DREAM OF UNP FOUNDER IS TO BRING ALL COMMUNITIES TOGETHER

The dream of United National Party founder leader and country’s first Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake to bring all communities together is yet to be fulfilled, President Maithripala Sirisena said over the weekend.

“This vision of the UNP when it was founded by late D. S. Senanayake was that ‘Sinhalese, Muslims, Tamils and Burghers belong to one community which is the Sri Lankan community. Long live this Sri Lankan community,” he said, speaking at the UNP’S 70th anniversary celebration held at Campbell Park on Saturday.

“Today, the UNP had adopted a resolution to keep the international forces from intervening in the country’s sovereignty, to safeguard the heritage of majority community, and the heritage of others and to safeguard Buddhism while safeguarding the cultures of Tamils, Muslims and Burghers who have lived with the Sinhalese for centuries and turn Sri Lanka the centre of Therawada Buddhism and to safeguard the rights of people from other religions. We have to look at these professionally. SLFP also passed a similar resolution in its convention and therefore both parties could work together,” he said.

“We also talk of prioritizing national unity which DS talked of in the past and also talk of peace which Bandaranaike/ Chelvanayagam talked in 1956 and what Dudley Senanayake/ Chelvanaygam talked in 1960s. Preventing these agreements from implementing resulted in a 30-year-old war,” he added. “It is the duty of all to see that another civil war does not break out in the country,” he also said.