Rohana Wijeweera (1943 - 1989)

Wed Jul 14, 1943

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Image: A photo portrait of Rohana Wijeweera, unknown date and location. [Wikipedia]

Rohana Wijeweera, born on this day in 1943, was a Sri Lankan Marxist revolutionary and the founding leader of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, English: “People’s Liberation Front”). He was assassinated by the Sri Lankan government in 1989.

Born on Bastille Day to a father active in the Ceylon Communist Party, Wijeweera was raised in an environment of radical politics. In 1960, he began studying in the Soviet Union, learning Russian.

With the revolutionary party JVP, Wijeweera led two unsuccessful insurrections in Sri Lanka - the first in 1971 and the second from 1987 to 1989. Both insurrections featured revolutionary violence that was matched by brutal state repression; tens of thousands of JVP members were killed.

In 1989, during the second JVP insurrection, the Sri Lankan state launched “Operation Combine” to suppress the movement and assassinated Wijeweera on November 13th, 1989. In 2019, a biographical film of Wijeweera’s life was released, titled “Ginnen Upan Seethala”.

“I, a Bolshevik, am in no way a terrorist. As a proletarian revolutionary, however, I must emphatically state that I am committed to the overthrow of the prevailing capitalist system and its replacement by a socialist system.”

- Rohana Wijeweera, speaking before the Ceylon Criminal Justice Commission in 1974