Kadir statue: When will it come up?

The statue built in honour of slain Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar is yet to be erected even after a new location was agreed upon several months ago and more than two years after the minister’s assassination. The statue still lies in a crate at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS) premises.

Urban Development Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said he hoped the statue would be erected at the agreed location, before the upcoming SAARC Summit later this year, but Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has raised a fresh issue whether two statues can be put up in the city to honour the minister, despite cabinet approval for the project.

Minister Gunawardena charged that forces within the Foreign Ministry itself, the very ministry Mr. Kadirgamar headed for almost eight years, are placing obstacles.“Everything is ready, including cabinet approval and plans by the Urban Development Authority. Even Mrs. Kadirgamar is happy about the location. But the Foreign Ministry is creating problems from within,” he said.
Meanwhile, sources involved in the statue project charged that Minister Bogollagama himself did not want the statue to come up.

“It’s very sad that certain people do not want a man who rendered a great service to the country to be remembered,” they said. In August last year a hurriedly organised ceremony was held at the Vihara Maha Devi Park to lay the foundation stone for the government- financed statue of the late minister with the attendance of the incumbent minister and several others from the Ministry.

However, this decision was later overruled by the cabinet and a proposal to erect the statue at the LKIRSS was approved. More than five months later no action has been taken to erect the statue. Meanwhile Mr. Bogollagama told The Sunday Times that there is a policy issue of whether two statues can be erected within the same municipality area. “Once this is resolved the statue will be erected. There is already a statue of Mr. Kadirgamar built opposite Liberty Plaza in Kollupitiya by friends and classmates of the late minister,” he said.

However former Municipal Commissioner Dr. Jayantha Liyanage who granted permission for the erection of the statue said that there was no such policy.

Mr Kadirgamar’s statue was sculptured by world renowned Russian sculptors Avtandil Antadze and Davis Chilaidze and manufactured at the Monumentskulptura in St. Petersburg and commissioned by the Cabinet of Ministers on a proposal made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.