Dr. Sudath Gunasekara Ex secretary to Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranayake (A Champion of the NAM) and President of The Sri Lanka Administrative Service Association (SASA) 1991-94.

This is an introduction to my Proposal to set up a Memorial Museum of Patriotic Wars of Kandyan Sinhalese (MMPKS) 1505-1848 and an Institute of Colonial Crimes Studies in Sri Lanka and the Non-Aligned Nations ((ICCSSL & NAM)” at the old Bogambara Prison site. Mahanuwara. (Kandy)

Bogambara was an ugly vestige of an uncivilized, repressive, inhuman and brutal British torcher Bastille of Sri Lanka, from 1818 to 1948, where the bones of the patriotic native Sinhalese victims buried under this ground will bear witness to that huma tragedy.  The first two patriotic national leaders to be beheaded here, were, the two heroes Keppetipola Disava and Madugalla Disava on 25th November 1818, for leading the historic Uva Wellassa rebellion, the first freedom struggle by the patriotic Sinhalese against the British invaders, to retrieve the motherland.  This was followed by the most uncivilized and barbarous incident that took place here, the murder of Kudapola Thera, by shooting in his robes on 26th August in 1848, under orders by Torrington, the savage white murderer, in spite of strong objections by his own legal adviser, the then Attorney General H.G. Selby, violating all civilized norms of human justice. Both Brownrigg (1818) and Torrington (1848) followed the same uncivilized and brutal practices on this spot, in all murders between 1818 to 1850. All these public executions were carried out here in the open air, as there was no prison at that time to terrorize the native Sinhalese.

It is to be noted here that the charge against all these patriots was treason against the British Crown, whereas all those who were either shot or beheaded, were executed only for rising against the atrocities of the invader, to protect their mother land, where their ancestors had lived and jealously protected for millennia from the inception of history against the South Indian Invaders ( 2^nd  Century BC-13^th AD)  and the three Western colonial invaders from (1505-1850). By what criterion they called it treason? Was it another synonym for patriotism?

Bogambara prison built in 1877.

This Prison was built on this ground in 1877. Ever since this Bastille of the British was built on the most Sacred and spiritual heart of the Kandyan Kingdom it had been used as a torcher house by the British colonial government that had carried out their carnage and imprisonment sprees until 1948, the year they left the shores of this country, to satisfy their own savages’ killings with no justice for the native Sinhalese or their heritage. Even after they left the shores of the Island in 1948 after handing over the country to their local black white proxy’s, who continued hanging and imprisonment on behalf of their British masters, at the same place. They also continued to have Bogambara Prison at this  place, until rising public agitation against its continuance in front of the Sri Daladaa Maligava, compelled them to shift it to Pallekele in 2014.  (Incidentally, it was I who first started that agitation by writing an article to the Daily News 29th August 1977, demanding that it should be immediately shifted to Pallekele). In spite of all these oppositions the governments of the so-called independent Sri Lanka (In reality a carbon copy of the Westminster system) continued hanging and imprisonment here, even after declaring it a Republic in 1972, until it was stopped temporally in 1977. But the prison remained at the same place until it was finally transferred to Pallekele in 2014 at last, as I had suggested in 1977.

In this historical backdrop we all know that the site on which Bogambara prison stands was a place immortalized by the remains of our patriotic ancestors who sacrificed their lives on our behalf to save the motherland from the invaders for posterity. In my opinion, it is therefore a historic place where all Sinhalese should assemble in tens of thousands annually, to pay their homage to their dead, who died to protected this country for 443 long years from the enemies, confining three powerful invaders with enormous gunpower to a narrow coastal belt of this Island for 310 years (1505-1815).

