Making myself...

Cash rich FNS had acquired an impressive office in Berlin Mitte and visitors from Asia and Africa came there in large numbers to be lectured to on the virtues of liberalism.

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Back in Sri Lanka FNS supported the Marga Institute, Sarvodaya and political parties of the right. A leader of the FNS who had special ties to Sri Lanka was Count Von Lambsdorf who later became the Foreign Minister of Germany. He was a regular visitor to Colombo. My friend Bertolt Witte whom I knew from my Paris days as described in Volume Two of my autobiography, became the President of FNS.

The FNS office in Colombo under Sagarika Delgoda was sympathetic to the UNP and I was invited to participate in many of its activities. One of its regular activities was its support of the annual Dudley Senanayake lecture. On the invitation of the FNS and the Senanayake family, I delivered one such lecture entitled "Dudley Senanayake and media freedom" which received wide coverage in the newspapers of the time.

Bergdorf Foundation

The Bergdorf Foundation of Berlin was another NGO that supported the peace process. They were in Sri Lanka at the invitation of GL Peiris, probably on the instructions of CBK. Her government had launched several initiatives like the "Sudu Nelum" movement under Mangala Samaraweera and was open to international assistance particularly to encourage the opposition to respond positively to the President's call for a joint effort to settle the ethnic issue. In fact more than the opposition it were leaders within her own Cabinet like Ratnasiri Wickremanayake and Mahinda Rajapaksa who were skeptical of her peace efforts.