Fight against false propaganda on SL victory still on:

Powerful defence structure to eliminate any internal and external threats

Sri Lanka’s fight against brutal LTTE terrorism is now over. The celebrations to mark that magnanimous victory is also coming to an end with President Mahinda Rajapaksa announcing a massive development drive to make Sri Lanka the pride of Asia at the National Victory Parade to salute the war heroes who made it a reality.

Despite all these celebrations, the battle between the falsehood and the truth on Sri Lanka’s victory is still on as many of the western nations and so-called Human Rights organizations are calling for an investigation on human rights violations by the Sri Lankan Government and the Security Forces against the Tamil community in the last phase of the battle to rescue the civilians detained by the LTTE.

It is appalling to observe that some media personnel are forcing some UN officials to obtain answers to illusions they were chasing behind, under the influence of Tiger operatives still living among nearly one million strong Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora across the globe, unaware of the fact that they have become contractors of the LTTE proxies to bring disrepute to the Sri Lankan Government at this historic moment.

It is also pathetic to note that none of those so-called media personnel are interested in learning the sacrifices made by the Sri Lankan Security Forces, but want to dig into to unknown and non-existing graves of 20,000 civilian deaths they have calculated according their own assumptions.

They are going behind this myth of 20,000 civilian deaths and spreading wild rumours to push the UN to conduct investigations into those myths. Even the UN officials have been embarrassed by the false media reports by the `London Times’ quoting UN sources and documents even the UN officials were unaware of.

The objectives of all these attempts were to come out of the humiliating situation the Western nations faced at the United Nations Human Rights Council special session on Sri Lanka. The correct answer to this attempts made by the West with strong backing from the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, to ignore the resolution adopted on an inter-governmental decision from non other than India’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva A. Gopinath.

“It would be extremely unfortunate if inter-governmental decisions adopted by the Human Rights Council were to be ignored or set aside, and the High Commissioner and/or her office were to misinterpret them or wilfully neglect them or supersede them,” Gopinath told the UN Human Rights Council expressing the concern of the Indian delegation to the UNHRC with regard to the remarks made by the High Commissioner on Sri Lanka and the recently concluded Special Session, in her statement.

“The High Commissioner and her office would be fully aware of the discussions and negotiations on the different elements of the outcome and on the positions adopted by different member states and groupings on these elements.

It is important to recall and reaffirm that the outcome of the Special Session reflects an inter-governmental decision adopted according to the Rules of Procedure of the Council. What is more, it endorses the joint communique issued at the end of the recent visit to Sri Lanka by the UN Secretary-General which, among other things, reaffirms the willingness of the Government of Sri Lanka to address the issues of accountability in response to the concerns expressed by the UN Secretary-General in this regard.

“We feel that in these circumstances, it would be prudent to adhere to the outcome of the Special Session and be sensitive to the concerns expressed already, rather than take a position on contested proposals or controversial issues and ideas which did not find eventual acceptance in the outcome of the Special Session”, Gopinath told the UNHRC. It is interesting to note that the nations, who had a genuine understanding about the Sri Lankan situation are still backing the Sri Lankan Government at each and every forum as they were aware of the correct situation in Sri Lanka and the challenges the Sri Lankan Government had to face in its efforts to eliminate LTTE terrorism and in the aftermath.

The other important issue raised by the international media is about the missing people among the displaced civilians and they are trying to highlight that nearly 10,000 people are missing from the welfare camps. It is regretted to note that they are making those allegations based on the facts given by those pro-LTTE organizations who are trying to disturb the smooth handling of the displaced civilians.

But they were also not aware of the fact that nearly 10,000 ex -Tiger cadres and recruits who arrived in Government controlled areas along with the civilians, had surrendered to the Security Forces and were separated from their families to be rehabilitated and another section of civilians released to their close relatives.

The local media has given extensive coverage about the LTTE cadres and recruits surrendered to the Security Forces and the way they were kept separately from their families for rehabilitation purposes. The important issue here is that those who were raising those questions were not aware of the difficulties the Sri Lankan Government and the Security Forces had undergone to make this victory a reality.

