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| Sunday, 6 January 2002 |
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Ex-SLAF chief comes down to brass tacks by Ramani Kangaraarachchi Conflicting views on the outcome of various reports on the devastating July 2001 LTTE attack on the Bandaranaike International Airport and the Katunayake Air Force Base has caused grave concern with many wondering whether the Air Force was guilty of negligence, and if not who is responsible for security. "Court of Inquiry" the latest report on the attack submitted by Air Vice Marshal E. V. Tennakoon whose services was terminated two weeks later, absolves the Air Force HQ of sole responsibility for security and maintains that safeguarding the base is the responsibility of several divisions. The Sunday Observer spoke to the former Air Force Commander Air Vice Marshal Harry Gunatillake about Tennakoon's report and various other issues pertaining to the attack. Excerpts of the interview Q: Among the many observations made in Tennakoon's report one pertinent issue is the shared responsibility in certain areas of the sectors at the Air Force base. Would you like to comment on this? A: There is no question of shared responsibility when it comes to high security zones such as the Airport. You can't have shared responsibility. One person must be responsible. I can give you a fine example. When I was a Director at the BIA and was visiting the Airport I pointed out to the then Chairman that the system of shared security will never work. Because at the entrance, it was Air Force doing the security, and inside it was Airport Aviation and on the tarmac it was Air Lanka Security. Also the functions of these units are come under two ministries. When something goes wrong, one puts the blame on the other. Air Force can secure their territory, Air Lanka can take over the tarmac, but both should come under one unified command. You can delegate the authority but not the responsibility. Q: According to the 'Court of Inquiry' report it seems that Air Force is not responsible for this incident. Do you think this absolves the Air Force Commander of any responsibility?. A: Here, I wish to say that the Commander is a busy man. He cannot be directly responsible for everything. As I said earlier, he can delegate his authority to others. But when it comes to BIA it was not under the control of the base commander. The Air Force element at the BIA is responsible to the Directorate of operations. Therefore the responsibility has to be borne by the Air Force HQ too. Directorate of operations come under the Air Force Commander . Therefore the commander must take some of the blame even indirectly. Q: The LTTE is well known for commemorating July 24th as Black July and the security forces should have been on full alert due to the bad experiences in the past. But certain reports states that there was a Cabaret dance and a tombola night at the Naikanda camp on Friday 20 and Sunday 22 July. This event had been organised without the knowledge of the Base Commander. How do you justify this?. A: Well, there is no harm in having entertainment for the men, but I am surprised this had happened. It looked as the Aviation and Air Force had both paid no attention to tighten security on this critical day. The base commander cannot be waived of his responsibility. I would have postponed or advanced the event by one month, if I was the Commander. Having said that I must also say on behalf of the Air Force Commander that it is not easy to defend a huge area with 300 odd men it may have been sufficient during peace time but at a time like this you need about 3000 men to secure that extent of land. Q: Do you think that there is something else behind this incident other than negligence and poor command and control. Something like leaking out information to the LTTE for money. A: There is a great possibility for that. But probably not very many were involved. There may have been couple of informants in the Air Force who would have helped the LTTE for a five figure amount, and provided them with information as to location, duty patterns of the people and such details. Q: The court has recommended that the total damage caused by the attack which runs into billions of rupees in public funds to be written off. Do you think it is reasonable to write off such a large amount of money from the public funds without penalising the guilty and making public pay for their negligence? A: We have lost 80% of the Air Force wealth alone. In matters of this nature, it is impractical to ask anybody to pay such a large amount. But responsible people must be severely punished. Then at least the others will learn to be careful in the future. Q: Is it true that a very senior officer responsible for this incident was reprimanded by the President herself and now he is earmarked to go abroad for training. If so according to Air Force policy can you recommend such officers for foreign training. A: According to what I have heard it is correct. Being a senior officer reprimand by the President of the country is a very severe punishment and a black mark which goes to his personal file, in fact the policy of the three services is not to consider such officers for any promotions. |
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