On December 20, 1974, after more than two years of show trials, the Sri Lanka Criminal Justice Commission condemned Rohana Wijeweera to life imprisonment* and thirty-one other militants of the JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna—People’s Liberation Front) to a total of 157 years in prison.
The brutal sentences imposed on Wijeweera and his comrades are part of a reactionary campaign that has been carried out for four years by the coalition regime of Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
Wijeweera himself was arrested on March 13, 1971. On March 16, the government declared a nationwide state of emergency, initiating a draconian repression against the JVP. Thousands were murdered, and more than 18,000 were arrested during the high point of the repression in 1971.
Thus was exposed the real face and procapitalist purpose of the coalition government, which had attempted to put forward a “progressive” image, and which enjoyed the support and participation of the Communist party and the Lanka Sama Samaja party (Ceylon Equal Society party). Against the JVP and in support of this bourgeois government in Sri Lanka there developed an extraordinary “holy alliance”; arms and financial aid poured in from Great Britain and the USA, from India and Pakistan, from Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and China. Only the Fourth International and a few progressive workers and intellectuals raised their voices to denounce this international crime and to show their solidarity with the militants of the JVP undergoing such a repression.
It is necessary to break this wall of silence and indifference.
The victories of the Indochinese liberation forces, victories so important to the world working class, call attention once again to the tremendous importance of the revolution in all of Asia. In this context, the need to defend the victims of repression in Sri Lanka assumes particular importance. Rohana Wijeweera’s closing speech in his own defense at his trial is a splendid example of revolutionary courage and tenacity in the face of adversity. The struggle for his freedom and for the freedom of all his comrades is a struggle that deserves the support of revolutionists and *According to a report in the January 30, 1975, issue of Ceylon News, Wijeweera’s sentence has been reduced to twenty years rigorous imprisonment.—IP liberation fighters the world over.
A real international campaign for the liberation of Wijeweera and his comrades can force the government of Sri Lanka to release them, just as campaigns elsewhere freed Peruvian revolutionist Hugo Blanco and saved the lives of Isko and his comrades in the Burgos trials.
The Fourth International appeals to all currents in the workers movement, to all those who participated in the international movement against U.S. aggression in Indochina, and to defenders of civil liberties everywhere to participate in this campaign on behalf of these victims of repression in Sri Lanka.