Even at this moment they should realize the fact that Sri Lankan authorities cannot leave any room for this terrorist organization to raise its ugly head again to draw the country again to a war. So they should take all precautionary measures at identifying all the LTTE activists among those civilians and rehabilitate them and reintegrate them into society as normal civilians. The international community has a bigger role to play in this regard.Therefore, it is regrettable to note that some international media are trying to mislead the international community through their misleading publications without verifying the facts and figures they received from their sources. Ultimately, it has become a question regarding the ethics followed by those media personnel in the Western countries as they have become paranoid to the information issued by the government authorities and relying on sources who never exist in reality.So, the battle between the false propaganda about the Security Forces victory against the most ruthless terrorist outfit, will continue further until those so-called media personnel understand the ground realities in Sri Lanka. As Sri Lanka is still fighting the false media campaign at international level, the Security Forces are now ready to shape up its role to face the future challenges that may arise in the time to come. As Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka states, the national policies of Sri Lanka should be changed to face the new threats on national security that might emerge externally towards Sri Lanka.

In the post -independent Sri Lanka, the Security Forces were established to handle disasters and uneasy situations among the general public and to handle the public a protest against the Governments. It was during the 1970 JVP insurrection that then Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike purchased weapons from China and strengthened the Army to a certain extent to check the rebels.However, the strength of the Sri Lanka Army and also the Police was not enough to face the situation created by the LTTE in the Jaffna peninsula in the early 1980’s as the Sri Lanka Army had only four regular battalions to handle the situation. The Police also had to close their Police stations in the peninsula after the Chavakachcheri Police station came under the attack of the LTTE in October 1982. The Sri Lankan Security Forces and the Police could not handle the situation in early 1980’s as they were not prepared to face such a challenging situation during that time. The Sri Lanka Army had only four regular infantry battalions with it when the LTTE launched its terror campaign against the Sri Lankan Government. The strength of the Sri Lanka Army was less than 10,000 at the time LTTE went on the rampage in Jaffna peninsula.

It was due to the lapses in the National Security policy the entire nation had to face the tragic war in this country for nearly three decades that allowed the LTTE to turn its rebel force into a conventional force by the end of 1990’s and to develop separate Wings for sea and air operations and expand its operations all over the country.

The Sri Lanka Army had to shift its battalions from one location to another to face the LTTE and it was more like reactive approach to the problem rather than a pro-active approach to eliminate LTTE. That was why any successive government could not win the war against the LTTE at any stage as they lacked a correct vision how to tackle this problem. On the other hand, they feared to have a militaristic approach to the problem fearing reactions from the international community. The success behind the present military strategy was due to the expansion of the three Forces with the recruitment of youth in massive numbers. The biggest expansion took place in the Sri Lanka Army with the increase of the strength from 116,000 in the year 2006 to 200,000 in the year 2009 to win this war.

Even with this magnanimous victory the Sri Lankan Security Forces cannot stop the recruitment of youth to the Security Forces as the National Security policies should be adopted to face the emerging external threat to the country.

Though LTTE is eliminated fully from the country, the LTTE is still active internationally as Kumaran Pathmanadan and many other LTTE activists are operating worldwide to campaign against the Sri Lankan Government . Therefore, possibilities cannot be ruled out about an external threat to the country from the Tiger cadres operating internationally. Like Maldivian Government faced such a threat in 1988 with the mercenaries from the PLOTE trying to oust then Maldivian administration, Sri Lanka should also prepare its forces to face any threat emerging externally. Defence authorities are now planning to keep a considerable reserve with all three Forces, both in the Regular and the Volunteer Forces to face any emerging threat. Therefore, the three Forces are expected to recruit more and more youth to the three Forces to strengthen their manpower and also their fire power to face any eventuality despite crushing the LTTE.

The defence authorities are also now in the process of changing the commanding structure of the three Armed Forces empowering more powers to the Chief of Defence Staff to take all decisions regarding the recruitment, intelligence, career planning, all operations and structural changes in the three Forces and the operational matters of the Police Department and the Civil Security Department.

Currently the Chief of Defence Staff is handling only coordination between the three Forces and Police. With the empowerment of all these powers to the Chief of Defence Staff he will be empowered to command all three Forces and create a powerful defence structure deviating from the current commanding structure of the three Forces.

This is aimed at taking quicker action to settle uneasy situations in the country and to face any internal or external threats faster than the present system of commanding as it provides a centralized command structure with the formation of this powerful position. The Defence Ministry is in the process of formulating these changes and will issue a special gazette notification regard to these changes very soon before the appointment of a new Chief of Defence Staff among the three Force Commanders who commanded the Forces personnel to achieve this victory of totally eliminating the LTTE from the Sri Lankan soil.

That would lay a strong foundation for the Sri Lankan Security Forces to face any internal and external threat and facilitate the speedy development drive proposed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to make Sri Lanka Asia’s pride very shortly.