Anil Moonesinghe
Anil Moonesinghe (15 February 1927 – 8 December 2002) was a Sri Lankan Trotskyist revolutionary politician and trade unionist. He became a member of parliament, a Cabinet Minister of Transport in 1964, the 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 Colombo Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon), on 15 February 1927. A member of the family of Anagarika Dharmapala (who named him 'Anil Kumar'), he was brought up with Buddhist and Sinhalese nationalist values, as well as an abhorrence of the colonial power, Britain. He went to school at Royal College, Colombo, an elite institution which produced many radicals as well as civil servants and bourgeois politicians, where he won his colours in athletics. During the Second World War he organised a brigade of boys to aid the Japanese if they landed on the island and earned himself the nickname 'Rommel' at school. Later he became influenced by communism (he wrote in praise of the Red Air Force). Together with Osmund Jayaratne