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A Note on the Fate of the 1971 Insurgents in Sri Lanka

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Robert N. Kearney
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Extract

In July 1976, slightly more than five years after the collapse of the 1971 insurrection in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), the protracted series of trials of alleged insurgents wound to a conclusion. Except for the cases of a small number of suspects not in custody, some of whom are probably dead, and a handful of cases the disposition of which was postponed, the complex and painful process of determining guilt and imposing punishments for the armed rebellion had come to an end. The uprising that erupted on 5 April 1971 had been staged by an organization called the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna QVP), which had been formed five years earlier as a revolutionary movement by a small clique of young dissidents who had broken away from the tiny pro-Peking Communist Party, but which by 1970 had attracted a significant following among rural Sinhalese Buddhist youths.

Type
Research Notes
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , May 1977 , pp. 515 - 519
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1977

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References

1 The JVP movement and the uprising are described in Kearney and Jiggins, Janice, “The Ceylon Insurrection of 1971” Journal ofCommonwealth and Comparative Politics, XIII (March 1975), pp. 40–64Google Scholar. For a comprehensive annotated bibliography on the insurrection, accompanied by a fascinating collection of photographs, see Goonetileke, H. A. I., The April 1971 Insurrection in Ceylon: A Bibliographical Commentary, 2nd ed., Louvain, Belgium: Centre de Recherches Socio-Religieuses, Univ. de Louvain, 1975.Google Scholar

2 See Obeyesekere, Gananath, “Some Comments on the Social Backgrounds of the April 1971 Insurgency in Sri Lanka (Ceylon),” Journal of Asian Studies, XXXIII (1974), pp. 367–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also my “Educational Expansion and Political Volatility Sri Lanka: The 1971 Insurrection,” Asian Survey, XV (September 1975), PP. 727–44.Google Scholar

3 E.g., “A Broadcast Message to the Nation by the Hon. Prime Minister,” Dept. of Information press release, 9 Apr 1971; and “A Notice Issued to Mis guided Youth,” Dept of Info, press release, n.d.

4 Source: newspaper reports and figures supplied by the Criminal Justice Commission.

5 Two of those tried (one an Oxford-educated kinsman of the Prime Minister's deceased husband) apparently were not members of or closely associated with the JVP, but were implicated in a JVP effort to obtain arms from abroad. Another denied membership in the JVP. The other defendants included twelve alleged members of the JVP politbureau (one of whom was believed dead) and ten district JVP leaders.

6 A few days after the CJC was established, a new constitution went into effect which declared the nation to be a republic (and adopted the name Sri Lanka). However, all statutes in effect and legal processes begun at the time the new constitution was adopted were continued. Hence the charges of “waging war against the Queen.”

7 Information on the trial of the JVP leaders is from the judgment of the CJC, pre-publication page-proof copy generously provided me by Ban-dulade Silva, Secretary to the CJC. The judgment, which with appendixes covers 432 pages, is to be published as a Sessional Paper.

8 The following two paragraphs are based on information supplied by the CJC.

9 A fourth Criminal Justice Commission, created t o inquire into exchange control violations, has no connection with the insurgency trials. All my references to the CJC are to the Commissions concerned with the insurgency trials.

10 “The Statement on Insurgency Made in Parliament on 20.7.71 by the Honourable Prime Minister,” Dept of Information press release, n.d., p. 5.

11 Ceylon Daily News, 10 July 1976, p. 1.

12 The foregoing is based on my interviews in Sri Lanka between 1973 and 1976.