The government should take responsibility for the violence that took place on the 9th and that it is a conspiracy to blame it on the JVP says the General Secretary of the JVP Tilvin Silva.
He stated this addressing a media briefing held at the JVP Head Office today (19th).
He further said, “On the 9th Mahinda Rajapaksa, the then Prime Minister, brought a group of thugs including MPs and local government councillors to Temple Trees, entertained them, got ministers like Johnston to talk to them and led a thug attack. These thugs attacked the peaceful protests in front of Temple Trees and near Galle Face. A large number of people in our country reacted as soon as they heard about the brutal thuggery of attacking and smashing equipment. At one point, those reactions escalated into violence. There had been arson and looting. Several human lives were lost.
Such violence arose due to the attack on the Galle Face struggle by Mahinda Rajapaksa’s thugs. We do not condone such violence. Also, the gang of thugs including Mahinda Rajapaksa should take the main responsibility for such violence. But now the government is trying to impose it on the JVP in a planned manner without taking any action to prevent a retaliatory attack on a peaceful struggle carried out by unarmed citizens. The thug ministers of the government who have been committing thuggery since the election and on the 9th are speaking like Bodhisattvas in Parliament. They say that the JVP carried out violent acts. Attempts are being made to place their responsibility on the JVP. We very responsibly deny this allegation. We also condemn this allegation. We see the imposition of those who created the violence on us, who have nothing to do with it, as a serious political conspiracy. We strongly condemn the creation of an opinion against the JVP for this political conspiracy. We ask the people not to accept any of this. All the ministers who accuse us of this are thugs in their villages and they are representatives of gangs of thugs. They are those who lied to the people from beginning to end. These people who misled the people and opposed by the people are now crying in Parliament and trying to become babies. Instead of finding the real culprits of the devastation that befell them, they accuse the JVP for a political purpose.
The JVP has been working democratically in the politics of this country for the past 25 to 30 years. The JVP has never been provoked or violent since 1994. We did not resort to violence when our comrades were killed during elections, houses were set on fire, comrades were assaulted and we were subjected to many injustices. We joined hands with the people and tried to defeat this situation. The JVP does not have people who cannot be controlled like in other parties. As a responsible political party, our members are loyal and disciplined. If we do politics we do it in a very organized way. Whether there is a demonstration or a protest, no one is allowed to interfere. We have proved that ours is a party that can lead its members with discipline. The thug ministers who sowed violence are with the help of the government trying to do this to tarnish the reputation of the JVP which has become a challenge to them. They want to break the trust of the people. Also, members of the JVP are being intimidated and plans are made to hunt them down. We emphasize to them that this is not 1983. That time is over. This is a time when there are videos in the hands of everyone who operates social media networks. Also, the JVP is a movement that is united with the people. So do not attempt to make false accusations and accuse us.
There is a real question. Although they are ministries, they cannot go down the road. Now, why aren’t they blowing sirens with guards like before? Now they are afraid of the people. They are afraid of the people in the gas queue, the oil queue and the milk powder queue. They can’t walk on the road. They do not go in big vehicles like before. They changed vehicles and are using smaller vehicles because of the massive public opposition to them. It is not just a protest of a political party. It is a mass protest. When a political party expresses its opposition it does so in an organized manner. But the general public is protesting in different ways. This situation has been seen in oil and gas queues in the past. However, such a situation did not occur to the members of the NPP. We know they were jealous of that. On top of all these grievances, they are blaming the JVP for the violence. We see this as the beginning of a political conspiracy.
In 1983 something like this happened. At the time, J.R. Jayewardene’s government created the ‘83 Black July’ when the JVP became a challenge, destroyed the property of the Tamil people, killed them and placed the blame on several parties including the JVP. We are aware of the unfortunate situation that arose in the country after that. In the past too, various attacks have been launched conspiratorially to seize power and retain power. We remember how the Easter attack was launched. They took a lot of effort to put the responsibility on us. Now, two or three years later, the whole country knows that the Easter attack was designed to bring the Rajapaksas to power. Even the Cardinal says it in public. But it took two or three years for those who could not understand the conspiracy at that moment to understand it. By that time the destruction of the country has been already committed. Therefore, the truth of the allegations being made at this moment will be known in a few months. But by then the country could have been devastated. So it must be defeated at this moment. We remember a clash that took place in Mirihana recently. A bus was set on fire there. Minister Prasanna Ranatunga said in Parliament that the JVP was involved in the arson. But to date, it has not been proven. No one connected with us was arrested. The person who did it is with them, but they are seeking public support to arrest him today. Despite the lie that was told a month ago having come to light, they have started lying again.
