KAMALIKA PIERIS

Lord Naseby (M.W.L. Morris  ) b 1936,  visited  Sri Lanka  in September 2019. He was already well known in  Sri Lanka  due to his intervention in the Eelam war  issue on behalf of the government of Sri Lanka .

He told Renuka Sadanandan, who interviewed him for Sunday Times that In 1955, his father took up a job as architect for the Government of Punjab. Visiting him in Lahore, Naseby  spent a blissful vacation, learning to fly, piloting an Auster Aiglet and a Cessna, dual seater aircraft, doing navigational trips to the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Before that , in his  boarding school days he had roomed with an Indian, Srinivasan ( who later became Foreign  Minister of India   ) therefore  when he  visited India he  had some  knowledge of country.

Lord Naseby applied to join the RAF when called up for compulsory military service .He was an RAF pilot from  1955-57 .RAF meant knowing more than just driving  a plane, he  said .He  was also part of an international NATO contingent  based in Canada.

He then went to Cambridge and  obtained a degree in economics . After Cambridge, he went to   work for Reckitt and Colman, as  Marketing Manager for  Eastern India , stationed in Calcutta. In 1963,  he was sent to Colombo for one  year . He was  summoned to his boss’s office  and told he had a promotion, a salary raise and a new job in Colombo.

He spent eight months in a flat on Turret Road (now Dharmapala Mawatha) ,  enjoying a game of tennis and a rice and curry lunch at the home of his friend Anandatissa de Alwis, in his free time. He got to know Anandatissa because Reckitt and Colman were advertising through  J.W. Thompson, where Anandatissa worked.  

Naseby toured the island extensively, visiting wholesalers and leading retailers in major towns and remote villages ,who stocked Reckitt and Colman ‘s   products such as Dettol and Disprin.  In places where there were no hotels or rest houses,  Naseby obtained permission to stay in circuit bungalows.  He knew the business world in Colombo. He selected  Lalvani brothers in Pettah to  launch the new Goya fragrance of his firm. For jewellery he went to  Hassan in Main Street, Pettah.

Naseby said in his book Sri Lanka: paradise lost paradise regained” (2020)  that  Reckitt and Colman were manufacturing Disprin in Sri Lanka.  A new machine was coming for tableting and they found that they could not get it dragged into the factory. Naseby said,  get an elephant .The elephant  came with his mahout, and dragged the machinery through the door to its place in the factory  .Naseby   said   he   returned  to UK with good memories of Sri Lanka .

 Naseby  contested Islington North at the 1966 General Election, and lost. He was  MP for Northampton from  1974 to 1997.   Northampton had a small Bangladeshi community of   6000. He cultivated them and got their vote.  Without their vote he would not have won ,he said.   Naseby  created the    All Party British Sri Lanka Parliamentary Group”  in 1975 .He was  its first chairman and continued to hold the   post  thereafter.

 Naseby did  not lose interest in  Sri Lanka .He had made visits to Sri Lanka From 1975  onwards . Some were private visits, other were working visits.   One private visit was in 1994.  He  visited  in 2006 with his wife. He was here in 2009 too.

There were many working visits. He brought a British Parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka in 1975,  and visited almost every two years thereafter.   In 1999  he  received an invitation to  visit Sri Lanka as guest of Sri Lanka UK Society and make the keynote speech in Colombo.

Naseby was one of the election observers for 1989 Presidential  election.  He was satisfied with the conduct of the elections but recalled that   High Commissioner  David Gladstone was not. Gladstone said he had been to a couple of polling stations and saw huge abuse.  Michael Clarke who had been in Hambantota saw voters prevented from travelling to vote, with tyres and nails blocking the roads and also ballot box stuffing in JVP controlled areas.  The final report was favorable though, said Naseby, in his book.

Naseby was also an observer for  the General election of 2000. The team  reported that they were entirely satisfied with polling station, voter security . security  of ballot boxes and ballot papers. The count was ok , with strict verification of votes cast, said Naseby, in his book.

Naseby however  was critical of elections in UK. Having contested elections in Britain he  had much to say about elections there. He refers to defects in the counting of votes, candidate safety, illegal publicity, voter impersonation and multiple registrations .  I have experienced all of this in the two seats I fought, Islington north in 1966 and Northampton south in 1974. In 2017 voter impersonation in Britain reached new heights. Death threats, illegal registration,  illegal advertising, and perhaps questionable counting were all still evident ,he said in his book.

He was invited as a guest  to the   2019 Annual Session of the Organization of Professional Associations (OPA).Naseby  said  at the OPA conference that he has been involved with Sri Lanka   since 1963 and  had met all seven Presidents.Ranil Wickremesinghe had  refused to see Naseby  in 2015 and   2017.  

He had also met Amirthalingam.  When Sirimavo Bandaranaike was Prime Minister , there was a plea to release 42 Tamil youths who had been arrested for violence, bank robberies and murders. Amirthalingam, who was charm itself,  had told Naseby that  this was normal youth excess. Naseby did not think so.

Naseby spoke well of Sri Lanka at the OPA . Sri Lanka  won the  cricket world cup in 1996 he said. Anuradhapura ,Polonnaruwa and Sigiriya were well  restored Sri Lanka has good universities    and a  fine professional army.   When the Second World War ended, there were food rations till 1954 in UK , while in Sri Lanka they restored normalcy  2 or 3  years after 2009. 

Naseby has done much for Sri Lanka .  He helped to get us the  promised funds from UK for the Victoria Dam , a component of the Accelerated Mahaweli Scheme. This  grant was in jeopardy, because  UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided that  the expenditure was too high. Naseby showed her the benefits that would accrue in irrigation and power supply  to Sri Lanka  and also the  benefit to the British firms involved. The project went ahead. British firms such as Balfour Beatty and Nuttal  dominated the construction.

He was awarded Sri Lanka Ratna in 2005 for service rendered during the tsunami.  He  also helped Sri Lanka gain Test status. He recalled Gamini Dissanayake, President of the Cricket Board visiting his home in Sandy, Bedfordshire, to discuss strategy and tactics to lay the groundwork and rally support with the MCC.

Naseby  launched his book ,”Sri Lanka: Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained at the BMICH, Colombo in March 2022. It  is a 333 page book of 19 Chapters along with 54 pages of appendices of letters and memoirs written by himself to different political hierarchy in Britain in defense of Sri Lanka’s firm stance against LTTE ‘s brutality and LTTE ‘s genocide allegations. Invitees to the launch included Prof G. L Peiris, Minister of Foreign Affairs, , General Kamal Gunarathna , Chief of Defence Staff and General Shavendra Silva, Commander of the Army.

Naseby  was invited to address the Press Club  on that occasion .  He showed the audience   the documents he received from the UK Freedom of Information Office, containing the redactions ( censoring of text) from the dispatches sent by Defence Attache of the British High Commission during the 2009  Eelam war operation.

Lord Naseby  is a high profile  supporter of Sri Lanka .He spoke up for us in  the British  Parliament, and wrote to  Geneva about the  war crimes charge.He is still active on Sri Lanka’s behalf.  ( continued)