Features

Esmond Wickremesinghe and a trip to China as Beijing sought ties with JRJ regime

Published

4 years ago

2022/10/23

Excerpted from Volume two of Sarath Amunugama’s autobiography

Another key figure in the JRJ regime was Esmond Wickremesinghe who has been portrayed in the media as the shadowy figure behind the UNP. From 1977 to the day in 1985 when his life was cut short in a hospital in Houston USA, he became a very close professional and personal friend of mine. In fact he spent the last few days on route to Houston in my home in Paris. Nobody imagined when a few of us said goodbye to him at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris that we would never see him again. He was a ‘bon vivant’ and a dear friend.

Esmond played a crucial role in the politics of his time because he managed Lake House, the main newspaper group in the country. Lake House was the chief opinion maker of the time and therefore one of the most powerful institutions that was wooed by all sections of the community, in particular the politicians. Esmond was the son in law of the founder Chairman of Lake House, D.R. Wijewardene. He was married to Nalini, the eldest daughter of DR. It is also relevant to note here that JRJ’s mother was the elder sister of DR. Though there were occasional misunderstandings in the big Wijewardene family, Esmond and JRJ had become close friends, particularly after .the exit from politics of Sir. John Kotelawala.

Sir. John looked on Esmond as his foreign policy advisor and since both were great globe trotters and men of the world, they were considered as inseparable in the time of the Kotelawala premiership. For instance, it was Esmond who was sent as Kotelawala’s special envoy to Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand to promote the Bandung Conference.In a brief life sketch written by Esmond, a copy of which he gave me, there is an interesting reference to these high level meetings. Says Esmond, “The first visit to these countries were on a letter signed by Sir John himself, much to Sir Oliver’s subsequent horror who said that only the Queen could appoint personal envoys of a Prime Minister and Ambassadors.

“Anyway King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, President Diem of South Vietnam and Marshall Pibul Songgram of Thailand had discussions with me on behalf of Sir John about the forthcoming Bandung Conference.” He was by Sir John’s side when our Premier nearly wrecked the Bandung meeting. This is Esmond’s eye witness account of what happened on that day:

“Immediately after Sir John’s speech on colonialism, Nehru came up to Sir John to upbraid him. Sir John gave a sharp retort and a crushing insult to Krishna Menon who poked his mouth in and Krishna Menon ran away. Nehru thereafter in a polite tone asked him, “Sir John why did you speak of the forms of colonialism except western colonialism?” Sir John replied, “How do you and I know of the future? There may arise a new colonialism among us. For instance what if India invades Ceylon?”

Nehru immediately interrupted Sir John to say, “You know Sir John I will never let it happen”. Sir John replied, “Yes, Nehru. Under you I am confident India will never invade. But after you and I are dead and gone?”

Sir. John’s speech was crafted by Esmond who was a lawyer as well as a student of contemporary law and politics under the famous Professor Raymond Aron at the Sorbonne. According to Esmond, “Prime Minister DS Senanayake forced me from the law onto the job of becoming the Head of Lake House as my father in law DR Wijewardene was slowly dying”.

Like Raymond Aron who was a Communist who later renounced his creed, Esmond who started out as a Samasamajist later became an ideologue of the rightist UNP. There is a story from his LSSP days that when Esmond told Philip Gunawardena that he wanted to write for the party, the irascible Philip had replied, “Certainly. You can write a cheque”.

But even in the later days of political antagonism he maintained good relations with left leaders, particularly Bernard Soysa. Esmond contributed regularly to Bernard’s campaign funds. He always knew that he was only a stand-in for Ranjit Wijewardene who would eventually take over the reins of his father’s enterprise. But he modernized the management of Lake House and made It the home of outstanding journalists many of whom left after 1956.

