Ossie Abeygunasekera
Ahangama Withanage Oswin Nandimithra Abeyagoonasekera was a Member of Parliament and chairman and the leader of the Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya or Party. He was assassinated by a female suicide bomber of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam while attending an election rally in support of Gamini Dissanayake, for the Presidential election of 1994. He was an alumnus of Ananda College, Colombo.
He was arrested as a Naxalite Prisoner in 1982 along with Vijaya Kumaratunga for printing the "Rice ration book". In 1986. he negotiated with the LTTE for a peaceful solution for the conflict and for the release of the Sri Lankan soldiers who was captured. After the death of his close friend Vijaya Kumarathunga, founder of the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party. he became its leader in 1988 until his death in 1994. He contested the Presidential election in 1989, creating the United Socialist Alliance. During the 1989 revolution in Sri Lanka, his party lost the most number of members, 114 lives in all. In 1989, there were many assassination attempts made by the revolutionary group. which failed. He was an excellent orator and a visionary leader.
Ossie Abeyagunasekera's father, A.W.A. Abeyagunasekera, was also a politician and the Chairman of Port Authority. A.W.A. Abeyagunasekera defeated the Communist Party leader Pieter Keuneman in the 1960s. A.W.A.Abeyagunasekera died in a plane crash in Mumbai.
Ossie Abeyagunasekera was married with one child, Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, who is the Director General of the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka.
