Viraj Mendis, who as a member of the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) in Manchester fought a long battle in the 1980s against deportation to Sri Lanka, died on 16 August aged 68 in Bremen, Germany. Viraj was from the Sinhalese community in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, as a communist, he defended the Tamil liberation struggle which was led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and so faced certain persecution if he was deported. His legacy here in Britain is the campaign set up to oppose his deportation – the Viraj Mendis Defence Campaign (VMDC).
The VMDC waged an innovative, energetic and militant fight against a Conservative government determined to deport Viraj. It drew support from a wide range of individuals and organisations, becoming the largest anti-deportation campaign Britain has ever seen. This breadth of support included his local church, where Viraj was forced to take sanctuary on 20 December 1986. Viraj remained confined to the grounds of the Ascension Church in Hulme, Manchester, until the early hours of 18 January 1989 when police forced their way in and dragged him out. He was deported to Sri Lanka, but was subsequently able to travel to Bremen, Germany where, through the work of VMDC, the municipal authorities had agreed to grant him asylum.
Viraj had come to Britain as a student in 1973 and became active with the RCG and its newspaper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) through his involvement in solidarity work with the Irish liberation struggle, and in anti-racist, anti-deportation campaigns. He joined the RCG in 1980. When Viraj was accused of being an overstayer in May 1984 and became subject to deportation proceedings, the Manchester branch of the RCG set up the VMDC. From the start the VMDC took a principled position: not only did it oppose the deportation of Viraj but it also stood against all the inherently racist immigration laws imposed by the British state and all deportations. It also had a principle of open democratic campaigning where all those who supported the aims of the campaign were free to speak and distribute their political literature. An article about the VMDC in Critical Social Policy from 1988 acknowledged this non-sectarian method of work:
‘one of the reasons that the campaign has been able to sustain a broad alliance…is that the RCG is committed to open and democratic organisation… this means that although members of the RCG retain a commitment to the RCG’s collective line, this is expressed and argued openly alongside the perspectives of other groups.’
Through this open democratic campaigning based on a principled anti-racist, anti-imperialist position, the VMDC was able to win support from a wide range of organisations ranging from the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party to Irish Republican Prisoners of War to Amnesty International to the World Council of Churches and many other religious organisations.
In July 1986 as part of our efforts to make the VMDC a national campaign, we organised a march from Manchester to the Home Office in London on the basis of ‘Viraj Mendis Must Stay – Fight the Immigration Laws’. In towns and cities the march passed through, local groups and campaigns held public meetings and arranged food and accommodation. From the beginning to the end of the march it faced constant harassment from the police, who attempted to limit its impact and actually stop it from marching. They failed, and the march was a significant factor in making the VMDC into a national campaign.
The decision taken by the VMDC for Viraj to take sanctuary in the Ascension Church came after his final appeal to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal was rejected. The move allowed a window of opportunity for the campaign to gather more strength and momentum. The broad support VMDC had built in the local community was reflected in the brave stance taken by Father John Methuen and the Parochial Council of the Ascension Church in granting Viraj sanctuary. This example of using sanctuary as a way of strengthening campaigns against deportation was subsequently taken up by a number of other campaigns and was one of the reasons the government was so determined to defeat the VMDC and deport Viraj.
Viraj entered the church and took sanctuary on 20 December 1986 at the end of a demonstration of over 500 people who had marched from the city centre. From the base of the church, VMDC organised two major anti-racist demonstrations in Manchester and, from August 1987, regular Friday evening marches from the city centre to the Ascension Church. These evening demonstrations attracted support from many different organisations and campaigns who, besides uniting with the VMDC, were given a platform for their own struggles. After the IRA bomb attack in Enniskillen in the north of Ireland on 8 November 1987 Greater Manchester Police banned both the annual traditional pro-Republican Manchester Martyrs demonstration and the 27 November Friday VMDC march. This attempt to stop the regular VMDC march was defied by the campaign with around 300 determined supporters breaking through police lines and succeeding in marching to the church.
At 7.30am on Wednesday 18 January 1989 the police forced their way into the church and kidnapped Viraj. Within two and a half hours he was locked up in Pentonville Prison, London. On the morning of Friday 20 January Viraj was sat handcuffed on a plane bound for Sri Lanka.
The response of the VMDC and ordinary people to the raid and Viraj’s kidnapping was immediate and angry. The city centre was blocked by hundreds of protesters during Wednesday morning’s rush hour. In the evening, 1,500 people crammed into the Ascension Church following which thousands of people marched on Moss Side police station. Proceedings in Parliament were disrupted on both the Wednesday and Thursday by VMDC activists and actions took place in cities across the country.
The British state was so determined to defeat the VMDC and deport Viraj because of the example it had set and the role of communist organisation within it. As we summed up some of the lessons of the campaign in FRFI:
‘The RCG’s strategy of organising first among working class communities and other forces independent of the deadening grip of the official labour movement is what allowed the VMDC to bring the issue of the racist immigration laws to the centre of the British political stage.’
The political lessons we learnt through our work in the VMDC and other campaigns guide us now. Open democratic campaigns, based on principled anti-imperialist positions, and no political compromises with social democratic or opportunist forces.
Bob Shepherd
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! sends its condolences to Viraj’s partner, Karen.