Due to the wrong measures taken by the government in the recent past, there has been a massive protest against the increase in prices of goods, collapse of revenue sources, gas queues, milk powder queues and fuel queues. The opposition to the government is strong enough to tell the Prime Minister, and the President, to go home. They cannot bear the opposition of the people. They know that in this situation the JVP is gaining immense popularity. Now they want to reduce the popularity of the JVP by reducing the opposition to them. They cannot diminish this popularity through politics. So they are trying to conspire. This attack is a conspiracy. If the attack on the 9th was successful, if several people were killed and the protests were disrupted, then the villages would be dominated by these gangs of political thugs. If that was the case there would be no possibility of protests anywhere in the villages. A thug regime would be established in the country. The general public, regardless of political affiliation, took to the streets against this mob attack and the thugs and their masters could not succeed. The violence was the eruption of popular anger against the government. There may have been some personal needs in it. There must have been stealing. It is normal for gangs of thugs to be present at any time of the conflict. The government is trying to impose this on the JVP without wanting to understand this as such a situation.
It is questionable why the thugs who were sent out of Temple Trees on the 9th when the attack was launched were not prevented from reaching Galle Face. Now they are blaming each other. DIG Deshabandu Tennakoon was accused of not stopping the attack. He has said that two officers above him had advised him not to do so.
If so, the government, including officials and senior police officials, should take responsibility. It is said that some members of the JVP are among those arrested. But all those who came to attack the Gall Face activists were supporters of the People’s Front, Mahinda Rajapaksa’s MPs and ministers. So they are the first respondents to this violence. The Rajapaksa government should take responsibility for this. More than a thousand people joined it. When this was spreading across the country, why was no action taken to prevent it? The state of emergency had been imposed. Later a curfew was imposed. The army had been called to the road. Why were the army and police unable to prevent violence? People protested peacefully. They have a right to it. Why were houses set on fire and looted? Why was security not provided? Scenes o violence were seen on social media. The police and the army did not take any action to prevent such acts. Why? The government now says that the belongings in the houses have been lost. It is said that the gold and several puppies are gone. Who advised not to control this? This shows a conspiracy to allow violence to take place, win their sympathy, reduce popular opposition and impose the responsibility of violence on the JVP and suppress us. Now they use lists to arrest people. These lists are not made by the CID. Local government politicians and MPs in those areas prepare those lists. The names of members of the JVP who they think are a political challenge are being listed. Although they have nothing to do with the violence they are arrested by the police. Then they are trying to say that so many of those arrested are from the JVP. There is a serious conspiracy behind these lists and arrests. This process is questionable. It must be rejected.
There are ways people respond to such incidents. In the event of a serious accident or death due to a road accident, we have seen people breaking into the road, attacking the driver and setting the vehicle on fire. They themselves created the culture in which people behave in this way. In this incident too, the anger of the people who saw the thugs coming out of Temple Trees attacking the peaceful protesters erupted. They engaged in a variety of behaviours. In some places, the people who had taken the goods had brought them back. A valuable puppy that was lost in Medamulana was later found in a house connected to the Samagi Jana Balawegaya. When the people involved in all these incidents are on the sidelines, they are targeting the JVP to free the government from the responsibility of the entire attack and place it on the JVP.
While Comrade Anura Dissanayake of our party was speaking in Parliament, MP Arundika Fernando stated that the IGP had informed him that out of the four hundred currently in custody, one hundred and fifty were from the JVP. If the IGP had said that it would be problematic. How can he say that? How the political affiliation of the arrested was investigated?
Therefore, we are ready to meet the IGP to find out about this. The IGP should give us that list. If one hundred and fifty of them are JVP, who are the rest? What is their politics? Why not talk about the politics of the rest? Accordingly, it is clear to us that there is a process in place aimed at planting this incident on the JVP. We reject all of these numbers. No one in a responsible position in our party has been arrested. However, government personnel have been arrested. Former ministers Sanath Nishantha, election organizers and chairmen are in custody. The government tried to put the responsibility for the violence on the JVP on various previous occasions as well. But we did not pay much attention to them. But we are seriously thinking about this incident. This is a planned attack, it was allowed to escalate into violence, allowed to go out of control, and no one was arrested at that moment. But, now we see making lists and political danger of hunting down JVP activists.
These two groups that are responsible for the 74-year curse that destroyed the country’s economy and the people, they who have destroyed this country have made people queue for days for their essential goods are trying to impose the responsibility of the violence on us. There is a Rajapaksa-Ranil government now. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe are trying to form a coalition government and place the blame for the devastation on the JVP. It seems that we have become the real enemy of everyone.
We are not worried about this because they are showing that the challenge they are facing now is the JVP. We tell the people that the allegations levelled against the JVP are completely false. We ask them not to believe what they say. We say with great confidence and responsibility that the JVP has nothing to do with these attacks. People know the member of the JVP. They know how he works with the people. People know that none of them is involved in these acts. We reject the responsibility of this conspiracy which they are trying to impose on us and we emphasize that that responsibility should be accepted by the thugs of the government. We also urge the people not to fall prey to government conspiracies and false propaganda.”
