17th November 2002 Volume 9, Issue18

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SPOTLIGHT

  • Ghosts of JVP’s past come back to haunt the party

In the eye of a storm

A case of bloody murder

By Amantha Perera

When he was a child, Ovitawithanage Samantha dreamt of becoming a Robin Hood. Influenced by a popular TV serial, he dressed up as the mythical hero, armed with a bow and arrow and set fire to his parents’ garden using fire-tipped arrows.

In real life too, Samantha who was brutally murdered by fellow undergraduates, was a sort of a Robin Hood. Unfortunately, within the boundaries of the pinnacle of education, Samantha had very few merry men around him. Within a student population close to 7,000, only about 15 undergraduates stood with Samantha in his quest to wipe out ragging from the university.

Samantha stood up against ragging as no other student had done before. In the first year, he resisted ragging by seniors. The fact that he lived just across the university and had the support of the villagers was an added advantage, because whoever wanted to rag Samantha was aware that the ‘return’ would come from outside. Several complaints have been made against Samantha alleging that he had used ‘outside’ forces to ‘handle’ undergraduates. 

If at first he was a thorn in the eyes of the established campus culture of ragging, JVP oriented politics and midnight frolicking against lecture-room walls, in his second year he became an even bigger menace. He launched a campaign to get rid of the rag for good.

“If a fresher did not want to be ragged, then he should be left alone, that was Samantha’s opinion,” observed his batchmate Shehan Fernando. Unfortunately, for the students whose political power rested in maintaining the university status quo, very conveniently dubbed ‘university sub-culture,’ such basic denominations of personal freedom were anathema. So the battle began and Samantha became target numero uno.

The fatal attack was not the first time that Samantha had been set upon, according to Fernando. Last year, when they were second year students, they were attacked for standing against ragging.

On the day of the incident, Samantha was in his usual mood, jovial and chatty. When a friend inquired whether everything was ok in the morning, “yeah, except for you,” was Samantha’s reply.

The friend’s anxiety was however serious. For a while, Samantha and the crowd had once again come under threat. The Sri Jayewardenepura University had opened for a new semester and ragging once again dominated the campus grounds.

With the handful of anti-raggers taking on the raggers and on top of that, the university political powers, Samantha was in danger of another assault. This year ragging had taken a turn for the worse. With a couple of first year students resisting ragging, the raggers resorted to physical assault.

According to Lasantha Jayawardena, a fresher who was injured in the attack, a first year student had been attacked till he bled from his nose, a few days before the attack on Samantha.

On the day of the attack, Thursday, November 7, another such assault took place and Samantha intervened and prevented a fresher from being bodily harmed. Things got charged up thereafter with the raggers  working under the tacit support of the Students’ Council, which at no time intervened to settle the growing rivalry between the factions.

Dr. Nevil Warnakula, who looks after student affairs, called a meeting between the anti-raggers and two representatives of the council — incumbent Chairman Sujith Kuruvita and his predecessor. The meeting was held at Dr. Warnakula’s office and Samantha attended with six more students.

The discussion centered on how to calm the bad blood that was brewing. Samantha stood his ground and once again, said that if freshers did not want it, there should be no ragging.

Kuruvita and his companion reached an agreement with the others and even shook hands with Samantha. They had even decided to organise a shramadana to clean the campus. It was soon after the handshake was over  that a fresher ran into the room with the news that some of the freshers were being assaulted once again.

Samantha lost his cool and remarked, “it is useless, they shake hands with us while hammering others outside.”

According to Tharanga Padmasiri who was outside the building where the meeting was taking place, by that time a crowd of around 300 students, mostly from the hostel, had surrounded it. They were armed with clubs, poles and even sand filled bottles.

What took place inside the room thereafter is not really clear, except that Samantha and the six others were assaulted mercilessly while Kuruvita and his colleague escaped unharmed and untouched. While poles embedded with iron nails rained down on Samantha, Kuruvita was not even pinched.

When Samantha fell unconscious, a computer screen was smashed on his head. According to Padmasiri and another student who were standing outside, the attackers had dragged the hapless victims down the stairs. The blows did not stop even when the victims were put into vehicles to be taken to hospital. “They were assaulted even then,” Padmasiri said. He and his friend did not intervene for mortal fear of being killed.

