Army diversifies duties after defeating terrorism - Army Commander Lt. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya

By Dhaneshi Yatawara

Men of the Sri Lankan Army are involved in building the war torn areas of the nation, continuing inquiries about the allegations thrown at them and growing food for the fellow civilian – all while maintaining the strong defence to protect this pearl of the Indian Ocean.

People across the seas say they have done wrong and they are trying to see what they have done wrong by trying to protect the country. “We have a big man power over 200,000 personnel. We are paid by the government and thus we are duty bound to our country. We need to contribute to activities for the betterment of the country,” said Commander of the Army Lt. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya in an interview with the Sunday Observer.

Question: It was said that you will study the Court of Inquiry report and submit a full report along with your observations to the Defence Secretary. What is its current position?

Answer: I completely studied the report by the Army Court of Inquiry submitted on February 15 and my report with my observations is getting drafted and I’m hoping to hand it over to Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa soon.

Normally under the Army protocol Court of Inquiry reports are not made public. It is a classified document. It is given out only at an instance where somebody’s character is affected. Such a person is entitled to a copy of the inquiry report on a payment of the cost of the document. That is the law.

But in this instance as allegations are affecting the entire Army we will prepare a summary document. Part two of the investigation is continuing by the Court of Inquiry (CoI) headed by Major General Chrishantha de Silva.

For the first part the CoI interviewed number of officers who were in command on the ground during the final phase and in addition they spoke to officers in charge of artillery firing. The report released on February 15 was the conclusion of this part.

All these interviews showed evidently that the orders were properly conveyed from the top-most position to the last soldier to safeguard civilian lives when attacking terrorists.

The Humanitarian Operation was conducted strictly in accordance with the “Zero Civilian Casualty” directive made by President Mahinda Rajapaksha and commanders at all times obeyed.

Our officers and soldiers who were responsible for artillery firing, clearly said, that when the No fire Zones were declared to ensure not to fire in that area they have added a further 500 metres to that.

That is the safety measure they have taken. According to the testimony these may have happened due to unlawful acts of the LTTE such as targeting civilians fleeing to the safety of Army held areas and likely routes of escape, dropping of artillery rounds fired by ill-trained LTTE gunners on to civilian concentrations, employment of sub-standard artillery guns and incompatible and sub-standard artillery rounds obtained from illegal sources by the LTTE, forced conscription of civilians including children and old people by LTTE for combat purposes, thus exposing them to danger.

There is no detail evidence given that is to say a particular day, time or a location. If there were, then the investigations would have been easier. Then the board would have been able to investigate exact details to see who was responsible.

First part was to find out details on heavy civilian casualty due to artillery fire. Part two of that is to investigate on allegations made by ‘Channel 4’. It is a difficult investigation for the Board because there is no exact information on these allegations.

There are only few video footages and we have to identify these soldiers through interviewing ground commanders who were deployed at that time. So it is a very complicated inquiry. On behalf of the army the Investigation board will do their best.

Q: Channel 4 has produced a third documentary on ‘the last days’ titled No Fire Zone, which alleges that Forces killed the 14-year-old son of Prabhakaran. What is your comment on this allegation?

A: These allegations come out every time the United Nations Human Rights Council Sessions start. All this while, when these pictures and footages were there with them, they kept quiet. It is very unfortunate that this is happening.

The amount of work this government, the security forces and as a whole the country has done for reconciliation, reconstruction is not mentioned anywhere.

But they only continue with those fabricated stories and brought out to highlight to discredit the country. That is how I look at it.

Q: We are stepping in to the fourth year of the post war era following a victory over a 30 year old terrorist war. The country is changing. What are the current priorities of the Army in this changing scenario?

A: We have a big manpower of over 200,000 personnel. We are paid by the government and thus we are duty bound to our country. We need to contribute to activities that happen to the betterment of the country. So now we are involved in many programs assisting the government development activities. Army personnel are involved in work be it agriculture, building roads and helping communities. There is a requirement also to keep men also occupied. Because, after a very stressful work during the humanitarian operation, if we let the men to idle, it can lead to many other complications. I personally feel that keeping our men occupied has helped to overcome whatever the post war trauma they might have had. This is one of the reasons how Army manages.

Just like any other Army normal activities were our first responsibility. So immediately with the humanitarian operation it was the military who helped the Government agencies to revive the entire program. And now we are satisfied that the environment has returned to normal and the Government mechanism is in full force in those areas.

On the directives of the Security Council lead by the President and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa we have now moved in to our own cantonments. Apart from development work we continue our training and keeping the Army fit and ready to face any threat.

Q: The Army personnel are heavily engaged in numerous development activities of the country. How is the Army managing to deploy a large number of personnel for these added responsibilities?

