ECONOMYNEXT — Sri Lanka’s National People’s Alliance (NPP) which promotes progressive left politics has taken credit for mobilising ideological and political support for the last phase of the government forces’ war with the separatist Tamil Tigers.
K D Lal Kantha, a senior leader of the Marxist-Leninist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuan (JVP),which controls the NPP, said that only the JVP and the nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) had successfully argued for a military response to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) in the late 2000s.
Lal Kantha was addressing a group of military veterans at an event in Ratnapura. The NPP has been canvassing the ex-military community in the run-up to Sri Lanka’s upcoming presidential elections.
“Only two political parties in Sri Lanka said that this must be fought to a finish. Name them if you can? Only two parties. It was not the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) or the United National Party (UNP) or the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). It was the JVP and the JHU that said war is the only answer and there is no other solution,” he said.
“You fought the war, and we mobilised support for it,” he said, reiterating that only the JVP and the JHU had normalised the idea that “separatist terrorism can only be defeated militarily. No one else.”
Lal Kantha told the veterans that, in politics, the enemy changes from time to time.
“Back then, the enemy was clear. We carried out an ideological struggle. You took up arms and carried out that struggle,” he said.
The NPP, which presents itself as a progressive leftist political formation that promotes egalitarianism and coexistence, has been courting the military vote since the eruption of mass protests in 2022 that unseated then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The NPP has also yet to reveal its position on the island nation’s ethnic issue and has remained largely silent on ongoing discussions on the 13th amendment to the constitution. (Colombo/May21/2024)
By HIMAL KOTELAWALA / EN