 517400">A Society Caught Between Two Forces This testimony given to a committee on disappearances describes the    unbearable pressures faced by ordinary people who were caught in the    middle between JVP and State violence. ‘Many witnesses said that, caught between two forces as they were,    their life during this period was like a “nut in a  nut-cracker”   (girayatha ahu vechcha puwak gediyak vagei). They felt that  there   existed a kind of “dual-power” situation in the country. The  state had   lost its hegemony, and same referred to the authority of the  JVP as   Punchi Aanduwa (small government). The JVP imposed its own  curfews,   organized island-wide hartals, and called for frequent strikes.  Some   joined these protest movements under JVP threats.’ <a href="http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/burnt-buses-aug-89.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/burnt-buses-aug-89.jpg?w=630" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>An man walks past buses destroyed by the JVP near Yariyama, August 1989.(Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Liaison)   “The people who get the worst of this are the villagers.  It’s such a small island. There’s no place to run, no place to go and make your family safe.” A <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/1989/0811/olanka.html" target="_blank">senior Western diplomat.</a> August 1989  ‘Many witnesses said that their families suffered at the hands of both the security forces and the JVP during this period. “In    our area a group of JVP supporters went from house to house and asked    people to assemble for a meeting. Later the Army had raided the place    and arrested people. My son was among those who were arrested, and he    never came back home.” “As a punishment for supporting the SLFP in the 1988 election. The    JVP asked me to kneel down on the road for three hours. However, it was    the security forces who abducted my brother on a later occasion.” ‘The resultant sense of isolation was portrayed time and again in    the evidence: “There was no one to complain to. The government was deaf;    the opposition absent; the Police drove us away like dogs. The JVP    killed, the Army killed,” said a mother who had lost three sons taken    away in three different rounding-up operations never to return.’ <a href="http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/trees-blocking-road-jvp-dec-89.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/trees-blocking-road-jvp-dec-89.jpg?w=594&h=397" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>Felled trees blocking a road – the JVP attempting to foil Presidential election voting in Southern Sri Lanka. December 1988. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images) ‘The Police and Armed Forces are not alien institutions to this    society. The affected families also had their own children and relatives    serving in the Police and Armed forces. We came across several    instances where o<a href="http://www.disappearances.org/news/mainfile.php/frep_sl_western/46/" target="_blank">ne member of the family was killed by subversives as a punishment for serving in the police </a>or in the army; another member of the same family was abducted by security forces for alleged subversive activities.’  A Snapshot of Killings The pages of International Alert’s 1989 publication “Political Killings in Southern Sri Lanka”    lists a grim and incomplete memorial to those who were killed during    this insurgency. A random selection of the victims’ names and places    shows how no part of society was left untouched by JVP violence and the    COIN campaign that ultimately destroyed it. <a href="http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/sample-political-killings-sl-87-891.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/sample-political-killings-sl-87-891.png?w=630&h=292" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>A tiny sample of political killings in Sri Lanka in 1988, taken from “Political Killings in Southern Sri Lanka”, International Alert, London 1989 A Policeman’s Family Burnt Alive … ‘ In Uluvitake, on July 24, 1988, militants threw bombs and set    fire to the residence of the Deputy Inspector General of Police,    Premadasa Udugampola. Udugampola’s mother, brother, sister-in-law, two    children were killed and burnt. Subsequently, the Udugampola brothers –  a   DIG, another an Inspector, and an army Major vied with each other  in   heading the anti-JVP war with their own special teams. Udugampola  who   was very active in anti-JVP operations transformed the strategy of    combating the JVP from cordon off and search, to search, interrogate and destroy. It was he together with Brigadier Lakshman Algama who first started to fight JVP unconventionally.’ p.85 [SL-ALR] … And an ‘Avenging Killer Squad’ is Born  “In areas he (DIG Udugampola) commanded, small groups of    hand-picked men armed with automatic in unmarked vehicles roamed the    towns and villages. The three squads of fifteen men were recruited from    families that had suffered at the hands of the JVP. Therefore, they   were  highly motivated to hunt and kill their enemy to avenge the death   of  their loved ones.  <img src="http://www.dailynews.lk/2007/05/30/z_p10-Dealing3.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />DIG Premadasa Udugampola The creation of this formidable force frightened the JVP.  This was a   force which operated both within and outside the framework of    democracy, and a powerful figure of the ability and motivation of    Udugampola behind them. This time the JVP was taken by surprise  –   they never anticipated that the state and the state-sponsored forces    will ever copy and adopt their operational methods and unconventional    tactics in combating them… In time, Udugampola moved from the Southern    to the North Central and then to the Central Province, introducing  this   strategy to those were left to command. At a time when everybody    predicted that the JVP has come to stay, DIG Premadasa Udugampola    predicted that they will be doomed by the end of 1989. The first question Wijeweera asked the Ops Combine team which apprehended him [was], “Are you from Kandy?”. [p.339-40 [SL:ALR] <a href="http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/mass-grave-burning-aug-89.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/mass-grave-burning-aug-89.jpg?w=630" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>Killed by unknown assailants. Smoke surrounds burning bodies in Dikwella, August 1989.(Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Liaison)  Settling scores – Troops punished for extra-judicial killings Nothing better illustrates how the anti-JVP struggle was used to settle personal disputes than the infamous case of the <a href="http://www.srilankahr.net/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=49" target="_blank">Embilipitiya School Massacre</a>.    Between August 1989 and January 1990, 25 schoolboys were abducted and    murdered in Embilipitiya, a small village in Southern Sri Lanka. The    majority of murders were committed after the JVP leader, Wijeweera had    been captured and killed. The murderers and victims were all  Sinhalese.   The murderers were members of the Sri Lankan Army and their  associates.   The victims were neither insurgents nor suspected  insurgents. The   schoolchildren were murdered for two seemingly trivial  reasons. First,   some boys had teased the school principal’s son over a  love interest.   The second being some students had protested at how  part of the school’s   land had been transferred to a businessman  connected to a local   politician. The school principal and his  associates used the Army to get   his revenge on the slights he’d  suffered. Quite against the grain, under massive pressure from the parents of    the disappeared, the Police began an investigation and after a long    delay the accused were brought to trial. Finally in 1999 a very brave    judge <a href="http://www.alrc.net/doc/mainfile.php/supremecourtcases/198/?print=yes" target="_blank">sentenced 10 soldiers including a brigadier and a principal of the high school, to ten years in prison.</a> <img src="http://www.afad-online.org/voice/oct_06/v_d06_try_future5.JPG" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />The    “Shrine of the Innocents” built to in 1999 to commemorate the deaths   of  innocents, with the mothers of the disappeared in attendance. <img src="http://lankanewsweb.com/english/images/stories/Insideimages/Jan12/Jagath2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />The “Shrine of the Innocents” today lies neglected and forgotten.  Hammer of the JVP – Defence Minister, <a href="http://ranjanwijeratnefoundation.org.lk/" target="_blank">General Ranjan Wijeratne</a> An ex-tea planter and Defence Minister from 1988 to 1991, Wijeratne    was a key figure in crushing the JVP. He said of the COIN campaign, “The    JVP put us against the wall. They motivated us to hit back. When you    are up the wall, you have nothing to lose. I hit right round,    peripheries, middle and top, and as the attack was simultaneous, the    results were brilliant.” [SL:ALR p.335] ‘Wijeratne never feared the enemy. When all his colleagues were on    the defence he was on the offensive. Perhaps he was the only man who    openly advocated death to the JVP. Unlke most leaders who are led by    their men, Wijeratne went to the front himself. He spoke to the    Generals, the middle level officer and the men in the field. He was at    the front line to see that his policies were implemented.’ <img src="http://ranjanwijeratnefoundation.org.lk/archives/images/all-data/400-261-army_top.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Defence Minister Wijeratne inspecting troops ‘He saw to it that the ablest men were transferred to the areas    where security had rapidly deteriorated. He personally made the    decisions with regard to slotting them. He had learnt this when he    managed the [tea] estate sector where he put good men to manage the bad    estates. Then he gave an ultimatum to the JVP to surrender or face the    consequences, and for the troops to fight or get fired.’ In 1990, Mr Wijeratne told parliament, “I am going all out for the LTTE. I never do anything in half measures.” The LTTE who hated him and understood his implacable mindset bombed his convoy and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/2/newsid_4201000/4201675.stm" target="_blank">killed him in March 1991</a>. The full measure was dealt out to the LTTE, 18 years later.  Darth Sidious copies Sri Lanka’s COIN Strategy: “Wipe Them Out. All Of Them.”  The End The JVP was not a l<a href="http://www.asiantribune.com/node/998" target="_blank">ucky revolutionary group</a>.    Ranasinghe Premadasa, the newly elected president succeeded in    undercutting JVP’s support amongst the poorer segments of society    through “Janasaviya”, his innovative poverty alleviation programme.    Spurning all efforts at compromise and negotiations, the JVP demanded    unconditional surrender of the government and democratic system. The    armed forces were re-deployed from the Northern front due to the arrival    of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) and the JVP’s suicidal   threats  against security forces’ families sealed its doom. <a href="http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/victm-beach-aug-89.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://thecarthaginiansolution.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/victm-beach-aug-89.jpg?w=630" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>Onlookers examining a burnt body that washed up in Negombo. August 1989.(Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Liaison) By 1990, almost all senior JVP politburo leaders had been captured    alive, interrogated, killed and cremated – extra judicially. Their lives    ended as they had ordered the lives of others to be ended. In a    prescient comment, foreshadowing what would happen to Vellupiali    Prabhakaran, (the LTTE leader), Varatharaja Perumal, the Chief Minister    of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, said of the capture of JVP    leaders, “I say Prabakaran would not have died like that. He would    have died fighting. If he was in a tight spot, he would have taken    cyanide. He would never be taken alive to be spat on by his enemies.”  The JVP as an armed revolutionary organisation had been crushed at  the   cost of 40,000 to 60,000 lives. ‘Search, Interrogate and Destroy’  had   worked. But a guaranteed way to defeat an insurgency is to ensure   that  your country doesn’t provide the social and economic conditions to    create an insurgency. Sri Lanka has already <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War" target="_blank">endured</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_JVP_Insurrection" target="_blank">defeated</a> three separate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janatha_Vimukthi_Peramuna#The_insurgency_1987-1989" target="_blank">insurgencies</a>. Even a country as resilient as Sri Lanka may not survive another COIN campaign.</blockquote>

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