Bitter factional differences have erupted in the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a Sri Lankan party that combines populist demagogy with Sinhala communalism and strident support for the renewed war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

While the dispute is dominated by personal abuse, organisational manoeuvring, court actions and violence, the tensions reflect the deep-going political and social crisis that is wracking the island as a whole.

The disagreements emerged publicly on April 8 when the JVP’s Parliamentary Group Leader Wimal Weerawansa launched a scathing attack in parliament on the party leadership. It appears that the JVP Central Committee initiated disciplinary proceedings against him last month at the instigation of Party Leader Somawansa Amarasinghe.

Weerawansa has since been supported by 10 other JVP MPs and has mooted the formation of a Patriotic Front as a vehicle for his political ambitions.

The party is rapidly moving toward an open split. During the past fortnight, two vehicles belonging to dissident MPs were seized and taken to the JVP headquarters. The parliamentarians responded by making a complaint to the parliamentary police, which led to the detention of JVP MP Jayantha Wijesekara and two others. The home of another dissident MP, Samansiri Herath, was attacked, allegedly by JVP thugs.

Two organisers with the JVP front, the Patriotic National Movement (PNM), which is reportedly sympathetic to Weerawansa, were beaten up.

The immediate issue behind the rupture is the party’s attitude to the government — whether to join the ruling coalition or remain on the opposition benches. The JVP was crucial in assisting Mahinda Rajapakse in narrowly winning the presidential election in November 2005 and boasts that it was instrumental in pushing the island back to war. At the same time, the JVP decided to keep its distance and not to participate in Rajapakse’s governing United Peoples Freedom Alliance.

Even while formally part of the opposition, the JVP has been critical in propping up the shaky government. The JVP’s 37 MPs have backed the military offensives against the LTTE in breach of the 2002 ceasefire and the final abrogation of the truce in January.

They have voted to extend the government’s draconian emergency powers, endorsed its attacks on democratic rights and supported budget proposals that have heaped the economic burden of the war onto working people. Widespread popular hostility to the war and its impact on living standards have produced a sharp slump in support not only for the government, but also for the JVP.

Weerawansa and his supporters have been pushing to join the Rajapakse government. As he explained on the Derana television channel on Sunday night, the JVP leadership has been discussing how to reverse a drastic fall in party membership over the past few years.

"My idea was to enter into the government and do some people-friendly work so that we would be able to have a mass base," Weerawansa declared. "My argument was that if we work separately from the government, Mahinda Rajapakse would take advantage of the successes of the war against the Tigers (LTTE) as we are on the outside... After all, we took the initiative to renew the war."

Weerawansa, who is notorious as a demagogic supporter of the war, obviously sees a niche for himself in Rajapakse’s cabinet. He and his supporters are virtually assured of ministerial positions as Rajapakse has been compelled to give every member of his alliance an official post in order to retain their backing.

In his April 8 statement to parliament, Weerawansa lashed out at the "conspiracy" within the party to relieve him of his posts and claimed to be a victim of enemies "that have an imperialistic agenda." Developing on the theme in comments to the Irida Divaina newspaper, he claimed that "conspirators" in the party "have joined hands with the (opposition) United National Party (UNP) and western forces." The party leadership, he declared was "following an agenda to bring the UNP in to power."

Weerawansa’s diatribe reflected the views of the most rabid supporters of the war, which regard any, even limited criticism of the military’s repressive measures and atrocities as tantamount to treason. In reality, the right-wing UNP, which was responsible for initiating the protracted civil war in 1983, has fully backed the military offensives since July 2006.

Apart from muted criticisms of the military’s most flagrant abuses, the US and other imperialist powers have tacitly backed the government’s war and ignored its tearing up of the 2002 ceasefire agreement.

Weerawansa visited Kandy on Sunday to obtain the blessing of the Buddhist hierarchy for his plans to launch a new political front. Speaking afterward, he denounced his opponents even more stridently as stooges of the LTTE. "There is a conspiracy to destroy the national leadership of the country. The LTTE is carrying that forward. Those who are promoting separatism have contributed towards dividing the JVP. Those who are supporting the forces that are promoting separatism in the country are happy today," he said.

Weerawansa’s opponents in the JVP leadership are just as steeped in Sinhala chauvinism. At the same time, however, they are deeply concerned that the party’s remaining support will evaporate if it joins the government. Disciplinary action has been taken against Weerawansa for his failure to toe the party’s political line and take a more critical attitude to the Rajapakse government.

