Rohana Wijeweera

Patabendi Don Jinadasa Nandasiri Wijeweera (පටබැඳි දොන් ජිනදාස නන්දසිරි විජෙවීර; 14 July 1943 – 13 November 1989, better known by his nom de guerre Rohana Wijeweera, was a Sri Lankan Marxist political activist, revolutionary and the founder of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP; ). Wijeweera led the party in two unsuccessful insurrections in Sri Lanka, in 1971 and 1987 to 1989.

Patabendi Don Jinadasa Nandasiri Wijeweera was born on 14 July 1943 (Bastille Day), to Patabendi Don Andris Wijeweera and Nasi Nona Wickramakalutota, who lived in Kottegoda, a coastal village situated close to Matara in southern Sri Lanka and mostly belonged to the Karava caste hierarchy.

The eldest in the family, he had a younger brother Ananda and a younger sister Chitranie.

His father, who ran a small business, was an active member of the Ceylon Communist Party and very close to Dr. S. A. Wickramasinghe.

He was disabled after an attack by thugs believed to be members of an opposing political party during the 1947 Parliamentary election campaign for the Hakmana electorate candidate Premalal Kumarasiri.

Wijeweera had his primary education at Goda Uda Government School in Kottegoda from 1947 to 1953.

In 1954 he entered Goda Uda Government Senior School and was there until mid-1959.

He entered Ambalangoda Dharmashoka College in July 1959 to study GCE Ordinary Level in the science stream.

Although he passed the exam, gaining credit grades for some subjects, he was not able to continue his studies due to limited family finances.

Having become active in the communist party, he applied and gained a scholarship to attend the Lumumba University to study medicine and in September 1960 he went to the Soviet Union.

He completed the Russian language examination within seven and a half months, obtaining a distinction, and spent his holidays travelling through the USSR.

He also worked during this time as an agricultural worker in the Moldavian Republic.

During the late 1960s, Wijeweera and the JVP consisted of disillusioned youths who believed that armed struggle is the most suitable way to a socialist revolution.

He worked through his medical studies well up to third year and also obtained a distinction in political economics in 1963.

In late 1963 he became ill and received medical treatment from a hospital in Moscow, but finally requested a full academic term of medical leave and returned to Ceylon.

At that time the Communist Party of Ceylon was divided into two groups which were pro-Chinese and pro-Soviet.

A vocal supporter of the pro-Chinese wing Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist), he did not get a visa to return to the USSR.

Following his ideological dispute with the now revisionist

Communist Party of Soviet Union, Wijeweera became a functionary of the Ceylon Communist Party-Peking Wing the pro-China faction of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka.

There he started an admiration for

He formed the JVP in 1965, with the intention of replacing the Dominion of Ceylon with a socialist republic.

The JVP ideologically supported the Tamil militants, calling it a war for self-determination, but opposed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Following the Indo-Lanka accord, the JVP, with the leadership of Wijeweera and a secondary faction, launched a military and social campaign with the aim of overthrowing the government of Sri Lanka.

Don Andris Wijeweera died in 1965.

Josef Stalin and also for Mao Zedong; he met with members of the Stalinist Labour Party of Albania in 1965, as they visited Ceylon.

Soon Wijeweera was impatient with the CCP Maoist leaders due to what he saw as their lack of revolutionary purpose, and formed his own movement on 14 May 1965 after a discussion held in a house at Akmeemana in the Galle district with like-minded youth.

He visited North Korea to broaden support for the newly formed movement.

Initially identified simply as the "New Left", this group drew on students and unemployed youths from rural areas, most of them in the 16 to 25-year-old range who felt that their economic interests had been neglected by the nation's leftist coalition governments.

It became popularly known as the New Left Movement, a Marxist political party, but not Maoist.

After forming the political movement, Wijeweera named it Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

He conducted a series of political lectures for the purpose of educating the youths according to the Marxist-Leninist doctrine.

These lectures were popularly known as JVP five classes, eventually became the key manifesto of their political ideology.

Capturing state power for the purpose of implementing the JVP's socio-economic policies in the country was the key part of Wijeweera's political agenda.

In 1970 while campaigning for the United Front of Sirimavo Bandaranaike in the general election, Wijeweera was arrested following the riot in front of the U.S embassy, but released shortly as the pro-socialist United Front won the elections.

This included two major insurgencies, in 1971 and 1987–1989.

In April 1971 JVP led an armed campaign known as the 1971 April Uprising, a failed attempt to overthrow the Dominion of Ceylon under the government of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike.

North Korean boats were arrested attempting to arm the JVP.

Wijeweera was arrested before the armed attack took place in April 1971.

In 1989, the government of Sri Lanka then launched Operation Combine with the intention of killing Wijeweera, along with Upatissa Gamanayake.

While they succeeded, the JVP maintained its identity as a political party and later joined a coalition government.