Athula Nimalasiri Jayasinghe (Loku Athula)
Wijayamuni Devage Athula Nimalasiri Jayasinghe popularly known as “Loku Athula” was one of the main suspects of the 1971 April insurrection which rocked the base of Sri Lankan society. Out of the 41 suspects arraigned for waging war against the government he was number 6, number 1 being Piyathilaka Samararathna and number 13 Rohana Wijeweera.
Athula Nimalasiri Jayasinghe was born to a respected and well to do family at Gonahena, Kadawatha in Gampaha District. He had his primary education in his village school of Kirillawala Maha Vidyalaya and later joined an English medium school, Rahula Vidyalaya at Gampaha as his father was keen to have his child educated in English medium as he was the only son in the family with four younger sisters. He was a bright student as he came first in the class all the time in the school.
His education was hampered due to the change in the language policy of the newly formed Bandaranaike Government in 1956, and as a result he had to come to Colombo to further his education where he got through his GCE Ordinary Level and GCE Advanced Level. As his intention was to become an engineer he chose the maths stream, including Physics, Chemistry, Applied and Advanced Mathematics.
When he was doing his Advanced Level he was heavily involved in Clandestine activities of a political movement later to be known as Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) which was committed ostensibly to form a socialist government by violence, namely to establish a Dictatorship of the Proletariat by a Proletarian revolution based on Marxist-Leninist ideology ousting the existing capitalist system.
As he joined the movement soon he became a full time member in the primitive stage of the movement where only a hand full of persons were actively organizing going about the entire country. As he was an able organizer he was chosen to be one of the top four leaders who were instrumental in making vital decisions of the movement. He was a Martial Arts expert and he trained the chosen members for the future revolution.
He has a thorough knowledge of the English language and a fair knowledge of French, Hindi and Japanese and a little knowledge of Tamil.
As the movement expanded the entire country was put in charge of able members with a district Secretary for each district and the entire country in charge of the top four leaders. Loku Athula was to be in charge of a part of Colombo District and the Hill country including Kegalle, Kurunegala, Matale, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Badulla Districts. Later on as the movement expanded further he was relieved of some districts and put in charge of Kegalle and Kurunegala Districts which were reckoned to be rebel districts as they were critical of the leader Rohana Wijeweera of his mean behavior. Loku Athula had an amicable control over those two districts. On top of these duties he was asked to take over the armed section which was a very sensitive arm of the movement and had to be handled with a very high calibre of responsibility.
Rohana Wijeweera was arrested, rather surrendered, shrewdly in March 1971 to the police on his own will. From within the remand prison he sent a message secretly to take a decision to unleash war for which Loku Athula was against as he argued that the time was not ripe and the movement was not ready to take up such a massive challenge, and moreover there was a rift in the party leadership due to the unbecoming behavior of the leader Rohana Wijeweera which had spread throughout the movement.
But by a majority vote a decision was taken to wage war against the government on the 5th April 1971 and consequently Loku Athula had gone to his area of responsibility namely Kegalle and Kurunegala where he fought unsuccessfully and had to retreat to Wilpaththu Jungle as had agreed earlier in case of a set back. He moved towards Wilpaththu Sanctuary with his forces facing innumerable difficulties overcoming challenging barriers moving from mountain to mountain followed closely by the armed forces of the government on the offensive.
Out of the 300 members of his unit only 45 remained when he was surrounded by armoured units of the government and was arrested in combat at the boundary of Wilpaththu Sanctuary where some of his fellow fighters were killed and some wounded including Loku Athula himself. And army officer was killed and some soldiers wounded in the gun battle ensued at the time of the encounter.
Later he was transferred to Colombo and sent for treatment at the general hospital under heavy armed guard, and, because of a very sympathetic doctor his leg was saved from amputation.
He was indicted for waging war against the government and was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment and later pardoned by the president of the republic of Sri Lanka.
No sooner he was released he joined the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and became a Chief Organizer of an electorate. He contested the provincial councils elections in 1988 and 1993 successfully and entered the parliament in 1994 with a huge majority and was appointed the Deputy Minister of Power and Energy of the Chandrika Bandaranaike Government. He remained in parliament up to 2004.
He helped His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2005 Presidential Election when some of the king pins and chief organizers were pulling his leg, and even now he is a strong supporter of H.E. Mahinda Rajapaksa and a member of Sri Lanka Freedom Party and still in active politics.
Rohana Wijeweera was the founder of JVP. He was an able speaker and through his oratory he was able to round up thousands of youth and sent them to the guillotine of the government in the prime of their youth.
He tried to show the people that he was a true patriot and an honest, altruistic person but truly he was an out and out traitor and an out and out coward and proved to be a sanctimonious humbug to the country with murderous facist intentions who treated his own mother as his enemy and his own sister who is still alive will bear testimony to this. He was a short person with protruding teeth and therefore Rohana Wijeweera thought that he was an ugly dwarf for which he blamed his mother and admitted that he could not look directly into the eyes of a girl and as such he had the habit of looking down when lecturing girl members of the movement. This abnormal behavior proved him to be suffering from a severe inferiority complex which drove him to be an introvert dangerously turned and extrovert. He was the only leader in the world of an armed movement who lived without any security separated from his movement which otherwise would have divulged his putrefied behavior posing as a planter in the cool climes of the hill country living in the lap of luxury with the help of the loot of the toiling, unassuming, innocent members of the JVP prevailing upon them to believe that it was the brilliance of the leader to use such tactics. This came to light when he was arrested by the armed forces with a stock of foreign liquor and a load of aphrodisiacs which he used to keep up his waning sexual ability.
He paid for his sins with his own life.
Out of the 41 members who faced chargers before the Criminal Justice Commission for waging war against the government in 1971 insurrection no one is left with the JVP which proves the emptiness of this movement. People have rejected their facist theory in toto.