(By: A Retired Major General)
Last modified on: 6/29/2009 11:34:19 AM
All members of the security forces, past and present, and all citizens of this country no doubt are happy and celebrating the defeat of the LTTE, the most ruthless terrorist organization in the world, that had been a scourge not only to our country but the world for the past three decades.
Some Western nations must be unhappy that the lever they utilized to destabilize our nation is no more available for them. Locally, the stooges of those powers with vested interests too are unhappy since their peace wagon has got bogged down and off road for ever and they are unable to enjoy the free rides anymore. I have observed many of the past Commanders of all three forces who failed to achieve victory when they were at the helm of power also were among them to achieve their goals through peace means
Many a writer, including some armchair Generals has written to the press and come live on TV to tell us how the current Commanders have won the war, but none has explained why past Commanders could not or would not win the war when the LTTE was much weaker and was not well-established. If they won, perhaps, we would have saved the lives of thousands of youth of both sides and billions of rupees of our National wealth. That included the personal properties of our citizens of the North and South, and the valuable infrastructure facilities. When the North and East was burning, the retired Generals, Admirals and Air Marshals were discussing at various forums how to solve the National problem through peace negotiations, rather than advising the Commanders how to win the war in which they were inextricably engaged in. To me, it looked awkward, discouraging and meaningless in that needy hour.
Let us see why those Commanders failed to forge an end through military means when they were in power. First and foremost was the unnecessary political interference which came in many forms. Some politicians with connections with the security of the country had vested interests and were working towards achieving their aims of making money through purchase of arms and equipment for the Army, Navy and Air Force. Some Security Force Commanders who did not have the backbone either kept quiet and said yes to whatever the deals approved by the politicians, with the connivance and support of the bureaucrats in the Ministries. They too amassed wealth here and abroad. The troops in the front lines had to bear the brunt of it by getting killed using sub-standard arms and equipment and flying in obsolete aircraft bought through questionable shady deals.
Some top brass were hauled before the High Courts after their retirement and were even arrested and kept in remand. Others who still had the political backing either escaped through their cunning manoeuvring of technical points or using their ill-earned wealth by bribing politicians of the era. Thousands of troops sacrificed their lives in the arid battle fields like Pooneryn and Mullaitivu or plunged into the sea in aircraft that did not have even anti-missile protection.
Next, political interference was the denial of required manpower, arms and equipment to the Operation Commanders, quoting that the government did not have sufficient funds.
Whenever there was a respite in the war, the process of recruiting and continuous training of troops were abruptly stopped which is against all principles of maintaining combat readiness even during peace time. Once the war resumed, the field commanders were ordered to manage with what they had until the recruitment and training was complete to launch them to battle. This is what the President clearly understood through the wise counsel of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the battle hardened brother of His Excellency. Gotabaya never subjected the Service Commanders or the front line Operational Commanders to such humiliating predicament and maintained the clear cut aim of defeating the LTTE and relentlessly worked towards achieving that aim despite opposition from many quarters as well as adverse international pressure. I am certain that the Service Commanders also insisted on their own requirements forcefully without wilting to the pressure of the financial constraints which the past Commanders did not do.
I have observed that when the senior service officers were getting professionally qualified and matured towards the end of the careers, their aim was to become the Head of the Service which is quite natural. The way they set about achieving it was not in keeping with the prime interests of the country. Invariably, many past Commanders of Services became "yes men" so that they approved anything the politicians wanted done irrespective of whether they were correct or not and injurious to the National interests.
Coming back to the political interference, at one stage, a politician planned the operations to win the elections. He insisted that an objective or an area be captured before the Provincial Council Elections. The Operational Commanders short of time, manpower and equipment either reluctantly agreed knowing that the operation would fail. The Service Commanders never intervened and advised the politicians not to pursue it, since they did not want to lose the command and the ambassadorial appointment they were dreaming of. Those Operation Commanders who did not want to sacrifice their principles as well as the troops who disagreed with the political big-wigs were sidelined and sent out of the service, sometimes ignominiously.
Old school, clanism and favouritism affected the operational efficiency of the Services. If a Service Commander's successor was from the same Regiment or same clan or the same school and of the same colour, well, he was the one to command the service and he was trained and groomed accordingly without taking into his consideration IQ or combat efficiency and professional competency. He was groomed in such a way that he naturally became an "yes man" as happened to our administrative bureaucracy, which is at the bottom of the administration mess today. This was what ailed the services which contributed to the failure of past Commanders, who almost ended up with Diplomatic appointments. Only a few obviously corrupted ones were denied this perk.
Commanders of this calibre never had the determination and the National aim of defeating the LTTE on top of their career agendas. Their aim was to command the Service and end up an Ambassador and to hell with the Nation.
The handing over of weapons and money to the LTTE by the highest political authority in the country was one of the biggest blunders that was unopposed and approved by the Army Commander and a Secretary of Defence who too were Three and Four Star Generals, both of whom knew that it was wrong and injurious and detrimental to the National security. The same duo approved even a worse blunder of handing over 600 policemen in the East to the LTTE, who drained them of their blood, butchered and buried them in mass graves. How could a Commander of this calibre and their front line Operational Commanders win the war when they supported the enemy which amounted to treason? Those top brass are basking in the glow of glory with medals and honours now. What a shame.
I believe the above facts would suffice to show readers why the war was not won for 25 years, under the corrupted. bias and inefficiency of politicians, and Service Commanders. I must congratulate and admire the present Service Commanders and the frontline Operation Commanders who were not malaised with the plagues enumerated above but received unstinted support and encouragement from the Commander-in-Chief of Services as well as his brother, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, that won the historic victory for Sri Lanka.
This account is incomplete without a word of praise to General Sarath Fonseka, who is not a favourite of a group or a clan but a valiant soldier who achieved his aim through determination and perseverance. He is rewarded for choosing front line Commanders who joined the Army in the infancy of the LTTE and grew up getting battered and hardened along with the growing LTTE which grew almost to a conventional Army with air and sea wings. Giving credit to international situation and their attitude towards Sri Lanka for annihilation and defeat of the LTTE to me is belittling of valiant achievement of Sons of Sri Lanka
Source: http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20090629_02
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
The politics of postwar Sri Lanka
Saturday, 27 June 2009
By Dayan Jayatilleka
As Paul Berman once wrote, "somewhere in the world it is always 1941". There comes a time in the life of every society when it is faced with an existential threat or challenge. It is the social forces or elements that rise up to this challenge and successfully overcome this threat that then have the power as well as the legitimacy to place their stamp on what comes after. Those who stood on the wrong side of history, or never rose to the occasion, or who abandoned the struggle partway, or simply failed; the defeated enemy, the collaborators, the appeasers and the fence-sitters — and these are not one and the same — all forfeit the chance to place their values, ideas and programs as the leading ones of the social order that follows the great test.
The truths are threefold. The truth is that the Tigers and the Tamil ultra-nationalists overestimated themselves and underestimated the Sinhalese, due to arrogance and racism. The last stage of the war saw a titanic clash of wills, between, on the one hand, the Tigers, the Tamil Diaspora and overseas Tamils from Canada to Chennai, their Western supporters and the Western media, and on the other, the Sinhala people, the armed forces, the Rajapakse leadership, a thin stratum of heroic Tamil rebels against Prabhakaran, and several friendly states. The Balasinghams wrote a book about the Tamil Eelam struggle with a neo-Nietzschean title, The Will to Freedom. The truth is that from a classically Nietzschean perspective, the Sinhalese Will to Power, i.e. to "prevail over" to "overcome" (which was Nietzsche’s meaning) on and over this small island, was and will in the final analysis always be, cannot but be, greater than that of the Tamils to secede. The truth is also that the Tigers, weakened by an Eastern Tamil rebellion, were defeated by a largely Sinhalese army, sustained by the Sinhala people whose collective will refused to break under decades of suicide bombings, body bags coming home to villages and assassinations of their leaders; the Sinhalese who, this time around, like the paradigmatic Silindu in Woolf’s Village in The Jungle, finally turned on their tormentors and blew them away.
If the social bloc that dominates the UNP wished a postwar Sri Lanka of their liking they should not have repeatedly blown the chances they had of defending the country’s territorial unity, integrity and sovereignty — but blow them it did.
JR Jayewardene did want to win the war, though Lalith Athulathmudali did say that operations were intended to prove to the Tigers that they had no military option. JRJ was perhaps the only UNP president that wanted to win the war and tried to, but he and his administration did not have the basic capacity or intelligence (a) to suppress Black July ’83 (b) not to tamper with the rules of the democratic game to such a degree that it split the Sinhalese and destabilized the domestic situation and (c) to maintain the kind of political relationship with India that would have permitted it to win the war and pre-empted Indian pre-emption, so to speak.
The Premadasa presidency had an admirable degree of multiethnic, multicultural pluralism in its make up and dominant ideology but it allowed the war effort to be paralyzed by infighting within the officer corps and under-funded by bureaucrats with a possible bias or lack of commitment. It made the right decision in putting Gen Denzil Kobbekaduwe in charge of the military effort but it did not consider a military victory possible or, on balance, desirable. (I was possibly the only one in the Premadasa camp whose policy memoranda to him pushed for a military victory. This heartbreaking effort is reflected in my book The Travails of a Democracy: Unfinished war, Protracted Crisis, Vikas, New Delhi 1995).
The UNP’s final chance came with the Prime Ministership of Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe who opted for a lopsided Ceasefire agreement at a time when the balance of forces had turned dramatically against the LTTE due to the successful operations of the Special Forces LRRP and the global anti-terrorist shift due to 9/11. The CFA permitted the buildup of the proto state structure of the Tigers and humiliated the Sri Lankan armed forces.
The moderate, Westernized wing of the SLFP had its chance to win the war and re-mould Sri Lanka in accordance with its more reformist pluralist ideology but it threw the chance away. The re-taking of Jaffna was vitiated by the failure to cut off the LTTE’s retreat thereby permitting the Tigers to escape together with large number of civilians, base themselves in Mullaitivu, regroup and make a dramatic comeback. The strategy was one of taking territory rather than annihilating the enemy; recruitment was negatively affected by campaigns such as Sudu Nelum, Thavalama and the efforts of NIPU etc; corruption was rampant in the sphere of procurement. Above all, there was no commitment to a strategic goal of destroying the enemy but rather to one of driving the Tigers to the negotiating table. Worst of all, Karuna’s rebellion was double-crossed and Prabhakaran’s Sea Tigers allowed to violate the CFA and land in his rear area; General Sarath Fonseka was transferred from Jaffna and placed on the shelf in charge of the Volunteers ( the Sunday Island carried many pieces by me around the time and after, vigorously criticizing the decision and arguing for his placement at the helm of our army); and the tsunami weakened Tigers were sought to be given an administrative–financial authority in the form of the PTOMS, probably as part of a deal with the TNA which would give a third term to the incumbent.
