As we celebrate the 59th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s Independence today, I have immense pleasure in extending my warm greetings and sincere good wishes to all fellow Sri Lankans in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Sri Lanka’s relations with Saudi Arabia are characterized by abiding friendship and mutual good will. The people of Sri Lanka can never forget the generous and prompt assistance provided by the Saudi government to Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster which struck the island a little over two years ago. The outpouring of the Saudi people’s sympathy for the victims of the tragedy, which they translated into tangible support by arranging donations of relief material, was commendable.
In a clear manifestation of the vision of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, to project Saudi Arabia as the “Kingdom of Humanity”, the Saudi Charity Campaign (SCC), which functions under the supervision of the Minister of Interior Prince Naif has come forward to build a model city to provide permanent housing for tsunami victims in Sri Lanka. The agreement for the construction of this project estimated to cost about $ 10 million, as an outright grant from the Kingdom, was signed last month in Riyadh between the chairman of the SCC and the director general of the International Organization for Migration. The city which is to be located in Akkaraipattu in the eastern coastal district of Ampara will be an integrated development project, complete with 500 housing units, a boys’ school, a girls’ school, a hospital and other infrastructure facilities.
Recent developments in Sri Lanka give us renewed hope and encouragement to look forward to the dawn of an era of durable peace and prosperity. The emerging political consensus, which is backed by strong support of the civil society for a negotiated political settlement of the conflict in the north and the east and the successful conclusion of the Sri Lanka Development Forum held in Galle last week, during which the international donor community pledged $ 4.5 billion for the country’s economic development program, reinforce this sense of optimism.
On this historic day, we gratefully remember all our national heroes who laid down their lives for Sri Lanka to emerge as a free nation after 450 years of foreign rule, as well as the brave members of the three armed forces and the police who have paid the supreme sacrifice to defend Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and our long-cherished multiparty democratic system.
In 1956, Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike said that he would endeavor to give the country freedom of another dimension, not merely political independence, but freedom from want, poverty and hunger. This vision is encapsulated in the “Mahinda Chinthana” philosophy of the present government led by President Mahinda Rajapakse, which is aimed at poverty alleviation, and reducing the social and income disparities in the society, while facilitating sustained economic growth.
There is yet another dimension of freedom that we should strive to achieve; that is the freedom of spirit. It would be apt to recall the words of the great Indian poet and philosopher, Rabindranath Tagore:
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free; where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; where words come out from the depth of truth, where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection; where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; where the mind is led forward into ever-widening thought and action — into that heaven of freedom, let my country awake.”
A.M.J. Sadiq
Ambassador
