Adventures Of Pablo Neruda In Ceylon

By Laksiri Fernando -April 23, 2013 |

Dr. Laksiri Fernando

Pablo Neruda, a well celebrated Chilean poet and Nobel laureate for literature in 1971, had always been a controversial figure not so much in literature but in politics and personal life. Apart from being a famous poet, he had been a diplomat, political activist and a Senator. I have never been very much into literature or poetry thus my main attraction to Neruda was his intriguing political life. In addition, he was the Chilean Consul in Colombo during 1929-30 and reported to have again visited Ceylon in 1950 because of his attachment to the country.

After 40 years of his death in 1973, his body was exhumed recently in Santiago, Chile, to see whether he died of natural causes or by poisoning, as Sharm de Alwis wrote to The Island recently. Still a clear verdict is not given due to obvious forensic difficulties after so many years of his remains being putrefied. It has become a murder mystery.

He died soon after the dictator Augusto Pinochet came to power in Chile in September 1973 subsequent to the overthrow of the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende through a bloody military coup engineered by the CIA. Allende was a friend of Neruda. During the coup and its immediate aftermath, over 3,000 were killed and 80,000 interned who went under severe torture. Neruda was an outspoken leftist who could have created an immense international embarrassment to the Pinochet regime if he had lived longer.

First Controversy 

I first came to know of Neruda somewhere in late 1960s particularly because of his alleged involvement in the assassination of Leon Trotsky, one of my political mentors when I was a young political activist apart from being still a young lecturer. I didn’t know at that time that Neruda had been in Ceylon. Those days, we were avid readers of all the literature we received from international sources and there were convincing allegations that he was involved in the assassination at least on the side lines.

Pablo Neruda

Trotsky was assassinated on 20 August 1940 four days after Neruda arrived in Mexico to take up his consular position. It is not merely this coincidence that led to the allegation. A previous assassination attempt was made three months before by a person named Siqueiros who was a famous Mexican painter and a communist party member. Neruda gave Siqueiros a visa as the Chilean Consul to escape to Chile while he was still in jail and thereafter Siqueiros in fact was living in Neruda’s villa in Chile. In 1971, Neruda admitted to a Uruguayan magazine that the visa in fact was arranged on the request of the (newly elected) President of Mexico of that time. As Neruda also was a communist party supporter, the suspicions grew. He joined the party much later.

When I went for my master’s studies at the University of New Brunswick (Canada) in 1974, there were many Chilean exiles as students. Cecilia and Gonzalez were at our next door apartment with a small child in the Magee House. Both were members of the MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement) in Chile and interestingly Cecilia belonged to the Trotskyists and Gonzalez, a strong Stalinist. Gonzalez was the first to tell me that Neruda had been in Ceylon and lived in Colombo. If I remember correct, Gonzalez being a poet himself was doing his master’s on Neruda’s contribution to poetry.
Gonzalez strongly vouched that Neruda was not a person who would harm even an animal let alone a human being. He was fond of animals and had Kiriya, a mongoose as his pet in Colombo. This does not preclude however that he was assisting some others on the instructions or interests of his party. While he was a strong supporter of Joseph Stalin he was also a strong anti-Fascist. When I was working at WUS in Geneva (1984-1991) my counterpart for Latin America was from Chile who was also a Neruda fan and had a big photo of Neruda behind her desk on the wall. Neruda’s innocence was the same impression I received from her.

Early Years                               Read More 

CID interrogates Azath Sally

TUESDAY, 23 APRIL 2013 

National United Front General Secretary and former deputy Mayor of Colombo Azath Sally had been interrogated by the CID on yesterday, Mr. Sally said in a media communiqué.

It is reported that the inquiry was conducted with regard to alleged spreading of racial and religious discord through cell phone short messages.

During the inquiry, Mr. Sally had been questioned regarding a journalist from English media, who was supposed to have sent 27 short messages to create tension among Muslims, three of which were sent to him.

“My telephone number is known to many people. Hundreds of people speak to me daily and I also receive similar number of messages. I cannot remember every one of them, and no one can even expect me to remember all of them,” he said as saying to the CID.