Jayawardena and Lakshith Hitigalabandara, another among the injured students, gave evidence that when they were being put in vehicles, the attackers had cheered, clapped and shouted “marapiyaw, marapiyaw.” Some were dragged out of the vehicles and attacked all over again.

Evidence suggests that the attack was well planned and that Samantha was targeted. There were very few body injuries on him, while his head had been smashed to pulp. Even when he was admitted to hospital, his condition was very bad.

“When I visited him, the doctors said that he would not live through the night due to the brain damage,” Tertiary Education Minister Kabir Hashim, who visited him on Friday (8) evening told The Sunday Leader.

Padmasiri said that while the attackers had converged on the building, a rumour had been spread in the university that students were being attacked by villagers and the gates were closed.

“There were no outsiders involved in the attack,” Padmasiri said. The involvement of outsiders was the hook that the Inter University Students’ Federation and the Students Council of the Jayewardenepura University dangled initially. Representatives told the media that the attack was carried out by outside goons.

The attackers also did not attack as soon as they reached the building. They waited till the best moment. Unconfirmed reports said that they had waited till Dr. Warnakula opened the door, to charge in. A SMS via a mobile phone sent by the trapped students to one of their colleagues said, “we are trapped, save us,” indicating that the attackers had waited before striking. When the friend reached the university barely 15 minutes after the SMS, the attack was over.

There had been rumours all over the university prior to the attack that discussions had been held in the hostel on how to deal with the anti-raggers. “We were asked to be careful  and not go out at night by friends who are in the hostel,” Padmasiri said.

Initially, Samantha’s friends were threatened not to go public. The undergraduate who appeared on national television charging that the attack was instigated by the IUSF received death threats over the phone.

 Soon after the attack, a meeting was held in “the faculty room,” a room where the IUSF supportive “podu shishyas” hold closed-door meetings. The discussion centered on how to get the attackers out. By that time, police protection had been provided to the university, ironically preventing angry villagers from man-handling the assailants who were in the refuge of the campus hostel.

It was police protection that provided an easy avenue for the assailants to get out. When the campus was declared out of bounds, the attackers assimilated themselves with other students and got out while Samantha was battling for life.

A similar meeting had been held prior to the attack as well, according to Padmasiri’s hostel source. Unfortunately, the source would not come forward to give evidence.

The knee-jerk reaction of the IUSF and student councils dominated by the JVP doctrine was pathetic. When the initial attempt to cloud the attack by blaming it on outsiders failed, the gear shifted to the perennial whipping horses, privatisation and police inaction on past complaints. Even JVP MP Bimal Rathnayake, who was once a prominent member of the IUSF, tried the number.

Talking to the media on the murder, he said that it was the result of the manner in which the police had handled students’ protests in the past. The slip was not only bare, it was in the face.

In death, Samantha has become a bigger threat to the JVP dominated culture of the local universities than he would ever have been in life. The iron hand of the political powers controlling campus politics crept out of the red drapes that were covering it with Samantha’s death.

In death, Samantha has become a larger than life figure, that the rhetoric addicted Wimal Weerawansas worship.

When the JVP leadership was paying homage to its slain leader Rohana Wijeweera, another such figure was creeping through the cracks at the Sri Jayewardenepura University, with the ability to destroy the student power base that Wijeweera’s party has so long depended on.

Upsetting the power balance

Samantha was not the first from his family to upset the power balance at the Sri Jayewardenepura University. His brother Dayantha had in fact been the main cause of halting ragging at the Science Faculty.

“When I entered university, I made sure that I was never ragged and in the second year, few of us got together and put an end to ragging,” he told The Sunday Leader.

Samantha just took after his elder brother. Dayantha knows very well that you court physical injury when you stand against the established campus culture. He had been attacked on several occasions.

One such incident occurred during the early hours of March 1, 2001, when Dayantha was studying with four others inside the campus. Their room was surrounded by a crowd of around 15 students armed with clubs and stones.

They called out for any ‘bogas,’ campus slang for those who go against the JVP culture, to come out. “We took a decision that we would hammer before we get hit,” Dayantha said. And that was precisely what the five did. When the attackers entered the room, before they could turn their heads, blows rained down on them.

They retreated, but for one and half-hours kept throwing stones at the room. Dayantha suffered a head injury that required four stitches during the attack.

Dayantha observed that the attacks were influenced by much more than the anti-rag sentiments. “We stood against their political survival, so we had to go.”

