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2nd February 1997

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Independence: what people think

By Chamintha Thilakarathna

Forty nine years ago: signing of the Declaration of Independence

On February 4, we Sri Lankans celebrate 49 years of independence, closing in on the 50th anniversary. But, the good old days when people looked forward to Independence Day with pride and held their heads high while the national anthem was sung and the national flag was raised are gone. Today, it has become merely another holiday for people to stay at home.

We asked a cross-section of people what Independence Day meant to them.The answers, by and large revealed that people had mixed feelings about what they were indeed commemorating.

"It is a namesake independence that we are celebrating," said Garwin Ranwala, Manager, Bank of Ceylon. "True enough that we should reminisce about the independence gained from the colonial grip, but in reality we cannot be proud that we have achieved something noteworthy since then or that we enjoy independence completely. There has been no economic or cultural freedom."

"What independence?" asked M.Ramanathan, a businessman from Dehiwela. "We cannot travel on the road freely, go anywhere in the night, we are always living in fear. There is no independence at all. It is worthless celebrating it. They might as well give that money to some needy person."

"Gaining independence was the biggest mistake that was ever made. Under the British rule we would have been more developed and had no problems either. Therefore it is a day to be mourned rather than a day to be celebrated," a forty-eight-year old Financial Controller from Kottawa said.

But there were others who sounded a more positive note. "Like any other developing country Sri Lanka has had its ups and downs. That is no reason not to celebrate independence. Our achievements ever since are commendable in comparison to other developing nations. After gaining independence the quality of the lives of people have improved, our education standards are much higher than many developed nations, likewise we have high achievements," said Dr. Shahabdeen of the Shahabdeen Foundation.

"Independence Day is not only a time to celebrate the end of British rule and the beginning of democracy, it is also a time when the efforts of the people and the people themselves who fought for freedom are remembered and appreciated. Therefore we must celebrate independence, but, I am not keen on having all these silly acrobatic and dance celebrations," was what a citizen from Ratmalana had to say about independence day.

Mario (24) the eldest son in a family of four from Wellawatte said, "There is no freedom in anything, no freedom of the Press, no freedom for people to basically express their views and do what they want. There is nothing wrong in celebrating Independence Day because it has nothing to do with independence of the people itself."

S.A.Samson, a father of a son and a daughter from Dehiwela said "It was long before these LTTE problems began that we gained independence . Therefore I feel that it is quite all right to celebrate it."

"What independence are we talking of ? Here in our villages we are not certain at what time the LTTE will attack. In one week we have lost three aircraft. In Colombo, certain roads are closed. The Tamils are finding it difficult to travel freely from the North to the South, we understand that the security situation warrants it , but we cannot travel to the North either.So, what freedom?" P.K.Sirisoma, a school teacher from Anuradapura said.

In his speech to the British House of Commons on November 21, 1947, moving the second reading of the Ceylon Independence Bill, MP Arthur Creech Jones said, "There are difficulties ahead for Ceylon..... but her people have courage, faith in themselves and their destiny.......we are confident that they will prove themselves a great free democracy in the vicissitudes through which their region of the world is passing."


"Pieter my friend" - Minister Bernard Soysa recollects

by Roshan Peiris

His face was drawn, his eyes behind his spectacles misted over. His voice broke several times as he reminisced about Pieter Keuneman, a man who was his friend. He had worn a deep maroon shirt to make his final salutation with his right arm stretched out with clenched fist. Science and Industries Minister Bernard Souza at eighty two, is now the only surviving member of that group of ebullient young men of the forties and fifties who took pride in espousing Left- politics. Even the stern British found them a handful and some were kept in jail during the Second World War including Bernard, Colvin R. de Silva, Leslie Goonewardene and N.M. Perera.

These dedicated men of the Marxist dialectic mould had two things in common: they were handsome men with an undeniable presence and they were gentleman politicians. No matter the slogan shouting at May Day rallies, as persons they were courtesy and politeness personified.

