TRIBUTE TO A TITAN – BY: KRISHANTHA PRASAD COORAY Photo 1 Caption: Lakshman Kadirgamar, former Foreign Minister for Sri Lanka, right, confers with Minister of Information and Media, Source: Times of Sri Lanka FB The loss of Mangala Samaraweera is a devastating blow to statesmanship in Sri Lanka. In the words of theologian James Freeman Clarke, “the difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks about the next election while the statesman thinks about the next generation.” In that way, Mangala always put the truth and his moral convictions, his principles, before any election. Despite being a master political tactician instrumental in bringing three of the last four presidents into office, Mangala always thought first about the people of Sri Lanka, and second about politics and how to win elections. “What is saddest is that he passed just as more and more Sri Lankans were beginning to wake ...