These are not the only critics of the Rajapakse administration and the postwar outcome. Others include the local and foreign NGOs comprising self–proclaimed civil society; the Churches; and the non-Tiger Tamil dissidents such the UTHR and SLDF. Had Colombo’s cosmopolitan civil society not been so totally pro-appeasement, had the churches been visibly and audibly critical of Tiger totalitarianism and exercised greater internal discipline (instead of allowing some of its clergymen to opt for Barabbas, as Fr Bernard continues to do from Mindanao), had the Tamil dissidents worked for a united front of anti-Tiger Tamils which could have launched a resistance struggle in the rear of the LTTE or backed Karuna and Douglas Devananda, who were the actually existing alternatives to the Tigers, their criticisms - pious, petulant or patronizing - of trends in postwar Sri Lanka would not have so little social legitimacy and traction. (I recall the response of an award winning Indian journalist of Tamil ethnicity who wrote a book on the war, when I praised the UTHR-J reports: "yeah, except for that Church of South India tone of preachy Protestant moralizing!")
None of this justifies any attempt by extremist lobbies to translate and degrade the victory of the Sri Lankan state, its armed forces and the people over the Tigers, a valiant victory which has the potential to be a liberation of all the peoples of the island from LTTE fascism, into an armed version, a militarized equivalent of 1956 or 1972 (the abolition of Section 29 and the formal enthronement of one language, religion and specific state form over others).Whatever their socially enabling and democratic aspects for the vast majority, both 1956 and 1972 contained for the minorities, a dimension of discrimination, domination and divisiveness.
No current critique, however trenchant, of postwar Sri Lankan trends approximates in its luminous perspicacity the following judgment:
"Separate identities have been sustained and fortified by deep antagonisms and wildly contested facts which extend over two millenia and more…Each fresh confrontation and every violent eruption becomes an instant invitation to an overpowering onrush of self-righteous recidivism, against which reason can only erect the feeblest defenses... Having co-opted the clergy, can militant Sinhalese-Buddhism rely on support from the armed services, too?... Now regional councils are coming up for air for the third (and last?) time. All the political parties are discussing the proposal, a shrewd… move to gain endorsement from a national consensus. But has political power already slipped out of the hands of politicians?"
Amazingly, these words appeared a shade over a quarter century ago in the pages of the Far Eastern Economic Review of January 26, 1984, pp22-23, and were written by Mervyn de Silva. Though a little late, I have wised-up sufficiently, not to doubt my father’s wisdom, but was this a description of some aspect of the reality at the time, or a latent tendency at any time given Sri Lankan society, history and mentality, or an early warning-cum-prediction? Only future history will tell.
Top of Form Bottom of Form
Does this mean that from a pluralist, reformist or modernist perspective all is lost either by cultural fore-ordination and teleology or by default and abdication? I would argue not necessarily, not inevitably, for three reasons, all discernible from a dialectical standpoint. These are the three potential sources of pluralist reform in postwar Sri Lanka. In ascending order of significance, the first is comprised of the Tamil allies and partners of the state and the governing party. Contrary to the crude, congruent distortions of Colombo’s liberals and their western patrons as well as the Sinhala hardliners, it is not the case that the anti-Tiger camp is monolithically and exclusively Sinhala hard-line while those who are for ethnic equality and autonomy belong to the "antiwar", "anti-state" and "antigovernment" camp. There is a strategically significant anti-Tiger, pro-state, pro-Govt Tamil stakeholder segment, which stands for equality and devolution.
The second driver of a more pluralist postwar outcome is the democratic system which includes the courts and above all, competitive elections. Municipal elections are imminent, Parliamentary elections are scheduled for the first half of next year and Northern provincial elections are unavoidably on the agenda. With proportional representation, the Tamil people will punch pretty much their demographic weight. Political space cannot but broaden, and the ensuing give-and-take is inevitable, eroding ideological blocs. Post-election, the postwar power bloc would be recomposed.
The third and final source is the external factor. Forget the unfair critics of Sri Lanka and those who tilt to the pro-Tiger Tamil Diaspora for one reason or the other. Those who stood by Sri Lanka during the war and its aftermath are crucially interested in political accommodation of the Tamil minority – with India being an obvious case in point, but by no means the only one holding this view. The statement of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by China and Russia, which has admitted Sri Lanka as a "dialogue partner" (my regular readers, going back to the Weekend Express column may recognize that I canvassed for affiliation since its founding almost a decade ago), mentions not only "independence and sovereignty" but also "the rights of minorities".
It is the dynamic of interaction of these three factors within the anti-Tiger, "patriotic" universe, within the cosmos of the Sri Lankan state, within the power-bloc that won the war, which will make for pluralism, reform and possibly paradigm shift.
We shall need to pay heed to the views of our friends, local and foreign, as it becomes increasingly obvious that the Tiger army is destroyed but the Tiger movement or global network is still alive, a well-placed new generation of Tamil secessionists have been born overseas and have come of age, and though the war is decisively won, the protracted struggle with Tamil Tiger separatism on a world scale is hardly over. A long Cold War has just begun.
(These are the strictly personal views of the writer).
Courtesy: Island.lk
Last Updated ( Saturday, 27 June 2009 )
As Paul Berman once wrote, "somewhere in the world it is always 1941". There comes a time in the life of every society when it is faced with an existential threat or challenge. It is the social forces or elements that rise up to this challenge and successfully overcome this threat that then have the power as well as the legitimacy to place their stamp on what comes after. Those who stood on the wrong side of history, or never rose to the occasion, or who abandoned the struggle partway, or simply failed; the defeated enemy, the collaborators, the appeasers and the fence-sitters — and these are not one and the same — all forfeit the chance to place their values, ideas and programs as the leading ones of the social order that follows the great test.
The truths are threefold. The truth is that the Tigers and the Tamil ultra-nationalists overestimated themselves and underestimated the Sinhalese, due to arrogance and racism. The last stage of the war saw a titanic clash of wills, between, on the one hand, the Tigers, the Tamil Diaspora and overseas Tamils from Canada to Chennai, their Western supporters and the Western media, and on the other, the Sinhala people, the armed forces, the Rajapakse leadership, a thin stratum of heroic Tamil rebels against Prabhakaran, and several friendly states. The Balasinghams wrote a book about the Tamil Eelam struggle with a neo-Nietzschean title, The Will to Freedom. The truth is that from a classically Nietzschean perspective, the Sinhalese Will to Power, i.e. to "prevail over" to "overcome" (which was Nietzsche’s meaning) on and over this small island, was and will in the final analysis always be, cannot but be, greater than that of the Tamils to secede. The truth is also that the Tigers, weakened by an Eastern Tamil rebellion, were defeated by a largely Sinhalese army, sustained by the Sinhala people whose collective will refused to break under decades of suicide bombings, body bags coming home to villages and assassinations of their leaders; the Sinhalese who, this time around, like the paradigmatic Silindu in Woolf’s Village in The Jungle, finally turned on their tormentors and blew them away.
If the social bloc that dominates the UNP wished a postwar Sri Lanka of their liking they should not have repeatedly blown the chances they had of defending the country’s territorial unity, integrity and sovereignty — but blow them it did.
JR Jayewardene did want to win the war, though Lalith Athulathmudali did say that operations were intended to prove to the Tigers that they had no military option. JRJ was perhaps the only UNP president that wanted to win the war and tried to, but he and his administration did not have the basic capacity or intelligence (a) to suppress Black July ’83 (b) not to tamper with the rules of the democratic game to such a degree that it split the Sinhalese and destabilized the domestic situation and (c) to maintain the kind of political relationship with India that would have permitted it to win the war and pre-empted Indian pre-emption, so to speak.
The Premadasa presidency had an admirable degree of multiethnic, multicultural pluralism in its make up and dominant ideology but it allowed the war effort to be paralyzed by infighting within the officer corps and under-funded by bureaucrats with a possible bias or lack of commitment. It made the right decision in putting Gen Denzil Kobbekaduwe in charge of the military effort but it did not consider a military victory possible or, on balance, desirable. (I was possibly the only one in the Premadasa camp whose policy memoranda to him pushed for a military victory. This heartbreaking effort is reflected in my book The Travails of a Democracy: Unfinished war, Protracted Crisis, Vikas, New Delhi 1995).
The UNP’s final chance came with the Prime Ministership of Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe who opted for a lopsided Ceasefire agreement at a time when the balance of forces had turned dramatically against the LTTE due to the successful operations of the Special Forces LRRP and the global anti-terrorist shift due to 9/11. The CFA permitted the buildup of the proto state structure of the Tigers and humiliated the Sri Lankan armed forces.
The moderate, Westernized wing of the SLFP had its chance to win the war and re-mould Sri Lanka in accordance with its more reformist pluralist ideology but it threw the chance away. The re-taking of Jaffna was vitiated by the failure to cut off the LTTE’s retreat thereby permitting the Tigers to escape together with large number of civilians, base themselves in Mullaitivu, regroup and make a dramatic comeback. The strategy was one of taking territory rather than annihilating the enemy; recruitment was negatively affected by campaigns such as Sudu Nelum, Thavalama and the efforts of NIPU etc; corruption was rampant in the sphere of procurement. Above all, there was no commitment to a strategic goal of destroying the enemy but rather to one of driving the Tigers to the negotiating table. Worst of all, Karuna’s rebellion was double-crossed and Prabhakaran’s Sea Tigers allowed to violate the CFA and land in his rear area; General Sarath Fonseka was transferred from Jaffna and placed on the shelf in charge of the Volunteers ( the Sunday Island carried many pieces by me around the time and after, vigorously criticizing the decision and arguing for his placement at the helm of our army); and the tsunami weakened Tigers were sought to be given an administrative–financial authority in the form of the PTOMS, probably as part of a deal with the TNA which would give a third term to the incumbent.
These are not the only critics of the Rajapakse administration and the postwar outcome. Others include the local and foreign NGOs comprising self–proclaimed civil society; the Churches; and the non-Tiger Tamil dissidents such the UTHR and SLDF. Had Colombo’s cosmopolitan civil society not been so totally pro-appeasement, had the churches been visibly and audibly critical of Tiger totalitarianism and exercised greater internal discipline (instead of allowing some of its clergymen to opt for Barabbas, as Fr Bernard continues to do from Mindanao), had the Tamil dissidents worked for a united front of anti-Tiger Tamils which could have launched a resistance struggle in the rear of the LTTE or backed Karuna and Douglas Devananda, who were the actually existing alternatives to the Tigers, their criticisms - pious, petulant or patronizing - of trends in postwar Sri Lanka would not have so little social legitimacy and traction. (I recall the response of an award winning Indian journalist of Tamil ethnicity who wrote a book on the war, when I praised the UTHR-J reports: "yeah, except for that Church of South India tone of preachy Protestant moralizing!")
