Ensure national security - Maj. Gen. Boniface Perera

by Dhaneshi Yatawara

Vanni is getting ready to face a drastic change by next week with the Northern Provincial Council Elections. Clearly with the restoration of democracy and solid establishment of Civil administration, the security forces are moving away from the Civil Military Coordination activities in which they contributed a great deal to bring normalcy to the area following the victory of the Humanitarian operation. Today the Omanthai entry exit point, do not check local civilians and Sri Lankans are totally free to move in and out of Northern areas of the country. Speaking to the Sunday Observer Security Forces Commander (Vanni) Major General Boniface Perera said that although some tried to smuggle parts of explosive devices and artefacts in rare instances the ground reality is that a peaceful environment prevails. “It is our duty to ensure National Security and make sure another terrorist threat would not harm the peace and harmony of these areas,” he said.

Following are excerpts of the interview:

Question: Now no civilians are being checked at the Omanthai check point. But speaking to the media you have mentioned about suspicious traders? Were those based on intelligence information you received or how was this revealed?

Answer: First let me tell a small detail about the road blocks. There were 17 road blocks like Omanthai around the country mainly in the North and the East. And 16 were taken out and only Omanthai was operating. We are operating this check point because there is a requirement.

This is a main gate way to the North. And what we have been doing up until recently was checking any passenger going from North to the South. Having understood the ground realities and the prevailing peaceful environment that we were experiencing for past four years as not a single shot was fired by the LTTE although some tried to smuggle parts of explosive devices and artefacts.

For the last four months and mainly for last four years there had not been any significant item that was tried to be smuggled out by people through the Omanthai check point. And also there were some request by the people to President Mahinda Rajapaksa to make movements free.

I discussed with Secretary Defence and the Army Commander and I myself inspected the real ground situation and realised that it is the time to give relief to the people as it would not affect the national security. So from last week any Sri Lankan travelling from North to south will not be subjected to any check. South to North or North to South will not be checked.

But foreign passport holders will be subjected to check. We want to register them at the check point in order to keep track of the number of people entering to North as well as exiting. The vendors problem come in between. There were information to suggest that there were vendors of Indian origin, mostly Tamil people from Colombothurai and Tamilnadu. They sell sarees and fancy items.

They go around in villages and selling all these items and further observing these people it was found that they even sell sarees on instalment basis. How can one sell sarees on an installment basis? They were mostly seen in the East and the North.

Therefore there is a natural suspicion over there movements. And the other thing is they come on tourist visa and do business - again which is illegal. And these people overstay the visa period. So what the security forces have done now is that these so called vendors were arrested by the police and sent back to India.

There is natural suspicion over these people as to whether they are part of the LTTE preserve who are trying to find information on the North and the East. Thus registration of foreigners is still a requirement until we can come to a conclusion to say that we can ensure no threat is imposed by these external forces to the national security.

Q: How long has this been under observation?

A: This has been prevailing for some time. If these people don’t over stay then there is no problem. And if they come on a business visa there will be no problem too.

Q: You are the Competent Authority for Resettlement of the Displaced People in the North. We heard that many Sinhala families have come back to their original villages. What is their situation now?

A: September 2012 we have completed resettling all the people living in the welfare centres in Vavuniya. So now all the Tamil people are resettled in their own places. And now these days the Sinhala people are coming back to their villages. These people are still getting resettled particularly in the Vavuniya district, Welioya area and certain parts of the Anuradhapura district which borders the Vavuniya district as well as Mannar. According to records in Mannar there had been 7,000 Sinhala people and even today none have come back. It is our duty to identify these original settlers and let them have the right to live on their home land. We are facilitating these people to come back and identify their lands according to deeds.

Q: In many parts of the Northern Province the Security Forces have withdrawn from areas populated by civilians. What is the situation in Vanni?

A: In the Vanni area we have reduced forces from the civil areas. As I have mentioned earlier in the interview as well there are few threats to National security that emerge periodically. It is our duty to ensure National Security and make sure another terrorist threat would not harm the peace and harmony of these areas. So there is a danger in reducing the number of Army personnel in Vanni by large scale.

But we have moved away from properties belonging to civilians where the Security Forces personnel had to establish centres to facilitate the Civil Military Coordination activities that were essential soon after the end of humanitarian operation. We have limited our selves to few strategic locations and almost all of these lands are owned by the Government.