Pieter Bartholomeuz Keuneman died on January 23 and Bernard spoke with sorrow, as he remembered his life.

"I was deeply worried when he got ill a month ago. Pieter never reacted well to illness. It was just terrible to see this dynamic man, full of bubbling bonhomie inert on a sick bed."

"Pieter had very few minor desires in his life. One of these was to see the twenty first century in. I am very sad that this wish was not granted," said Bernard.

"I first met Pieter briefly while at University College. Beiling, a mutual friend introduced us. But unfortunately I did not remain at University. But I recall he was looked upon by the female undergraduates of the day as one of the most handsome boys, just as the boys considered Vivienne Goonewardene as the most beautiful girl at the Varsity."

Fate saw to it that these two young good looking people took to Left-politics.

"I joined the LSSP in 1937 and went to India and Pieter, the son of a Supreme Court judge and clever as well, went off to Cambridge. We came back and Pieter joined the Daily News and I joined The Times. So, we both had journalistic backgrounds."

"In 1942 the LSSP. leaders were imprisoned because we did not support the war, but not so members who supported Russia like Pieter. Pieter, you see, having met S.A.Wickremesinghe in Cambridge was a founder member of the Communist Party. The Communists supported the war since Russia was in it."

"There was a tussle between us in the early forties and so we parted ways disagreeing on matters of policy."

"Pieter, was a kind man and he spoke to the poor and the rich with equal courtesy and kindness. I recall he had tremendous charisma and both men and women were attracted to him and also respected him for what he had given up to espouse the cause he served," Bernard said.

"He was a man of contrasts," Bernard added. "He was Secretary of the Communist Party but then again he had been honoured with the post of President of the Cambridge Union, that citadel of arch conservatism and age old traditions."

"His first wife, very few will recall today, was an Austrian girl Heidi who was an excellent violonist. She left him and went back to Austria," he said.

"Next Pieter married the private secretary to the Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain. She lived and died here and then he married my first cousin Mrs. Fernando's, (the first woman proctor of Sri Lanka) daughter Ouida," Bernard said.

"Pieter contested Colombo Central in 1947 and won. He could not speak in Sinhala so an excellent translator H.J.S.Ranaweera translated his speeches beautifully. But by the sixties Pieter spoke Sinhala fluently. He was later a member of the Colombo Municipal Council and there too he brought up the question of rent control for small houses and urged the abolition of slums. I was with him in the Municipality at the time."

"But Pieter was not only interested in politics. He loved classical music to which he relaxed in the evenings. T.B.Subasinghe, Neil de Alwis, Doric de Soyza and I used to meet to trade jokes, and Pieter was full of good humour and we joined in for a few drinks."

"But now looking back it was wonderful to see the rapport between the poor people who crowded around him. Here was this son of a Supreme Court judge and scion of a wealthy family with a Cambridge education, being loved and finding a common platform with the workers and lower middle class people if you want to classify them as such. They simply adored him, he could easily I feel have started a cult of his own if he wanted to."

He spoke of the needs of the people with feeling at Parliamentary debates. He had this tremendous feeling for the poor masses. He spoke angrily and movingly during the 1953 hartal when the price of rice was increased.

"Today many bless his name since as Minister of Housing he transferred small houses to the tenants. He also tried to get more capital to build small houses for the working class. He also brought changes in the rent law to help tenants."

"I must not forget to mention that he always felt strongly that the Left should be united."

"Pieter my friend was always on the side of the poor. He was dedicated to their welfare. So all I can say is I mourn his death, and together with many others will do so until I am no more," Bernard Souza said with deep feeling as he recalled the times spent with a friend and colleague who was now no more.


Of aeroplanes and jumbos

By Roger Thiedeman (in Melbourne)

Robert Taylor is a British artist who specialises in aviation paintings. Over a career spanning many years, he has built up an enviable reputation which sees his depictions of wartime scenes and aerial battles commanding substantial prices the world over.

