Features

The early days of a Civil Servant who became Governor

Published

3 years ago

2022/10/16

By Sir Henry Monck-Mason Moore,
last British Governor of Colonial Ceylon
Excerpted from HAJ Hulugalle’s British Governors of Ceylon

I was born on March 16th, 1887, the youngest of a family of seven, I hardly knew my only brother, Herbert, the eldest of the family as I was a very small boy when he came down from Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was called to the Bar, and then went to Canada to take up a legal practice there. After many vicissitudes he had become ‘Crown Prosecutor’ in Victoria, Vancouver by 1914, with an American wife and two small boys, who came to stay with my parents when he himself went to France on joining, the Canadian Seaforth Highlanders. We met again in London 1918-19, when we were both on leave from the Army waiting for demobilization. He returned to Canada with his family. He and his wife are now dead, but his two sons and a daughter, all married, are doing well in Canada and in the USA.

Of my sisters, the eldest, Kathleen, is now living in retirement at Oxford, after being the Headmistress of Queen Anne’s School, Caversham, for many years. She was one of the original founders of Sherborne Girls’ School. My next sister, Mabel, after a visit to India, where she contracted smallpox, became crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. She stayed with me for about six months in the bungalow on the ramparts of the Fort at Jaffna, when I was Office Assistant to Mr. Freeman, but had to return to England, when I was appointed itinerating police magistrate in the Western Province, and had no permanent quarters in which she could live in comfort.

Sir Henry Monck-Mason Moore and Lady Moore

She died some years ago. My third sister, Evelyn, was always delicate but became very active in the International YWCA, of which my mother with the Hon’ble Emily Kinnaird was a foundation member. She visited America and Canada and lived for a time in Geneva. During the last war she was in charge of the YWCA. Club in Tottenham Court Road which was badly bombed in the blitz. She was awarded the OBE for her services. She died last year.

My next sister Sylvia (Dr S. M. Payne) met her husband Dr. John Payne, FRCS. when she was finishing her own medical studies at the Royal Free Hospital, London. On their marriage they went to Torquay, where he had a good practice. In 1914 he joined the RAMC and went with the cavalry division to France. My sister took charge of the military hospital at Torquay and was, I believe, the first woman to be given the honorary rank of captain and was awarded the CBE. for her services.

After the war she practised as a consultant psychoanalyst in Harley Street, and continued to do so after her husband’s death. Though over 80 and rather deaf she is still active and lives in London. Of her three sons, one was President of Pop and Captain of the boats at Eton and President of the CUBC at Trinity, Cambridge, and rowed in the English Olympic crew at the Los Angeles, and became a lawyer; and another son became a doctor, and after doing research work for the World Health Organization in Geneva, is now doing research work at Yale University, America.My youngest sister married a solicitor, Mr. Thomas Atkey, and is now a widow living with her daughter, who is married to Raglan Squire, an architect, the son of Sir John Squire, the poet and critic.

My reason for this account of our family fortunes is to provide a background to the surroundings in which I was myself brought up. I was four years younger than my youngest sister, Ruth, and from an early age never questioned the fact that we all had to rely on our own exertions if we were to extend our interests beyond the somewhat narrow field of activity into which we had been born.

My father and my mother were both remarkable personalities in different ways. As a young man at Wadham College, Oxford, he had stroked the College Boat and won a University scholarship in Hebrew. After he had been ordained he became an enthusiastic supporter of the Low Church Evangelical Movement, which in the middle period of the nineteenth century had a considerable and influential following. For many years he drew large congregations to his church in Portman Square to listen to his sermons which combined scholarship with an emotional and spiritual appeal.