The uncivilized British murderers, having openly and unilaterally violated the Kandyan Convention of 1815 by Royal Proclamation made on 21^st of Nov 1818, converted this sacred city to a grave yard, where the remains of thousands of our patriotic freedom fighters including Buddhist Monks were brutally executed by beheading, hanging or shooting in public even without trial.  As such Bogambara, in my opinion this cite should be should be protected as a site of annual moaning of the Sinhala nation and a national memorial museum of the murdered Sinhalese patriots and dedicated to their names” rather than making it a fool’s merry making paradise, by converting it to a 7-star Hilton, Marriot or Oberoi, making room for the agents of the same colonial powers to syphon the income generated from it to their own countries making us still poorer,  making the dead to rise from their graves in protest.

Therefore, obviously this place should never be converted to a 7-star hotel for merry making or night life as our politicians and some pliant public officials, who have no vision or a mission at all in their heads for nation building and indulge in promoting crazy tourism have suggested. Such a project will definitely be a veritable canker to our economy and culture, as it has already been proved particularly in the Southern and the Eastern parts of the Island, where Israelites, Indians, Chinese and even Russians have already taken over the trade in to their hands, syphoning all the income to their countries and thereby depriving this country of its much-craved US $.

Therefore, I strongly advice the government go ahead with this proposal instead of indulging in the mad idea of a tourist hotel that is definitely going to be economically and culturally devastative and elusive as, it will only further erode our economy and destroy our valued native culture.

These negative economic benefits of tourism are in addition to the soring cultural and social ills that spill down our society, that will one day completely erode the 2566-year-old pristine Sinhala Buddhist civilization from the surface of this Island. Therefore, I call upon all unpatriotic and self-serving politicians and officials of the same ilk in this country, who are still suffering from this night mare tourist syndrome, to read Dr Asoka Bandarage’s article Sri Lanka: The Beautiful, Besieged Island” in the Lanka web (3.9.2025.) if they are interested in knowing what I mean here.

It is in this sad and appalling backdrop and the crying need to stand up with a clarion call against both colonialism and neo-colonialism, and to do something meaningful, that I propose to setup a Memorial Museum of Patriotic wars of Kandyan Sinhalese (1505-1948) and an Institute of Research and studies on colonial crimes in Sri Lanka prompting all other ex-colonial countries also to start their own colonial Crime Research institutes.

First, to educate our politicians and bureaucrats and the whole world on the centuries of colonial crimes, atrocities and plundering committed directly by them from (16th century to the mid-20^th century) and what they are continuing  even at present, under their neo-colonial agenda, through their own so-called  International, financial and legal and administrative arms like the World Bank, IMF, Asian Bank, the UN and many other arms of the Western ex-colonial block such as the UNCHR, ILO and

second, to outline a strategy to assert the political economic and social freedom, and Independence of the ex-colonial-nations from the persistent colonial intimidation and exploitation and,

 finally, to call upon all victim nations to jointly rise up on our own feet as strong independent and sovereign nations to fight against exploitation oppression and interference in our domestic affairs.  This will stop their interference in our domestic affairs and bring justice, peace and salvation to our nations. That will also put an end to nearly 6 centuries of colonial exploitation and suppression of our motherlands and also relieve 88% of the total world population living in the Afro-Asian and Latin American countries of continued oppression, suppression and exploitation and put them on a new track of independence, development, prosperity and happiness.

I give below the reasons for selecting Sri Lanka for this proposed International Institute

1.Sri Lanka is located at the centre of the world map in the Indian Ocean. 2.It is easily accessible to all countries, both by sea and air.

3.It is also one of the leading and active members of the Aon-Aligned Movement (NAM) right from its beginning in 1956 at Bandung.

4.During Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranayakaya’s time (1970-1977), in 1971, she got the UN to declare the Indian Ocean as a Peace Zone by United Nations General Assembly resolution at the Cairo Summit. (A/RES/2832(XXVI 1971). It was proposed by Mrs Bandaranayaka and seconded by Julius Nierere of Tanganyika. This declaration called for great powers to eliminate military bases and weapons from the Indian Ocean and for all states to respect it as a zone, free from military rivalries and weapons of mass destruction. (But sadly, it had been violated by UK and subsequently by US by opening up a military base in Diago Garcia, right at the center of the Indian Ocean, with B-2 bombers capable of carrying 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs with a 10,000 km range.US used this base in their recent attack on Iran).