And the brother of the slain student did not hold back his criticism of the JVP. “Bimal Rathnayake has visited the same hostel that the attackers ran to on several occasions in the past at night,” he charged.

The Students Council of the university  has organised public lectures at the university for the likes of JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva, but booed off Prof. G. L. Peiris when he attended a job fair organised by the Management Faculty.

“Where is the democracy here — the way they behaved at the job fair no graduate from Jayewardenepura would get a job at a bank.” Dayantha went on, “the ‘independent’ student activists, go and paste posters for the JVP, join their election work and some have contested local government elections from the party. The JVP has to prove it is clean here, not the other way round.”

Fertile breeding grounds

A passing glance at the CVs of some of the JVP members of parliament would suffice to figure out what a fertile breeding ground the varsities are for the party.

Two of its MPs cut their teeth in politics as members of university students councils — Bimal Rathnayake and Gamini Rathnayake from the Kegalle District,  while parliamentary group leader Wimal Weeravansa’s ticket to big time politics was as a journalist covering the campus beat for a Sinhala tabloid.

The universities have always been a hot bed for JVP supporters. According to Western Province Chief Minister Reginald Cooray, important discussions on the launching of the 1971 insurrection took place at the Sri Jayewardenepura University.

The influence of the Student Wing was felt in no short measure during the 1988-89 insurrection as well. The leader of the JVP military wing who went by the dreaded name Keerthi Wijebahu was none other than Saman Piyasiri Fernando, an undergraduate of the Kelaniya University. Fernando assumed the leadership of the party when Rohana Wijeweera and Upatissa Gamanayake were killed by state forces.

The Student Wing has been linked to attempts made to assassinate the then Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne among other accusations.

After the 1988-89 mauling in the hands of the state forces, the JVP Student Wing made a cautious, yet calculated entry to the universities. But at no time was it out of the scene.

In 1991, an organisation called the Sisu Jana Sahayogitha Peramuna was formed in Colombo under the auspices of  many opposition parties. It was used as a front to get the Student Wing moving once again. Within a few years, the JVP was back in business.

The JVP is careful enough not to get entangled in campus politics in any form that is directly affiliated to the party. The JVP university wing goes by the name Samajawadhi Shishya Sangamaya. But it very rarely contests any campus election.

The front used at Sri Jayewardenepura is the Eksath Shishya Sangamaya. “It is one and the same thing,” according to the brother of the slain undergraduate, Dayantha. The difference is that one contests elections while the other propagates pro-JVP ultra-leftist doctrines.

When the searchlight fell on the party and its student wing last week with the murder, Bimal Rathnayake tried to distance the party from university politics. “There is a notion that the universities are a big part of our power base. That is not true. Our base in the villages is much more,” he said.

University politics have been violent in the past as well — at Jayewardenepura itself several clashes have taken place, dating back to 1994 when a group of anti-raging students launched a campaign.

The violence has been part and parcel even when politics and elections are far from the picture. At the Kelaniya University, the Students Union which Gamini Rathnayake headed in 1993-94 , bore witness to such an incident in 1994.

A group of students had organised a get-together at the Jayewardene Centre in Colombo. The Student Council launched a violent campaign barring students who attended the get-together from university. The argument put forward was that the students had collected money from sponsors using the university name while they were not registered under the Registrar.

Students were assaulted and others were bucketed with filthy water in the university cafeteria and asked to apologise. If the victim students had not relented, they would have been prevented from sitting for exams.

Gamini Rathnayake, who these days speaks of high nobles and criticises government corruption, did not utter a word during the entire saga.

The get-together was just a ruse used to violently over power a group of students whose numbers were growing, especially in the Science Faculty, and was becoming a threat to the Podu Shishya survival. The controversy of the get-together however, resulted in the Podu Shishya backed candidates losing power of the Science Faculty union.

A similar incident had taken place at Jayewardenepura as well. A Podu Shishya gang had surrounded the Science Faculty get-together and demanded it be stopped. The reason, girls and boys were dancing together at 11 o’clock in the night.

“That is the hypocrisy. These fellows don’t say anything about what takes place under trees, behind faculty buildings and all over after 6 p.m., but no dancing,” Dayantha observed.

The same girl-boy dancing charge had been levelled during the Kelaniya University incident as well.

The JVP backed students’ power has been on the wane in the Science and Medical Faculties. The rag is never an issue at the Colombo Medical Faculty or the Engineering Faculty at Moratuwa. But is always an issue at Kelaniya, Jayewardenepura, Ruhuna and Peradeniya dominated by arts faculties.

