Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

Single ministry for tourism, aviation, urban development?

The ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) which succeeded at this week s parliamentary poll, hopes to establish a single ministry for tourism, aviation and urban development.

This statement was made by UPFA's Gampaha district leader Basil Rajapaksa, also advisor to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, when he met senior executives from Sri Lanka's business community at a Colombo hotel at a pre-election discussion on Sunday night. The meeting had been arranged by Minister and UPFA candidate Milinda Moragoda.

During the discussion, travel trade representative raised issues about the Tourism Ministry and its inconsistencies in recent times with three ministers were appointed in the past few months.

Fly Dubai soon in Lanka

Emirates budget carrier, Fly Dubai has made an application to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to launch services to Sri Lanka and this is currently being reviewed by the regulator, according to informed sources.

If approved, this will be the second budget carrier in Colombo after Malaysia s Air Asia.

INS Magar, a landing ship tank with a Chetak helicopter on board, is scheduled to remain in Sri Lanka for a few days.

Used for amphibious and replenishment operations, the ship measures 125 metres in length and has a displacement of 5,700 tonnes. It carries a crew of 20 officers and 235 sailors on board.

More than 100 SLN Officers under-training and a number of sailors will embark INS Magar for a practical training session on areas ranging from navigation, communication, seamanship, Naval, damage control and fire fighting.

The ship s visit reflects the cordial friendship that exists between the two friendly Navies and further strengthens the bilateral relations of the two neighbouring nations.

Over the last several years, India has trained thousands of Lankan armed force personnel at its military institutions ranging from the Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School at Vairengte (Mizoram) to the School of Artillery at Devlali (Maharashtra), and provided specialised naval courses in gunnery, navigation, and anti-submarine warfare.

The strategy is to provide arms and military training, coupled with intelligence sharing and co-ordinated naval patrolling.

Sri Lanka Army has decided to send Army's Women Corp members for United Nations (UN) overseas peacekeeping operations.

Army Commander Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya has said for the first time in the history of the Army it would send its Women's Corp members for UN peacekeeping missions.

Lieutenant General Jayasuriya in his New Year message said the number of soldiers and officers being sent for peace keeping missions would also be increased.

'We are ready to respond to a UN request if and when it is made,' he has said.

Following directives received from the President, the United Nations contingent is to be raised to 5000 from the present 950 cadre at a time, he said in his messsage.

The Army Commander has said that after almost three decades of war and the eradication of terrorism Sri Lankans were preparing to celebrate the New Year with their hearts full of hope for a better future.

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INTRODUCTION

Sri Lanka has undergone irreversible changes after President Mahinda Rajapaksa s successive victories in the Eelam War-IV followed by the presidential poll and parliamentary elections. After the three interconnected events, President Rajapaksa has emerged as THE most powerful head of state in the nation s history. His vast powers as executive president are further augmented by his ten-party United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) coalition s majority in the newly elected parliament.

In addition to this he is commander in chief of oversized armed forces which has become a power centre after the Eelam War IV. Thus after the final victory over the LTTE, the President emerged a modern day Dutagemmunu, the legendary Sinhala king who defeated the Tamil ruler Elara of Anuradhapura.

ARMED FORCES AFTER THE WAR

Rajapaksa s contribution to the military victory

A symbiotic relationship between the armed forces and the President began with President Rajapaksa and the newly appointed army commander Lt General Sarath Fonseka started their terms of office with the same goal - to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). For Rajapaksa defeat of LTTE was fulfilment of an electoral promise while for the army commander it was a vow to liquidate the LTTE that had heaped ignominy on the army in three earlier episode of Eelam War. In the process of successfully achieving their goals, both the President and General Fonseka became national heroes. But after the downsizing of Fonseka, after his unsuccessful attempt to challenge the President s bid for re-election, President Rajapaksa has emerged the cock of the walk elected to rule the country for nearly seven more years.

Armed forces, particularly the army, before their transformation into a strong and powerful force, were considered a rather weak and professionally not so competent. This is not wholly correct in the earlier Eelam War the army drove out the LTTE from Jaffna peninsula in Operation Riviresa in October 1995, and never allowed the insurgents to stage a comeback there. However, unfortunately public remembered it only for failures: large scale desertions, corruption, and some notorious debacles at the hands of the LTTE due to its stodgy leadership that failed to enlarge its victories. But the May 2009 victory has changed this armed forces have at last gained recognition as the vanguards of Sri Lanka security.

President Rajapaksa s contribution in transforming the armed forces into fighting machines should not be ignored. To achieve his goal he created a politico-administrative structure to help armed forces successfully reach their military objectives, unmindful of its enormous cost in terms of finance, manpower, governance and international relations.