None of this justifies any attempt by extremist lobbies to translate and degrade the victory of the Sri Lankan state, its armed forces and the people over the Tigers, a valiant victory which has the potential to be a liberation of all the peoples of the island from LTTE fascism, into an armed version, a militarized equivalent of 1956 or 1972 (the abolition of Section 29 and the formal enthronement of one language, religion and specific state form over others).Whatever their socially enabling and democratic aspects for the vast majority, both 1956 and 1972 contained for the minorities, a dimension of discrimination, domination and divisiveness.
No current critique, however trenchant, of postwar Sri Lankan trends approximates in its luminous perspicacity the following judgment:
"Separate identities have been sustained and fortified by deep antagonisms and wildly contested facts which extend over two millenia and more…Each fresh confrontation and every violent eruption becomes an instant invitation to an overpowering onrush of self-righteous recidivism, against which reason can only erect the feeblest defenses... Having co-opted the clergy, can militant Sinhalese-Buddhism rely on support from the armed services, too?... Now regional councils are coming up for air for the third (and last?) time. All the political parties are discussing the proposal, a shrewd… move to gain endorsement from a national consensus. But has political power already slipped out of the hands of politicians?"
Amazingly, these words appeared a shade over a quarter century ago in the pages of the Far Eastern Economic Review of January 26, 1984, pp22-23, and were written by Mervyn de Silva. Though a little late, I have wised-up sufficiently, not to doubt my father’s wisdom, but was this a description of some aspect of the reality at the time, or a latent tendency at any time given Sri Lankan society, history and mentality, or an early warning-cum-prediction? Only future history will tell.
Top of Form Bottom of Form
Does this mean that from a pluralist, reformist or modernist perspective all is lost either by cultural fore-ordination and teleology or by default and abdication? I would argue not necessarily, not inevitably, for three reasons, all discernible from a dialectical standpoint. These are the three potential sources of pluralist reform in postwar Sri Lanka. In ascending order of significance, the first is comprised of the Tamil allies and partners of the state and the governing party. Contrary to the crude, congruent distortions of Colombo’s liberals and their western patrons as well as the Sinhala hardliners, it is not the case that the anti-Tiger camp is monolithically and exclusively Sinhala hard-line while those who are for ethnic equality and autonomy belong to the "antiwar", "anti-state" and "antigovernment" camp. There is a strategically significant anti-Tiger, pro-state, pro-Govt Tamil stakeholder segment, which stands for equality and devolution.
The second driver of a more pluralist postwar outcome is the democratic system which includes the courts and above all, competitive elections. Municipal elections are imminent, Parliamentary elections are scheduled for the first half of next year and Northern provincial elections are unavoidably on the agenda. With proportional representation, the Tamil people will punch pretty much their demographic weight. Political space cannot but broaden, and the ensuing give-and-take is inevitable, eroding ideological blocs. Post-election, the postwar power bloc would be recomposed.
The third and final source is the external factor. Forget the unfair critics of Sri Lanka and those who tilt to the pro-Tiger Tamil Diaspora for one reason or the other. Those who stood by Sri Lanka during the war and its aftermath are crucially interested in political accommodation of the Tamil minority – with India being an obvious case in point, but by no means the only one holding this view. The statement of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by China and Russia, which has admitted Sri Lanka as a "dialogue partner" (my regular readers, going back to the Weekend Express column may recognize that I canvassed for affiliation since its founding almost a decade ago), mentions not only "independence and sovereignty" but also "the rights of minorities".
It is the dynamic of interaction of these three factors within the anti-Tiger, "patriotic" universe, within the cosmos of the Sri Lankan state, within the power-bloc that won the war, which will make for pluralism, reform and possibly paradigm shift.
We shall need to pay heed to the views of our friends, local and foreign, as it becomes increasingly obvious that the Tiger army is destroyed but the Tiger movement or global network is still alive, a well-placed new generation of Tamil secessionists have been born overseas and have come of age, and though the war is decisively won, the protracted struggle with Tamil Tiger separatism on a world scale is hardly over. A long Cold War has just begun.
(These are the strictly personal views of the writer).
Courtesy: Island.lk
Last Updated ( Saturday, 27 June 2009 )
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Belly Dance & Cultural Taboos
Belly dance is a social dance that heals body, souls and minds. War torn Sri Lanka needs a social comfort & economic development. After defeat of terrorism of 30 years Sri Lanka is facing challenges of stengthning ethnic harmony, eradication of discrimination (on gender, class, sexuality, power), corruption and taboos. Dark clouds and stormy days have passed-by, the silver lining yet to come above Sri Lanka. Since Mahinda Rajapakse came to power, Sri Lanka is heading right direction victoriously with minor short comings which exaggerated by west, especially last two months on war, UNHRC, world politics, economy, lives of Sri Lankans. We should not forget the areas we can improve on human rights concerns, human rights, discrimination on ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, abuses, intimidations etc.
Sri Lanka needs re-organization of civil administration system with zero tolerance to corruption and strengthening of legal system. There should not be any room for double standards, hypocrisies, taboos, and politicization. A true freedom to all people in all aspects including freedom of speech and discrimination free society (beliefs, ethnicity, religion, gender, class, sexual identity).
Sri Lanka needs a change in traditional thinking. Globalization is standing at the door step of Sri Lanka, discussions and debates on socio-cultural issues necessary than ever to stimulate peace & development of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka needs development of infrastructures, cities, re-organization of inefficient civil institutes that have negative impact on development. Roads, transport, communication, and digital communitation, computer literacy which can contribute rocket speed development are needed to be modernized with help from Asian giants like Russia, China, Japan and India if necessary. Dealing with India and Europe must be cautious. We should not be disconnected from west Europe but be vigilant and absorb them.
Sri Lanka legal system has to be broad minded, ensuring cultural harmony, respecting different political and religion views. The age of consent in Sri Lanka is 18 year or above, but a man and woman above 18yrs cant check-in to a hotel room unless they have a marriage certificate. A boy and a girl above 18 cant have sex before marriage and individual's feelings controlled by government. Some release sexual tensions in either public transport or in an abandoned street or a temple as a result of sexual oppression. Youths have to explore sex secretly. If they found staying in hotels, they will be arrested and treated as criminals. A survey conducted by the Health Ministry placed the average age of sexual debut for males at 15.3 for males and for females at 14.4 (in Sri Lanka) while France have an average age of 17.5 and 17.2 for men and women respectively. Better results could be achieved by proper sex education. One can argue our culture doesnt permit sexual acts, but youths curiosity have enormous threatened the society.
Our needs have changed along with civilization, digitalization and time has come to have discussions and debates on current issues such as taboos, social issues and human rights with all concerned parties in a constructive way. Sri Lanka and its people cannot be isolated from rest of the world with regard to life styles, democracy and development. Sri Lanka should be a model of democracy and freedom, the cream of buddhism.
Ayurvedic health centres can be promoted and should be used to heal and rejuvenate people which are often raided by police. Why should we think adult entertainment should be banned? Why not having that at least for people who have imbalanced hormones so rest can live in harmony (rather than oppresed by religion). I am not suggesting an immitaion of west but when you see life-styles of people, they are oppressed from taboos. Massage parlours, casinos, Karaoke bars are money springs for corrupted police officers. The entertainment industry have stood still for the last 30 years.
Government must implement a national health monitoring system to ensure prevention of spread of sexually transmitted diseases, unexpected pregnancy for risk groups and bring them under control not by corrupted police officers who raid hotels and other places but by medical officers and health clinics implemented island wide. There must be sexual awareness programmes through media and schools, so people can be prevented from falling to danger.
People are sent to jail often just because smoking a cigarette or visiting a club. But serial murderers and criminals are free on the streets. They are arrested (some cases have evidences) but are bailled out and continue threatening society. Those are the things that have to be tackeled; making sure cities are safe, vilages are safe, streets are safe, homes are safe for people. We need crime free society in Sri Lanka. We have battered for 30 years from war. Now time for people to enjoy life, while education and development continue. Smoking is banned in public but no smoking zones provided in public areas, deliberate violation of rights of smokers.
Tourism industry can contribute rapid development of Sri Lanka enormously than any other industry. Tourism in Sri Lanka must be given as a priority, and need huge investments for development of accessess to main cities and meet the expectations of tourists who come to Sri Lanka. Most come for sun, beach and cultural interests. Our beaches should be clean, free of criminal beach boys and disturbing vendors, possibly provided with identities. Safety of tourists and Sri Lankans has to be strengthened by police. Police should be tourist friendly. More tourist attractions, entertainment, such as nude beaches (a trend for nature loving people should not be mistaken with sexbeaches), theme parks, shopping malls, cultural events, site scenes, tours, travel agents, national and internal cuisines, clean entertaining clubs & pubs, spas with traditional and international standards should be available. So, more tourists will be attracted. Culture should not be collided with tourism but should give an added value to tourism.
Entertainments such as Belly dancing consider as an adult entertainment in Sri Lanka, but it is socializing event in middle-eastern cultures and western cultures. Costume of Belly dance make it a seductive or social dance performed either by women or men which is characterized by hip swaying and contracting of the stomach muscles. People are forced to look away the beauty of the world. A beauty for one peson can be disgusting for another. But what we need to realize is life has lot to offer, explore and enjoy rather than doing samething from one generation to another. We need a change, a change just like Mahinda Rajapakse and Barack Obama have already shown.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Lessons from Sri Lanka - Washinton Times
Defeating the enemy on the battlefield
By Peter Leitner and Rajika Jayatilake | Monday, June 22, 2009
Sri Lanka recently emerged victorious from one of the world's longest-running conflicts, once termed an "unwinnable" war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers.
The LTTE is considered one of the deadliest terrorist groups, having invented the concept of the modern-day suicide bomber and carried out the murder of two sitting heads of state. In addition, the Tamil Tigers pioneered use of female suicide bombers, homemade minisubmarines, ultralight aircraft and "warehouse ships" pre-positioned on the high seas to resupply terrorist operations on shore.
These homegrown terrorists held Sri Lanka hostage through brutal acts of terror for almost three decades, demanding a separate state for ethnic Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka while building a vast global terror network.
Many more than 70,000 people were killed and at least 300,000 wounded. In U.S. terms, that would be the equivalent of 1.25 million dead Americans with 4.3 million wounded. The human suffering and economic dislocation is staggering yet is somehow ignored consistently by those abroad who profess to cherish democracy and the dignity of man.
