Anil Moonesinghe

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Colvin R de Silva
Personal details
Born(1927-02-15)15 February 1927
Trade Unionist
ProfessionLawyer

Anil Moonesinghe (15 February 1927 – 8 December 2002) was a Sri Lankan

Deputy Speaker of Parliament from 1994 to 2000 and a diplomat. He has authored several books and edited newspapers and magazines. He was chairman and general manager of a State corporation. He briefly held the honorary rank of colonel
.

Background and education

Moonesinghe was born in

Buddhist and Sinhalese nationalist values, as well as an abhorrence of the colonial power, Britain
.

He went to school at

Red Air Force). Together with Osmund Jayaratne and Dicky Attygala, he formed a communist group in Royal College
. This group gradually moved to a specifically Trotskyist stance.

Moonesinghe went on to

University College Ceylon (which later became University of Ceylon), where he excelled in athletics, representing his University at the All India Universities Athletic Meet, which was held regularly in those years, in Lahore in 1944. He taught briefly at Royal Primary School, which had been evacuated to Glendale Bungalow, Bandarawela. He won an exhibition to the University of London and went to Britain in 1945. He sailed on board a troopship; when the news of Churchill
's defeat at the general election came through, all the soldiers on board threw their caps in the air and cheered, a fact which greatly encouraged him.

Revolutionary Communist Party

At

University College, London, he studied law. There he met his future wife, Jeanne Hoban – a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) whom he converted to Trotskyism – and Stan Newens, who was later to become a Labour & Co-op MP. They joined the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), in which they were associated with the group around Tony Cliff
, the so-called 'State-Caps' after their characterisation of the USSR as 'State-Capitalist'. The group later became the Socialist Review Group (SRG), organised around the
Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Both Anil and Jeanne were present at the founding conference of the SRG.[1]
Through the group he got to know Max Shachtman, becoming familiar with his theory of 'bureaucratic revolution'. He was also familiar with Jock Haston and Ted Grant. Within the RCP he went by the Pseudonym 'Anil Kumaran'.[2]

Marriage

For a time he worked as an overhead crane operator at Southern Forge Ltd,

Langley, Slough. He married Jeanne Hoban in 1948 and they moved into a houseboat called 'Red October', which they built together, on the Thames near Marlow. They both entered the Labour Party in Slough, on the heels of a group of the RCP, led by Jock Haston. Anil was a speaker for the National Council of Labour Colleges; while Jeanne was elected to the Executive of the Labour Leagues of Youth, later being put on the list of Labour Parliamentary candidates. They were both associated with the MP for Slough Fenner Brockway and with George Padmore
, the prophet of Black African Liberation.

LSSP Days

His parents summoned Anil back to Colombo urgently in 1952. He was called to the Bar and practised law all over the island. He and Jeanne joined the

deport
Jeanne, but she went into hiding and the LSSP fought successfully to prevent the deportation.

In 1954 the LEWU sent him to the Mohomediya Estate in

castes
.

He also successfully contested the working-class Dematagoda

Ward of the Colombo Municipal Council
, but found that working in Agalawatte took up too much time for him to devote any to his ward work.

Together with Jeanne, he joined Sri Lanka's first

co-operative housing scheme, the Gothatuwa Building Society, founded by Herbert Keuneman, Seneka Bibile, 'Bonnie' Fernando and other members of the radical intelligentsia. This led to the foundation of the Welikadawatte
housing estate, which attained some fame as an island of intellectual creativity.

He was elected to the Central Committee of the LSSP and then onto its Political Bureau (

Soviet invasion of Hungary. In 1960, Yugoslavia
opened an embassy in Colombo, and he advised the new ambassador unofficially on how to operate in Sri Lanka.

In 1963 he went to Yugoslavia for an

Workers' Councils
. He was deeply impressed by the level of open debate that he found at these councils, and this experience was to aid him in later years.

Cabinet Minister

At the 1964 LSSP conference, he was aligned with Dr

FIAT
company to build buses in Sri Lanka. However, the government was defeated shortly thereafter and he was unable to complete his work – the next government did not sign the agreement with FIAT.

Back in opposition

At the next general election, at which the coalition was defeated, he held his Parliamentary seat. However, in 1967 he lost it on an election petition, although the LSSP retained the Agalawatte seat at the subsequent by-election. He was editor of the daily Janadina newspaper for a short while around this time.

In 1966, the police arrested several lower-ranking soldiers and civilians, implicated in an alleged attempted coup d'état, the so-called '

Lavatory Coup'. Several army officers, including the Army Commander Major General Richard Udugama, were dismissed or suspended. Moonesinghe was lawyer for the 9th accused, Mayadunne, in the subsequent trial.[3]

He visited

Workers' Councils there. He later wrote a book condemning the Soviet invasion which ousted Alexander Dubček
.

He succeeded Dr N.M. Perera as president of the redoubtable

Mahinda Rajapakse
, who was the chairman of its Vidyodaya University branch and who was later to become Prime Minister and then President of Sri Lanka.

CTB chairman

After the 1970 election, at which the United Front (UF) won a landslide victory, the workers at the CTB spontaneously established workers' committees and took over the running of the institution. They also asked for Anil Moonesinghe to be made chairman of the board. The new Government therefore appointed him chairman and general manager. Thus began the most successful years of the CTB as an institution. For the last two of the five years he was there, the CTB ran at a profit, while providing a service which was never previously or subsequently matched. In this he was aided by his Minister, Leslie Goonewardene.

Senior citizens still nostalgically refer to the CTB under Moonesinghe, which provided an efficient and disciplined service to the public.