By 1977 he had relinquished his control of Lake House but had invested in a hotel in Mount Lavinia where he spent most of the day. He also set up a small news agency which helped him to keep in touch with his newspaper friends abroad. As the winner of the ‘Golden Pen’ award he was invited to many international functions. He loved traveling abroad and would meticulously plan his visits.

After 1977 he became an unofficial advisor to our ministry and was welcomed by successive media ministers who were over awed by his reputation and proximity to the President. Later in this book I will describe how we worked closely with him and Sri Lanka became a country to be reckoned with in the global debate on the new Information and Communication order which was coming to the fore as a priority consideration of the developing countries.

This debate took Esmond and me to many global meetings organized by UNESCO and ultimately took me to Paris for a duration of close on five years, to head the now organization of the UN called The International Program for the Development of Communication [IPDC]. He was a veritable storehouse of inside information about the politics and personal affairs of the elite of the country.

Thanks to Mrs. Robert Senanayake’s hold over Dudley, Esmond was identified as JRJ’s ’eminence grise’ and advocate of JRJs interests so much so that Dudley had not been even on talking terms with him. On our many travels he would recount such stories which held me spellbound. Thus with my close relations with two of the country’s classic ‘Insiders’ -Esmond and Anandatissa de Alwis, and with plenty of time for chats with both of them here and abroad, I became privy to the ‘really real’ manner in which, the modern Sri Lankan state was managed since Independence by our leaders of different persuasions.

Esmond’s importance in the fields of diplomacy and media were recognized by the Chinese Government that was now scrambling to establish new links with the JRJ regime. It had had excellent relations with Mrs. B and her Government. All the leaders of China, especially Chou en Lai, had supported Sri Lanka to the hilt after the JVP uprising of 1971. JRJs sympathies lay elsewhere and now it became necessary for China to establish new linkages with the incoming Sri Lankan government. On the other hand China too was just emerging from its disastrous `Cultural Revolution’ that had decimated the party and dragged down economic growth. Their solution in respect of the new JRJ regime was to invite a high powered delegation of media moguls from Sri Lanka to visit China.

The visitors could see that China had recovered from the madness of the cultural revolution and were now ready to do business with the JRJ regime. The proposed leader of the delegation was Esmond Wickremesinghe, testifying to China’s estimation of him as a power behind the scenes. Besides Esmond, the delegation included W.J. Fernando [Davasa group], Wenceslaus [Virakesari], Manikkaaratchi [Lake House], Eamon Kariyakarawana [SLBC] and me.

In two weeks we were to tour many parts of China including Beijing, the Great Wall, Shanghai, Hangzou, Guangdong and Hong Kong [which at that time was a British Protectorate]. As if to emphasize the importance of the delegation the Chinese Ambassador invited us to a dinner at his residence. Recalling his earlier days of diplomacy Esmond and his wife Nalini hosted a return dinner for the Chinese Ambassador and our delegation at their home in Fifth Lane, Kollupitiya. Hameed and Ranil Wickremesinghe were also present.

In an article I wrote sometime later I recalled our first visit to China via Karachi and over the Himalayas to Beijing. Even as late as 1978 there were no direct flights to China from Singapore or Hongkong. So we had to go via Karachi taking the ‘Himalayan route’ which only a few years previously Henry Kissinger had used in his shuttle diplomacy.

At our first stop in Karachi, while our fellow delegates rested, Esmond and I were invited to lunch at the Karachi Boat Club by the owners of ‘Dawn’ – the major newspaper in Pakistan. ‘They were old friends of Esmond from the IPI days and soon they were regaling us with inside stories of the then powerful Zulfiqar Bhutto regime.

It was clear that Bhutto was unpopular with the Pakistani ‘upper crust’ who congregated at the once elegant Boat Club which was now slowly going to seed. The most spiteful were the heavily made up old Pakistani ‘Grand Dames’ who, pulling on their cigarettes in long ivory holders, were full of invective at Bhutto’s attempts ‘to take over our lands’. After a briefing by Dawn staffers on the latest developments in Beijing, we drove to the airport to catch a Chinese government plane to the Chinese capital.

