Chitranganee Wijeweera is the widow of Rohana, whose fiery oratory inspired thousands of young Sri Lankans to join his extreme Leftist-turned- extreme nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP), and who was shot dead while in custody in 1989.

Last week, Chitranganee made one more appeal to the government for her release from the Trincomalee Naval Base where she and her six children have been detained ever since the killing of her husband nearly 10 years ago. However, like its predecessors, this government too has made her its `Najibullah', in need of state protection from revenge-thirsty victims of the JVP.

Wijeweera was killed in November 1989, after being picked up by the army from a tea estate outside Kandy, where he was living in disguise asa planter. It was the climax to one of the most brutal government crackdowns in recent history. The official story, which few believed, was that he was killed in a shoot-out at a JVP safehouse in the capital where he had led the officials.

Immediately after, Chitranganee and her six children were whisked away to the eastern naval base where they have lived ever since, incommunicado with the outside world, virtual prisoners of successive governments.

Last week, Chitranganee met a senior aide of President Chandrika Kumaratunga and told him that she could not continue living in the base any more as her children were grown up and that she needed to secure their future.

Wijeweera's widow also asked that the properties of her husband, confiscated by the government, be returned to her.

She asked for permission to leave the base or go abroad, but according to the JVP, her request is unlikely to be met, and not just for reasons of Chitranganee's own security.

``The government fears that once she comes out,she will reveal the truth about Rohana Wijeweera's killing,'' said Tilvin Silva, general secretary of the JVP. Although any disclosures about the circumstances of Wijeweera's killing could help the present government in its campaign against the UNP, the party in power when the firebrand leader was killed, Silva argued that the government was worried that more than denting the UNP, the revelations might give the JVP a fresh impetus.

The JVP was founded in 1967 by Wijeweera, a drop-out from Moscow's Lumumba University, as an alternative to the traditional Left parties in Sri Lanka. Within four years, he led the first armed insurrection, which was put down brutally by the Sri Lankan state with help from India and Pakistan.

The second insurrection came in 1987, after the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord, by which time, the JVP had embraced an extreme form of Buddhist nationalism and which allowed it to tap the strong anti-India, anti-government feelings prevalent at the time. By December 1987, the JVP hadkilled several hundred functionaries of the ruling UNP and turned the rest into fugitives.

In the government crackdown that followed, an estimated 60,000 people, suspected to be members or sympathisers of the JVP were killed, many of them burnt on roadsides by state-sponsored vigilante groups. However, of late, the party has once again begun attracting rural youth and is reported to have a strong political presence in the impoverished southern- most areas of Sri Lanka. It has given up its armed struggle, is attempting to shed its image of violent anti-Tamil Sinhala nationalism and is projecting itself as the only ``genuine'' Left party in the country.

It has met with some success. Releasing Chitranganee could accelerate the process, though Silva ruled out dynastic succession in the JVP. ``We don't believe in widows taking over their husbands' parties,'' he said. But the party, which still relies on Wijeweera's charisma to draw supporters, has gained significant mileage from the captivity of his widow.