At a press conference on April 9, JVP Leader Somawansa Amarasinghe listed a series of issues on which Weerawansa had failed to criticise the government. These included the forcible evacuation of hundreds of Tamils from Colombo by police in June 2007, the rising cost of living, and arson at the Leader Press, which publishes The Sunday Leader that has been critical of the government.

In an interview in the JVP newspaper Lanka published on April 20, General Secretary Tilvin Silva accused Weerawansa of trying to "tie the party to Mahinda Rajapakse."

The government, he stated, "wanted to put the party in their pockets... We suspect that Wimal (Weerawansa) has been used to control the party from within.... When they failed they took him out."

The JVP is just as strident in its support for the war as Weerawansa. Silva told Lanka: "The country is facing many problems. Foremost is the national question. Using this question, a Western conspiracy and Indian intervention is going on. There is a conspiracy to make Sri Lanka a Kosovo... There is an economic crisis in the country... The Rajapakse government has no solution to these problems. It (the country) needs to have a new patriotic front of patriots and progressives."

It is no accident that the dispute, which has been brewing for some time, has erupted into the open now. The JVP leaders are well aware that skyrocketting inflation is fuelling broad discontent, including among its traditional base of support in rural areas.

The annualised inflation rate for food items hit an unbearable 37 percent in March, reflecting growing shortages, including of rice, the country’s staple.

After winning some quick victories against the LTTE in the east last year, the military’s operations in the north have bogged down. The bulk of the army is drawn from poor rural youth in the country’s largely Sinhala south. University students and public sector workers engaged in protests over funding cuts and wages have become increasingly disillusioned with JVP student and union leaders demanding sacrifices for the war effort.

Workers are starting to desert the JVP unions. Significantly, the JVP this year decided not to hold a May Day demonstration, which has traditionally been used to display its strength.

The JVP is often referred to in the Colombo and international media as "Marxist" but the party has never had anything to do with Marxism or socialism. Its orientation was always toward impoverished rural youth, not the working class.

From its formation in the 1960s, the JVP’s ideology was based on a mixture of Maoism, Guevarism and Sinhala communal politics, which evolved rapidly to the right under the impact of the country’s civil war.

In the late 1980s, the JVP launched a "patriotic" campaign against the Indo-Lanka Accord, accusing the UNP government of betraying the country by agreeing to allow Indian ‘peacekeepers’ into the north to suppress the LTTE and impose a peace deal.

Fascistic JVP gangs killed hundreds of workers and political opponents who refused to support the JVP’s communal protests. In 1989, President R. Premadasa, who had been toying with forming an alliance with the JVP, turned on the party, murdered its leaders and then unleashed death squads throughout the south of the country that killed thousands of rural youth.

The JVP was brought back into the political mainstream in 1994 following the election of Chandrika Kumaratunga as president. As opposition grew to the two major parties — the UNP and Kumaratunga’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) — the JVP played a valuable role for the ruling elites as a political safety valve. The JVP’s fortunes began to decline, however, when it joined the SLFP-led government in 2004 and failed to keep any of its promises to help the poor.

Amid falling popular support, the JVP quit the Kumaratunga government in mid-2005, bitterly opposing its formation of a joint body with the LTTE to hand out international aid to victims of the December 2004 tsunami.

Its denunciations of the aid body signaled a campaign to whip up communal sentiment for a renewed war against the LTTE. Uncertain of its support, the JVP did not stand a presidential candidate of its own in the November 2005 election but backed Rajapakse, who replaced Kumaratunga as SLFP leader, on the basis of a programme that set the course for war.

The continuing slide in the JVP’s membership and broader support has now provoked a crisis in its ranks that is lurching toward a split. In his comments in Kandy on Sunday, Weerawansa indicated that the possibility of "patching up in the party was remote."

The Pillayan faction has already made out its winning formula for the May 10 eastern provincial poll.

According its leader, Sivasuntharai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan, its home base, Batticaloa, once again figures prominently in the scheme of things. The TMVP wants to secure 15 seats that will enable it not only to be part of the governing coalition in the council, but will also make it the single largest party and in the process, gain its leader the chief minister’s post — that is the plan, according to Pillayan who said so at a meeting in Eravur recently.

In the other two districts, its only realistic chance is securing three seats from each, and the balance nine will have to come from Batti, where in March it swept the nine local councils, two months to the day the May election will be held.

The March win was a no-contest with no proper Tamil rival taking on the TMVP. This time however the field is thickly packed with the UNP’s entry.

