Gal Oya Valley Scheme, American Participation & Downstream Development

 Courtesy : https://thuppahis.com/2024/03/21/experiences-working-on-the-gal-oya-project-in-ceylon-1950-61/ Experiences : Working on the Gal Oya Project in Ceylon 1950-1961 ANDREAS SZECHOWYCZ,  PRESENTING A MEMOIR-CUM-REPORT ENTITLED “ GAL OYA PROJECT (1950-1960): DR. ROMAN W. SZECHOWYCZ & THE  GAL OYA DEVELOPMENT BOARD” Dr. Roman W. Szechowycz was employed by the Gal Oya Development Board from 18 July 1950 to 1961. He arrived in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) with his wife Sabina (nee Czekan) Szechowycz and their 3-year-old daughter Maria. I was born in October 1951 in Colombo.  During the time in Sri Lanka, we lived in Inginiyagala next to the post office. My parents were displaced people who after World War II ended were in Hanover Germany in the British Sector. My father’s home was in northwest Ukraine and my mother’s home was in southwest Poland.  These areas were occupied by Russians after the conclusion of World War II. Post World War II was a traumatic time in Eu...

Courtesy :  https://thuppahis.com/2021/05/31/addressing-a-criticism-of-ds-senananyakes-dry-zone-colonization-schemes/ Addressing A Criticism of DS Senanayake’s Dry Zone Colonization Schemes Chandre Dharmawardana,  28 May 2021, with this title  “Criticism of D.S. Senanayake’s Dry Zone colonization schemes” Would Sri Lanka have been better off if not for the fetishization of rural peasant life and its connexion to the Sinhalese Buddhist nation-myth? Why do people talk of “colonization schemes” when a government  facing bulging population growth, for one reason or another, opens up land for its people to settle? When the US West was opened by colonizing (in the proper sense of the term)  the indigenous (“red Indian”) lands by out-right massacre followed by land grab, the word colonization was/is not used by western historians, where as they should indeed use that word. But where Sri Lankan writers use the word colonization, no colonization took place. The ince...