One of Taylor's more celebrated paintings now hangs in the museum of the Fleet Air Arm at Yeovilton, England. With its title "Puttalam Elephants" it has special significance to Sri Lankan aviation enthusiasts. The painting is based on the somewhat unusual operations of the Royal Navy shore-based fighter aircraft station H.M.S. Rigolia which was located at Puttalam airfield, Ceylon during World War II.

The squadron was equipped with American-built F4U Corsair airplanes.

The Corsair was a beautiful aircraft with a distinctive "gull-wing" look especially when seen from the front. It was a powerful machine that often proved a handful for its pilots, no matter how skilful they were. Visibility from the cockpit was not ideal, and the aircraft had a nasty tendency to bounce violently on landing.

As if the Corsair and its idiosyncrasies were not enough, the Puttalam airfield posed additional problems for the pilots of H.M.S. Rigolia to contend with. The field itself was (and probably still is) surrounded by dense jungle on three sides, while the end closest to the coast was hemmed in by coconut trees.

When the military took over Puttalam airfield during the war they attempted to strengthen the soft grass landing strip by laying down large, perforated steel mesh plates known as Pierced Steel Planking (PSP), or Somerfield tracking. While the PSP enabled heavier aircraft to land at Puttalam with relative ease, the steel surface became very slippery whenever it rained which, during the monsoon period, was often. So whenever a Corsair touched down in such conditions, its tricky landing characteristics combined with the wet PSP to send the aircraft slithering off the runway into the sandy surrounds which the rains had turned into a quagmire. And the result? A Corsair bogged up to its wheels in mud.

This is where the unique feature of H.M.S. Rigolia came into play. The Royal Navy at Puttalam kept a number of elephants on its inventory for the purpose of dragging its stick-in-the-mud Corsairs back onto firmer ground. One elephant was named Fifi, and had her name painted in large letters on her sides.

Commander Sam Macdonald-Hall was one of the pilots attached to the Royal Navy at Puttalam. It was he who gave Robert Taylor the idea for the painting and eventually commissioned it. Macdonald-Hall, supplied Taylor with valuable background information about operations at H.M.S. Rigolia and the sterling service rendered by the "Puttalam Elephants".

In a letter to Taylor, describing landing conditions at Puttalam, he wrote: "After a shower the runway (steel strips) turned to ice, you stamped on the brakes, locked the wheels, and the Corsair slid gracefully into the sand (which turned to mud after rain). Call for the duty elephant. Ropes were fixed to the jumbo's collar, and led to the undercarriage legs of the Corsair, just above the wheels. To get the outfit back on the runway, the elephant had to pull from the opposite side, as jumbo, did not like padding around on the metal tracking. The jockey (mahout) sat on the elephant's neck, clad only in a loin cloth. The elephants also towed the petrol bowsers."

Commander Macdonald-Hall also gave Taylor a rough sketch showing the layout of Puttalam airfield and its surrounds at the time. On it he has annotated such details as: "sea; camp; coast road; palm trees; sand; runway; jungle (dense)". Never having visited Puttalam airfield himself, Robert Taylor relied solely on Macdonald-Hall's description and sketch to produce the painting seen here.

A few months after the painting "Puttalam Elephants" was presented to the museum at Yeovilton, Taylor received a telephone call from another former Royal Navy Corsair pilot who had been stationed at Puttalam. He asked Taylor how he had known he was there, because he (the ex-pilot) had been accurately portrayed in the painting! This must surely be a tribute to the clever imagination and artistic skills of Robert Taylor.

And speaking of his skills, before Taylor began specialising as an aviation artist he spent the first six months as a professional painter drawing nothing but animals, including a number of elephants. Few will disagree that his unerring portrayals of both animals and aeroplanes have come together beautifully in this delightful vignette from wartime Ceylon.

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