My mother, whom he had met on a reading party in France in his undergraduate days, was a Miss Monck-Mason. She came of an old Irish family, which like most old Irish families had fallen on evil days, but she had a host of Irish relations – Sir Hercules Robinson (a former Governor of Ceylon), later Lord Rosmead, was a second cousin, I believe, as was also Archbishop Crozier, the Irish Primate. She was not an intellectual, but had the sweetest possible nature combined with much horse-sense from which we could all draw comfort when we felt rebellious at our father’s somewhat puritanical regime.By the time that I was born we had moved to Wimbledon, where my father was incumbent of Emmanuel Church run by a board of trustees. I don’t know why he had left Portman Square, but I suspect it was due to some doctrinal controversy as he was intolerant of Episcopal control, and based his attitude on the 39 Articles and the Gorham judgment of the House of Lords.

With so large a family and modest private means the best our parents could do for us was to give us the best education they could afford to make our own way in the world. This they undoubtedly did. In my case I went to “Rokeby”, a very good preparatory school, as a day-boy, where Guy and Cedric Boustead, whom I was to meet again in Ceylon, were my contemporaries. From there I sat for a scholarship at Charterhouse, which I failed to get, so instead I sat for a scholarship at King’s College School, which had just moved from the Strand in London to Wimbledon.

Sir Graeme Tyrrell (later Chief Secretary of Ceylon) is an old K.C.S. boy but in London before my time. In due course I became Head of the School and won a Rustat Scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge, and also the Skinner scholarship for which only K.C.S. boys were eligible. During all this time I was a day-boy and my father was most anxious for me to take orders. So much so that, though I wanted to follow him at Oxford, he would not agree, as he distrusted the Oxford Movement and the Higher Criticism which Oxford had the reputation of fostering.Jesus was at the time more devoted to sports than study. We were head of the river for three years in both the Lents and Mays, and also head of the Hockey League. My best friend. Shields, stroked the Varsity Boat and I was captain of the Hockey Team, so perhaps it was not surprising that I failed to get a first in the Classical Tripos and had to be content with a 2(1).

By this time I felt I had not the necessary vocation to go into the Church, which my father accepted with disappointment but with good grace. Instead I went to Wrens to cram for the Indian Civil Service, where I worked really hard. I missed India by 25 marks out of 5,000, but obtained an Eastern Cadetship in Ceylon instead. I have never regretted my good fortune in going to Ceylon instead of India in the light of subsequent events.

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Features

The Easter investigation must not become ethno-religious politics

Published

16 hours ago

2026/04/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

Zahran and other bombers

Representatives of almost all the main opposition parties were in attendance at the recent book launch by Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader Udaya Gammanpila. The book written by the PHU leader was his analysis of the Easter bombing of April 2019 that led to the mass killing of 279 persons, caused injuries to more than 500 others and caused panic and shock in the entire country. The Easter bombing was inexplicable for a number of reasons. First, it was perpetrated by suicide bombers who were Sri Lankan Muslims, a community not known for this practice. They targeted Christian churches in particular, which led to the largest number of casualties. The bombing of Sri Lankan Christian churches by Sri Lankan Muslims was also inexplicable in a country that had no history of any serious violence between the two religions.

There were two further inexplicable features of the bombing. The six suicide bombings took place almost simultaneously in different parts of the country. The logistical complexity of this operation exceeded any previously seen in Sri Lanka. Even during the three decade long civil war that pitted the Sri Lankan military against the LTTE, which had earned international notoriety for suicide attacks, Sri Lanka had rarely witnessed such a synchronised operation. The country’s former Attorney General, Dappula de Livera, who investigated the bombing at the time it took place, later stated, upon retirement, that there was a “grand conspiracy” behind the bombings. That phrase has remained central to public debate because it suggested that the visible perpetrators may not have been the only planners behind the attack.

The other inexplicable factor was that intelligence services based in India repeatedly warned their Sri Lankan counterparts that the bombings would take place and even gave specific targets. Later investigations confirmed that warnings were transmitted days before the attacks and repeated again shortly before the explosions, yet they were not acted upon. It was these several inexplicable factors that gave rise to the surmise of a mastermind behind the students and religious fanatics led by the extremist preacher Zahran Hashim from the east of the country, who also blew himself up in the attacks. Even at the time of the bombing there was doubt that such a complex and synchronised operation could have been planned and executed by the motley band who comprised the suicide bombers.