The March poll was concluded without much violence — there was only one murder reported. That too before nominations closed when a teacher from the Valachchenai area was killed for refusing to contest on the TMVP ticket.

This campaign has already seen its share of violence — at least two murders have been reported (linked to the election), a claymore explosion at Tamalakulama in Trincomalee seriously disrupted government election work and a grenade was thrown at the business premises owned by Daya Gamage in Pepiliyana. Gamage is contesting on the UNP ticket in the Ampara District.

The election campaign was in low gear till last week when it started picking up pace, with government ministers and opposition heavyweights making their way to the province after the Avurudhu holidays. The latest is that at least one starlet has been parading in Ampara on behalf of the UPFA. It appears to be turning into a hard fought, intense campaign in the last fortnight inclusive of arms, politicians and actresses.

There is limited monitoring taking place. One of the two foremost election monitoring bodies in the country, the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) has seen its work curtailed to almost zero due to lack of funds. It did not monitor the Batti local government poll, but CMEV stalwart and FMM bigwig, Sunanda Deshapriya managed to bring about a dozen people to observe the elections.

Midway through polling on March 10, they found out that the CMEV was banned from entering the polling booths. This time, there isn’t any funds to do even that. Donors have been reluctant to finance monitoring.

The other local body — PAFFREL has begun monitoring. It was accused by many as providing the legitimacy that the local government polls desperately craved, by monitoring it. To be fair, PAFFREL officials did say that the TMVP had fixed the local government polls by coercion and other means, even before nominations closed.

The TMVP is trying a change. The story doing the rounds is that American pressure with the State Department’s Human Rights report had brought in a change. It released 11 underage children on April 9, and last week on April 24, another 28 were released. Now they say they will release all the child soldiers in their ranks before the elections.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, Donald Camp who was in town early last week did not forget to make yet another reminder. "Camp also welcomed initial measures to demobilise TMVP child soldiers, urged progress on human rights, and stressed the importance of free and fair elections in the east, without violence or intimidation," the US Mission said.

Just like the rest of Sri Lanka, ethno-religious and caste dynamics play a decisive role in eastern Sri Lanka. The issues caused by the war at such times become secondary, according to anthropologists who identify these divisions to be the decisive factor during marriage alliances as well as elections.

The differences become all the more pronounced as the region prepares for an election after 14 years with all three districts in the province offering diversity unlike any other.

In the east, people tend to be more clannish than elsewhere, given the fact that all three communities dwell there, with the caste divisions more pronounced among the Tamils and the Muslim communities, researchers say.

The reason according to scholars is evidenced when particular sub-groups select their representatives. For example, a Jaffna and Batticaloa Tamil is deemed very different in terms of lingo, customs and general customs.

Likewise, a Sammanthurai Muslim is considered different to one from Batticaloa. Given the fact that Batticaloa has a predominantly Tamil population, it is oft regarded that those who fish and those who cultivate should be distinctly identified. And while these things should not be the criteria for selecting a candidate, easterners would admit to the fact that these are factors that swing public opinion and lead to political choices.

Pillayan, the one-time warlord of Batticaloa and now the head of the TMVP belongs to a particular caste that is predominately found in Batticaloa and associated with the fishing trade. His vote base is created there.

Likewise, part of the SLMC’s dilemma stems from the fact that its Leader, Rauf Hakeem is not considered a Sammanthurai Muslim but a Central Province Muslim.

A good explanation of caste dynamics is offered by Dennis B. McGilvray in his Arabs, Moors And Muslims: Sri Lankan Muslim Ethnicity In Regional Perspective in the context of Sri Lanka’s inter-ethnic conflict between the Tamils and the Sinhalese, and the Tamil-speaking Muslims or Moors occupy a unique position.

McGilvery claims that unlike the historically insurrectionist Mappilas of Kerala or the assimilationist Marakkyars of coastal Tamil Nadu, the Sri Lankan Muslim urban elite has fostered an Arab-Islamic identity in the 20th Century which has severed them from the Dravidian separatist campaign of the Hindu and Christian Tamils.

"This has placed the Muslim farmers in the Tamil-speaking northeastern region in an awkward and dangerous situation, because they would be geographically central to any future Tamil homeland," he notes.

The caste factor, as much as the ethnic factor is a decisive one in the east. It is a reality all political parties accept. The selection of candidates, whether admitted to or not, is done bearing the caste factor in mind. Eventually, clans have much more decision making clout than larger political organisations.

