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Research Journal of the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka- Rohana 12, 2020

The state always tried to link the memorialization of 'losers' to the identity politics in
which the Memory of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelarm (LTTErs) in the North,

which is labelled as a commemoration of terrorists (Colombo telegraph.org). This
had been successful until the state decided to destroy 'Ahimsakayinge Aramaya (a

place where is respected by people as sacred place),' a monument to commemorate a
group of youth who lived in the Southern were victimized by the government (the

catamaran.org). The research problem of the study was to inquire whether the right

of memorialization is kept in the hands of power.

Sri Lankan society experienced nearly a three-decade-long civil war until May 2009.
The civil war had resulted in the loss of thousands of civilians and soldiers' lives and

unimaginable hardships, and mental trauma is leading to the fragmentation of the
social fabric of Sri Lanka and weakening the polity. It is not easy to evaluate the

impact of the civil war in Sri Lankan society as the damage the war had caused is in

a range of different domains viewed from the incidents and the activities such as
mass killings, abductions, family separations, and destruction of livelihood, post-

traumatic stress disorders, disruption to education, internal displacement, and the
emergence of refugees and so on. The war memories have resulted in causing

distrust among different constituent ethnic groups of the Sri Lankan polity.

Consequently, they have resulted in ill-disposed mindsets among other groups
jeopardizing the reconciliation process of the country. At the end of the civil war,

the government of Sri Lanka with the support of the international agencies initiated
several development programmes to rebuild the affected area. It had launched large

scale development projects like the Northern Spring Development Project for the
Northern Province and Eastern Reawakening Development Project for the Eastern

Province in the country. The critiques of the said development projects have

highlighted by an overall concentration of the government that was only on the
rebuilding infrastructure and some of the livelihood avenues alone. Those critiques

have not laid it necessary consideration on the actual damages to the social fabric

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