The flight took us over the Himalayas and as the not very comfortable plane droned over the snow-capped peaks we could look down on parts of the autonomous region of Tibet. We were flying over the ‘roof of the world’. Esmond surrounded by his numerous travel bags, notebooks and sweaters offered us generous tots of whisky. We landed in Beijing around midday and were greeted by a bevy of schoolgirls who presented us with bouquets of paper flowers. From there we were driven to the famous Peking Duck restaurant for lunch [Sunday Island 16 June 1991].

(To be continued next week)

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Features

The Division Bell Mystery

Published

2 days ago

2026/05/29

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 3

The murder, in a private dining room in the house, is of a financier with whom the government was negotiating a loan. When this seemed difficult the Minister of Home Affairs agreed to lead discussions, since he had known Mr Oissel the financier when they were young. Hence the private dinner, but when the Minister stepped out for a vote, Oissel was shot just as the Division Bell rang.

The Brahms and Simon detective novels, the first of which I wrote about last week, were amongst several books by the pair that Robert Scoble gave me when I was in Australia towards the end of last year. Amongst them was another thriller of a very different sort, though that too was written and set between the wars.

Called The Division Bell Mystery, it was set in the House of Commons, the first such book I believe, and was by Ellen Wilkinson, a Labour MP who became Minister of Education in Attlee’s government after the war, having served previously as Parliamentary Private Secretary to several ministers. Her hero Robert West is also a PPS, but a conservative, and his Minister, of Home Affairs, is an old style aristocrat, not much loved by the less orthodox Prime Minister, who nevertheless needs his support on many occasions.

The murder, in a private dining room in the house, is of a financier with whom the government was negotiating a loan. When this seemed difficult the Minister of Home Affairs agreed to lead discussions, since he had known Mr Oissel the financier when they were young. Hence the private dinner, but when the Minister stepped out for a vote, Oissel was shot just as the Division Bell rang.

West was just outside the door when the shot was heard, and when he opened it saw only the dead body with a revolver beside it. The assumption that this was suicide was however challenged by Oissel’s grand-daughter Annette, who was his heir, on the grounds that he would never have killed himself. But her view was given greater credence by the Inspector put in charge of the case who said there were no burn marks on the body which would have been the case had Oissel fired the pistol himself.

Matters are complicated by the fact that Oissel’s flat had been burgled while he was at dinner, and Jenks the policeman allocated to him, who had served the Home Secretary and seemed more acceptable to Oissel than someone from the Security Service, had been killed. Matters get even more complicated when Annette says her grand-father’s notebook in which he wrote his secrets in cipher was missing.

That was found in Jenks’ pocket, and then a photographer came to West to say he had been asked by Jenks to photograph this. More worryingly for West, he finds in the Home Secretary’s drawer a few pages from the notebook with what appears to be an interpretation of the cipher.

Ellen

Overwhelmed by all this he confides in a recently created peer who knows all about the business world, who insists that they leave the house party at which they had met over dinner and discuss the matter with the Prime Minister who promptly summons the Home Secretary.

But the Home Secretary had gone to Scotland to launch a ship over the weekend, so the meeting could take place only on the morning of the Monday, when difficult questions were expected on the adjournment motion. He admits at the meeting that he had got Jenks to take the notebook, and also that he knew the code since it had been created by him and Oissel when they were young.

He thought he should resign, and even contemplated suicide, but the Prime Minister told him that that would be even worse for the government, and that he should go home to bed. The Prime Minister said that he himself would handle the question, which he did with aplomb, insisting that confidentiality was needed until the inquest. What had happened would be made clear then, he declared, leaving West and Inspector Blackit and Lord Dalbeattie what seemed the impossible task of solving the murder.