As the self-appointed global leader in the war on terrorism, the United States could learn some significant lessons from Sri Lanka's victory. Here are our top nine:
• Perhaps the most important lesson is the debunking of the widely held belief that terrorism cannot be quelled militarily. The Sri Lankan military demonstrated that professionalism, strategy, discipline and unswerving commitment can beat terrorism.
All too often, the greatest obstacle to military success is the starry-eyed interference by third parties insisting that only diplomacy and negotiation can bring a true end to terror-based conflicts. History has demonstrated repeatedly, and Sri Lanka has just underscored, that negotiation is doomed in the face of an implacable enemy with an absolutist agenda seeking to create change by ruthless use of force.
• Terrorist outfits are highly opportunistic. They excel in politically manipulating third countries as they engage in hollow cease-fire arrangements to buy time, regroup, rearm and initiate surprise offensives. Even in defeat, terrorist operations may continue by initiating violence inside nations that house their exiles and their remaining power base.
• The terrorist support structure dies hard. Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger terrorists were, and still are, backed by an extraordinarily sophisticated, wealthy and highly educated business and professional class. Actively preventing ex-patriot supporters of defeated terrorist organizations from funding, supplying or otherwise supporting the creation of follow-on entities that will resume the violence -- albeit under different names, with different faces -- must cap victory on the battlefield.
This means, in the Sri Lankan case, that the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth are the front-line states in ensuring that their territories will not be used to reignite LTTE's failed but extraordinarily bloody terrorism.
• Terrorist movements rely upon the apathy of third countries toward the suffering that groups operating on their soil cause in distant nations. The hypocritical and self-serving attitude apparent in the commonly expressed "they are engaged only in fundraising here, not violence" not only rationalizes inaction, but also cripples international support for counterterrorism moves deemed vital to host nation interests.
• Even the most sophisticated and creative terror organizations make bad decisions and demonstrate self-defeating behavior. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by LTTE operatives in India brought a profound backlash that saw India effectively bar its soil from being used as a staging area for operations inside Sri Lanka. Once denied physical sanctuary in neighboring countries for combatants, logistics and training activities, terror/insurgent movements are severely crippled.
• Historical animosities do not yield to the wide-eyed "split the difference" mentality that is the hallmark of Western diplomatic and political naivete. Such an approach alienates all parties to a conflict and results in self-deception while exposing the incompetent middleman's own population to attack. Conflicts rooted in history are complex and should not be reduced to simplistic equations.
• If elected Western leaders actually believe their own rhetoric that all civilized nations must cooperate in this global war on terror, they must actively support the anti-terrorist initiatives of fellow democracies around the world. Ideological movements, religious cults, political insurgencies and cults of personality that employ terror to push their agenda should be eradicated as quickly, as universally and as completely as possible.
Even leaders who hold fast to "pragmatism" as a political creed need to be reminded that the incubation and development of terrorist activity in far-off lands will come back to haunt their own citizens sooner rather than later. The Tamil Tigers' terrorist activities went largely ignored by the West for decades. But the techniques they developed have killed thousands in unrelated terror attacks around the world.
For instance, use of "boat bombs" was copied by terrorists in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden Harbor. Western ambivalence toward this long-running tragedy has been costly.
• Sri Lanka's war was complex and challenging, spawning several dimensions of terrorist activity. The war was fought on the ground in Sri Lanka, while propaganda and funds for weapons were handled by LTTE supporters living in the West, and weapons were acquired from Southeast Asia and Central Europe. Although the United States designated the LTTE as a foreign terrorist organization in October 1997, it was not until November 2007 that it banned the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization as an LTTE front organization. Until then, in the guise of charity, LTTE activists were collecting funds and transferring them to the Tiger war chest. Canada proscribed the LTTE in April 2006 and banned the World Tamil Movement (WTM) in June 2008. The banning of these front organizations was a major blow to LTTE terrorist operations.
• Even after the unequivocal military defeat of the LTTE, its overseas supporters defiantly keep the separatist dream alive despite annihilation of most of LTTE's leadership and the death of founder Velupillai Prabhakaran. If unchecked, they may well transform that dream once again into virulent terrorism, and this time, the Eelam War may well be fought locally - by the diaspora in the West.
Peter Leitner is president of the Higgins Counterterrorism Research Center and previously served for 31 years in various national security positions. Rajika Jayatilake is a communications specialist with expertise in international media and public relations.
By Peter Leitner and Rajika Jayatilake | Monday, June 22, 2009
Sri Lanka recently emerged victorious from one of the world's longest-running conflicts, once termed an "unwinnable" war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers.
The LTTE is considered one of the deadliest terrorist groups, having invented the concept of the modern-day suicide bomber and carried out the murder of two sitting heads of state. In addition, the Tamil Tigers pioneered use of female suicide bombers, homemade minisubmarines, ultralight aircraft and "warehouse ships" pre-positioned on the high seas to resupply terrorist operations on shore.
These homegrown terrorists held Sri Lanka hostage through brutal acts of terror for almost three decades, demanding a separate state for ethnic Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka while building a vast global terror network.
Many more than 70,000 people were killed and at least 300,000 wounded. In U.S. terms, that would be the equivalent of 1.25 million dead Americans with 4.3 million wounded. The human suffering and economic dislocation is staggering yet is somehow ignored consistently by those abroad who profess to cherish democracy and the dignity of man.
As the self-appointed global leader in the war on terrorism, the United States could learn some significant lessons from Sri Lanka's victory. Here are our top nine:
• Perhaps the most important lesson is the debunking of the widely held belief that terrorism cannot be quelled militarily. The Sri Lankan military demonstrated that professionalism, strategy, discipline and unswerving commitment can beat terrorism.
All too often, the greatest obstacle to military success is the starry-eyed interference by third parties insisting that only diplomacy and negotiation can bring a true end to terror-based conflicts. History has demonstrated repeatedly, and Sri Lanka has just underscored, that negotiation is doomed in the face of an implacable enemy with an absolutist agenda seeking to create change by ruthless use of force.
• Terrorist outfits are highly opportunistic. They excel in politically manipulating third countries as they engage in hollow cease-fire arrangements to buy time, regroup, rearm and initiate surprise offensives. Even in defeat, terrorist operations may continue by initiating violence inside nations that house their exiles and their remaining power base.
• The terrorist support structure dies hard. Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger terrorists were, and still are, backed by an extraordinarily sophisticated, wealthy and highly educated business and professional class. Actively preventing ex-patriot supporters of defeated terrorist organizations from funding, supplying or otherwise supporting the creation of follow-on entities that will resume the violence -- albeit under different names, with different faces -- must cap victory on the battlefield.
This means, in the Sri Lankan case, that the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth are the front-line states in ensuring that their territories will not be used to reignite LTTE's failed but extraordinarily bloody terrorism.
• Terrorist movements rely upon the apathy of third countries toward the suffering that groups operating on their soil cause in distant nations. The hypocritical and self-serving attitude apparent in the commonly expressed "they are engaged only in fundraising here, not violence" not only rationalizes inaction, but also cripples international support for counterterrorism moves deemed vital to host nation interests.
• Even the most sophisticated and creative terror organizations make bad decisions and demonstrate self-defeating behavior. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by LTTE operatives in India brought a profound backlash that saw India effectively bar its soil from being used as a staging area for operations inside Sri Lanka. Once denied physical sanctuary in neighboring countries for combatants, logistics and training activities, terror/insurgent movements are severely crippled.
• Historical animosities do not yield to the wide-eyed "split the difference" mentality that is the hallmark of Western diplomatic and political naivete. Such an approach alienates all parties to a conflict and results in self-deception while exposing the incompetent middleman's own population to attack. Conflicts rooted in history are complex and should not be reduced to simplistic equations.
• If elected Western leaders actually believe their own rhetoric that all civilized nations must cooperate in this global war on terror, they must actively support the anti-terrorist initiatives of fellow democracies around the world. Ideological movements, religious cults, political insurgencies and cults of personality that employ terror to push their agenda should be eradicated as quickly, as universally and as completely as possible.
Even leaders who hold fast to "pragmatism" as a political creed need to be reminded that the incubation and development of terrorist activity in far-off lands will come back to haunt their own citizens sooner rather than later. The Tamil Tigers' terrorist activities went largely ignored by the West for decades. But the techniques they developed have killed thousands in unrelated terror attacks around the world.
For instance, use of "boat bombs" was copied by terrorists in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden Harbor. Western ambivalence toward this long-running tragedy has been costly.
• Sri Lanka's war was complex and challenging, spawning several dimensions of terrorist activity. The war was fought on the ground in Sri Lanka, while propaganda and funds for weapons were handled by LTTE supporters living in the West, and weapons were acquired from Southeast Asia and Central Europe. Although the United States designated the LTTE as a foreign terrorist organization in October 1997, it was not until November 2007 that it banned the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization as an LTTE front organization. Until then, in the guise of charity, LTTE activists were collecting funds and transferring them to the Tiger war chest. Canada proscribed the LTTE in April 2006 and banned the World Tamil Movement (WTM) in June 2008. The banning of these front organizations was a major blow to LTTE terrorist operations.
• Even after the unequivocal military defeat of the LTTE, its overseas supporters defiantly keep the separatist dream alive despite annihilation of most of LTTE's leadership and the death of founder Velupillai Prabhakaran. If unchecked, they may well transform that dream once again into virulent terrorism, and this time, the Eelam War may well be fought locally - by the diaspora in the West.
Peter Leitner is president of the Higgins Counterterrorism Research Center and previously served for 31 years in various national security positions. Rajika Jayatilake is a communications specialist with expertise in international media and public relations.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Men who killed Thamilselvam speak
by Shamindra Ferdinando
With the war against the LTTE spearheaded by the army coming to an end, the armed forces had discussed some of the operations undertaken by them, ranging from raids conducted by LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols) deep inside enemy-held territory, to bloody ground assaults in the Vanni theatre.
In brief interviews with The Island, Commanding Officers of SLAF Jet Squadrons, Group Captain Sajeewa Hendawitharane (MiGs/No 12), Wing Commander Sampath Wickremeratne (F7s /No 5) and Wing Commander Shehan Fernando (Kfirs/No 10) said that they collectively caused irreparable damage to the enemy. The killing of LTTE frontliner S. P. Thamilselvam in November, 2007, close on the heels of an LTTE attack on the Anuradhapura air base had been one of the highpoints in their campaign.