 I am lost to understand as to why India, a major participant at the Cairo Summit, and also as the biggest democracy in the South East Asian region is keeping silent on the breach of that very important and historic UN resolution by UK and USA.  All members of the NAM should condemn it and strongly protest against this breach of the UN resolution by UK and USA and call upon them to immediately withdraw their military bases from Diago Garcia, aimed at maintaining their military supremacy in the Indian Ocean and to contain China, and India primarily, and all the peripheral States around the Indian Ocean by violating the Cairo resolution.

4.Again, Mrs Bandarnayaka during her tenure as Chairman of the NAM, 1970/76, had the NAM Summit in Colombo where 85 NAM leaders had grazed the occasion making it one of the most colorful events in the annals of the NAM.

5.Furthermore, Sri Lanka was the only country in the world, where British invaders could not conquer by war. (Instead, they annexed it in 1815 by a mutually agreed friendly” Convention between two equal Kingdoms by intrigue and deception on their part, cleverly hatched jointly by Doily and Brownrigg.

The Kandyan Convention was blatantly and illegally violated by British, on Nov 21^st  1818 as preplanned, by an illegal colonial Royal Proclamation, by which the British annihilated all Kandyan’s and consolidated their arbitrary power and the iron rule, as if they had captured this country by defeating the Sinhalese in war, completely ignoring the Kandyan Convention which is legally valid even today, as an international Agreement inked between the Sinhale and the United Kingdom. Thereafter, Brownrigg, in connivance with Doily, resorted to the most inhuman and uncivilized methods human massacre, which, Daivy in 1821 had described in the following words. 

The history of British rule in Sri Lanka after the 1818 rebellion cannot be related without shame. None of the members of the leading families in the Kandyan country have survived. Smallpox and privations have destroyed those spared by the gun and the sword.” Daivy was the Army surgeon and personal physician on Robert Brownwrigg during the years between 1817 and 1818. In fact, it was under this type of unilateral and criminal violation of the 1815 Convention, Brownrigg issued the 1818 Nov 21^st notorious, and infamous Royal Proclamation.

What is even more deplorable and repressive was that they also ruled this country thereafter up to 1948, under the iron boot with the same type of dictatorial, deplorable and barbarous enactments made under enactments at their discretion.

Thus, the suppression of Kandyans by the British has gone down in world history as one of the most savages and barbaric operations ever known to man on earth.

It is time for some legal luminary to file a case against Britan on two counts.  

First, for violating the Kandyan Convention ex-parte and

Second, for ruling this country under military law illegally thereafter, for 130 years,

suing the British government for compensation and reparation of the wealth they had robbed from this country and other crimes like importing millions of Malaba laborers and settling them in the North and east first and the central hill country in the late 18^th century giving the special privileges to them to alter the demography of this country while discriminating against the native Sinhalese.

 6.Finally, and most importantly, this country was the only country in the world that was not conquered in war by the British, but only by deception and intrigue. Even to get that done, three powerful colonial invaders, the Portuguese, Dutch and the British had to struggle for 310 years from 1505- 1815, where the Sinhalese successfully kept the invaders at bay, by keeping them confined to a narrow coastal belt all that time. This indeed was a unique achievement on the part of the Sinhalese in world history.

In this backdrop, I have no doubt that all NAM countries will readily welcome this idea. Such an institution will form a formidable forum for all NAM countries to voice their objections to the persistent neo-colonial agenda of the colonial Atlantic civilizations as if the destructions done and the crimes they have committed against these countries are not yet enough.

The proposed Institute will also open the gates for the whole world to know, how these colonial invaders had destroyed this country in particular and almost all countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East as well, for centuries, to enrich their treasuries at home and build up their crazy Empires, where the sun never set, as they boast.