Election violence is expected to increase in the coming days with political campaigns intensifying in the eastern region.

Several complaints have already been recorded by People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) last week.

The complaints have increased to 18 within six days as at last Thursday, according to PAFFREL Chairman, Kingsley Rodrigo. In addition, the police have also recorded 23 cases of election related violence according to Rodrigo. The week between April 18 to 25 has seen a significant shift in the ground reality in the east, with violence raising its head. No complaints were received by PAFFREL since the nominations till April 18.

Rodrigo predicted that the number of election related incidents of violence would increase due to the intensifying political campaigns, as the polls draw nearer.

Clashes between supporters of the Pillayan-led TMVP and EPRLF-PLOTE were reported last Tuesday, April 22 in Thalankuda, Batticaloa which resulted in four persons being admitted to the Batticaloa Hospital for treatment.

TMVP denied any involvement in the clash adding that the clashes were between the EPDP and the EPRLF-PLOTE.

EPRLF officials in Batticaloa stated that the TMVP was in fact involved in the clashes in Thalankuda.

Only one complaint has been received by PAFFREL against TMVP, Rodrigo said.

No complaints have been made against the TMVP with regard to them carrying arms. "The party does not use arms for its political campaigns. There have been no complaints with regard to this issue," he said.

The UPFA, under which banner both SLMC defector M.L.M. Hizbullah and TMVP are contesting, has not made any complaints to PAFFREL so far.

"Maybe it is because they do not have a separate unit to monitor election violence," Rodrigo said.

The complaints have been made mainly by the UNP and JVP. Two complaints were reported from Trincomalee, seven from Batticaloa and the rest from Ampara, according to PAFFREL.

Arrangements have been made by PAFFREL to accommodate at least one monitor at each polling station in the east. 1022 polling stations have been set up in the east for the polls, Rodrigo said.

PAFFREL was forced to stop one third of its monitoring activities at the last local government polls in Batticaloa as the TMVP had opposed the organisation’s move to appoint Muslim monitors in Tamil areas. He stated that monitoring activities in these areas were totally stopped due to the issue with the TMVP.

"We had appointed monitors in all areas during the local government polls held in March. We could not monitor certain areas, as the TMVP did not want Muslim monitors in Tamil areas," Rodrigo said.

But this time, PAFFREL has not made such appointments that would hinder monitoring activities at the PC polls. "We have not made such appointments for the provincial council polls. We have made sure that our monitoring activities would not be hampered due to such issues," he added.

All parties contesting the provincial council polls have begun their political campaigns. The TMVP will be contesting the polls under the UPFA banner.

Both Pillayan and Hizbullah are contesting with the government on the condition that they would be made chief minister in the event the UPFA wins.

Things appear to be turning rather nasty at our High Commission in London. To judge by the emails floating around, the pseudonymous articles being posted on all manner of websites and the interventions by the Foreign Ministry interceding on behalf of one of the ‘combatants’ in Hyde Park Gardens, the once peaceful residential area, from what I hear, has now turned into a verbal war zone.

If we might resort to chronology, it appears that the peace and quiet of the post-Christmas holidays were shattered early this year with the posting of a former Sri Lankan journalist from Los Angeles to the High Commission in London as a minister-counsellor information.

What his mandate was has never been publicly spelt out though one suspects that it would be to spread the government’s word to the British media and try and convince the British media that the Rajapakse brothers are not what they are made out to be by their critics here and abroad and they are in fact nice, patriotic chaps determined to wipe out those terrorists led by one Pirapaharan.

Instead of trying to talk to a sceptical and angry British media which has been kept waiting by the Foreign Ministry without visas to enter Sri Lanka on news assignments, the minister-counsellor is spending his time writing to some rag called Asian Tribune on matters from India to Timbuktoo which has nothing whatsoever to do with the British media and the British public.

This has begun to irk Foreign Ministry officials and those at the High Commission who are still trying to figure out why a man should be posted to London at much expense to the state if his job is to write about matters that are happening in the rest of the world without any first hand and often even second hand knowledge which makes it extremely poor journalism if it is not ethically dubious.

If the sole business of this person, Walter Jayawardhana, said to be a former news editor of the Lankadeepa in a previous incarnation, is to write articles on anything but anything, except perhaps the solar system, officials here are asking why he should be given a diplomatic posting when it could be done from where he was living all these years or even from Colombo.

This and more led to High Commissioner Kshenuka Senewiratne pulling up Jayawardhana for exceeding his brief, some of which appeared last Sunday in an article by a character called Deepak Sharma which we carried in these pages last Sunday.