Hendawitharane, who led the attack on Thamilselvan in Kilinochchi, said that the rising sun gave him in the much needed ‘cover’ to zero-in on the hideout. "I flew a MiG 27 with Shehan at the controls of an Israeli-built Kfir. We took off at 5.55 a.m. and carried out the bombing 25 minutes later taking advantage of the sun which gave perfect cover for our mission," he said. Responding to our queries, he said that they flew on a westerly direction from Iranamadu, east of A 9 and targeted the hideout with a heavy load of bombs. The then Director of Operations, Air Commodore Harsha Abeywickrema had been confident of Thamilselvam’s presence there on that day, he said, adding that Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal Roshan Goonetillike had been a tower of strength.
Hendawitharane said that he dived and manually directed four 500 kg bombs at Thamilselvam at a height of 1850 feet before the Kfir CO targeted the hideout with four 250 kg bombs. According to him, it was one of three locations identified by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI). After a careful study of the terrain with the help of satellite imagery and pictures obtained from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), a pair of jet flying in what Hendawitharane called Panther formation had pulverised the LTTE hideout.
He said that they were warned not to take a look at the target before hitting it to take the enemy by total surprise. Had we alerted the LTTE, Thamilselvam would have taken refuge in a bunker situated next to his hideout, he said.
The Katunayake based No 12 squadron comprises seven MiG 27s and one MiG 23 trainer acquired in two batches in 2000 and 2007. Before the formation of the No 12 squadron, Hendawitharane had been with the No 5 squadron comprising both MiGs and Chinese F7s. Hendawitharane said that during eelam war IV, his squadron carried out 854 sorties. He estimated the weight of ammunition used by his squadron against the LTTE during this period at 1071 tons.
He said that though they used general purpose ammunition against targets, particularly buildings, special ammunition (deep penetration bombs), had been directed at runways. To target runways, the MiGs had dived and bombed at a height of about 100 metres flying at a speed of 1000 kmph, he said, adding that each bomb released at that height had been fitted with a parachute to ensure flying shrapnel wouldn’t hit the bomber.
He said that the successful attack on Thamilselvam helped them to swiftly avenge the devastating attack on the Anuradhapura air base.
Commenting on an attempt jet squadrons made on LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, he said that they deployed five MiG 27s, four Kfirs and three F7s to engage two targets in the Vanni believing Prabhakaran could be at one of the locations. "Seven jets targeted an LTTE hideout at Jayanthinagar and the remaining aircraft hit Puththukudirippu," he said.
He appreciated the support and expertise received from Pakistan, China, India, Russia and Israel to enhance jet operations. "Today we are self sufficient to meet our requirements," he said, highlighting the importance of tactics developed by Sri Lankan jet pilots over the past several years.
In the final stage of the ground battles in and around Nanthi kadal lagoon, Air Chief Marshal Goonetilleke had stationed two MiGs at China bay air base. The MiG chief said that he along with Squadron Leader Asela Jayasekera flew to China bay and stayed there for three weeks. Had the Sea Tigers made an attempt to rescue Prabhakaran and his chief lieutenants, we would have swung into action before the Airforce launched jets from the Katunayake air base. Our presence at China bay would have given us a shorter reaction time, he said.
He talked proudly of an attack mounted on an LTTE artillery point at the northern most point of the Pooneryn area in place to target Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Army Chief General Sarath Fonseka on a visit to the Jaffna peninsula.
Like many other jet pilots, Hendawitharane, too, had flown Italian Siai Mrchettis, a light attack aircraft acquired in 1985. A Siai Marchetti carried two 50 kg bombs, he said, adding that Argentine-built Pucaras joined the fleet in 1993 until the introduction of shoulder filed heat seeking missiles by the LTTE in 1995.
Wing Commander Fernando, who had been an instructor with the advanced flying training wing said that his No 10 squadron comprising ten Kfirs carried out about 1,400 missions. Since the acquisition of Kfirs in 1996, the multi role aircraft had played a pivotal role in the war against the LTTE. He said that though a computerised bombing programming system was available with Kfirs, bombs had to be released manually.
He said that their forte was accurate bombing. The strike on Thamilselvam was one among many successful operations undertaken by the squadron credited with causing heavy damage to the enemy over the past three years. He said that he delivered his bomb load at Thamilselvam’s hideout seconds after Hendawitharane.
Wing Commander Sampath Wickremeratne said that Sri Lanka should have retained a jet capability. "Unfortunately we didn’t expand our capability after phasing out Hunting Percival jet provost MK 3 A and MiG 15 UTI and MiG 17. Had we retained jets instead of going for Siai Marchettis and Pucaras, the situation would have been different," he said.
He said that Sri Lanka acquired two pairs of Chinese F7s in 1991 and used them effectively against the LTTE. In January 2008, the country took delivery of four F7 GS, the most sophisticated jet in Sri Lanka’s arsenal today with in-built air interception radar, he said. It could also carry four heat seeking missiles, he said. Responding to ‘The Island’ queries, he said no other jet in service with the SLAF had this capability.
According to him, an F7 GS could carry two 500 kg bombs or four 250 kg bombs. This was contrary to the belief that all pilots had to release bombs manually.
Wickremeratne had been the second-in-command of No 10 squadron before he received the appointment as chief of No 5 squadron tasked with meeting the threat posed by Air Tigers. The squadron, which is expected to move to China bay later this year comprises eight F7s (two types) and six pilots. According to him, his squadron had carried out about 400 missions in eelam war IV.
He said that before the deployment of F7 GS, the Air Tigers carried out five strikes. After that they mounted four attacks, he said, revealing that he shot down an LTTE aircraft over Iranapalai with a Chinese heat seeking missile as the enemy plane was returning to its base. Although security forces had been unable to recover the wreckage, there was no doubt it was a successful hit, he said.
Commenting on joint operations carried out by jet squadrons, he said once they deployed ten aircraft, four MiGs, two Kfirs and four F7s to engage the LTTE forward defence line at Muhamalai.
He appreciated the support received by Pakistan to attain a high standard in jet operations.
According to him, when compared with Kfirs and MiGs and even Mi 24s, F7s could react faster. "Our reaction time is between 5 to 7 minutes," he said, adding that F7s had intercepted an LTTE aircraft flying over Wilpattu and was on its way to Colombo last year. "I intercepted the enemy on six occasions while my two colleagues, too, intercepted the aircraft each on one occasion. Although all of us had radar locks, there wasn’t enough to fire missiles, he said. There had been another miss some time later, he said. Both F7s and Mi 24s made attempts to intercept the enemy, he said. He said that though he fired a missile, there hadn’t been no contact with the approaching aircraft.
With the war against the LTTE spearheaded by the army coming to an end, the armed forces had discussed some of the operations undertaken by them, ranging from raids conducted by LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols) deep inside enemy-held territory, to bloody ground assaults in the Vanni theatre.
In brief interviews with The Island, Commanding Officers of SLAF Jet Squadrons, Group Captain Sajeewa Hendawitharane (MiGs/No 12), Wing Commander Sampath Wickremeratne (F7s /No 5) and Wing Commander Shehan Fernando (Kfirs/No 10) said that they collectively caused irreparable damage to the enemy. The killing of LTTE frontliner S. P. Thamilselvam in November, 2007, close on the heels of an LTTE attack on the Anuradhapura air base had been one of the highpoints in their campaign.
Hendawitharane, who led the attack on Thamilselvan in Kilinochchi, said that the rising sun gave him in the much needed ‘cover’ to zero-in on the hideout. "I flew a MiG 27 with Shehan at the controls of an Israeli-built Kfir. We took off at 5.55 a.m. and carried out the bombing 25 minutes later taking advantage of the sun which gave perfect cover for our mission," he said. Responding to our queries, he said that they flew on a westerly direction from Iranamadu, east of A 9 and targeted the hideout with a heavy load of bombs. The then Director of Operations, Air Commodore Harsha Abeywickrema had been confident of Thamilselvam’s presence there on that day, he said, adding that Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal Roshan Goonetillike had been a tower of strength.
Hendawitharane said that he dived and manually directed four 500 kg bombs at Thamilselvam at a height of 1850 feet before the Kfir CO targeted the hideout with four 250 kg bombs. According to him, it was one of three locations identified by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI). After a careful study of the terrain with the help of satellite imagery and pictures obtained from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), a pair of jet flying in what Hendawitharane called Panther formation had pulverised the LTTE hideout.
He said that they were warned not to take a look at the target before hitting it to take the enemy by total surprise. Had we alerted the LTTE, Thamilselvam would have taken refuge in a bunker situated next to his hideout, he said.
The Katunayake based No 12 squadron comprises seven MiG 27s and one MiG 23 trainer acquired in two batches in 2000 and 2007. Before the formation of the No 12 squadron, Hendawitharane had been with the No 5 squadron comprising both MiGs and Chinese F7s. Hendawitharane said that during eelam war IV, his squadron carried out 854 sorties. He estimated the weight of ammunition used by his squadron against the LTTE during this period at 1071 tons.
He said that though they used general purpose ammunition against targets, particularly buildings, special ammunition (deep penetration bombs), had been directed at runways. To target runways, the MiGs had dived and bombed at a height of about 100 metres flying at a speed of 1000 kmph, he said, adding that each bomb released at that height had been fitted with a parachute to ensure flying shrapnel wouldn’t hit the bomber.
He said that the successful attack on Thamilselvam helped them to swiftly avenge the devastating attack on the Anuradhapura air base.
Commenting on an attempt jet squadrons made on LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, he said that they deployed five MiG 27s, four Kfirs and three F7s to engage two targets in the Vanni believing Prabhakaran could be at one of the locations. "Seven jets targeted an LTTE hideout at Jayanthinagar and the remaining aircraft hit Puththukudirippu," he said.
He appreciated the support and expertise received from Pakistan, China, India, Russia and Israel to enhance jet operations. "Today we are self sufficient to meet our requirements," he said, highlighting the importance of tactics developed by Sri Lankan jet pilots over the past several years.
In the final stage of the ground battles in and around Nanthi kadal lagoon, Air Chief Marshal Goonetilleke had stationed two MiGs at China bay air base. The MiG chief said that he along with Squadron Leader Asela Jayasekera flew to China bay and stayed there for three weeks. Had the Sea Tigers made an attempt to rescue Prabhakaran and his chief lieutenants, we would have swung into action before the Airforce launched jets from the Katunayake air base. Our presence at China bay would have given us a shorter reaction time, he said.
He talked proudly of an attack mounted on an LTTE artillery point at the northern most point of the Pooneryn area in place to target Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Army Chief General Sarath Fonseka on a visit to the Jaffna peninsula.