He also provided the much needed political support for the armed forces. When he took over as President, things on the political front were abysmal. Schism between the outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the erstwhile Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had stalled the government from taking any strategic initiative to revive the negotiation at the peace process. And the LTTE which had the military initiative at the time of ceasefire now held the political initiative also.

To change this, Rajapaksa strengthened his coalition in parliament by attracting defectors from the opposition benches. Once he was politically strong he had no hesitation in discarding the Peace Process 2002 which got bogged down after 2003. While doing so, he successfully weathered adverse international reaction, particularly from the Four Co-Chairs of the Peace Process the European Union, Japan, Norway and the U.S. At the same time, he took care to allow face saving leeway for international efforts to bring about resumption of the peace process. However, when the LTTE failed to respond to international efforts there was no stopping the President from seizing the military option.

The President s approach to fighting the LTTE was also different from that of the earlier presidents. Unlike his predecessors, he went to war with his eyes wide open and listened to the armed forces commanders to choose a place and time to start the war. Once it started he provided all the help required to make the armed forces quantitatively and qualitatively strong. To keep a close interface between the government and armed forces he called in his two brothers Basil and Gotabaya - from overseas and appointed them as presidential advisor and defence secretary respectively.

Though his detractors accuse him of running the government as a family affair , it helped formation of close knit executive troika co of his two brothers and Lt General Fonseka, the Army Commander to plan and conduct the war. While Basil Rajapakse provided the political interface for the war, Gotabaya Rajapakse provided the government interface for military operations. Thus the military operations had seamless political and government support. As the defence ministry also controls law and order and public security, actions of paramilitary forces, civil defence forces and the police were coordinated with army s operational requirements.

This arrangement continued even after Basil Rajapakse became a parliament member later on. Initially, Sri Lanka s a broad plan was probably to take on the LTTE in its own turf and seize military initiative back from the insurgents and regain control of territory under insurgent control. But the victory in Mavil Aru came in rather easily than expected in July 2006. Then onwards any pause in operation came only when the army commander wanted, mostly to induct more troops in the offensive.

Sri Lanka always felt that India had played spoil sport in its conflict with Tamil insurgents. So throughout the conflict President Rajapaksa handled India with kid gloves. He made a conscious effort to prevent any Tamil Nadu swing in favour of Tamil insurgents from interfering with his military operations. This is a significant aspect because in earlier wars. Fortunately for the President, this job was a little easy thanks to Prabhakaran s mindlessly assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1992 made it politically impossible for India to directly intervene in Sri Lanka s conflict. To add to President s comfort, the LTTE made no conscious effort to mend its relations with India, and strengthen its weakened political constituency in Tamil Nadu.

The President in a strategic ploy identified his campaign against the LTTE as part of the global war against terrorism. India and the U.S. started providing regular intelligence inputs and technical support on the movement of LTTE s shipping logistics. The LTTE was banned in 32 countries particularly after the assassination of Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar. With that foreign assistance to Sri Lanka in its war against the LTTE gained legitimacy.

Thus President made a substantive contribution to directly and indirectly help the armed forces not only to become powerful but achieve total victory against the LTTE after 26 years of war. Probably the armed forces feel beholden to the President for restoring its pride. And President Rajapaksa is likely to continue to command personal loyalty of commanders, who have been carefully chosen by him presumably after assessing them on this count.

On the other hand the negative aspects of Rajapaksa s style of achieving his goals discussed in the paper titled Sri Lanka: President Rajapaksa s victory and the 'power problem' have tarnished the image of the armed forces also. This has given rise to allegations of lack of accountability, corruption, human rights violations and war crimes against the armed forces, particularly the army, during the war. Administrative actions taken so far have neither been adequate nor convincing.

General Fonseka and expansion of army

When Fonseka took over as army commander, army was in bad shape. Between 2003 and 2005 repeated LTTE bomb strikes and pistol group attacks had taken their toll of military intelligence operatives. The navy fared no better. Repeated LTTE Sea Tiger suicide boat attacks confined the navy to its own shores. As the armed forces of a legitimate government, they could not carry out retaliatory strikes without government approval as it would violate the ceasefire agreement. (And till President Rajapaksa came to power such an approval was not given.) This sapped the morale of armed forces. This made the ambitious General angry at the way army had been made to pay the price for ineptness of politicians and the government, under the peace process 2002.

General Fonseka s leadership significantly contributed to the following aspects in turning around the around the army to become a sizeable force with proven battlefield record. Specifically he paid attention to improve the following aspects, despite certain abrasive aspects of his leadership style.