A: Everybody in the Army is not involved in development activities. We have dedicated troops. If you take for construction we have 14 battalions of the Engineer Services regiment. Strength—wise there are about almost 14,000 men. They are dedicated professional construction people. Then we have field engineers who are the people who are de-mining plus road constructions and who are equipped with all the machines. We have eight classic regiments of Engineers, so that is about another 8,000 people. And we have a strength of over 400 heavy machinery. Reconstruction of tanks and renovations of irrigation canals are all done using by them using the machines. Then we have the agriculture sector where there are six dedicated battalions. We have taken over a lot of Government agriculture land that were neglected and we have established our own farms.

Then we have Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. We have the normal soldier who is not on security duty. These men can do the basic work. For security we have dedicated battalions. We don’t want the soldier to feel confused over his responsibilities. Special security people, like Commandos and Special Forces, are strictly on that duty. Specialists are untouched. We continue to train them.

Anywhere in the country whoever wants assistance specially the Government agencies, we give our support. A soldier is a jack of all trades. He is trained to be an all rounder and is capable of doing lot of work.

Q: The military is involved in everything from large scale development to the running of roadside cafes, building roads, bridges, houses and stadiums. They assist the Government in resettlement process of the Northern Province. Yet some see this as heavily militarising the country. How would you see this?

A: We cannot just sit back in our camps. We are paid by the government and thus we are duty bound to our country. In return to what we get paid we have a duty by our country. We are in a post conflict situation.

It is the task of the Army to work in such a situation that is written in our books. It is not militarisation but working together to bring the country back to normal, getting it away from a disastrous situation. It is a primary duty of a military to come forward and work during any disastrous situation the country may face. That is what we are doing.

If we value our projects for a year I think we are doing over three billion rupees worth of projects and from that if you take the labour cost in to that that is all a saving to the Government. If you take three billion worth of work about one billion would really be labour cost. Our plus points are we are efficient, effective and disciplined - that’s how we are trained. This has helped the Government to finish most of these development works in time. Our men will work from six in the morning till the last light of the day.

Q: What is the response from the Army officers at the ground level about engaging in such non military activities?

A: They are being well educated over their responsibilities in a post conflict era. Our soldiers learnt a lot of lessons as we had to fight over many years against terrorism. All troops at the ground level are fully aware that it is their responsibility to restore whatever that is damaged or devastated, and help the country so that we will look better in a brighter future. I have never come across any person saying we should not do these things.

Q: What is the response from the Army officers at the ground level about engaging in such non military activities?

A: They are being well educated over their responsibilities in a post conflict era. Our soldiers learnt a lot of lessons as we had to fight over so many years against terrorism. All troops at the ground level are fully aware that it is their responsibility to restore whatever that is damaged or devastated. And help the country so that we will look better in a brighter future. I have never come across any person saying that no we should not do these things.

Q: A report submitted by the Human Rights Watch claimed that Tamils in Sri Lanka have been and continue to face the wrath of the army officials and reiterated the demand of commencing an investigation by an independent international body. How do you see this?

A: That is not new isn’t it? We do see such suggestions coming up in times like this. But there were no names, specific incidents. If something happened there should be some sort of information on date, place, clues to identify the person or police reports. When no details are given we cannot investigate. If there are such specific complaints we are not hesitant to inquire. And no Army personnel has survived if found guilty of an accusation.

If we take our history anybody committed an offence we have procedures to take charge of all those things. First thing is that there is no point everybody generally saying that it is happening.

They should be specific complaints. So we can investigate and take disciplinary action. Whenever civil complaints come up against our men, need not be specifically from the north and east but from any part of the country, we investigate thoroughly and if found guilty we take strict disciplinary action. If they get caught by police doing illegal activities we suspend them immediately and inquiries start. If the offence is serious we discharge the person. That is discipline. There is no compromise on discipline.

Q: What are the steps taken by the Army to educate and broaden the awareness of the Army personnel on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law?

A: I think we were the first to establish our own Directorate on these subjects. We call it the Directorate of International Humanitarian Law. We continuously conduct courses with the assistance from the ICRC. And we keep everyone in the Army educated. Every Army personnel are educated and they continue to get the knowledge. So within a person’s career he or she is under-going several training courses. There are officers going on overseas training on similar courses and some of these courses are sponsored by the ICRC. Though the war is over we continue to do that. Continuously we have training sessions, lectures, seminars and workshops on these. Whether it is commissioned officers, officer cadets, new recruits or other rankers it is part of the syllabus.

Q: How many Army personnel are currently serving in the UN Peacekeeping Force?

A: Now we have 715 personnel serving in Haiti and 200 in Lebanon on troop contribution. Then we have other observers and staff officers in most of the missions all over the world. Around twenty officers are there working as observers and staff officer appointments.

Q: What are the UN criteria in recruiting for this Force?

A: For different positions there are different criteria established by the UN. These criteria requests highly professional levels both in academic studies of an officer as well as his experience. When we receive the specific requests from the UN peacekeeping headquarters we circulate it through the Army and then we get the nominations. Then there is a board which evaluates and gives marks to the nominated officers. Simply by being senior in the Army one cannot get qualified.