Like many other jet pilots, Hendawitharane, too, had flown Italian Siai Mrchettis, a light attack aircraft acquired in 1985. A Siai Marchetti carried two 50 kg bombs, he said, adding that Argentine-built Pucaras joined the fleet in 1993 until the introduction of shoulder filed heat seeking missiles by the LTTE in 1995.
Wing Commander Fernando, who had been an instructor with the advanced flying training wing said that his No 10 squadron comprising ten Kfirs carried out about 1,400 missions. Since the acquisition of Kfirs in 1996, the multi role aircraft had played a pivotal role in the war against the LTTE. He said that though a computerised bombing programming system was available with Kfirs, bombs had to be released manually.
He said that their forte was accurate bombing. The strike on Thamilselvam was one among many successful operations undertaken by the squadron credited with causing heavy damage to the enemy over the past three years. He said that he delivered his bomb load at Thamilselvam’s hideout seconds after Hendawitharane.
Wing Commander Sampath Wickremeratne said that Sri Lanka should have retained a jet capability. "Unfortunately we didn’t expand our capability after phasing out Hunting Percival jet provost MK 3 A and MiG 15 UTI and MiG 17. Had we retained jets instead of going for Siai Marchettis and Pucaras, the situation would have been different," he said.
He said that Sri Lanka acquired two pairs of Chinese F7s in 1991 and used them effectively against the LTTE. In January 2008, the country took delivery of four F7 GS, the most sophisticated jet in Sri Lanka’s arsenal today with in-built air interception radar, he said. It could also carry four heat seeking missiles, he said. Responding to ‘The Island’ queries, he said no other jet in service with the SLAF had this capability.
According to him, an F7 GS could carry two 500 kg bombs or four 250 kg bombs. This was contrary to the belief that all pilots had to release bombs manually.
Wickremeratne had been the second-in-command of No 10 squadron before he received the appointment as chief of No 5 squadron tasked with meeting the threat posed by Air Tigers. The squadron, which is expected to move to China bay later this year comprises eight F7s (two types) and six pilots. According to him, his squadron had carried out about 400 missions in eelam war IV.
He said that before the deployment of F7 GS, the Air Tigers carried out five strikes. After that they mounted four attacks, he said, revealing that he shot down an LTTE aircraft over Iranapalai with a Chinese heat seeking missile as the enemy plane was returning to its base. Although security forces had been unable to recover the wreckage, there was no doubt it was a successful hit, he said.
Commenting on joint operations carried out by jet squadrons, he said once they deployed ten aircraft, four MiGs, two Kfirs and four F7s to engage the LTTE forward defence line at Muhamalai.
He appreciated the support received by Pakistan to attain a high standard in jet operations.
According to him, when compared with Kfirs and MiGs and even Mi 24s, F7s could react faster. "Our reaction time is between 5 to 7 minutes," he said, adding that F7s had intercepted an LTTE aircraft flying over Wilpattu and was on its way to Colombo last year. "I intercepted the enemy on six occasions while my two colleagues, too, intercepted the aircraft each on one occasion. Although all of us had radar locks, there wasn’t enough to fire missiles, he said. There had been another miss some time later, he said. Both F7s and Mi 24s made attempts to intercept the enemy, he said. He said that though he fired a missile, there hadn’t been no contact with the approaching aircraft.
Thinking Aloud - Clash of cultures
By Dr Jay Dubashi
We have never thrown our weight around and have always treated our neighbour with great respect, even under provocation. In fact, as in Sri Lanka, we went to the other extreme, and sent in our army to help them, not to fight them. And that cost us dearly.
It used to be said of Henry the 8th, the corpulent Tudor king of England, that he was singularly unfortunate in his relations with his wives. He had their heads, chopped off, one after another without saying “excuse me.”
The same can be said about the relations between big and small powers, for some reason, they rarely get on with one another, particularly if they happen to be neighbours. America rarely gets on even with its smaller neighbours, let alone some big ones like Mexico. Stalin got so fed up with his neighbours, nearly a dozen of them, that he annexed all of them, and had their governments packing. China is also in trouble with its neighbours, but we are now living in the 21st century and the days when you could settle problems by sending your army are over. You have to grin and bear it.
The only exception is India. We have never thrown our weight around and have always treated our neighbour with great respect, even under provocation. In fact, as in Sri Lanka, we went to the other extreme, and sent in our army to help them, not to fight them. And that cost us dearly.
It has been clear for years, long before the LTTE took to arms, that the Tamils in Sri Lanka were not happy with their lot in that country, although they constitute a big chunk of the population. Technically, the Tamils are full citizens of the country, and theoretically they have the same rights and privileges as the Sinhalese. But the Sinhalese are the dominant community and have not always treated the Tamils with respect.
This is how things soured and the Tamil anger burst into a full-scale insurgency. It has happened in other countries and it happened too in Sri Lanka. But nobody believed that the insurgency would last as many as nearly three decades, during which what began as minor skirmishes would blow up into a full-scale war.
The Sri Lankans have always resented India and Indians, for India is too big and too close for comfort. I had a Sinhalese roommate in London who was sitting for the Bar. I had no idea then what Bar meant but my friend rarely went to wherever he was supposed to go for his lessons, but always came home drunk. But that was not his fault; he had to take so many dinners for his Bar and in England dinners are never complete without drinks.
Sri Lankan students had more money to burn than Indian students. The Sinhalese who go abroad for studies belong to the landed aristocracy, with accounts in London banks and money on tap. We Indians led a hand to mouth existence and often starved. This is also a major difference between Indians and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. Indians are generally poor; the Sinhalese own land and most of the business and are well off. The fight therefore is as much between the rich and the poor as between one community and another.
Another thing I noticed was that Sri Lankans resent India, in the same way most countries resent America. My friend would suddenly get red in the face whenever the subject of India came up, and often left the room. His friends also did the same. Since the Sinhalese look more or less like Indians, they also resented the fact that they were mistaken for Indians. They rarely attended our functions, generally avoided Indian restaurants, unless, of course, they happened to be of Indian origin.
When two cultures clash, there is trouble, particularly if one culture is overpoweringly dominant in the region, as India certainly is. Actually, there is not much difference between Indian and Sinhalese cultures, just as there is not much difference between American and European cultures. Actually, the former is an offshoot of the latter, but go and tell Europeans that they are just like their American cousins. They think that you are insulting them.
I used to be a student in England immediately after the last world war. I was amazed at the antagonism towards America and things American, though it was the Americans who had saved Britain and helped win the war against Hitler.
Everything American was lampooned, including their food, their manners and, of course, their accents. Shopkeepers pretended they had no idea what their American customers were saying, though they had a sharp eye on their wallets bulging with crisp dollars. The Britishers had grasped that the war had played havoc with their place in the world, that they were no more the great imperial power they had been for nearly a century, and their days were over. It was not Britannia but America that ruled the waves, and the Britishers were no more in the picture.
I have never been to Sri Lanka and have no idea why things went suddenly out of control. Did the Tamils really think that they would be able to carve out a place for themselves, not just a place, but a whole nation, just because they were not able to get on with the Sinhalese? Such things happen only when some vested interests are involved. But none of the great powers were interested in splitting the country, as, for instance, in the case of India at the time of Partition. India was split not because the Muslims did not want to live together with Hindus—which may or may not be the case—but because the Britishers wanted the sub-continent split for their own strategic ends. There were no such factors in Sri Lanka.
I feel sorry for our Tamil brothers and sisters who have suffered so much in the war that ultimately brought them nothing and who now have to start their broken lives all over again, from scratch. The world is a very cruel place and man is a cruel animal. India should go all out and help the Tamils for no matter what nationality they belong to, they are our kith and kin, and our blood relations, for, there is such a thing as Indian blood, and it is that blood that binds us together, no matter where fate has taken us or may take us in future. Amen.
We have never thrown our weight around and have always treated our neighbour with great respect, even under provocation. In fact, as in Sri Lanka, we went to the other extreme, and sent in our army to help them, not to fight them. And that cost us dearly.
It used to be said of Henry the 8th, the corpulent Tudor king of England, that he was singularly unfortunate in his relations with his wives. He had their heads, chopped off, one after another without saying “excuse me.”
The same can be said about the relations between big and small powers, for some reason, they rarely get on with one another, particularly if they happen to be neighbours. America rarely gets on even with its smaller neighbours, let alone some big ones like Mexico. Stalin got so fed up with his neighbours, nearly a dozen of them, that he annexed all of them, and had their governments packing. China is also in trouble with its neighbours, but we are now living in the 21st century and the days when you could settle problems by sending your army are over. You have to grin and bear it.
The only exception is India. We have never thrown our weight around and have always treated our neighbour with great respect, even under provocation. In fact, as in Sri Lanka, we went to the other extreme, and sent in our army to help them, not to fight them. And that cost us dearly.
It has been clear for years, long before the LTTE took to arms, that the Tamils in Sri Lanka were not happy with their lot in that country, although they constitute a big chunk of the population. Technically, the Tamils are full citizens of the country, and theoretically they have the same rights and privileges as the Sinhalese. But the Sinhalese are the dominant community and have not always treated the Tamils with respect.
This is how things soured and the Tamil anger burst into a full-scale insurgency. It has happened in other countries and it happened too in Sri Lanka. But nobody believed that the insurgency would last as many as nearly three decades, during which what began as minor skirmishes would blow up into a full-scale war.
The Sri Lankans have always resented India and Indians, for India is too big and too close for comfort. I had a Sinhalese roommate in London who was sitting for the Bar. I had no idea then what Bar meant but my friend rarely went to wherever he was supposed to go for his lessons, but always came home drunk. But that was not his fault; he had to take so many dinners for his Bar and in England dinners are never complete without drinks.
Sri Lankan students had more money to burn than Indian students. The Sinhalese who go abroad for studies belong to the landed aristocracy, with accounts in London banks and money on tap. We Indians led a hand to mouth existence and often starved. This is also a major difference between Indians and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. Indians are generally poor; the Sinhalese own land and most of the business and are well off. The fight therefore is as much between the rich and the poor as between one community and another.
Another thing I noticed was that Sri Lankans resent India, in the same way most countries resent America. My friend would suddenly get red in the face whenever the subject of India came up, and often left the room. His friends also did the same. Since the Sinhalese look more or less like Indians, they also resented the fact that they were mistaken for Indians. They rarely attended our functions, generally avoided Indian restaurants, unless, of course, they happened to be of Indian origin.
When two cultures clash, there is trouble, particularly if one culture is overpoweringly dominant in the region, as India certainly is. Actually, there is not much difference between Indian and Sinhalese cultures, just as there is not much difference between American and European cultures. Actually, the former is an offshoot of the latter, but go and tell Europeans that they are just like their American cousins. They think that you are insulting them.
