RANIL: ALL FOUGHT FOR OUR FREEDOM
The unity of Sri Lanka should be restored to what it was in 1948, when it celebrates its 70th Anniversary in 2018, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday.
Speaking during an event organised by the Girl Guides Movement at the BMICH in Colombo to mark its centenary last morning, the Prime Minister said all ethnic and religious groups came together to obtain freedom in 1948.
“There was no communal or religious extremism in this country at the time it gained independence, as all ethnic and religious groups came together to win freedom,” he said.
“There were only different political ideologies. There was late Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake who strove to bring all communities together, while there was S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike with his own ideology and people such as Late Dr. N. M. Perera, Pieter Keuneman and Philip Gunawardane, who had embraced Marxism. “However, there were no religious or ethnic extremist groups at that time in the country,” he said.
He said associations such as Girl Guides Movement, which has brought all children together irrespective of their cultural identities, could continue to play a role in bringing unity among people.
The Prime Minister said that the Girl Guides Movement had played a pioneering role in establishing and safeguarding rights of the women.
“The Girl Guides Movement in Sri Lanka founded by Jenny Greene was one of the first movements through which the women in Sri Lanka began to play a role in the Sri Lanka society, while Adeline Molamure was elected as the first woman member of the Legislature some time later,” he recalled.
Premier Wickremesinghe requested the Girl Guides Association heads to provide him a plan to extend the movement in all girls schools in the country.