It is a tough criterion. But a significant number of officials are getting qualified at present especially as many have served in missions in Haiti and Lebanon in the past. We need our officers to be armed with higher post graduated qualifications to get qualified to higher positions.

Q: Has the numbers increased?

A: We are on the same level. We have the capacity to send our officers to posts held by our officers on these UN missions when their tenure is over. So positions are replaced by our officers. We are not losing that appointment. For, appointments in the headquarters is selected on a worldwide criteria with tough parameters. We have one officer serving there. It’s a tough call since our officers have to compete with officers of other countries. It’s tough for any army in the world.

Q: Doesn’t this contradict with the continuing allegations on Sri Lankan Army over human rights violations?

A: For individual appointments there are no issues. But when it comes to troop deployment it has become an issue and we have not got new commitments. We have well trained battalions suited to the UN peacekeeping criteria. I think we are the most experienced Army when it comes to peacekeeping after going through a tough battle against terrorism.

Q: You were the Wanni Commander during the end of the war. What was the real situation of the surrendees?

A: Knowing the situation I feel these allegations are very unfortunate. I personally know how it started. I was there when we got the first surrendees during the vanni humanitarian operation. I’m talking about the time period from 2007.

Those people who had money used to tip boat owners and escape to Mannar coastal line and on the East coast towards Pulmodai. I remember at the very beginging we had about hundred odd people. Initially we had to provide shelter to them at a school in Mannar. Immediately after the capture of Kilinochchi a large number of people started pouring in to our sides. Then the next large batch came when the Army captured Vishwamadu.

We had a set procedure. And ICRC and UN officials were always there. We informed the people that those who were involved with terrorist activities to surrender. We clearly informed them that this is the opportunity for them to surrender to the Government rather than going through the hassle.

Then they were separated and there were personnel of the Intelligence as well as UN and ICRC representatives. The criteria was to send these surrendees to protective centres initially. Then the rehabilitation institutions that they will be assigned to, was not known at that very beginning. So this made families worried about their members who served with the LTTE.

But the takeover was done in a very transparent manner. Up to the last day, May 19 we continued this process. Nobody went missing. That I can guarantee as everything was recorded and took photographs of those surrendees and families. Each and every one was counted.

Q: You have been seen spending much time with the war heroes staying at Army welfare centres. What is their situation now?

A: It is one of the most satisfying experiences. For these welfare programs we get immense encouragement and support from President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. It is there in the Mahinda Chinthana also. We get lot of support from people – from donors, well-wishers.

As permanent disabled we have identified 220 army personnel and at the wellness resorts so far we are taking care of about 160. Now with the third Abhimansala coming up in the Kurunegala ditrict we have to decide whether we need more such places or whether the available resources with us would be enough. With the new addition we have three Abhimansala wellness resorts, Ranaviru sevana in Ragama and one more resource centre in Hendala seems to be adequate to care for our fellow war heroes who were permanently disabled. We will take a decision at the next step.

From the first day I took over the Army Commander post I pledged that I will look after the war heroes. And now my wife with the Army Seva Vanitha branch there is lot of work happening for the welfare of the officers and soldiers who got disabled in this humanitarian operation.

Under Brave heart's project we started building wellness resorts. . Though the numbers that can be accommodated are limited there one could see a total change in the physical abilities and mental status of those soldiers.

Almost every month I visit one of them. Soldiers who could not stand are now getting up. My dream is to make everything possible for them to get back to normal life as much as possible.

Q: The LLRC report has suggested establishing a veterans directorate. What would be its speciality when you already have numerous welfare measures?

A: It was initially known as the Directorate for Additional Welfare. There were recommendations of the LLRC for implementation and the Army had a separate board to look in to the implementations of the LLRC recommendations. It was through this that the suggestion came to convert this old directorate to one that will be dedicated to war veterans of the army. So now we have the Directorate of Veteran Association.

They are taking care of many welfare issues of soldiers and their families – i.e. housing, schooling for children etc. Recently we gave 86 officers and soldiers a Rs. 500,000 grant to build their houses. It is not a loan. It is through a fund created by Army personnel where officers contribute Rs. 50 per month and soldiers contribute Rs.10. It is continuously happening and will support each and every veteran.

Q: Sri Lanka Army became world renowned following the defeat of a thirty year old war. What is the future of the Army?

A: We will continue to remain like that. The defence forces of the world are willing to learn from us and we are more than happy to exchange experience. We have four courses designed incorporating the experience of the army and we have many foreign officers studying these courses. So they are learning something more than the basics in the book.

Other than few senior officers the majority of the Army comprises officers and soldiers who joined the army during the war. So they were trained strictly to fight and they never experienced a peacetime. They do not know the army culture that existed before the war. When I was a young officer I was at Mankulam doing my duty with only 25 troops. Now the present young men need to adapt themselves to work in situations that existed before the humanitarian operation. This transformation is happening but it is a challenge.We are a small country with a small budget and strengthening ourselves with equipment will be difficult. So we need to rethink and readjust our systems and resources to strengthen the future Army.