I used to be a student in England immediately after the last world war. I was amazed at the antagonism towards America and things American, though it was the Americans who had saved Britain and helped win the war against Hitler.
Everything American was lampooned, including their food, their manners and, of course, their accents. Shopkeepers pretended they had no idea what their American customers were saying, though they had a sharp eye on their wallets bulging with crisp dollars. The Britishers had grasped that the war had played havoc with their place in the world, that they were no more the great imperial power they had been for nearly a century, and their days were over. It was not Britannia but America that ruled the waves, and the Britishers were no more in the picture.
I have never been to Sri Lanka and have no idea why things went suddenly out of control. Did the Tamils really think that they would be able to carve out a place for themselves, not just a place, but a whole nation, just because they were not able to get on with the Sinhalese? Such things happen only when some vested interests are involved. But none of the great powers were interested in splitting the country, as, for instance, in the case of India at the time of Partition. India was split not because the Muslims did not want to live together with Hindus—which may or may not be the case—but because the Britishers wanted the sub-continent split for their own strategic ends. There were no such factors in Sri Lanka.
I feel sorry for our Tamil brothers and sisters who have suffered so much in the war that ultimately brought them nothing and who now have to start their broken lives all over again, from scratch. The world is a very cruel place and man is a cruel animal. India should go all out and help the Tamils for no matter what nationality they belong to, they are our kith and kin, and our blood relations, for, there is such a thing as Indian blood, and it is that blood that binds us together, no matter where fate has taken us or may take us in future. Amen.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
“I’m a professional soldier. No politics” - Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka
Army Commander General Sarath FonsekaPerhaps the most lucrative positions in Sri Lanka today, are those of politicians. Any person who rides a wave of popularity will, no doubt, turn that popularity to advantage, and not hesitate to enter politics. But, we found a person, an officer and a gentleman, who refuses to take the massive wave of popularity he currently rides, to entertain any political ambitions. He is none other than the Army Commander, the newly promoted General Sarath Fonseka.
He was interviewed by this columnist, especially, for The Bottom Line, and when this columnist posed the specific question to General Sarath Fonseka, whether he wished to enter politics, the response was a vehement “No. Never.”
Below is the interview General Sarath Fonseka gave this columnist:
Q: Now you have gained much popularity with the masses. You have been able to end a 30 year war within two years and 10 months. Once you retire, do you have any plans to ride on a wave of popularity wave and engage in politics?
A: No. Never. I will never engage in politics.
Q: If you are offered any political positions, will you accept any?
A: No. I will never accept such positions.
Q: Why is that?
A: Because I am a professional soldier.
Q: You were able to finish a war that raged for nearly 30 years, within a short period of 2 years and 10 months. What is the secret behind this success?
A: To win this war, I was backed by strong political leadership. Whenever there was international pressure exerted on the Government, to stop this war, President Mahinda Rajapaksa stood up to the pressure without caving in. Apart from the President, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa too, had confidence in me. They understood the enemy. Both had a good understanding.
When I was appointed Army Commander, I did the following:
I restructured the Army. I improved the Intelligence apparatus.
Enhanced training and maintained strict discipline within the Force. Thereafter, I selected capable Division, Task Force as well as Brigade commanders, not on seniority, but based on their past capabilities in the battlefield. Because, when I was at the battlefront, I had the opportunity of observing the performances of these Officers. I hand picked these Officers on their merits. I placed my confidence on them. I selected those Officers from the Army staff who had confidence in me. Most had the mentality that we cannot win this war, as had been the case in the past three Eelam Wars, because the Sri Lanka Army used traditional tactics.
For example, they concentrated only on capturing certain areas. When the Army captures one area, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) consolidates itself in another area. When I selected the Officers, my assessment of the LTTE was that, it was a conventional guerilla force. It possessed 24 artillery guns, 8-barrel and 6-barrel Multi Barrel Rocket Launchers (MBRL) and a significant number of Multi Purpose Machine Guns (MPMG). All these weapons were smuggled in by sea. Around 80% of Army casualties were due to these heavy weapons.
As Commander, all the Divisions and Task Forces I created were under my direct command. I opened two fronts in the East, and instructed my troops to kill the maximum number of terrorists as well as leaders, as they could. While offensive operations were on in the East, according to my concept, Special Infantry Operations Teams (SIOT) and Special Forces (SF) Commandos, as small teams, infiltrated enemy lines and killed as many LTTE cadres and leaders as possible in the northeast as well. After we liberated the Eastern sector, I deployed three Divisions – 57, 58 and 59 Divisions, Special Forces and Commandos along three sectors.
This particular concept is new to the theory of warfare. I identified the enemy and prepared the operational plans. I had my troops attack the main terrorist strong points. When the strong points were attacked, naturally, the terrorists were weakened.
Even as the battles were on, 15,000 Sergeants and Corporals were commissioned as Officers. When the Officers and soldiers saw the progress in the battlefront, their confidence of winning this war grew by leaps and bounds.
There was a lot of criticism from certain sections of the media and individuals. They said I would not win this war. But I had the confidence that it could be done. I was confident that I could finish this war within three years. As I had mentioned last year, I did not leave this war to my successor to carry out. Like I said, I did it.
Q: What are the casualty figures from the Sri Lanka Army? Deaths and wounded ?
A: From the Sri Lanka Army, 190 Officers and 5,200 soldiers sacrificed their lives to liberate the country from the terrorists. Also, 27,000 Officers and soldiers were wounded, of which, 5,000 are permanently disabled. Of the 27,000 casualties, 80% were mainly due to the LTTE’s artillery firepower.
Q: What are the LTTE’s casualty figures?
A: We killed 22,000 terrorists including their leaders. Another 9,000 have surrendered. Based on civilian information from within the IDP camps, we were able to arrest another 4,000 more. And we are hunting them, if there are any left.
Q: What is the strength of the Army right now?
A: Currently, the Army is 200,000 strong. And it will be increased.
Q: You want to further strengthen the Army. What are your plans for this?
A: The plans for expansion are military secrets. The Sri Lanka Army is currently doing a research regarding its various objectives and requirements.
Although terrorism has been eradicated in Sri Lanka, Eelam extremists are present in Sri Lanka and also worldwide. I call them ‘Eelamists’. When there is a strong Army, nobody can interfere with the sovereignty of our country. A strong Army is essential for a country’s stability. In the liberated areas, we have already set up camps. When the Army is strong, there is no way for terrorism to raise its head.
Q: The war is over now. Or, we can safely assume it is so, and we do not foresee any threats. How are you going to utilise this massive force of 200,000 for the country’s development?
A: Even when the war was ongoing in the North, we constructed the roads and bridges in the East, which was liberated. At the moment, we are constructing some roads in the East. So, according to Government requirements, the Army will utilise its Engineering Regiments to develop and construct buildings, roads, bridges, etc.
Q: How about the Intelligence apparatus? This aspect cannot be seen by the public. After being appointed Commander, you said you were going to improve the Intelligence arm and Training for military personnel?
A: We do have a strong and vibrant Intelligence capability at the moment. They are doing a proper job. The Navy said it sank 10 LTTE arms ships. Out of those 10, eight were purely on Intelligence provided by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI).
Because of our Intelligence capabilities, we were able to prevent several major disasters that may have rocked Colombo city as well as economic targets. Also, based on our Intelligence, the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) was able to destroy many LTTE positions. One such classic example is the aerial targeting of a building in the North, which killed the LTTE’s political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan. This attack was based on Intelligence provided by the DMI.
The SLAF gave us very good support. It transported nearly a million of our troops during this battle, and also supported us in evacuating casualties as well as bringing in supplies. Whenever necessary, it gave us the required firepower with its MI 24 helicopter gun-ships and fighter jets. It also provided the UAV link to Colombo and the offensive Divisions, which were really helpful in our operations.
Q: This war is over, is the Training process for Officers and soldiers still continuing?
A: The Training will continue. That is how an Army works. That is, a professional Army. Even during the height of the battles, young Officers from the battlefront were given quality Training at the Diyatalawa Academy and the Kotelawela Defence Academy. These Officers were the ones that confronted the enemy. And the soldiers were trained at several Training centers. Their Training played a crucial part in winning this war.
Q: When you were appointed Commander of the Army, you said you will not tolerate corruption within the Army. At the moment, what is the level of corruption in the Army, if any?
A: You can’t change people overnight. I have already started to wipe out corruption within the Army. Not from bottom to top. I have started from the top and am going to the bottom.
I can give you examples. I court marshaled a Major General and sent home. Another is being court marshaled. Our intelligence was able to nab two Majors with links to the LTTE. One was court marshaled and sentenced to death. But the President commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. The other Major’s case is proceeding.
If corruption is found, until charges are proved, I allocate the Officer concerned to the ‘Common Stream’ and withhold his promotions and privileges. Court marshal will act according to Military law
Each and every complaint will be inquired into by the Military Police and, if there are any allegations against any Officers, we will definitely take necessary action. I will not tolerate any corrupt Officers within the Army. Every transaction by the Sri Lanka Army has been transparent.
Q: Are you happy with the institutions that train Army personnel? The Cadet School, the Defence Academy etc?
A: Yes, they are doing a good job of training.
Q: Sri Lanka is perhaps the first country to eliminate terrorism. Even the West has been unable to do such a thing. Are you going to set up a Counter Terrorism Institute in Sri Lanka?
A: We already have a Counter-Terrorism Training Division at our Training centres.
Q: Have any foreign countries requested the Sri Lanka Army to train their military personnel?
A: There are some countries which have approached us with such requests.
Q: If you are offered the position of Chief of Defence Staff, will you accept it?
A: If it is offered, yes, I will accept it.
Q: Is the LTTE’s intelligence head Pottu Amman in Military custody?
A: Well, if he is in our custody, then, we will say he is in our custody.
Q: Has Pottu Amman’s body been recovered?
A: We recovered the bodies of Pottu Amman’s two sons, both self-styled LTTE ‘colonels’. And when our intelligence members arrested some LTTE intelligence cadres, they confirmed Pottu Amman’s death.
Q: Why was the Army unable to recover or identify Pottu Amman’s body?
A: There were some bodies which were beyond recognition and some were decomposed, Pottu Amman’s body along with them
Q: Are there more active LTTE cadres around?
A: Yes, there are still some within the jungle areas. I have sent two battalions of Commandos and Special Forces to hunt them, and they too, will be eliminated. Recently, we killed 11 such cadres in Ampara.
Q: Your troops recovered many bodies of Tiger cadres. Did they ever come across any who had committed suicide by swallowing cyanide capsules?
A: Only one female Tiger cadre bit her cyanide capsule, after being shot and injured. She died.
