Pieter Keuneman
| Pieter Keuneman | |
|---|---|
| Minister of Housing and Local Government | |
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In office 31 May 1970 – February 1977 |
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| Member of the Ceylon Parliament for Colombo Central |
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In office 20 September 1947 – 21 July 1977 |
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| Succeeded by | Haleem Ishak |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 3 October 1917 Colombo, Ceylon |
| Died | 3 January 1997 (aged 79) Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Nationality | Sri Lankan |
| Political party | Communist Party |
Pieter Gerald Bartholomeusz Keuneman (3 October 1917 – 3 January 1997) was a Sri Lankan politician and a Marxist. He was the Cabinet Minister of Housing and Local Government and prominent Member of Parliament and a leading figure in the Communist Party of Sri Lanka(CPSL)
Pieter Keuneman came from a Dutch Burgher family. He was born to Hon. Justice Arthur Eric Keuneman, a distinguished judge of the Supreme Court, and Majorie Eleanor Shockman, daughter of a wealthy medical doctor from Kandy.
Keuneman was educated at the Royal College, Colombo where he was the head of the junior cadet platoon, prefect, captain of the debating team and president of the literary association. He won college colours at rugger and won the Dornhorst Memorial Prize and the Shakespeare prize. He went on to Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1935 where he became a communist, President of the Cambridge Union and editor of the student magazine Granta. He gained a BA Tripos in History, Sociology and English Literature and joined the Grays Inn to study law leaving without taking his bar examinations. Later he gained a MA from Cambridge.
While at Cambridge he worked briefly for the Daily Express, before leaving for Spain to fight against Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. At Cambridge he met his first wife, Hedi Stadlen who became one of the leading European Radicals in Sri Lanka.
On returning to Ceylon he worked as a features editor at Lake House. He was an architect of the United Socialist Party which was formed in 1940. He was the its secretary and after it was proscribed by Admiral Geoffrey Layton, the Communist Party of Ceylon was formed at 'Cotta' Road in 1943. He became a member of the National Congress in 1945. During the 1940s he was the Secretary of the Communist Party and launched the journal Forward of which he was the editor in 1944. Even though he contested and lost elections for the Colombo Municipal Council in 1943, he won the Kotahena ward in 1947 holding it until 1959. In that capacity he agitated for better housing, eradication of slums and shanties in the Colombo city and saw to the setting up of libraries and dispensaries.
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