Determined Attempt

The book by PHU leader Gammanpila is a determined attempt to make explicable the inexplicable by marshalling logic and evidence that this complex and synchronised operation was planned and executed by Zahran himself. This is a possible line of argumentation in a democratic society. Competing interpretations of public tragedies are part of political discourse. However, the timing of the intervention makes it politically more significant. The launch of the PHU leader’s book comes at a critical time when the protracted investigation into the Easter bombing appears to be moving forward under the present government.

The performance of the three previous governments at investigating the bombing was desultory at best. The Supreme Court held former President Maithripala Sirisena and several senior officials responsible for failing to act on prior intelligence and ordered compensation to victims. This judicial finding gave legal recognition to what victims had long maintained, that there was a grave dereliction of duty at the highest levels of the state. In recent weeks the investigation has taken a dramatic turn with the arrest and court production of former State Intelligence Service chief Suresh Sallay on allegations linked directly to the attacks. Whether these allegations are ultimately proven or disproven, they indicate that the present phase of the investigation is moving beyond negligence into possible complicity.

This is why the present moment requires political sobriety. There is a danger that the line of political division regarding the investigation into the Easter bombing can take on an ethnic complexion. The insistence that the suicide bombers alone were the planners and executors of the dastardly crime makes the focus invariably one of Muslim extremism, as the suicide bombers were all Muslims. This may unintentionally narrow public attention away from the unanswered questions regarding intelligence failures, possible political manipulation, and the allegations of a broader conspiracy that remain under active investigation. The minority political parties representing ethnic and religious minorities appear to have realised this danger. Their absence from the book launch was politically significant. It suggests an unwillingness to be drawn into a narrative that could once again stigmatise an entire community for the crimes of a handful of extremists and their possible handlers.

Another Tragedy

It would be another tragedy comparable in political consequence to the havoc wreaked by the Easter bombing if moderate mainstream political parties, such as the SJB to which the Leader of the Opposition belongs, were to subscribe to positions merely to score political points against the present government. They need to guard against the promotion of anti-minority sentiment and the fuelling of majority prejudice against ethnic and religious minorities. Indeed, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa in his Easter message said that justice for the victims of the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter Sunday attacks remains a fundamental responsibility of the state and noted that seven years on, both past and present governments have failed to deliver accountability. He added that building a society grounded in trust and peace, uniting all ethnicities, religions and communities, is vital to ensure such tragedies do not occur again.

Sri Lanka’s post war history offers too many examples of how unresolved security crises become vehicles for majoritarian mobilisation. The Easter tragedy itself was followed by waves of anti-Muslim suspicion and violence in some parts of the country. Responsible political leadership should seek to prevent any return to that atmosphere. There are many other legitimate issues on which the moderate and mainstream opposition parties can take the government to task. These include the lack of decisive action against government members accused of corruption, the passing of the entire burden of rising fuel prices on consumers instead of the government sharing the burden, and the failure to hold provincial council elections within the promised timeframe. These are issues that touch the daily lives of citizens and the health of democratic governance. They offer the opposition ample ground on which to build credibility as a government in waiting.

The search for truth and justice over the Easter bombing needs to continue until all those responsible are identified, whether they were direct perpetrators, negligent officials, or political actors who may have exploited the tragedy. This is what the victim families want and the country needs. But this search must not be turned into a partisan and religiously divisive matter such as by claiming that there are more potential suicide bombers lurking in the country who had been followers of Zaharan. If it is, Sri Lanka risks replacing one national tragedy with another. coming together to discredit the ongoing investigations into the Easter bombing of 2019 is an unacceptable use of ethno-religious nationalism to politically challenge the government. The opposition needs to find legitimate issues on which to challenge the government if they are to gain the respect and support of the general public and not their opprobrium.

by Jehan Perera

Features

China’s new duty-free regime for Africa: Implications for Global Trade and Sri Lanka

Published

16 hours ago

2026/04/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

Image courtesy The Global Times

* The new duty-free regime for Africa, announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in February, is the most generous unilateral nonreciprocal trade concession offered by any country to developing countries since the beginning of the modern rule based international trading system.

