Drivers in order to terrorise the rest of the population. In the villages. Sandburst-trained army officers organised the gang-rape of JVP women sympathisers, Ten thousand "suspects were incarcerated in prison camps.
Wijeweera had been arrested a defensive struggle, but were defeat- before April 1971, and be was in prison as news of the massacre of to 'plead guilty" have been released, The dead hodies were floated down his comrades came through. Since then a few thousand prisoners who agreed For "terrorism". judges, parodies of Lowis Carroll's creations in Alice in Honderland, prevented Bala Tampoe from tearing apart the prosecution's cuse, When Tampoe destroyed the credibility of prosecution witnesses, they were withdrawn from the court and new, better rehearsed ones were found: when he challenged the clearly partisan role of the judges he was threatened with contempt of court. At one stage a senior judge shouted at Tampoe: "You are behaving as if you were being tried"
Despite the harassment, Wijewcera succeeded in delivering a speech in his defence. In this he explained the development of the JVP. its aims, and his belief in Marxism and Leninism, which he argued had nothing to do with 'conspiracy The speech itself, an excerpt of which was published in New Left Keview, ranks as one of the most impressive speeches to be made in the dock in recent decades. Wiieweera knew that this would be Bis last chance for a long time, perhaps forever, to speak to the world wor king class, Needless to say the trial and the speech were not mentioned in any of the 'quality papers of the capitalist world, Today Wijewcera is sentenced to life imprisonment. He is 30 years old.
TOUGH MEASURES What is bencath contempt is the attirude of the CP and the ISSP leaderships, who, far from ensuring that a semblance of justice is maintained, have argued all along for tough measures. In the cabinet itself it is now well-known that it was an LSSP leader who argued that all the Rohan Wijeweera —jailed for life JVP leaders be hanged in public!
When another LSSP minister Calvin R. de Silva, recently visited London he was subjocted to severe and viporous questioning hoth on the political prisoners and on the forcible deportation of Tamil workers to India. Unable to reply, de Siva lost his cool completely and denounced the questioners as 'foob' and 'friends of terrorists', before making a hasty departure from the meeting ball.
BREAKING POINT The international working class movement has to he mobilised to demand the release of all political prisoners, and notably comrade Wijeweera, The present crisis of the world capitalist system has strained countries like Sri Lanka to breaking point, and it is not unilkely that the masses themselves wil free che political prisoners in the years to come but till chen support and solidarity are urgently needed to break the wall of silence surrounding the repression.
But where would aven a fully nation alised industry, under the most perfect