NGO, Desahitheisi Jathika Viyaparaya responsible for JVP split

The acronym NGO stands for Non Governmental Organisation and could include trade unions, religious organisation such as the Buddhist Association or YMCA, or any social organisation.

In the recent past, the JVP led by both Weerawansa and Somawansa, were campaigning against NGOs in general, though they were interested in a certain type of NGO, namely those that were involved in the peace campaign.

However, they did not make a distinction when they used the word NGO, in order to confuse the public and imply that an NGO referred to some strange organisation dependent on foreign money.

They named several as horrible NGO kakas who were campaigning for peace in order to get the dollars required for their expensive lifestyles. My name was very often mentioned among these. It is true that certain foreign organisations and states do contribute funds to peace campaigns as they believe that it is in their interest to achieve peace in this country.

However in my own experience, they are very selective in helping campaigns here. We have been campaigning for peace based on autonomy and right of self determination of the Tamil people since 1974. But we never got any real help from any of these foreign donors as these campaigns were always linked to our campaign against global capitalism.

To be fair, Weerawansa once separated political campaigns like ours from the NGO peace campaigns but that was a singular occasion. While campaigning against NGOs involved in the peace campaign, the Wansa-duo was involved heavily in the building of their own NGOs: the Desahitheisi Jathika Viyaparaya (PNM) and the Manel Mal Viyaparaya.

These war mongering NGOs were getting funds from all sorts of sources including foreign based donors.

Nobody knows

They were collecting funds pretending to help families of dead and injured soldiers, but nobody knows what percentage is really spent on the bereaved families and the injured soldiers.

The real point I want to make is not about all that, but the effect of these two NGOs on the JVP itself. The Wansa-duo was claiming at each and every corner that all the NGOs involved in the campaign for peace are actually conspirators of a plot to destroy patriotic organisations in this country.

As a result we do not see any peace NGO involvement in the JVP split but most certainly the NGOs created by the Wansa-dou are mentioned in every story related to their conflict.

In fact now Weerawansa is going to use the Desahitheisi campaign as his political organisation in the future. Weerawansa’s deputy, Piyasiri Wijenayake, stated the other day that their campaign has taken the essence of the JVP liberation practice; hence the split is a fundamental one.

Somawansa and the remaining leaders of the JVP will have to admit now that the NGO created by them has really blown the party into two. The JVP anti-NGO campaign has backfired.

What all this shows is that an NGO could play a political role depending on the way it is put to use. Some of these peace NGOs are already functioning as political organisations. They may participate in coming elections.

On the other hand, Wimal may decide to develop the PNM as a political organisation. However, he will have a major problem as S.L. Gunsasekara, Gunadasa Amarasekara and Nalin Silva are giants of controversy.

He will be using his Sinhala Buddhist NGO background to mobilise dollars, pounds etc. to his organisation. However, to the extent that he is successful, JVP funds will get eroded. Maybe they will device new NGO work to mobilise funds for them!