Sri Lanka - Free

It was a historic day to Sri Lanka. We have wiped out all leaders of the terrorist outfit LTTE.

About 10 years ago, the mother of one of my friends asked me if this war would ever end. I said I doubt it. And I have to be frank that even in 2005, I did not believe this would be over.

Today, it is over. Yes there will be much more work left to wipe it out, including a political solution, however, the terrorist outfit that killed innocent people while they were sleeping in their villages in the night or blasted buses cramped with innocent people are no more.

Many people portray cutting off the water gate at Mavilaru was the beginning of the end of this war. However, I think, it was Kabathigollawa incident, where a bus load of innocent people were blasted with a roadside bomb. It was a clinic day, where parents take their infants for medication by bus. Many children were killed. And this was while there was a cease fire. This barbaric act made the average people realize that, the peace path, where the LTTE was never genuine, was no going to work. And it was much evident looking at the kind of weapons that were discovered by the military, that the LTTE has been piling up.

The other aspect of this war that we have to learn is that, this kind of depression cannot last. It is a fact that this war lasted for 30 years. And it was the youth of both Tamil as well as non-Tamil families that were sacrificed. Tamil people struggled to save their children form LTTE. And many close relatives of non-Tamils were also massacred. Tamils who did not want this to continue and wanted to get out of this, did not want to fight, and LTTE lost the passion factor from their fighters. On the other hand, non-Tamil people, who had enough of the brutality, whose bothers and sisters were killed 10 – 20 years ago, who are now young and energetic, fought it with passion for their bothers and sisters and fathers and mothers. That made the difference.

It is also important to note the leadership factor in that contributed to win this war. The president did not fight the war, the armies did. However, in the first place, it was important to make people believe that the impossible was possible. When Ranil Wikramasinghe, then prime minister and noe the opposition leader, signed the peace deal, the general feeling in the air throughout the country was that, the war cannot be won and hence it is better off to deal peace. When LTTE made Ranil be defeated in the presidential election, they too believed that they cannot be defeated. But, it is done today. Common beliefs that are revolving around us are often myths. If you change your mind, and believe in making the impossible happen, the impossible would happen.

The other aspect is that, everyone praises the president for his role in the war. However, the most important element in winning this war was the solders fighting in the front. It can be argued that, if the generals did not have the right strategy, it could not have been won. But what if the generals said go to left, but the solders marched forward because they were too brave, or they went to right, because they heard firing in that direction? As Leo Tolstoy said in his novel War and Peace, no matter what the generals does, it has to happen at the ground level, when live fighting happens. It was because the individuals on the fighting grounds did the right things that this war is won today.

It is a whole new era that we are stepping into today. Sri Lanka without the war is going to be a very exciting place. The challenges are numerous. The hard part was done. Now we can take care of the rest.   

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