Word: gunawardena
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Typical of Banda's nimble maneuvering is his makeshift coalition Cabinet, where the political spectrum ranges from Communist-minded Food Minister Philip Gunawardena, 58, to an efficient combine of right-wing, pro-Western politicians...
...only cementing factor," says Opposition Leader Dr. N. M. Perera, a handsome, sleepy-eyed Trotskyite,* "is the mutual dread of an election." By gently shifting his influence, Banda alternately encourages and hampers Gunawardena in his proposals for land reform and rural cooperatives; little has been done to fulfill election promises of nationalizing tea and rubber plantations, or of turning Ceylon into a model Socialist country...
Unlike his fellow neutralist Nehru, who abominates home-grown Communists, Banda gave the full scope and support of his office to the island's most militant Marxist, shock-haired Agriculture Minister Philip Gunawardena, 58. A shouting, sarong-clad union boss who learned his leftism in the U.S.-at the University of Wisconsin and in Manhattan's Union Square-Gunawardena built his power month after month. By tying up island transport in incessant union warfare against rival Marxists, Gunawardena drove Banda to nationalize all buses Jan. 1. Later in the month, after even rougher bullyboy tactics by Gunawardena...
Soothing four of his moderate ministers after they complained of Gunawardena's public attacks on them, Premier Banda said: "It is true that Philip Gunawardena has Communist views, but the presence of Philip in our government is a protection against our country being stampeded into Communism." But Gunawardena, bent on using the land-reform program to gain for himself the national following he has so far failed to win, openly trumpets to his pajama-clad dockers: "Within 20 years the whole world will come under Communism's banner. As surely as there is a sun and moon...
...This fear of Communism," says the Prime Minister, "is terribly overdone." Retorts Agriculture Minister Gunawardena: "Ceylon will be all left within the next five years...