By Yohan Perera | Daily Mirror
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She said she is not aware of her son’s political connections bur said she is scared for him that he might also suffer the same fate which her elder son suffered. Her eldest son Ranjitham Gunaratnam who was an active member of the JVP during the 1987/89 insurrection was abducted, tortured and killed allegedly by the armed forces who were engaged in cracking down the youth who launched an armed struggle then.
Gunaratnam’s sister Niranjalee Gunaratnam made a plea from the international community to help find her brother. She said she too is aware about the political activities of his brother but said he only strived to build a better future for all Sri Lankans through a social and political transformation.
Convener of the ‘Movement for People’s Struggle’ (name which the group identified themselves earlier) Chamira Koswatte said they decided not to bring Gunaratnam before the public because they had fears about his safety. These fears he said had come true. This he said is the reason as to why Gunaratnam said earlier that he might not participate in the Front Line Socialist Party’s first convention which is to be held on the 9th of April.
He however said the party would go ahead with the convention which is to be held at Sugatadasa Stadium.
© Daily Mirror
1 comment:
The emotional plea by Premakumar Gunaratnam’s mother was heart wrenching. I wonder what she has to say to the family of Daya Pathiran, who was murdered by her eldest son Ranjitham Gunaratnam.
Significantly, the JVP’s first victim in the JVP’s post-1983 history was not a representative of the bourgeois state or the UNP which proscribed the JVP, but a radical student activist, with impeccable anti-UNP credentials — Daya Pathirana, the leader of the Independent Students Union (ISU) of the University of Colombo! The Daya Pathirana assassination was a watershed in the JVP’s post-1983 history. It played a key role in deciding the nature and the trajectory of the JVP’s second insurgency.
Daya Pathirana pioneered the Independent Students Union (ISU) of University of Colombo during his study at the Faculty of Arts, University of Colombo. Pathirana as a very poor student, a radical Leftist, not a member of the old Left or the traditional Left. Although he was leftist, he vehemently opposed Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which had almost total control over the student’s unions in Sri Lanka. Daya Pathirana and the Independent Students Union led by him became the most serious threat to the JVP control. On December 15, 1986, he along with a colleague named Somasiri was abducted to a lonely spot off the Bolgoda Lake, Piliyandala. The abductors then began to torture him and Somasiri, demanding information about other student and left activists. This was interrupted by a group of pilgrims (as it was the full moon poya day). It saved the life of Somasiri. But Pathirana was cut-throat at the point of intervention and eventually succumbed to his wounds. JVP unleashed violence killing radical leftist figures like Daya Pathirana and Vijaya Kumaratunga in a bid to neutralize the threats from the left-wing politics itself.
What kind of revolutionaries follow, without any qualms, orders to cut throats of young fellow Leftists of similar social backgrounds – like Daya Pathirana of the ISU? What kind of Leftists destroy a computer centre in a University as they did at Ruhuna?
Daya Pathirana was unarmed. He never carried a gun. He was a man of peace and abhorred guns. We can disagree with Daya Pathirana’s political views. But remember he believed in words and free expression. After his death, we saw the flood of JVP killings. JVP leaders had tasted blood, now they wanted more. Can we ever forget that terror, which Premakumar Gunaratnam was hoping to restart in the South.
Premakumar Gunaratnam has philosophy “While my family is safe and sound in luxury, let others to the killing and dying”. I feel sorry for those idiots who followed Premakumar Gunaratnam. They were to be the vanguard of a future killing machine.
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