The rag is an integral part of the university system, the way it is now. The rag is the first session of brain washing. If there is no rag, there needs to be another means by which freshers can be herded in their numbers to listen to the doctrines of seniors.

The brains that are taken over by the rag are powerful tools, considering the 26,000 graduates, mostly from the arts streams still remaining jobless.

The JVP think-alike politically oriented student leaders would never rag — there are more than enough others to do that duty. But never in history has the JVP taken an active stance against ragging. It has always been an attitude of laisser-faire.

Charges against murder and ragging

When he heard of the demise of the Sri Jayewardenepura undergraduate, the first thing that Samurdhi Minister R. A. D. Sirisena did was to try and get in touch with a fellow undergraduate that his son knew.

Despite failing to contact Samantha’s friend, Sirisena thought it fit to make a statement in parliament on the murder. He could not proceed since such a statement was against standing orders.

Sirisena’s reaction was typical of the UNF. Most UNF members were working overtime to take cheap advantage, leaving the JVP room to wiggle out. Government ministers and MPs who knew next to nothing about campus politics kept trooping in to the funeral house.

Minister of Tertiary Education Kabir Hashim told The Sunday Leader that if the assassins were proved to have links with the IUSF, he was contemplating action against the federation which he said had no legal power.

Other options that were on Hashim’s table included getting all outsiders out of hostels, having a police post in campuses, taking tough action against raggers and getting rid of politics in universities.

Trade and Commerce Minister Ravi Karunanayake has decided to withhold the Mahapola Scholarship from any student who is connected with violence.

It was Interior Minister John Amaratunga who was leading the battle against the JVP in parliament. He told the house that according to the police report, the IUSF connection with the assailants was established. He was holding the JVP responsible for the murder of the Walallavita Pradheshiya Sabha Chairman and the violence at Walasmulla.

By last Friday, 22 students were in custody on suspicion of involvement in the Samantha murder and there were unconfirmed reports that one was an office bearer of a student council.

On top of murder charges, the suspects are to be charged under the new law against ragging.

Behind the scene, other government ministers too were active. S. B. Dissanayake had assured witnesses under death threats that the government would protect them and was urging them to act with caution. “We have to deal with the JVP in  a much more intelligent manner,” he told the students.

The PA too was reacting to the murder. The speech made by President Chandrika Kumaratunga to the nation last week was readjusted so it did not play up too much the PA-JVP axis.

Even the likes of Anura Bandaranaike paid his last respects to Samantha, despite not so long ago going all over the country singing hosannas to the JVP.

Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapakse made an oration at the funeral. He urged the authorities to look into the reasons behind the murder and take steps to prevent a repetition no matter who was behind it.

“We condemn this no matter what political party is behind this,” Ven. Baddegama Samitha Thero said. The monk who is no stranger to campus violence said that authorities should take action to prevent new students from falling prey to group pressure exerted in universities.

But the most virulent attack on the JVP came from PA MP from Kesbewa, Chandana Kathriarachchi. He kept repeating that the JVP should prove its credentials that it was not connected with the murder. Arguing that the murder was well planned and carried out by persons committed to violence, he charged, “the JVP has to show the country that it in no way contributed to the murder.”

At the funeral, before delivering President Kumaratunga’s message, Kathriarachchi delivered a poser to the entire country.

“I ask you, should the murderers of this young man be pardoned by the legal system and by society as a whole?”

It was clear that an emotionally charged Kathriarachchi was not about to allow the culprits to get off easily. Samantha had had a close rapport with the MP.

Blood for blood

The most violent reaction to the murder came from the village that surrounds the Sri Jayewardenepura University.

Angry villagers broke into the university, dismantled the Viru Sisu Smarakaya (the memorial of the dead student), brought it to Gangodawila Junction and kept it there with a JVP board.

“There were only two boys from the village who entered the university and these bastards took one away,” said an angry resident Wimalasiri Perera.

“Tell Wimal Weerawansa, Sunil Hadunhetti, Tilvin Silva or that bugger Mudalige (convenor of the IUSF) to come to the campus, we will be ready for them,” he said soon after the funeral.

The villagers had set fire to the memorial soon after the funeral and posters had appeared all over the village and on university walls warning that there was no pardon for the JVP or to students supporting the party.

