{"id":109613,"date":"2020-12-11T15:35:45","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T22:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=109613"},"modified":"2020-12-12T16:03:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-12T23:03:48","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-18c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/12\/11\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-18c\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 18C Pt 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

War monuments\nare to be found in most countries. They are highly respected monuments (with\nthe exception of Nazi Germany) and several are tourist attractions as well. Here\nare three war monuments from the west. They all commemorate World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 First is Motherland Calls\u201d commemorating the\nBattle of Stalingrad in WW II.  It is\nlocated in Stalingrad now Volgograd. It  is\ntwice as large as Christ the Redeemer and  two meters shorter than The Statue of Liberty.\nThe Battle of Stalingrad was a decisive battle and deserves a monument. The\ndefeat of Nazi Germany started there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The second is\nthe Iwo Jima Monument in USA. it features the six servicemen who raised the\nU.S. flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.The statue symbolizes the\nAmerican war effort in the Pacific and is dedicated to the United States Marine\nCorps who died in the defense of the U.S. since 1775. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The third is\nthe  Donbass Liberators\u201d  located in Donetsk, Russia, dedicated to all  who liberated Donbas during World War II. This\ntoo was a decisive battle in WWII. The monument is in the shape of a triangle\nwith a sculpture of a Miner and a Soldier who  each grasp a sword, with its edge down, in\ntheir right hands. Veterans march to the monument on Memorial Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\nalso  has a huge  WW II monument,  a cenotaph,  in Colombo taking up an enormous amount of\nvaluable real estate at the end of \nVihara Maha Devi Park. It is dedicated to the Ceylonese killed in the\ntwo World Wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Eelam war\nwas Sri Lanka\u2019s first post- Independence civil war. It was a protracted war\nconducted by a bogus   ethnic group, created\nby the British administration, now claiming exclusive rights to valuable\ncoastal territory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngovernment of Sri Lanka was a formidable enemy, not only militarily, but\nlegally too.  Sri Lanka, real name\nSinhaladvipa, is a recognized sovereign state with clear boundaries, a seat in\nthe UN and a well documented history. The government of Sri Lanka could not be\nshaken easily. It   fought back and won\nthe war. It was a decisive win. The LTTE formally declared defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngovernment of Sri Lanka thereafter, rightly celebrated the Eelam victory over\nthe LTTE, by erecting victory monuments. These were placed in selected\nlocations which marked decisive battles, Kilinochchi, Elephant Pass, Puthudukuriyuppu\nand   Kokavil. The Hasalaka Gamini\nmonument symbolized the numerous acts of individual bravery of the Sri Lanka\nsoldier. A military bulldozer and a water tank symbolized other aspects of the\nWar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

 State memorial, Kilinochchi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The monument at\nKilinochchi, former LTTE stronghold and capital in the last years of Tamil Eelam,\nconsists of a black-granite cuboid penetrated by a projectile that blossoms\ninto a lotus flower.   The massive\ncracked concrete cube represents the LTTE\u2019s violent insurrection. The bullet\npiercing the stone is the Sri Lankan army, the flower represents peace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  the inscription said, \u2018the\ngallant operation to annihilate savage and brutal terrorism which has marked\nthis land over thirty years is marked by a cuboid and the projectile which is\npenetrated this cuboid symbolizing the sturdiness of invincible Sri Lanka Army\nto blossom forth in a lotus of peace enwrapped in the fluttering national flag\nthat proclaims the resplendent majesty of the nation\u2019s glory\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

State victory memorial, Puthukkudiyiruppu<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Victory Monument\nat Puthumathalan rises from the lake at Puthukudiyiruppu. It depicts a soldier\nbrandishing a rifle in one hand and the Sri Lankan flag in the other, with a\ndove seated n the gun. Around the base of the monument are four carved stone\nlions representing each army division involved in the last phase of the\nfighting, the 59th, 58th, 57th and 53rd divisions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A stone plinth\nlists the names of all the army commanders at the time of the conquest. Unveiled\nby President Rajapaksa in December 2009 the statue defines the essentials of a\nSri Lankan soldier, a brave warrior, a patriot, and the one who brought peace\nto the war-torn North. There is also an army war museum and a photograph\ngallery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

State memorial, Elephant Pass<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The memorial\nat Elephant Pass designed by the National Design Center [1]<\/a>\nconsists of large bronze hands hold aloft a model of the island of Sri Lanka\nwith a flower blooming atop and four lions around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The new memorial to \u2018Hasalaka Gamini\u2019, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also at\nElephant Pass, is the towering statue of Corporal Gamini Kularatne of the Sri\nLankan Army. Now known as the Hasalaka Weeraya, Kularatne was a 25-year-old\nsoldier who sacrificed his life in 1991 to rescue hundreds of fellow soldiers\nwho were under siege at the Elephant Pass Sri Lankan Army garrison. He climbed\ninto an LTTE tank and disabled it by throwing two grenades into it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kokavil War\nHeroes monument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February\n2011, a special war hero memorial was unveiled in Kokavil, in the former LTTE\nTiger heartland of Mullaitivu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

National War\nMemorial, Battaramulla<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the\nmain war memorial at Battaramulla in front of Parliament.  There are other monuments too. On the\nMullaitivu beach a monument has been set up in memory of the Special Forces\nwith Col. Lafir\u2019s and Lt. Ranasinghe\u2019s names on the top. Sri Lanka Armored\nCorp  opened a war memorial at\nKalaththawe in Anuradhapura.  (<\/strong>Continued)
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> https:\/\/www.oaklandinstitute.org\/sites\/oaklandinstitute.org\/files\/OI_The_Long_Shadow_of_War_0.pdf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS War monuments are to be found in most countries. They are highly respected monuments (with the exception of Nazi Germany) and several are tourist attractions as well. Here are three war monuments from the west. They all commemorate World War II.  First is Motherland Calls\u201d commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad in WW II.  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109613","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=109613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}