This chain of subjugation by war was followed by the creation of a network of global vasal colonial dependencies by these powers, to enrich their empires by the plundered wealth. They used these colonies as sources, of raw materials for their industries and lucrative markets for their products  in order to consolidate their dominance and exploitation over the so called Third World”, while calling themselves first world,  they  had created by exploitation of others wealth, almost for 6 centuries by subjugation, repression,  exploitation,  subordination and murder, in the colonies to perpetuate and tighten their colonial dependency trap at the expense of the so-called Third World or the Global South,  as they sometimes call them, a diabolical creation of the Atlantic Civilization of Sea Pirate nations during this period of colonial expansion.

I am confident the setting up of an International Research Institute on Colonial crimes as proposed will open the gates for a new independent and free world, where all nations will be treated as equals with no conquerors and victims any more.

 I am also confident, that once we initiate this project, it could be expanded to attract the interest of all the so-called Global South countries, who had been the victims of colonialism for centuries and continue to be so even at present. The proposed Institution could be developed as the Headquarters of an International Institute of Research on colonial crimes in the entire Global South.

 As a first step in this mission, I suggest we first address a letter to the SAARC General Secretary and convince him on the advantages of this proposal, not only to expose colonial misdoings but also to keep all major powers led by the Atlantic civilization cartel at bay, by asserting the joint power of the NAM. Sri Lanka could function as the hub in this pursuit in the Indo Pacific region by uniting the Global South (who are the victims of colonialism, under the banner of the Non Aling Movement.

Our next step should be to summon a joint meeting of the SAARC countries to work out the inter-governmental commitment and modalities.  Sri Lanka should take the lead in this mission.

After uniting the SAARC under this banner, the next step should be to summon a meeting of the NAM to build up a joint NAM forum under the NAM banner throwing the name Global South” dubbed by the colonial invaders, in to the dustbin of history. A strong NAM could definitely be a challenge to the Atlantic civilization cartel. It should be organized as the formidable challenge to the Atlantic colonial world with a broader agenda for demanding reparation including damages and compensation for centuries of exploitations, repression and the crimes they have committed nearly for 7 centuries in these countries. Because it was these so-called North countries who have put all the NAM countries in to this poverty-stricken status through their exploitations and regimented rule for 7 centuries.

Sri Lanka could be the NAM epicenter of this new Global Movement, that will give a new lease of life to NAM with a distinct identity and make it the most Powerful International Organization, putting an end to the rat race of building big powers fighting for world domination.  Thereafter, all international organizations, like the UNO and all its affiliated arms should be brought under the control and the banner of the NAM.  With this arrangement in place, domination by the Atlantic Cartel or any other power block will end and the dawn of a new world order with completely free and sovereign nations of a Happy New World Free from the ugly Colonialism of the 26th century; A world of Unity within Diversity and distinct identity, where each nation respects the other on equal terms.”  will emerge.

Thereafter, as Shenali Waduge has brilliantly asserted (Lanakweb 8. 9.2025.)  

Such a strategy could even turn Sri Lanka in to a diplomatic, economic, moral hub of the 21st century with its strategic location right at the center of the Indian ocean on the world’s busiest oceanic and air traffic moves where nearly 8o% of world trade takes place with its enormous physical and human resources stands as the best place even to have the Head Quarters of the NAM movement. In view of its central location Sri Lanka’s role as a neutral hub of dialogue in the Indo-Pacific could be developed. If Sri Lanka takes the lead, it will no longer be a pawn shuffled by others, but the square on which the next game of geopolitics is reset.

” Since my proposal was made few days before September 7th, 2025, it is emboldening to read what Shenali Waduge had written to Lankaweb, high lighting the Sri Lanka’s Hidden Opportunities the pivotal role Sri Lanka can play in the near future under the changing geopolitical map in the Indian Ocean a gist of which I have given below. (Pl read Sri Lanka at the crossroads of a US–India stands)

(Lanka web Posted on September 7th, 2025 Shenali for details)

Sri Lanka’s Hidden Opportunity

Yet within this storm lies an opportunity for Sri Lanka:

India’s ambitions of Akhand Bharat have alienated its neighbors — Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Bhutan are wary of New Delhi’s dominance. Even Sri Lankan people hold the same view although the present government has played in to the Indias hands.

