{"id":107021,"date":"2020-09-26T22:33:07","date_gmt":"2020-09-27T04:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107021"},"modified":"2020-09-26T15:30:25","modified_gmt":"2020-09-26T22:30:25","slug":"nelson-mandela-statue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/26\/nelson-mandela-statue\/","title":{"rendered":"Nelson Mandela Statue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chanaka Bandarage<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

It was reported in the news media\nthat the Cabinet has approved the erection of a Nelson Mandela Statue in\nColombo, without government funding. \nCurrently it is planned to be installed at the Colombo Public Library\npremises. The request has been made by the South African High Commission in\nColombo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this the\nburning need of the country today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no doubt that Nelson Mandela was\na great leader. Mahatma Gandhi is regarded as the greatest human being lived in\nthe 20th<\/sup> century. Nelson Mandela followed Gandhi\u2019s nonviolent\napproach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nelson Mandela was successful in\ndismantling the apartheid system which was brutal, repressive and\ndiscriminatory.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nelson Mandela brought emancipation to the\nnative blacks of South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, Nelson Mandela was a very good\nman. His remarkable personality was mostly about benevolence, grace and genuine\nsense of forgiveness.  His sense of\njustice was immense. His sense of equity was absolute.  For Nelson Mandela, politics was a matter of\nprinciple and of steadfast purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in Sri Lanka, is it a must that we\nerect a Statue of him in Colombo?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the special connection that Nelson\nMandela had with Sri Lanka to erect his statue here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had never visited Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Nelson Mandela help Sri Lanka to eliminate\nthe brutal LTTE terrorism from Sri Lanka? This is not documented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nelson Mandela\u2019s presidency\nbegan in May 1994. According to Counter-Terrorism expert, Rohan Gunaratne,\nTamil Tigers advanced their\nactivities in South Africa after 1995. They began to operate a series of camps\nwhere armed and unarmed combat training was given to the LTTE. According to\nhim, the hardliners of the South African National Congress provided Tigers with\nmilitary hardware, finance and political support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Mr Gunaratne When South\nAfrica\u2019s High Commissioner based in Delhi, Jerry Matsila met with President\nKumaratunga for three hours, he advanced the LTTE agenda of persuading Colombo\nto agree to the good offices of South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a well known fact that during the\nwar South Africa refused to proscribe LTTE as a terrorist organization. Furthermore,\nit refused to remove Sri Lanka from the list of countries to which South Africa\nhas banned arms sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no evidence that Nelson\nMandela directly approved assistance to the Tigers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, it is not a secret that Tigers did\nreceive support and sympathy from South Africa, during his regime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, lots of innocent people in Sri\nLanka died from LTTE terrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should not forget that Nelson Mandela\u2019s\nclose friend and ally, the South African Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu\nopenly supported Tamil separatist sympathysers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we really need to erect a Nelson\nMandela statue in Colombo? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, is this the burning issue face\nby the country today?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chanaka Bandarage It was reported in the news media that the Cabinet has approved the erection of a Nelson Mandela Statue in Colombo, without government funding.  Currently it is planned to be installed at the Colombo Public Library premises. The request has been made by the South African High Commission in Colombo. Is this the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chanaka-bandarage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}