Victory Belongs to a Nation, Not a Dynasty
In the political theatre of modern Sri Lanka, few slogans have been weaponised more effectively than the phrase: “We won the war.” For nearly two decades, Mahinda Rajapaksa and his loyal political machinery have attempted to monopolise the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May 2009, presenting it as the personal triumph of one family rather than the culmination of decades of sacrifice by an entire nation. Yet history, when stripped of propaganda and political branding, tells a far more complex and uncomfortable truth.
The war did not begin in 2005 when Mahinda Rajapaksa entered Temple Trees. Nor did the bloodshed suddenly materialise for his political convenience. The conflict had already consumed generations of Sri Lankans since the early 1980s. Thousands of soldiers from the Sri Lanka Army, Sri Lanka Navy, Sri Lanka Air Force, and Sri Lanka Police had died long before Rajapaksa became president. Entire villages situated on the borderlands between government-controlled territory and LTTE strongholds lived under constant fear of claymore mines, suicide bombings, child recruitment, assassinations, and artillery fire. Mothers buried sons. Children grew up without fathers. Farmers abandoned fields. Border villages became human shields in a conflict that politicians in Colombo often used as an electoral tool.
Can one politician genuinely stand before such collective sacrifice and declare: “I alone won the war”?
That proposition is not only morally questionable — it is historically dishonest.
The final military campaign against the LTTE undoubtedly occurred during Rajapaksa’s presidency. Credit must therefore go to the administration for making the strategic decision not to retreat under international pressure. However, military victory itself was achieved by thousands of unnamed servicemen and women who fought on the battlefield, intelligence operatives who infiltrated militant networks, naval personnel who intercepted arms shipments in deep seas, and ordinary citizens who endured unimaginable hardship over nearly three decades. The victory belongs to the institution of the Sri Lankan state and its people — not to the personal mythology of a political dynasty.
Yet the post-war narrative engineered by the Rajapaksa camp transformed national victory into personal property. Giant cut-outs, patriotic songs, state-sponsored propaganda, and hyper-nationalist rhetoric elevated Mahinda Rajapaksa into an almost monarchic figure. Criticism became equated with treachery. Political dissent was branded anti-national. The phrase “war hero” was increasingly redirected away from the ordinary soldier and toward politicians sitting in air-conditioned offices.
This political monopolisation of military victory produced dangerous consequences for Sri Lanka’s democracy.
Once a leader convinces supporters that he “saved the nation,” accountability becomes optional. Corruption can then be reframed as patriotism. Questions become betrayal. Institutions become subordinate to personality cults.
During the post-war years, Sri Lanka witnessed an alarming concentration of power around the Rajapaksa family. Allegations ranging from corruption and financial misconduct to abuse of state resources dominated headlines locally and internationally. The revelations associated with offshore financial dealings and international investigations further deepened public suspicion regarding how political power was allegedly converted into private wealth. Simultaneously, critics, journalists, civil society activists, and opposition voices increasingly operated in an atmosphere of fear. Abductions, attacks on media personnel, intimidation campaigns, and suppression of dissent became part of Sri Lanka’s dark post-war vocabulary.
This is the contradiction at the heart of the Rajapaksa legacy.
How does a government that claims to have defended democracy simultaneously weaken democratic institutions? How does a leadership that celebrates patriotism tolerate corruption allegations on such a colossal scale? How can the rhetoric of national salvation coexist alongside accusations of impunity, political violence, and communal manipulation?
Most importantly, how can any politician claim exclusive ownership over a victory purchased with the blood of thousands?
The true custodians of that victory are not politicians. They are the soldiers who never returned home. The sailors who disappeared at sea. The pilots who flew into hostile territory. The intelligence officers who operated in silence. The grieving parents who sent children to war believing they were defending the unity of the country. The villagers who survived massacres and displacement. Those are the people who defended Sri Lanka.
Their sacrifice should never be converted into a political trademark.
Sri Lanka’s tragedy is that genuine military sacrifice became entangled with political opportunism. Instead of using the end of the war to build reconciliation, institutional reform, economic stability, and national unity, successive governments exploited wartime nationalism as a permanent electoral currency. The war became less a historical event and more a political shield.
But nations eventually mature beyond personality cults.
The end of the conflict in 2009 was indeed a decisive chapter in Sri Lankan history. Yet mature societies do not allow one family to rewrite national sacrifice into dynastic ownership. A republic cannot function when patriotism is privatised.
Therefore, the final salute must not belong to politicians seeking eternal political branding. It belongs to the ordinary servicemen and women of Sri Lanka — Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, and Burgher alike — who carried the unbearable burden of war across three decades.
The victory belongs to the nation.
Not to one surname.