The genesis of this, however, started elsewhere. Our Ambassador in Geneva, Dayan Jayatilleke had in an article to a local newspaper criticised the British Foreign Minister David Miliband for his message on our Independence Day which was considered unbecoming of the Brits.

Then the Foreign Ministry took umbrage at Jayatilleke’s article following a note from High Commissioner Senewiratne saying such attacks by our diplomats make her job extremely difficult, especially after the ticking-off following the utter mess the government made of sending to the UK the notorious "Colonel Karuna" on a Sri Lanka diplomatic passport.

The Brits are mad because their High Commission was hoodwinked into issuing Karuna a visa under a false name.

Promptly the Secretary to the Foreign Ministry Palitha Kohona who cannot stand Dayan Jayatilleke sent out a circular warning heads of our diplomatic missions not to write articles to the local media on sensitive bilateral issues without the approval of the Ministry.

The same circular also said ambassadors and high commissioners should tell their staff not to do so without the approval of the head of mission.

These instructions from the Ministry were conveyed, one supposes, to their staff by all heads of missions.

When Jayawardhana wrote an article to that same rag Asian Tribune without High Commissioner Senewiratne’s approval she had pulled up Jayawardhana for violating the instructions.

Then all hell broke loose it now appears. Kohona having painted himself into a corner now tried to wriggle out of the situation by accusing Senewiratne of interpreting his instructions too "narrowly" when it would have been clear enough even to the dumb and blind.

At least that part of the circular as quoted in the media, was clear enough. The same cannot be said about the nonsense he wrote regarding "news reports prepared for journals may need to be despatched at short notice." He said such reports might need to be exempt from his earlier stipulation. If Kohona was trying to say that Jayawardhana’s article was some great scoop that needed to be released urgently, it must be a joke we can hardly share except as the words of an emerging comedian.

If people tend to misinterpret or interpret "too narrowly" what Kohona said, it is not in the least surprising. It even causes much confusion.

The same circular defending Jayawardhana against Senewiratne, as quoted in the media said "We also encourage Mr Jayawardhana to implement his media strategy in particularly with regard to disseminating the Sri Lanka government’s perspective to the media and continuing anti-Sri Lanka sentiments in the UK."

If I understand Kohona correctly, he seems to be encouraging Jayawardhana to continue anti-Sri Lankan sentiments in the UK. If that is the purpose for which the man is posted in London, it could have been cheaper to hand over the job to the LTTE and the anti-Sri Lanka lobby in the UK which I hear is quite active.

Shortly after all this anti-Kshenuka Senewiratne articles began to appear in some websites including the Asian Tribune, which it is alleged receives government funds to keep its editor, K.T. Rajasingham functioning and providing a platform of praise for the administration.

Incidentally one of Asian Tribune’s most vociferous contributors, H.L.D. Mahindapala from Australia seems to have suddenly gone silent.

The anti-High Commissioner lobby was joined by a London-based Sinhala journalist who has also gone silent suddenly.

The next act in this on-going comedy happened right here in Colombo. At the centre of it was once more the Secretary to the Foreign Ministry.

When we read that article by Deepak Sharma from New Delhi, a character who is as fictional as James Bond, without of course Bond’s exquisite taste and intelligence, this newspaper tried to contact the Foreign Secretary to get his comment on this and another matter that had come to our attention, thanks to our Ministry informers.

But the usually voluble Foreign Secretary who seems to like being featured in the media, one way or another, was curiously unavailable though it could never be said we did not try.

Though directed to the director-general of public communications he seemed to be reluctant to communicate anything.

The matter we wanted to talk to Kohona about, among other matters, was a communication he addressed to the London High Commissioner on April 12 which had to do with a member of her staff wanting to lodge a complaint with the British Police.

It seems that Walter Jayawardhana had wanted to lodge a complaint and Kohona’s advice is that he should obtain the formal approval of the Foreign Ministry before doing so.

Kohona says that if the complaint is against the High Commissioner or a member of the staff it raises issues concerning diplomatic immunities and privileges and so the Ministry would have to consider this extremely carefully.

With Kohona incommunicado we tried to find out what all this was about. It transpires that Jayawardhana had received an anonymous letter telling him to stop writing articles against the High Commission.

Its tone said to be somewhat life threatening, made him want to seek the assistance of the British Police. Whether he has done so or been stopped in his tracks by the Kohona instructions is not very clear.