Lionel was General Secretary of the Peoples’ Liberation Front (Janatah Vimukthi Peramuna) of Sri Lanka for several years. He was the politburo member responsible for party activities in the north and east of Sri Lanka, where civil war is raging at the moment. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers’ Union, the trade union arm of the then JVP. While in prison, he developed the JVP policy on the national question in Sri Lanka. He was among the first few JVP members elected to the District Development Councils and was leader of opposition in the District Development Council in Galle. Due to ideological differences, he had with the JVP leadership, in 1984, he resigned from all party responsibilities and organisations.

Since coming to Australia, he took the initiative to establish Friends for Peace in Sri Lanka in Canberra, which was the only organisation of the Sri Lankan expatriates where Sinhalese and Tamils worked together in search of peace and democracy. He was President of the Australia- Sri Lanka Association ACT and chairperson of TRANSACT, Torture Rehabilitation and Network Services ACT that assisted refugees to settle down in Canberra. He also represented the Sri Lanka community in Canberra at the ACT Multicultural Council, ACT Chief Minister’s Multicultural Consultative Forum, and the National Multicultural Festival Committee.

• 2010 – Editorial Adviser of Sri Lanka Guardian from 2010-2019
• 2022 Sep 6 – Global Reconciliation Fellow