A. E. Goonesinha Archives

Not forgetting A. E. Goonesinha Historical figure and Sri Lanka’s first Labour Leader Source:Dailymirror Born on 1st May 1891 in Kandy, A. E. Goonesinha was educated at Dharmaraja College in Kandy and St. Josephs College in Colombo. He started his professional career as a journalist and publisher of the Journal “Search Light” to support the National Movement. A. E.Goonesinha was a man of principle, of decency and of conscience who fought for the workers’ rights and against the British government that ruled Sri Lanka for their profit and benefit. They ill-treated the workers and made slaves out of them. It was A. E. Goonesinha together with other stalwarts who went to prison, risked being shot and overcame with great bravery the resistance by the British rulers to celebrate 1st May as Worker’s Day and to give the worker trade union rights and respect for the profession. ...

Failure of the brightest intellectuals of our time-BY H.L.D. MAHINDAPALA Source:Sundayobserver On June 7, 1964 Lanka Sama Samaja Party, the leading Trotskyite political party, was facing its biggest crisis since it was launched in December, 1935. It was a time when it was at the peak of its power. The Fourth International Secretariat in Paris was boasting that the Ceylon Branch, as it was known then, was the ‘world’s largest Trotskyite party’. The head of the 4th International, Michel Pablo and his associates like Pierre Frank had thrown their weight behind Dr. N. M. Perera, the President. They did not want to alienate the ‘world’s largest Trotskyite Party’. The New York Times ran a front-page story when Dr. N. M. Perera became the first Trotskyite to be elected as a mayor – the first significant political base won by any group of Trotskyites struggling in a world dominated by Stalin. The LSSP ...