Dalbeattie had suggested that West ask a female Labour MP who was very fond of him to get what information she could from the staff. That there was some involvement there had become clear when West, going back late one night to collect a briefcase he had left in a dining room, found someone lurking in the dark in the corridor outside the private rooms. Room J, where the murder had happened, was meant to be guarded throughout by a policeman, but he had left the room having felt dizzy, and it seemed that his coffee had been drugged. West’s sudden appearance however had prevented anyone else getting into the room.

Dalbeattie decides to recreate the scene of the murder and has a dinner party in Room J on the Tuesday night, inviting West and Annette and the society hostess at whose house he had met, and also Patrick Kinnaird, an MP who was engaged to Annette, as well as the Permanent Secretary to the Home Ministry.

After coffee Inspector Blackit comes in with Grace, the Labour MP who had got the confidence of the staff, and a journalist who had also been helpful, and just as they say they think they are on the track the division bell rings. Grace jumps up and tells the Inspector that that provides the solution and they get a ladder, and sure enough find the revolver in the space where the bell is. Directed at the place where Oissel had sat, it had been primed to go off with the ringing of the bell. The waiter who had helped to set things up made clear who the murderer had been.

The reason for the murder and the confused motives of all those involved made for a fascinatingly intricate mix. But also impressive in the book were the descriptions of the isolation possible in the crowded premises of the house, the forceful characterization of the members – Grace based on the writer, the society hostess based on Nancy Astor, the first female MP – and the laid back nature of senior politicians which West realized had to change in the brave new world of high finance.

Features

The challenge of keeping value-based politics alive

Published

3 days ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Anti-migrant protests in Durban, South Africa. BBC

The current outbreak of anti-immigrant protests in Durban, South Africa is bound to have taken many a subscriber to value-based politics or political idealism quite by surprise. After all, this is evidence that despite the historic accomplishments of nation-builders of the stature of the late President Nelson Mandela it cannot be taken for granted that identity politics, including racism in its worst forms, is no more in South Africa.

At the time of this writing details are scarce on the substantive root causes of the protests but it could very well be that economic grievances, particularly on the part of the majority community in South Africa, are contributing considerably to the disaffection. Shrinking employment and material prospects are likely to figure majorly among the factors igniting the unrest.

Fortunately, the local authorities in Durban are losing no time in calling for peaceful co-existence among the relevant communities and are pointing to the vital importance of stepping-up national integration processes. Apparently, immigrants in sizable numbers from neighbouring countries are present in Durban. However, international TV footage of the protests quoted some local authorities as saying that the majority of the immigrants in some centres that housed them were not illegal migrants and had the documents that entitle them to be in Durban.

In the Durban protests the world has fresh proof of the socially divisive consequences of the gathering globe-wide economic disaffection, touched off particularly by the continuing crisis in West Asia. Going ahead, the world would need to brace for increasing identity-based unrest of the kind it is just witnessing in South Africa.

Considering that the material lot of ordinary people everywhere could only aggravate progressively, with the US and Iran showing no signs of negotiating an end to their confrontation any time soon, it will be left to the more democratic and progressive sections of the world community to initiate positive measures collectively to bring a measure of relief to the discontented.

The swiftness with which such relief will be provided would depend crucially on the importance those sections taking up these undertakings attach to value-based politics as opposed to Realpolitik of power politics.

Going by these yardsticks, Italy could be considered to be moving in the right direction. Recently Italy came to the fore in initiating the collective named, ‘Rome Coalition for Food Security and Access to Fertilizer’, which has as one of its aims the swift provision of fertilizer to economically weak African countries.

In a recent statement Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, said that a principal aim of the project was to ensure that the farmers of Africa gained easy access to fertilizer, considering that food security is a growing concern among some of Africa’s economically vulnerable countries.

The statement went on to mention that some 30 countries hailing from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, the Balkans as well as the FAO had been invited to join the coalition. The venture is far-seeing in that food security is main among the reasons for social discontent which in turn could degenerate into endemic political turmoil and bloodshed. Separatist violence and geographical fragmentation of countries wouldn’t be too far behind these developments, as Africa itself has often proved.