Q: Didn’t Velupillai Prabhakaran bite his cyanide capsule?
A: Prabhakaran had a cyanide capsule in his pocket. He was not wearing it around his neck, like all Tiger cadres are supposed to do.
Q: What news do you have regarding Prabhakaran’s wife, daughter Dvaragha and his younger son?
A: Prabhakaran’s wife, his younger son and daughter have slipped away by sea. This fact was confirmed by the Defence Ministry’s Intelligence Advisor Major General C. Seneviratne. Knowing that Prabhakaran too, will attempt to escape via the sea route, I specifically instructed the Army’s 58 and 59 Divisions to link up at Puthumathalan ‘No Fire’ Zone , so as to cut off this escape route.
Q: Do you possess any information regarding any support by the Sinhalese in the South for the LTTE?
A: There are. Our intelligence personnel are looking for traitors. They have helped the LTTE, purely for financial gains.
Q: Though the war is over, there are still checkpoints and barriers in and around Colombo. The public may ask why they are being maintained, if the war is over. Your response?
A: Although the terrorist leadership has been wiped out, there may still be suicide cadres around. The threat still prevails. So, as the security situation improves and intelligence confirms that there are no more threats, these checkpoints and barriers will be gradually removed. I have handpicked the Officers to handle the security in and around Colombo. I want to ensure that the postwar period is as normal as possible.
Q: Have you advised the public against visiting the Yala National Park?
A: No. Yala is already open to the public, and there are visitors there even now. I have provided good security in the region, by stationing a whole Battalion there.
Q: As Army Commander, what is your message to the public?
A: I say a very big “thank you” to the public, for the massive support shown towards us. I also thank a section of the media, which provided the real picture of the war situation. It helped our massive recruitment drive and also, boosted our morale. I thank the public for their support.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
What the West does not say
Tuesday, 02 June 2009
by Rajiva Wijesinha
Secretary General
Secretartiat for Coordinating the Peace Process
For many years we indulged the LTTE, in part because we felt sorry for the Tamils of Sri Lanka and believed the LTTE slogan that Tigers were Tamils and Tamils were Tigers, in part because we thought the Tigers would win out and would provide us with a useful base to extend our influence in South Asia.
Even though present in profusion in Tiger controlled areas, we kept quiet about their forced recruitment of one person per family. This was recorded in several internal UN documents, back in 2007 and earlier, but these were documents that none of us leaked. Leaks occur only when we want them to occur. We also kept quiet when in 2008 they raised the level of forced conscription to two per family.
We connived at their refusal to release child soldiers, and were grateful when, in 2007, five years after the Ceasefire Agreement, long after we had given them a million dollars for the purpose, they said they would finally release and rehabilitate. We accepted their explanation that they could not release those over 17 since their legislation provided for such recruitment. While officially representing the UN we repeated their use of such terms, even though we knew that national and international law forbade this practice, and that terrorists could not legislate.
For many years we spent millions of dollars of taxpayer money in LTTE controlled areas on projects with no identifiable outcomes. When asked for examples of the capacity we had developed, we claimed that we had taught the people to boil water before they drank it.
When the LTTE was corralling people into ever smaller areas, though we granted that the health situation was under control, we predicted that there would soon be epidemics. These monthly predictions were widely publicized in our media outlets. When the predicted epidemics did not take place, we gave no credit to the health services which had been maintained by government for years in the LTTE controlled areas, but rather declared that the reason was our having taught the peasants to boil water before drinking it.
We kept quiet right through 2008 when the Tigers were forcing people to flee along with them. We heard the Sri Lankan government asking us to condemn this and demand that the Tigers let their people go, but we said and did nothing, in part because we did not want to damage our relations with the Tigers, in part because we thought this a very clever tactic which would help us at the end to halt the advance of the Sri Lankan forces.
We continued to say nothing even when our own workers were forbidden to leave with their families, and we realized that they too would be held hostage by the Tigers in the endgame that was planned.
It was only when the trap had been set and escape was difficult that, towards the end of 2008, a few of us started asking the Tigers to release the civilians.
From the beginning of 2009 we started making up figures of killed civilians. We used the term extrapolate, and came up with figures far in excess of those for which we had our own witnesses, much in excess of those for which we had reports from Tiger sources. We agreed the figures in our reports were uncertain, but we managed regularly to leak these reports, at crucial moments which we thought essential to slow the advance of the Sri Lankan forces.
On the first day on which there were reports of many civilian deaths, which we initially attributed to the government, we later found that most were attributable to the LTTE. Though we put this on record to the government, which is the closest we will ever come to an apology, we made sure that we did not do this publicly.
We arranged for what we felt was evidence against the government to appear on a website and called up journalists to make sure they saw this, and we made sure there was no inquiry into what we claimed was an accident, nor into any leaks.
We know that several of our employees have carried or secreted weapons, but this does not take away from our right to insist that none of us be searched, and we can only hope that some things will not be found.
We use large gas guzzling vehicles, travelling in convoy, often with only one driver in them, but we are spending all this money only on behalf of the poor suffering Sri Lankan people.
We have used these vehicles to secrete LTTE personnel, most recently getting some of them out of the camps in Vavuniya in which they have been so unfairly confined, because they are really freedom fighters and we believe in freedom of expression, and the freedom to express oneself violently should not be circumscribed provided the victims are not us.
We know that not many of us do anything improper, and that the vast majority behave very well, have never done anything that might give strength to terrorists, and have never sought to undermine the democratically elected government of this country which is such a comfortable place to live in if you are well off.
However we know that to admit that any of us has done anything wrong would undermine the whole mystique which allows us to function with such authority, and therefore we will deny most things, and simply apologize when we cannot deny, but never in writing, since that leaves things vague enough and liable to be forgotten soon. We will not have any inquiries into anything that might be wrong, and certainly never make public the results of such inquiries if by chance they do occur.
We know that in general Sri Lankan officials do not do anything very wrong, and only a few might err, but we have to point the finger generally to ensure that wrongdoing does not recur, and insist that full responsibility be taken for any error by the state as a whole, through inquiries which can preferably be run by us.
If people accuse us of double standards with regard to this or anything else they should understand that by any standard we are richer and control the international media, and by God, who lives somewhere in the West, we will keep it that way.
Courtesy: Island.lk
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 June 2009 )
by Rajiva Wijesinha
Secretary General
Secretartiat for Coordinating the Peace Process
For many years we indulged the LTTE, in part because we felt sorry for the Tamils of Sri Lanka and believed the LTTE slogan that Tigers were Tamils and Tamils were Tigers, in part because we thought the Tigers would win out and would provide us with a useful base to extend our influence in South Asia.
Even though present in profusion in Tiger controlled areas, we kept quiet about their forced recruitment of one person per family. This was recorded in several internal UN documents, back in 2007 and earlier, but these were documents that none of us leaked. Leaks occur only when we want them to occur. We also kept quiet when in 2008 they raised the level of forced conscription to two per family.
We connived at their refusal to release child soldiers, and were grateful when, in 2007, five years after the Ceasefire Agreement, long after we had given them a million dollars for the purpose, they said they would finally release and rehabilitate. We accepted their explanation that they could not release those over 17 since their legislation provided for such recruitment. While officially representing the UN we repeated their use of such terms, even though we knew that national and international law forbade this practice, and that terrorists could not legislate.
For many years we spent millions of dollars of taxpayer money in LTTE controlled areas on projects with no identifiable outcomes. When asked for examples of the capacity we had developed, we claimed that we had taught the people to boil water before they drank it.
When the LTTE was corralling people into ever smaller areas, though we granted that the health situation was under control, we predicted that there would soon be epidemics. These monthly predictions were widely publicized in our media outlets. When the predicted epidemics did not take place, we gave no credit to the health services which had been maintained by government for years in the LTTE controlled areas, but rather declared that the reason was our having taught the peasants to boil water before drinking it.
We kept quiet right through 2008 when the Tigers were forcing people to flee along with them. We heard the Sri Lankan government asking us to condemn this and demand that the Tigers let their people go, but we said and did nothing, in part because we did not want to damage our relations with the Tigers, in part because we thought this a very clever tactic which would help us at the end to halt the advance of the Sri Lankan forces.
We continued to say nothing even when our own workers were forbidden to leave with their families, and we realized that they too would be held hostage by the Tigers in the endgame that was planned.
It was only when the trap had been set and escape was difficult that, towards the end of 2008, a few of us started asking the Tigers to release the civilians.
From the beginning of 2009 we started making up figures of killed civilians. We used the term extrapolate, and came up with figures far in excess of those for which we had our own witnesses, much in excess of those for which we had reports from Tiger sources. We agreed the figures in our reports were uncertain, but we managed regularly to leak these reports, at crucial moments which we thought essential to slow the advance of the Sri Lankan forces.
On the first day on which there were reports of many civilian deaths, which we initially attributed to the government, we later found that most were attributable to the LTTE. Though we put this on record to the government, which is the closest we will ever come to an apology, we made sure that we did not do this publicly.
We arranged for what we felt was evidence against the government to appear on a website and called up journalists to make sure they saw this, and we made sure there was no inquiry into what we claimed was an accident, nor into any leaks.
We know that several of our employees have carried or secreted weapons, but this does not take away from our right to insist that none of us be searched, and we can only hope that some things will not be found.
We use large gas guzzling vehicles, travelling in convoy, often with only one driver in them, but we are spending all this money only on behalf of the poor suffering Sri Lankan people.
We have used these vehicles to secrete LTTE personnel, most recently getting some of them out of the camps in Vavuniya in which they have been so unfairly confined, because they are really freedom fighters and we believe in freedom of expression, and the freedom to express oneself violently should not be circumscribed provided the victims are not us.
We know that not many of us do anything improper, and that the vast majority behave very well, have never done anything that might give strength to terrorists, and have never sought to undermine the democratically elected government of this country which is such a comfortable place to live in if you are well off.
However we know that to admit that any of us has done anything wrong would undermine the whole mystique which allows us to function with such authority, and therefore we will deny most things, and simply apologize when we cannot deny, but never in writing, since that leaves things vague enough and liable to be forgotten soon. We will not have any inquiries into anything that might be wrong, and certainly never make public the results of such inquiries if by chance they do occur.
We know that in general Sri Lankan officials do not do anything very wrong, and only a few might err, but we have to point the finger generally to ensure that wrongdoing does not recur, and insist that full responsibility be taken for any error by the state as a whole, through inquiries which can preferably be run by us.
If people accuse us of double standards with regard to this or anything else they should understand that by any standard we are richer and control the international media, and by God, who lives somewhere in the West, we will keep it that way.
Courtesy: Island.lk
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 June 2009 )
Monday, June 1, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)