Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has not received any invitation to attend Tuesday’s (19) National War Heroes’ Commemoration Day event in Battaramulla, his Media Secretary Attorney Manoj Gamage said on Monday (18), publicly contradicting a government minister.
Gamage said claims by Minister Upali Pannilage that the country’s fifth Executive President had been invited to the ceremony were false. The Media Secretary alleged the Minister had misled the public, and noted that invitations for Victory Day events are typically extended officially through the Presidential Secretariat or the Ministry of Defence.
The dispute came hours after Rajapaksa himself issued a separate Victory Day tribute statement marking the 17th anniversary of the end of the conflict. He said Sri Lanka regained peace through “strong leadership, brave military commanders and the sacrifices of courageous soldiers,” and that the peace enjoyed today remained “priceless.”
In the message, Rajapaksa said a generation had lived under fear and uncertainty during three decades of conflict, with families burdened by violence and grief. The day was not about celebrating war, he said, but about remembering the sacrifices that allowed the nation to “breathe again as one country.” He added that true statesmanship lay in an uncompromising commitment to protecting the country’s borders and heritage.
The 17th National War Heroes’ Commemoration will be held tomorrow at the War Heroes Memorial in Battaramulla under the patronage of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The government has framed the ceremony as the first inclusive commemoration that formally invites Northern and Eastern victims’ families.
The invitation dispute marks the latest friction between the Rajapaksa camp and the NPP government over the symbolic ownership of the post-war narrative.