It is hoped that more G7 countries would take the cue from Italy and do what they could to ease the hardships of economically distressed countries, particularly of the global South. In these efforts they would need to break rank with the US, which is today brutally indifferent to the consequences of its policy of making ‘America First’, come what may.

Going by current developments, the Trump administration seems to be blithely oblivious to the wider, deleterious effects of its policy course in West Asia. Besides rendering Iran militarily and otherwise impotent nothing else seems to matter to Washington, as regards West Asia. This is policy short-sightedness of an extreme kind. After all, right now West Asia could be said to be sitting on the proverbial powder keg.

On the other hand, Iran is not giving the world the impression that it is doing anything constructive to get out of the policy straitjacket that it wove for itself decades ago. Rather than enter into a policy of ‘live and let live’ in relation to Israel in particular and initiate a process of reconciliation with the latter, it has chosen to operate within policy parameters that continue to damn Israel. This has put Israel always on the ‘defensive’ so to speak and prevented the opening up of space for meaningful dialogue.

That said, Israel is obliged to explore the possibilities of entering into a negotiatory process with the Arab-Islamic world that could lead to a de-escalation of tensions and bloodshed. It cannot continue to look at its neighbours through lenses that distort them as archetypal enemies who should be ‘wiped off completely from the face of the earth.’

In other words, the need is urgent for Realpolitik to give way to value-based politicks. Italy is beginning to prove that the latter approach could be pursued with some success. May be the EU and the UK could throw their weight behind these initiatives as well and establish that international politics could be refashioned on the basis of humane, civilized norms. The UN would need to be fully supportive of these moves and prove an organizational nucleus of the operations that follow.

In fact the time is ripe for people of conscience to collectively stand up on the side of peace and say ‘No’ to war and violence. Organizations such as the ICRC, the WHO and Medicines Sans Frontiers have already taken up this call. Referring to the widespread destruction of health facilities and their dehumanizing results these organizations have said, among other things, that ‘This is not a failure of the law. It is a failure of political will.’

True, ‘failure of political will’ among those powers that matter accounts for the runaway, uncontrollable nature of war and destruction in contemporary times, but more fundamentally it is a failure of the human conscience. It could very well be that the phenomenal levels to which violence and war have been unleashed today have had the effect of deadening consciences. This is a matter for urgent study and wide discussion.

Features

Vesak celebrations … with Cuteefly

Published

3 days ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions // Gift pack

I would describe Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka as innovative and creative, and she operates under the name of Cuteefly.

Indunil always comes up with something novel to celebrate special occasions, and she does it with candles … and that’s her profession.

She was in the spotlight when she created a happening scene, with candles, for Christmas, Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and Valentine’s Day.

As lanterns light up Sri Lanka for Vesak, the Colombo-based candle maker is quietly turning wax and wick into little pieces of the festival.

Candles reflecting Vesak themes

Her candles reflect Vesak themes – light, peace, remembrance, giving, etc., to enable you to fill your Vesak celebration with devotion and beauty.

Among her Vesak creations is a lotus-shaped soy candle, scented with sandalwood, lavender, etc., meant to burn during this Vesak Poya Day.

Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka: Customers
praise her for her creativity

These handcrafted Vesak candles are perfect for offering at the temple, she says.

What makes her creations so novel is that they come in different shapes, scents, themes, and all are handmade.

What’s more, her customers have heaped praise on her for her creativity.

According to Indunil, her creations are perfect as a thoughtful gift … to bring beauty, unity, and light into every moment.

Says Indunil: “Our beautifully handcrafted Unity candles are designed with premium detail and love, making them perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions.”

Cuteefly, says Indunil, is available online.

Readers could contact Indunil on 0778506066 for more details.

He Facebook Page is: Cuteefly.