* Yet, it is a clear violation of the cornerstone of the multilateral trade law, the Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) principle.

* Hence, its implications on developing countries, without duty-free access to China, will be extremely negative. Sri Lanka is one of the few developing countries without duty-free access to China.

On 14 February, 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China will grant zero-tariff treatment to 53 African nations, effective 01 May, 2026. Under this new unilateral policy initiative, China would eliminate all import tariffs on all goods imported from all the countries in Africa, except Eswatini. China already enforces a zero-tariff policy for 33 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Africa. Now this policy would be extended to non LDCs as well. This policy initiative clearly aims at reducing the continuously expanding trade deficit between China and Africa. In 2024, China’s trade surplus against Africa was recorded at US $ 61 billion.

This trade initiative, a precious gift amidst ongoing global trade tensions, is the most generous unilateral nonreciprocal trade concession given by any country to developing countries, since the beginning of the modern rule based international trading system.

Though this landmark announcement has far-reaching implications on global trade, as much as President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, it was almost overlooked by the global media.

Implications for Global Trade

This Chinese policy initiative, though very generous, is a clear violation of the Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) principle and the “Enabling Clause” of the International Trade Law. The MFN principle is the cornerstone of the multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and is enshrined in Article I of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It mandates that any trade advantage, privilege, or immunity granted by a WTO member to any country must be extended immediately and unconditionally to all other WTO members. Though, the GATT “Enabling Clause” allows developed nations to offer non-reciprocal preferential treatment (lower tariffs) to developing countries without extending them to all WTO members, this has to be done in a non-discriminatory manner. By extending tariff concessions only to developing countries in Africa, China has also breached this requirement.

This deliberate violation of the MFN principle by China occurs less than 12 months after the announcement of “Liberation Day” tariffs by President Trump, which breached Article I (MFN) and Article II (bound rates) of the GATT. However, it is important to underline that the objectives of the actions by the two Presidents are poles apart; the US objective was to limit imports from all its trading partners, and China’s objective is to increase imports from African countries.

Though the importance of the MFN principle of the WTO law had eroded over the years due to the proliferation of preferential trade agreements and unilateral preferential arrangements, the WTO members almost always obtained WTO waivers, whenever they breached the MFN principle. Now the leaders of the main trading powers have decided to violate the core principles of the multilateral trading system so brazenly, the impact of their decisions on the international trading system will be irrevocable.

Implications for Sri Lanka

China’s unilateral decision to provide zero-tariff treatment to African countries will have a strong adverse impact on Sri Lanka. Currently, all Asian countries, other than India and Sri Lanka, have duty-free access, for most of their exports, into the Chinese market through bilateral or regional trade agreements, or the LDC preferences. Though Sri Lanka, India and China are members of the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA), preferential margins extended by China under APTA to India and Sri Lanka are limited.

The value of China’s imports from Sri Lanka had declined from US$ 650 million in 2021 to US$ 433 million by 2025. However, China’s exports to Sri Lanka increased significantly during the period, from US$ 5,252 million to US$ 5,753 by 2025. This has resulted in a trade deficit of US$ 5,320 million. Sri Lanka’s exports to China may decline further from next month when African nations with duty-free access start to expand their market share.