    As India loses credibility in the region, Sri Lanka can position itself as a hub of neutrality, building ties across blocs while resisting absorption into any one camp. Sri Lanka must rejuvenate the non-aligned status & demand the Indian Ocean Region return to its original charter Zone of Peace – Sri Lanka must champion this as a NAM Initiative. Sri Lanka once championed the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace in 1971. Reviving this initiative as part of a Global South narrative would give Colombo both moral and diplomatic leverage

    By exposing India’s record of destabilization — from backing the LTTE to meddling in domestic politics — Colombo can push back against New Delhi’s narrative and reclaim diplomatic leverage.

So, we must ask:

    Will we continue as a pawn in someone else’s endgame, or finally reclaim our sovereignty in the Indian Ocean?

Given the rising anti-India currents in the West and the erosion of trust in New Delhi’s regional role, among the SAARC countries has opened the gates for a dominant role for Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean

That move must be bold and historic: Sri Lanka should convene a new Non-Aligned Zone of Peace” Summit in Colombo. Just as we once championed the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace in 1971, we can revive that call under a Global South framework.

Such a summit would:

Reassert Sri Lanka’s role as a neutral hub of dialogue in the Indo-Pacific.

Rally neighbors wary of both Indian hegemony and Western militarization and will

position Colombo as the moral and diplomatic center for a 21st-century Non-Aligned revival.

If Sri Lanka takes the lead, it will no longer be a pawn shuffled by others, but the square on which the next game of geopolitics is reset.”

Shenali D Waduge”

Postscript

 It is in this Sri Lanka favorable new scenario that I present the Proposal to set up a Memorial Museum of Patriotic Wars of Kandyan Sinhalese (MMW of KS) (1505-1848) and the Institute of Colonial Crimes Studies in Sri Lanka and the Non-Aligned Nations (ICCSSL& NAN)” at the old Bogambara Prison site with room for expansion at Pallekele or Haragama in future.

Before I wind up, I would like to draw my readers attention to the following 5 Principle that were adopted at the first meeting of NAM at the Bandung Summit 1956. They called it Panchaseela

1.Peaceful co-existence for all nation on this globe

2.We are all equals and Free nations

3.No member of NAM will interfere with the internal affairs of another nation’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, freedom who respect and regard the others freedom culture and religion 4. We regard and respect the Freedom of others as of our own

5. The ultimate Goal of NAM is freedom, prosperity and Happiness for all nations on earth.

NB

It should be noted that these original objectives were rarely adhered to by most big members like India by interfering and meddling with the internal matters of all its neighbors and even by sabotaging the SAARC from 2014.

The original list also did not include issues like

 1.Fll freedom from the clutches of colonial rule.

2.Disarmament,

3.Restoration of world peace,

4 Claiming reparation and compensation from the colonial invaders to the victim nations for what the invaders had plundered and destroyed over the centuries to restore their economic, social and cultural prosperity they had prior to the arrival of the invaders.

5. Call for one common flag for the NAM nations to symbolize their identity and unity.

6.The need to transform the United nation in to a world body where all sovereign nations have equal rights and privileges with one vote for each nation without any discrimination like calling some nations as big having more powers than others the Security Council of the six

In my view the root cause of all these problems in the present-day world is Western colonialism. Because it was, they who wanted to impose their language, the political system, religion and culture on all the countries in the whole world by force. To realize this goal they used the sword, the gun and the Bible. In addition, they also used the colour. According to them, white people are a superior over the Black or Brown. This should be stopped within a one world concept

Unfortunately, the Atlantic colonial powers have not yet realized that all these differences are only a product of the geographical environment in which they live and it is not their choice either or it is not the wish of an invisible and imaginary God. In short, all these differences are a direct result of the environment. I am not talking about environmental determinism here. But overall, that is the stark fact. Each environment by nature has determined its fauna and flora, the color of humans their food and culture. As such isn’t it a foolish mistake for some nations to try to impose their own system by force on all others living in different environments