Patrick Peebles - Historical Dictionary of Sri Lanka

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Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East

Jon Woronoff, Series Editor

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Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, by James E. Hoare. 2012.

Thailand, Third Edition, by Gerald W. Fry, Gayla S. Nieminen, and Harold E. Smith. 2013.

Iraq, Second Edition, by Beth K. Dougherty and Edmund A. Ghareeb. 2013.

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Science and Technology in Modern China, by Lawrence R. Sullivan and Nancy Y. Liu, 2014

Taiwan (Republic of China), Fourth Edition, by John F. Copper. 2014.

Australia, Fourth Edition, by Norman Abjorensen and James C. Docherty. 2015.

Republic of Korea, Third Edition, by James E. Hoare. 2015.

Indonesia, Third Edition, by Audrey Kahin. 2015.

Sri Lanka, 2015 Edition, by Patrick Peebles. 2016.

2015 Edition

Patrick Peebles

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Peebles, Patrick.

Historical dictionary of Sri Lanka / Patrick Peebles. 2015 edition. pages cm. (Historical dictionaries of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4422-5584-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4422-5585-2 (ebook) 1. Sri LankaHistoryDictionaries. I. Title.

DS489.5.P435 2015

954.93003dc23

2015020573

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

To Mary

Ossie Abeygunasekera was the leader of the Sri Lanka Mahajana Paksa after the assassination of Vijay Kumaratunga in 1988. He ran for president in the 1989 elections as a candidate of the United Socialist Alliance but won only 4.63 percent of the vote. Kumaratunga was a target of the insurgency of 19881990 and escaped several assassination attempts. He had been a leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party but left after losing a by-election for Parliament in 1983 and clashing with his brother-in-law Anura Bandaranaike. He was killed in the suicide bombing that killed Gamini Dissanayake on 24 October 1994.

Sunila Abeysekera was a pioneer in the womens movement in Sri Lanka and in South Asia. She was an actress and became involved in trade unionism and political activism in the late 1970s. She led civil society organizations, working for a negotiated political solution to the ethnic conflict. Abeysekera left Sri Lanka in 1987 after she received death threats and witnessed the assassination of a colleague but soon returned. She documented human rights abuses and brought them before the international community. She concentrated on civilians living in war-affected areas, womens rights, and sexual and reproductive rights, including the rights of sex workers, people living with