Sunil Yatalamatta Gamage 

Sri Lankan military did sacrifice to protect & unite the country for the future sons daughters of the country; to have a safer motherland which will prevail and prosper in the years to come”.- Defense Secretary General: Kamal Gunaratne

May 19^th is a significant day of Sri Lankan history of our country written again in golden letters as the country was liberated from the world most ruthless terrorist group. It was the victory against terrorism which was in the country more than 30 years. The victory was possible due to political leadership and his vision towards the country at that time. If we haven’t that visionary leadership we will never be able to achieve that freedom.When we recall the height of the fight against terrorism country’s political leadership was under tremendous political pressure, from the west, but the leadership stood firmly fighting against terrorism to achieve and liberate the country. The way the political leadership was stood was phenomenal even under pressure. We won the war against terrorism; and the only country in the world to do so. We as a nation starts to rise again as a one nation towards our economic, social, cultural, goals of achieving them. The war which prevailed more than 30 years, made enormous economic hardships to our people. As we are aware, some political visions of west tried their best to make our country a battle field to achieve their geopolitical ends. They used their liberal friends in our own country. I refuse to name them in this article. Those elements initiated some ground work for that in this country, but it didn’t fully worked because of true patriots of this country. Some true Politicians broad minded understood the danger of it and worked tirelessly to avoid constitutional changes which were due to happen in the country. Western people non and non governmental organizations” made every effort and in tensed their efforts to divert the achievement in a label called war crime’.They used some of our local elements to do the necessary for them. Human Rights Organization had been encircling our country through something called Accountability’ and Reconcilliation” Transparency”in justice for Justice of Tamils living abroad. Our dedicated soldiers saved the lives of Tamils from the ruthless organization, and we ended the most difficult and long standing war against terrorism. Our forces and our country is the only in this universe could do that and that is the most difficult truth for many western and Scandinavian countries.

The visionary leadership was able to protect human rights of people in north and liberate Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese of the country. Our own political leadership gave the right leadership which was much needed to our forces at that time. When the terrorism at it’s younger age we had the political leadership, but that leadership of the country not matured enough to make decisions very much needed at that time of the problem. It caused a huge economic, political, social, cultural devastation to Sri Lanka. If that political decision was in line for the best interest our country and people; we would have not loose our great military commanders of Denzil Kobbekaduwa, Wijaya Wimalaratna, Lucky Wijeratne, Parami kulatunga and so many. Due negligence of political leaderships in the past, we lost many national leaders to our country both Sinhalese and Tamils, as well as Buddhists Mahanayakas, Christian Fathers, Muslim religion leaders, and Hindu religion leaders.

In the fight of terrorism and freeing the country out from that was an eminent effort of true leadership with a patriotic vision. Over the past; different so called leaders gave the leadership to our military but it didn’t work successfully. Finally 11 years ago we were able to find true freedom to our country as we won the war against terrorism. How wonderful is to remember the patriotism and dynamic leadership of our country. When I say dynamic leadership mean to have courage and Independence to take decisions right at the moment when the whole country was at a juncture of do or die situation. There were two western foreign ministers in the country to warn our leadership to stop the war against terrorists. As everybody remembered, when those two foreign ministers at a discussion with our premier, probably it would have been a hot summers nights dream” for them. Just think about if the premier decided to withdraw troops back to their camps and started negotiations according to western method. If that happen today May 19^th will not be writing this victory note of our fallen soldiers. This is what happen when J.R. Jayawardena, R Premadasa, and Ranil wickramasinghe was in power which was a curse to our nation. Mobilizing a country towards the direction of a war footing will not a easy task. That uneasy task has been done and won the war against terrorism only because of patriotism, and dynamic leadership of our two two leaders of this country.

My request today is a promise to fallen soldiers. Those fallen soldiers did their supreme sacrifice to their motherland.There are many things happening for their benefit and for their families in the country. Tribute to them in many ways is a must as it should be. We may need to find many creative ways to keep their sacrifice as much as possible live in the hearts and minds of the nation. There will be many ideas blooming in the future more and more. Fallen soldiers is our history and when a nation rise from that ideology of emerging country, that ideology must be a live thing in the hearts an minds of the people of a country. We can create charity foundations by their names. We can name parks by their names. We know in every parts of the country every district of the country we have rural government hospitals. We can create hospital foundations in each district by the communities of each district. The charity foundations must accept donations from everybody and maintain accounts for the welfare of the hospital. At the same time community can allocate a Wall of fame with framed pictures and names with a little description of fallen soldiers, when and how he was sacrificed his life to our motherland”. That is only a perspective, but it need to be further developed as an idea. I am happy as I could brought up this idea as a tribute to our armed forces as a well deserved tribute and commemoration. 

When a nation want to rise from the sacrifices of that nature is a tribute to those fallen soldiers of the country. They sacrificed their life for the motherland. So now is the time to make that fast movement of development of social, economic, cultural development of the the country. That development will never be achieved, by selling our lands to others through treaty, by robbing central bank, or by liberal economic thinking. As we have been experienced the library economic vision already dead and gone. The Covid-19 has proved to us liberal economic visions and globalization will not develop any country. It has been a proven failure. We need to develop our own economic vision suitable to our own people and we need to use modern technology cautiously, but accordingly. Such a development plan ensure the safety and protection of our environment and must be a balanced approach.