Even Samantha’s colleagues admitted that the villagers were bound to assault students whom they thought were connected with the murder as soon as they lay their eyes on them.

The rivalry between the village and the Podu Shishyas is a long running one. Some time back a village youth was mercilessly assaulted by undergraduates and the villagers in return had attacked an undergraduate who suffered severe leg injuries.

The injured undergraduate according to villagers had taken part in the deadly assault on Samantha and crowd, gloating “look I can walk now.” The villagers are demanding blood for the blood that was spilt.

Making a big issue over small mistakes

When Samantha died, the initial reaction of the JVP was that of absolute silence. When UNF Minister R. A. D. Sirisena rose in parliament to speak on Saturday (9) morning, it was only prevented because the speech was against standing orders. The JVP usually vociferous, was never its usual self when dealing with the murder.

It took the party four full days to come out with something substantial. By that time, the entire country was buzzing with the accusation that it was JVP backed student unions who were behind the murder.

On Wednesday morning, Wimal Weerawansa wanted to make a special statement in parliament, but was prevented as there was an adjournment debate on the murder that very evening.

Weerawansa thereafter addressed a press conference and said that the government was putting the blame on everything that happens on the JVP.

Later in the day, Bimal Rathnayake and three other JVP MPs were chaperoned by PA’s Mahindananda Aluthgamage to a meeting convened by the UNF to form a MPs organisation against all forms of violence. Rathnayake more or less aired the same sentiments as Weerawansa.

The JVP he said condemned the murder as brutal and called upon the authorities to bring all culprits to book, handing over the severest punishment.

He requested the media and the country at large to examine the JVP’s track record since it re-entered mainstream politics in the early ’90s. “We don’t have to prove our innocence, we are innocent.” He challenged the government that was pointing the accusing finger at the JVP not only concerning Samantha’s murder, but of clashes with police in Walasmulla and the murder of a pradeshiya sabha member, to even use the CIA and show a JVP connection.

Before the public statements, JVP members were privately rejecting that they or the party were in any way involved in the violence. Sunil Hadunhetti being one such.

Despite such protestations, the JVP was finding it hard to extricate itself totally from the mess. While the likes of Weerawansa and Rathnayake were going public with their side of the story, national television aired pictures of the raid carried out at the Student Council office at Sri Jayewardenepura. The rooms were full of JVP propaganda material, JVP literature and even posters.

The family and friends of the murdered undergraduate were equivocal in blaming the JVP. And the JVP had not rendered any help to the family or to the investigation despite having a strong presence in the university.

“The JVP has to come out and show the world its credibility. It has to help in apprehending the suspects,” PA MP Chandana Kathriarachchi observed.

Rathnayake once again  said that the blame game was only helping the government, but that the JVP was willing to provide whatever information that was with the party, if it was going to help the investigation. “But no such request has been made.”

The fact that the JVP was ruffled like never before in recent times was quite clear. Inadvertently or otherwise, the pressure spoke on the JVPers. At the party convention held the very morning of Samantha’s funeral, Weerawansa said the government was making a big issue of small mistakes that individual party members had committed.

Try saying that to Samantha’s parents standing in front of the university.

JVP under attack

The JVP too came under attack soon after the murder. On Wednesday, the JVP’s Maharagama-Pannipitiya office was burnt down. And the day after, a party printing press at Batapotha was burnt and an office in Godagama was attacked. The attacks were few and far between, but gave the legroom for the JVP to cry out that the party was once again being victimised by state sponsored goons.

There is simmering anger against the party in and around the university. On the night of the Maharagama office attack, a UNP MP from the Negombo area had visited the funeral house with a crowd and the indications were that the attack was carried out by the crowd.

The burning of the Batapotha office is interesting. It was more or less a publicity hub for the party, with several computers and a mini off-set machine. The press that was housed at an old walawwa was used by Wimal Weeravansa as an office and was not that easily located.

A gang of about 60 had come at night and set fire to the house as well as to two vehicles parked outside causing damage worth Rs. 13 lakhs.

The attacks however, stopped at that and the feared attacks on the JVP convention and buses transporting supporters on Wednesday did not materialise. The JVP was allowed to commemorate its dead in peace.

There was a heavy police presence around the Sugathadasa Stadium and at Gangodawila. Authorities had taken the precaution  to induct army as well as Special Task Force units to meet any contingency. 

 

 

 
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