Let me illustrate the challenges Sri Lanka will face in the Chinese market with one example. Tea (HS0902) is Sri Lanka’s third largest export to China, after garments and gems. Sri Lanka is the largest exporter of tea to China, followed by India, Kenya and Viet Nam. During the last five years the value of China’s imports of tea from Sri Lanka had declined significantly, from US$76 million in 2021 to US$ 57 million by 2025. Meanwhile, imports from our main competitors had increased substantially. Most importantly, imports from Kenya increased from US$ 7.9 million in 2021 to US$ 15 million in 2025. For tea, the existing tariff in China for Sri Lanka is 7.5% and for Kenya is 15%. From next month the tariff for Kenya will be reduced to 0%. What will be its impact on Sri Lanka exports? That was perhaps explained by a former Ambassador to Africa, when he urged Sri Lankan exporters to “leverage duty free access from Kenya” to expand their exports to China!

(The writer is a retired public servant and a former Chairman of WTO Committee on Trade and Development. He can be reached at senadhiragomi@gmail.com)

by Gomi Senadhira

Features

Daughter in the spotlight …

Published

16 hours ago

2026/04/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

Jeevarani Kurukulasuriya was a famous actress and her name still rings a bell with many. And now in the spotlight is her daughter Senani Wijesena – not as an actress but as a singer – and she has been singing, since the age of five!

The plus factor is that Senani, now based in Australia, is also a songwriter, plays keyboards and piano, dancer, and has filmed and edited some of her own music videos.

Says Senani: “I write the lyrics, melody and music and work with professional musicians who do the needful on my creations.”

Her latest album, ‘Music of the Mirror’, is made up of 16 songs, and her first Sinhala song, called ‘Nidahase’, is scheduled for release this month (April) in Colombo, along with a music video.

‘Nidahase’,

says Senani, is a song about Freedom … of life, movement, love and spirit. Freedom to be your authentic self, express yourself freely and Freedom from any restrictions.

In fact, ‘Nidahase’ is the Sinhala translated version of her English song ‘Free’ which made Senani a celebrity as the song was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award in the RnB /Soul category and reached the Top 20 on the UK Music weekly dance charts, as well as No. 1 on the Yes Home grown Top 15, on Yes FM, for six weeks straight.

Senani went on to say that ‘Nidahase’ has been remixed to include a Sri Lankan touch, using Kandyan drums and the Thammattama drum, with extra music production by local music producer Dilshan L. Silva, and Australia-based Emmy Award winning Producer and Engineer Sean Carey … with Senani also in the scene.

The song was written (lyrics and melody) and produced by Senani and it features Australian musicians, while the music video was produced by Sri Lanka’s Sandesh Bandara and filmed in Sri Lanka.

First Sinhala song scheduled for release this month … in Colombo

Senani’s music is mostly Soul, Funk and RNB – also Fusion, using ethnic sounds such as the tabla, sitar, and sarod – as well as Jazz influenced.

“I also have Alternative Music songs with a rock edge, such as ‘New Day’, and upcoming releases ‘Fly High’ and ‘Whisper’“, says Senani, adding that she has also recorded in other languages, such as Hindi and Spanish.

“As much of my fan base are Sri Lankans, who have asked me to release a song in the Sinhala language, I decided to create and release ‘Nidahase’ and I plan to release other original Sinhala songs in the future.

Senani has a band in Australia and has appeared at festivals in Australia, on radio and TV in Australia, and Sri Lanka.

She trained as a vocalist, through Sydney-based Singing Schools, as well as private tuition, and she has 5th Grade piano music qualifications.

And this makes interesting reading:

“I graduated from the University of Newcastle in Australia with a Bachelor of Medicine and I work part time as a doctor (GP) and an Integrative Medicine practitioner, with a focus on nutrition, and spend the rest of the time dedicated to my music career.”

Senani hails from an illustrious family. In addition to her mum, Jeevarani Kurukulasuriya, who made over 40 films, including starring in the first colour movie ‘Ranmuthu Duwa’, her dad is Dr Lanka Wijesena (retired GP) and she has two sisters – all musical; one is a doctor, while the other is a dietitian/ psychotherapist.