What a cheery surprise it was that I met Rajiva Wijeysinha at last night’s dinner ceremony for the award of the Liberals International Prize for Freedom to Dr Chee Soon Juan. Some 38 years ago when I turned up at University College Oxford as a freshman, I was honoured to be welcomed by him as President of the college’s JCR Committee (a student representative body). I am proud and happy that he has progressed this far in the political arena both internationally and at home in Sri Lanka where he heads the committee for national reconciliation after decades of civil war. I told him I have fond memories of his beautiful country which I visited officially in 1981 as aide to Deputy Prime Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee who was appointed economic adviser to Sri Lankan President Jeyawardna. I am sure Rajiva will do a fantastic job in forging national reconciliation and help put his country on the path of peaceful economic progress. I hope we will meet up more often – there is just so much we can do together for our two countries.
And I feel specially honoured that he spoke about me in the first paragraph of his speech -
Dr Chee exposed pretensions of PAP, said chairman of CALD
