Pieter Gerald Bartholomeusz Keuneman was a Sri Lankan politician and a Marxist.
15 Facts About Pieter Keuneman
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Pieter Keuneman was the Cabinet Minister of Housing and Local Government, a prominent Member of Parliament and a leading figure in the Communist Party of Sri Lanka.
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Pieter 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.
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Pieter Keuneman won college colours at rugger and won the Dornhorst Memorial Prize and the Shakespeare prize.
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Pieter Keuneman 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.
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Pieter Keuneman gained a BA Tripos in History, Sociology and English Literature and joined the Gray's Inn to study law, leaving without taking his bar examinations.
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Pieter Keuneman was an architect of the United Socialist Party which was formed in 1940.
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Pieter Keuneman was its secretary and after it was proscribed by Admiral Geoffrey Layton, the Communist Party of Ceylon was formed at 'Cotta' Road in 1943.
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Pieter Keuneman became a member of the National Congress in 1945.
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Pieter Keuneman contested the first parliamentary elections in 1947 from the Colombo Central constituency and was returned as the third member of parliament obtaining 15,435 votes.
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Pieter Keuneman was very critical of the 1962 coup d'etat attempt and the 1971 JVP Insurrection.
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Pieter Keuneman introduced a controversial floor area limit of 300 square metres on all new private houses.
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Pieter Keuneman married his first wife Hedi Stadlen after graduating from Cambridge.
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Pieter Keuneman chose not to return to Ceylon, divorced Pieter and subsequently married Stadlen.
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In 1952, Pieter Keuneman married his second wife Maud Rogerson, a communist activist.