Three score years and ten
Today we Sri Lankans proudly commemorate the seventieth anniversary of our country regaining its independence after 450 long years of European domination. For the past few days I have been musing about the journey we have made during the last three score years and ten since the British handed our country back to us. Can we look back with satisfaction and pride on our progress as we celebrate this seventieth birthday?
We are Asia’s oldest democracy – after all, universal adult franchise was given to our people as far back as 1932, with both men and women being able to vote to elect members of the legislature ( which was then called the State Council). This was just four years after Britain gave women the vote – following long and bitter agitation by the British suffragettes who had to resort to hunger strikes and even arson to gain their demand of votes for women in that country.
Unlike other former British colonies such as the United States, Kenya and Zimbabwe, we in the colony called Ceylon did not have to wage a bloody war to achieve independence. Neither did we suffer the terrible effects of partition, as India and Pakistan did when they were grudgingly granted independence in August 1947.
But although we achieved independence without any bloodshed, our country has had its own share of death and destruction during its lifetime as an independent nation – those dark and terrible times known euphemistically as emergency’58, the JVP insurrections and the Eelam wars.
Our nation’s darkest period was from 1983 to 2009 when the indigenous insurgent group calling itself the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) waged a separatist war against the central government that cost the lives of thousands of our own citizens. Although the LTTE were proscribed as a terrorist organisation by many foreign governments such as the USA, Britain, Australia and the European Union, Sri Lanka received little military assistance from these countries to fight the Tigers.
The government, however, managed to militarily overcome the powerful LTTE and end the war in 2009 – the first time in the modern world that an elected government had defeated a large scale indigenous insurgency by force of arms. This military victory was achieved against all the odds despite the dire predictions of military experts throughout the world – plus the high cost of urban terror, battlefield casualties and economic as well as international pressures. Today,
Sri Lanka’s successful counter insurgency warfare experience and techniques are the subjects of study in military academies and army staff colleges all over the world.
It is, however, a sad fact that the memories of us Sri Lankans, enjoying as we now do the freedom of living in an independent and peaceful country, are notoriously short. We take our freedom from fear for granted - and since the war ended nine years ago we have got accustomed to living in a peaceful country, forgetting those dark days – a whole quarter century - of terror.
No longer are we subject to roadblocks and checkpoints. No more do we wake up in the morning to hear of soldiers and civilians being killed – in battle or in cold blooded ambushes - by a ruthless terrorist group that had elevated suicide bombing to a highly effective modus operandi.
So, today, let us remember all those innocent citizens who were killed during those years of terror - like the monks in Aranthalawa and the worshippers in the mosque in Kattankudy, people like the chief priest at the Vakarai kovil who welcomed the president after the liberation of Vakarai and the school principals of Jaffna Central College and Kopay Christian College who paid with their lives for arranging a cricket match between their students and the military.
Most folk would have forgotten that just ten years ago, on independence eve 2008, a Tiger suicide bomber exploded herself on board a train at the Colombo Fort railway station, killing eleven people including seven schoolchildren of the D. S. Senanayake College baseball team.
As we joyfully celebrate our freedom on this independence day let us spare a thought for those like Keppitipola, Puran Apppu and Gonagala Bandara who died trying to gain freedom from our colonial rulers - as well as those who died trying to preserve our freedom during the Eelam wars. Not just legendary senior officers like Lt. Gen. Denzil Kobbekaduwa and Maj. Gen Vijaya Wimalaratne, not just valiant heroes like Corporal Gamini Kularatne PWV from Hasalaka and Sgt. Chandrasiri Bandara PWV from Bibile whose heroic exploits were recorded and who had monuments erected to their bravery or houses gifted to their grieving widows - but all those nameless soldiers, sailors, airmen and policemen who died in battle and are forgotten except by their spouses, children and parents.
As Maj. Gen. Kamal Gunaratne wrote in his book The Road to Nandikadal “The scourge of regular bombings and shootings, suicide bombers and suicide boats, artillery fire and child soldiers has not been seen in our motherland since 19th May 2009. It is now the duty of our leaders and citizens to protect this hard won freedom - and it is my earnest prayer that this freedom will not be taken for granted and squandered away.”
On this 70th anniversary of our nation’s existence let us give thanks for our independence and the privilege of living in one of the best countries on earth. But let us also remember to bestow blessings on those who sacrificed their lives in the process of ensuring that we could continue to have the privilege of living as free citizens in this country.