Stories of Survivors
Between February and June 2023, Professor Nirmal Dewasiri and Dr Darshi Thoradeniya conducted a series of 25 filmed interviews with Sri Lankans who had lived through the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led insurgencies of 1971 and 1987-1989, and the Tamil insurgency in northern and eastern Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009.
The interviews document the violent heritage that the survivors continue to live with today and include the testimonies of men and women who participated in JVP and Tamil militant organizations, or were affected by the circumstances that surrounded these insurgencies. They reveal how such violent experiences have come to be understood by the interviewees, as well as providing fresh insights into the history of revolutionary and separatist political violence in Sri Lanka at a ground level .
Keerthi Gunathilake
Mr Keerthi Gunathilaka (age 65, also know as Gune) is caretaker of the Devasarana Development Centre in Ibbagamuwa (in the Kurunegala District of Sri Lanka’s North Western Province) which he joined as a youth wing member in the 1980s. Founded in the 1960s by the radical Anglican Priest Father Yohan Devananda, Devasarana initially operated a collective farm for unemployed youth. As Gune’s story reveals, Devasarana’s history is deeply embroiled with the JVP insurrections of 1971 and 1987-89, when its leaders sought to make it a peacful safe-haven for those threated by both revolutionary and state political violence.
Interviewee 2 - Coming Soon
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