Great road builder:

Opening Expressways to unity and progress

The opening of the Southern Expressway, just a week after the beginning of the second year of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term of office, marks the continuing of a successful policy of road building that has outstripped all records in this sector of growth.

Tallied in the many thousands of kilometres of new roads built, from rural roads with concrete surfacing, to pre-mix covered arterial roads and highways, and the many bridges built in all parts of the country, a good satellite image of Sri Lanka will show an unprecedented network of roads in the island. These lead to new linkages among regions and communities, people and traditions, all helping to build the mosaic of a single and united nation.

Remarkable success

With this remarkable success in road building, and the new Expressways that with the opening to the South, and what is now already being completed to link Katunayake to Colombo, the Outer Circle Road in the Western Province and the Colombo-Kandy Expressway soon to be launched, makes President Mahinda Rajapaksa the greatest among road builders in the country, far outdoing the achievement of the British Governor Edward Barnes who was known as the Road Building Governor.

He thus takes his place among the greats in Sri Lanka, being recorded in history as the great builder of roads as King Mahasen was the great builder of reservoirs.

As he completed 66 years yesterday, with more than 40 years in politics, rising from the youngest member elected to Parliament in 1970 till he reached the pinnacle of office as Executive President in November 2005, and gained a second mandate to lead the nation in January 2010, President Rajapaksa takes the Sri Lankan people on new paths of progress, that seemed far beyond the reach of our people just six years ago.

Defeat of terrorism

Keeping his pledge to free the country from the brutal terror, defying warnings of both pundits and peaceniks that the defeat of terrorism was an impossible goal, he brought Sri Lanka and its people to the new road of peace that had been denied them through more than 30 years; another cause for a special niche in history as one who ushered peace and united the land. The road to peace he opened was blocked by political muddling, poor military strategy, the narrow rivalry of party politics, and the machinations of forces both within and beyond our shores to keep the country tied to the leash of separatist terror.

Having traversed the arduous roadway to peace the challenge now is to move ahead with confidence on the highways and expressways to progress. From physical bridges that span rivers and gorges, there is the need for new bridges that will bring new understanding of the realities of peace, apart from the absence of violence and terror.

It is the awareness of the need for the greater understanding and tolerance among people, who will not be swayed by the slogans of divisive politics or the calculations of economic power brokers that have the least interest in the advance of the Sri Lankan nation.

The efforts to realize these goals have not been lacking in President Mahinda Rajapaksa as he moves to the second year of his second elected term. An important foundation for this was laid when he appointed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, not long after the conflict with the LTTE ended and the land returned to peace. Much abuse has been piled on the LLRC since establishment by a multitude of forces that had shown anger against Sri Lanka, being determined to serve the interests of the forces of terror eradicated from this land.

The LLRC’s report handed over to President Rajapaksa is expected to show the way to true reconciliation among our people, in the spirit of restorative justice and against a retributive process that would be truly divisive.

Fruits of peace

As he moves ahead seeking to fulfill the mandate he has been given by the people, Mahinda Rajapaksa will be looked upon with great expectation to bring to the people the fruits of the peace, that he was instrumental in bringing to their midst. Forty years in electoral politics, where he has seen the ups and downs of a representative democracy, he is no doubt aware of the aspirations of the people in all parts of the land that he has singularly helped unite.

It was symbolic of this understanding that last Thursday, on the eve of his 66th birthday, and about to begin his new year in office, President Rajapaksa presented the students of 66 schools drawn from all provinces with books and computers for their schools.

He was thus showing them the roads to the new vistas of progress that are ahead in the New Sri Lanka of Peace. They were gifts that showed the value of knowledge that comes from books and the computer that is the principle tool of the new Information Age that Sri Lanka has to move into.

New opportunities

If winning the battle against terror was full of hardship and sacrifice, strengthening the peace gained at such a price can be even more daunting. It calls for leadership that understands the feelings of the people, and would respond in fullest measure to achieve their aspirations.

As he received the good wishes of a thousand children who shared the birthday of the President and wished him all success in many more years ahead, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has shown that he has a deep feeling for the needs of the generations that are growing up and yet unborn. We see it in his commitment to strengthen knowledge and understanding among people, through education and progress in to the new Age of Technology.

It is the opening of a new expressway of thinking that should take our people beyond the limits of physical boundaries and into a world of new opportunity, in the tranquility of peace.