Volkswagen Variant or his Citroën 2CV at places like Dematagoda Junction to prowl on them.[5]
Stories would abound (all untrue) of him being spotted disguised with a beard. To prove that eight buses could be serviced in a day, he once personally carried out eight vehicle services at the Central Workshops, Werahera.

In addition to the role in management of the Employees' Councils (which the workers' committees were transformed into after being properly constituted, with democratic elections supervised by the Elections Commission), commuter organisations were included in an advisory role. The services were expanded and measures were taken to improve efficiency, including rationalising bus types. The CTB started buying buses from the

Ikarus
buses from Hungary. Several new bus stands and bus depots were established. A modern, multi-storied bus station was planned at the CBS, complete with hotel and cinema, but this would never be completed.

Moonesinghe also took measures to build up local industry and the CTB became well equipped with foundries and workshops: the Central Workshop at Werahera became the largest in South Asia. The local modification of ticket machines was started after employees pointed out many unsuitable features, and a new workshop was acquired for this. In 1974 he started the assembly of bus chassis and prototypes of a locally manufactured bus and a car rolled out of Werahera.

In 1971, when the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) staged an insurrection, he formed a 2,000-strong paramilitary body, the Hansa Regiment (of which he was honorary Colonel), from among the employees of the CTB to guard bus depots, bus stops and workshops. He also created 'CANTAB', a secret intelligence organisation, the agents of whom were employees of the CTB, which provided accurate reports of the strength and distribution of JVP units.

At this time he joined the editorial board of State, a theoretical journal of the LSSP, published in three languages.

In 1975, Leslie Gunawardena and he were preparing the ground for a major shift in the management of the CTB, whereby Employees' Council representatives were to form half the board of directors. However, in September that year the UF broke up and the LSSP Ministers were removed, so Anil resigned from the CTB.

Back in opposition

He was briefly employed at this time, by the Government of Guyana, as a consultant on transport.

He contested the 1977 election for the Matugama constituency, which lay next to Agalawatte. He was narrowly beaten into third place by the sitting member of the SLFP. He became deputy secretary of the LSSP in 1978, having supported the group led by NM Perera at that year's conference. In 1980, he was arrested for his part in the General Strike, but later released without any charges being made. At this time he wrote a book on the repression of the Solidarity union in Poland.

About this time, he coined the term 'Casino Capitalism' to describe the economic set-up under the UNP regime.[6]

SLFP Days

He split from the LSSP in 1982 over its refusal to go into coalition with Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike's Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), forming the Sri Lanka Sama Samaja Party (SLSSP) with other breakaways. He supported Hector Kobbekaduwa at the Presidential Election of that year. In 1983 the SLSSP dissolved itself and he joined the SLFP and contested the Matugama seat at a by-election and won. He represented Matugama until 1989 and then was one of the MPs – under proportional representation – for the Kalutara District until 2000. During the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom, he intervened to save several people from death. During the 'White Terror' of 1988–90, he was active in saving hundreds of suspects from summary execution – at one point having to threaten an Army commandant with attack.

In the early 1990s he was elected a vice-president of the SLFP and was part of a re-organisation drive led by

Mahinda Rajapakse.[7]

In opposition, he was the spokesperson for Transport (he was also President of the Sri Lanka National Transport Workers' Union) and, being acknowledged as the best man to take care of the public transport sector, was expected to receive that portfolio in the event of the SLFP returning to power. However, after the victory in 1994 of the People's Alliance, the new prime minister, Chandrika Kumaratunga did not care to revive the CTB and did not make Moonesinghe a Minister.[8]

Instead, he became

Mahabodhi Society
, a Buddhist Missionary organisation headquartered in Colombo.

He was disoriented by the rather

Byzantine
internal politics of the SLFP. In the LSSP debate was out open and was democratic, with matters being finally settled with a vote. His habit of speaking his mind, which had only irritated others in the LSSP, proved to be a liability in his new political home. After becoming Deputy Speaker, he grew close to Mrs Bandaranaike, who had herself been deserted by many of her closest allies. Her death affected him deeply.

Diplomat

In 2000 he was appointed Sri Lanka's ambassador to Austria, the UN and accredited to the former Yugoslav republics, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. On 14 March 2002 he presented his credentials as the first Sri Lankan ambassador to Croatia. He had a close relationship with Václav Havel, the president of the Czech Republic, due to his connections with the oppositional movement in Czechoslovakia since the Prague Spring.

After the victory of the UNP at the general election of December 2001, he was recalled.

He died on 8 December 2002 in Colombo. He left four children, Janaki, Vinod, Previn and Priyanka, the last two by a second marriage to Joan de Zilva.

Publications

See also

References

  1. ^ Birchall, Ian. "A socialist diamond jubilee". Socialist Review. socialistreview.org.uk. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  2. ^ Plant, John. "Marking the death of Cyril Smith". Marxists Internet Archive. marxists.org. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  3. ^ Magistrate's Court of Colombo. "The Queen v. Rev. H. Gnanaseeha Thero and 21 Others". lawnet.lk. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  4. ^ "Resurrecting the CTB". The Sunday Observer. 27 March 2005. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  5. ^ Edirisuriya, Chandra (18 December 2002). "To mark landmark foreign participation in public transport in Sri Lanka : Annals of omnibus transport". Daily News. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  6. ^ "Respond firmly to crime". Daily News. 27 March 2001. Archived from the original on 20 April 2005. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  7. ^ Obeyesekere, Upali (6 March 2006). "Long trek from Weeraketiya to President's House". Lankaeverything.com. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  8. ^ "Battling iron-eating rats in the CTB". The Island. 4 September 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
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