Sri Lanka Marxists commemorate insurrection

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 April 2001, 20:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka's radical Marxist party, the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), Thursday commemorated its cadres who were killed in the insurrection of 1971. More than ten thousand youth who took part in the JVP's armed insurrection to overthrow the Sri Lankan government and establish a communist regime in Sri Lanka were massacred by the army and Police. The Indian government sent in troops to aid the Sri Lankan security forces quell the rebellion.

More than a thousand party activists and families of the cadres who were killed in 1971 gathered Thursday at the open-air stadium of the Viharamahadevi Park in Colombo to commemorate the party's martyrs. The General Secretary of the JVP, Mr. Tilvin de Silva addressed the commemoration meeting.

Activists of the cultural wing of the party sang "songs of liberation" after the meeting was concluded.

The JVP, which is fast emerging as a powerful political force among urban workers and the rural poor, says that it is still committed to its revolutionary ideals and strategy to seize political power in Sri Lanka.

A counter propaganda meeting by the government, patently aimed at denigrating the JVP martyr's day rally, held close to the Park failed to draw more than a hundred government supporters.