Posts
The Combined Association of Unemployed Graduates staged a massive protest near presidential secretariat complex in Colombo fort this afternoon which ended up in injuring many of their own members, injuring 3 officers of police anti-riot unit, damaging millions worth of public property and putting thousands of general public trapped in traffic jam for hours. Funny thing is this protest comes as a continuation of a series of similar protests backed by other political hands of the JVP, including the Inter-university Students Association and several other JVP backed trade unions in Ceypetco, CEB, Ports and Water Board. To support this trend; Sirasa TV and MBC network has added a new segment to their News First presentations labeled “Public Protests” (Udgoshana). These are just a few evidence to understand that, these protests are actually well organized by the JVP, lined up one after another, and well supported by anti-government media.
But the point of this post is not to discuss of these growing trend. Point of this post is to talk about the so called Combined Association of Unemployed Graduates in Sri Lanka. Who are they? Who backs them? What are their motives?
From the looks of it, CAUG is an innocent movement of unemployed graduates who seek a collaborative power for their voices. But commonly known truth is, CAUG is yet another JVP arm inside the Sri Lankan university system, just like the IUSA – “Antharay” and “Socialist Students Union”.
By the year 2005, there were about 50,000 members in this CAUG. But the UPFA government offered 42,000 jobs to many of those unemployed graduates. Today, the total membership of CAUG is about 25,000 to 30,000. Many of them had passed out from the University within last 3 years (after the graduate employment scheme). These graduates never voluntarily register with the CAUG. Instead, the authoritative people in the CAUG, takes (steals) the data from the universities and enter them as their membership. In actual statistics, there are about maximum 5,000 volunteers in their membership.
The most powerful figure in the CAUG is it’s convener. Presently this position is held by Sujith Kuruwita (Wait!!! Read on. He got an interesting life story). Convener of CAUG is a transit position in JVP’s career succession plan for their most loyal student union leaders.
Below is the typical career succession path shown to the JVP student leaders inside our university system.
Sujith Kuruwita, Chameera Koswatte, Ravindra Mudalige, Vijitha Herath are few to name who climbed this ladder in the recent past.
When these leaders are building their political careers by organizing protests like the one they did today, the participants become the pawns in their chess board. (remember, JVP do the performance appraisal based on number of hostilities you have organized to the opposing political parties and the private sector business organizations). In another five years, Sujith Kuruwita will be in parliament (if JVP can retain their existing vote base; which I believe they are really struggling to do), and the rest of the “pawns” who took part in today’s protest will keep on protesting under a new convener.
Why Sujith Kuruwita is Unemployed?
Sujith Kuruwita failed to get a job after graduating from the faculty of Management Studies and Commerce in University of Sri Jayawardanapura for a very simple reason. Because everybody knows his name! No one wants to hire a man who is the #1 suspect of the most brutal murder that ever happened inside a local university premises. Sujith Kuriwita is a B.Com graduate from the University of Sri Jayawardenepura. He entered the university in 2000, and passed out in 2007 (while rest of his batch passed out in 2005). At the university, he was a star among the rag leaders. Another young lad called O V Samantha; was leading the complete opposite camp in his department (B.Com) of the faculty. Samantha was the leader of anti-ragging movement. In 2002, Sujith Kuruwita was appointed as the president of General Students Union of University of Sri Jayawardanepura. On 7th November 2002, a mob of JVP students surrounded O V Samantha and a few other supporters of him, and brutally attacked them with rods and rocks. They used computer monitors of the office of department of Marketing Management, to crash Samantha’s head. Sujith Kuruwita was the “commander in chief” of this attack. Ravindra Mudalige; the then convener of the IUSA was also present at the university premises on that day. Eye witnesses said, Sujith Kuruwita himself kicked Samantha on his head, while lying on the floor unconscious. These people blocked the vehicle carrying the injured to the hospital, and delayed proper medical treatment (which ultimately caused Samantha’s death).
After the Samantha incident Sujith Kuruwita first escaped to a hostel of Kelaniya University, and when the police was raiding that place he escaped to a remote village in Matale district, with the support of few JVP MP’s. After about a week of the incident, Sujith surrendered to the police through a lawyer (a lawyer who still is appearing for the JVP cases free of charge).
Sujith was among the locked up suspects of Samantha’s murder, up until 2004 where JVP formed a coalition government with SLFP. The new government ordered the police to dismiss the investigations into Samantha’s murder, and release all the suspects. Sujith Kuruwita came back to the university by which time the JVP student union had regained power, by forcefully removing the VC Epitawatte, and killing one of their own supporters and putting the blame on the anti-ragging camp.
By this time Sujith Kuruwita; the “murderer of the biggest headache for JVP inside Japura University” has become a hero among all JVP supporting students. He didn’t have any inconvenience in getting the position of “convener of Inter University Students Association”, which is directly supervised by Bimal Ratnayake and Anura Kumara Disanayake. Sujith is one of the favorites of Anura Kumara Disanayake.
Today, this same Sujith Kuruwita is the convener of Combined Association of Unemployed Graduates of Sri Lanka. This message is to all the family members of unemployed graduates in Sri Lanka. Never let your beloved relative to be a part of these sinister forces. They are using your brother/sister/son/daughter to gain political advantage. If your graduate brother/sister/son/daughter is an unemployed graduate; asked them for solutions “within”. Ask the question, “why am I unemployed, and some others are employed?” Then they will start to realize their own weaknesses. Externalizing their weaknesses is not a solution. Right thing to do is, correcting their weakness and hunt for suitable jobs. Ask them to be down to earth, and start small. No one will offer them 50,000 a month jobs in a golden platter. Graduation is not a guarantee for a job. It’s only a qualifier.
