In a blistering critique of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s address on National War Heroes Day, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) leader and attorney Udaya Gammanpila accused the President of disrespecting and undermining the very war heroes the event is meant to honour. At a press conference held at PHU headquarters, Gammanpila did not hold back calling the President’s speech a carefully crafted insult wrapped in vague pacifist rhetoric.
According to Gammanpila, the President’s reluctance to attend the War Heroes commemoration was only reversed at the last minute due to mounting public pressure. “He was dragged there like a mad dog being taken for a bath,” Gammanpila remarked sharply. “It was clear he was uncomfortable. He didn’t even refer to them as ‘war heroes’ only ‘soldiers’ deliberately avoiding the term that honours those who risked their lives on the battlefield.”
He pointed out that the official title of the ceremony, according to the Ministry of Defence website, is “National War Hero Day.” The term ‘war hero’ carries weight, he argued because while all war heroes are soldiers, not all soldiers are war heroes. “You have to have fought, sacrificed, and stared death in the face to earn that title,” Gammanpila said. “This day is meant to honour that courage. The President reduced them to just another rank in uniform.”
Throughout the speech, President Dissanayake repeatedly emphasized the horrors of war, its tragic costs, and the need to ensure peace prevails to avoid such violence in the future. But Gammanpila says this framing created an underlying implication: that the very individuals being honoured were somehow responsible for the conflict itself.
“He made it sound like the war heroes were the cause of war,” Gammanpila said, visibly irked. “But the war was not born out of the military’s will. It was a response to terrorism. The LTTE created the war. The soldiers no, the war heroes fought to end it. They didn’t wage war; they ended it.”
According to Gammanpila, the President’s speech should have been aimed not at those who ended the war, but at those still pushing separatist ideologies from abroad. “Your Excellency,” he said, “it is not the war heroes who need a sermon on peace. It’s the LTTE sympathizers those sowing hatred among Tamil youth from Canada and London under the banners of the Tamil Global Forum and Canadian Tamil Congress.”
Gammanpila further alleged that the President’s hesitation to embrace the spirit of War Heroes Day stemmed from fear fear of upsetting the very international groups that continue to propagate separatist agendas. “This was an attempt to play both sides. But by doing so, the President failed everyone.”
His criticism drew attention to a growing divide in the national narrative around the end of the war. While President Dissanayake has consistently called for reconciliation and warned against the glorification of violence, nationalist voices like Gammanpila argue that such language risks eroding the legacy of those who fought to restore sovereignty.
“There is a time and place for promoting peace,” Gammanpila concluded. “But not on a day set aside to honour bravery. On this day, we salute those who risked and gave their lives not lecture them. And certainly not distort their heroism into something regrettable.”
With this, the PHU leader called on the President to redirect his message to those who, in his words, “still fantasize about a divided nation,” urging him to deliver that same speech to overseas Tamil organizations rather than the nation’s veterans.
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