Winning the War - Sri Lankan Experience – I

by General GSC Fonseka (Retd) 

RWP, RSP, rcds, psc - former Commander of the Sri Lanka Army

(June 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) 1. The war victory was achieved mainly due to the success of the military on the ground campaign supported by the other services. Although the politicians are trying to claim the credit, they did not do anything extra than what was done by the previous heads of state or defense officials. All successive heads of state gave equal support to the forces and had given clear orders to finish the war. However, due to the failure in the part of the services during that time prevented any victory against the LTTE. Although, the present President says that he withstood the out side pressure and allowed the forces to continue the battle uninterruptedly, even the previous Presidents would have done the same thing that time, if the forces had gone closer to the Terrorist leadership as we did during the final operation. The LTTE would have then requested foreign powers to exercise pressure on the government by asking for cease-fires etc as they did during the final stages of the operation. As the Army successfully moved forward and reached, the point of no return, the President or the defense officials had no way in asking the Army to halt the operations at that stage. Therefore, the credit for moving forward until the victory was achieved has to go to the Military and not to the politicians. Of course, the President on 31 Jan and 01 Feb 2009, at the very critical stage of the operation wanted to give a cease-fire despite the protest from the Army Commander. Probably this was done after secret discussions with Kumara Pathmanadan alias KP to allow them to take the terrorist leaders out from the war zone. The terrorist made use of this opportunity and launched a massive counter attack during this period where the Army had to under go a large set back and almost collapsed. However, the Army commander’s personal influence together with the determination of the GOC’s save the day for all Sri Lankans during that LTTE counter attack. It should be mentioned here that through out all serious situations, the Secretary Defense was only a spectator and only contribution from him for the war was attending to procurement process once the service Commanders project their arms and ammunition requirements. Purchase of all arms and ammunition was carried out by the Secretary Defense and the prices for purchases were discussed and agreed by him with the suppliers. There were instances where certain purchases negotiated by the Secretary Defense were questionable. For an example at the beginning of the war, the Army purchased a 130 mm Artillery round for US$ 250 and towards the latter stages of the war, Secretary Defense paid US$ 650 for a round of 130 mm Artillery. Although at early stages of the war, the President and the Secretary Defense listened to the advice of the Service Commanders about the purchases however, towards the latter stages they were not willing to listen to the Service Commanders regarding the arms and ammunition requirements and preferred to decide themselves about all purchases after discussing directly with the suppliers.

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2. Moment the war was over and on the very first day, the President said no more recruiting to the Army and totally ignored the recruitment of manpower for the consolidation phase. After Jaffna was captured with 15000 troops in 1995, we had to deploy 35000 troops to hold the captured area. However, after we finished the war and the area we had to hold became four times bigger. The request made by Army Headquarters to recruit new cadres to cater to this additional requirement was turned down by the President and that made the troops more exhausted, resulting in large-scale desertion in the Army, although there was no fighting. President and Secretary Defense also did not take any interest to kit up and equip troops after the war victory. The present Army Commander being a highly unprofessional officer who is only carrying out the job of a political stooge does not take any interest to care about his troops. Instead, he is employing soldiers in all types of unprofessional work such as cleaning drains, paddy cultivation and selling of vegetables etc to please the Secretary of Defense who thinks all types of problems faced by the government due to its inability to take proper development measures could be over come by deploying the Army. Outcome of that is we have now ended up with a poorly administered low morale Army.

What was Jagath Jayasooriya, present Army Commander doing during the war and his background.

3. He was just another officer who had applied to retire from the Army after 20 years of service. In 1999 as he was posted to a Division deployed in operation “Jaya Sekurui” (Victory Certain) in Vanni. As he did not, had confidence to Command a Division in a major offensive operation and scared to go to Vavunia he applied to retire from the Army. After that, he even applied for a job at Ceylinco Security and got selected. However, the Army insisted that he report to Vavunia and take over the appointment until his retirement papers are approved. Due to that, he had to report to Vavunia. One day when he was in Vavunia, he had been driving around sight seeing and his vehicle went over an old land mine buried in own rear area. He was seriously injured owing to that incident and made him bed ridden for almost two years. Due to his injury and he had to take treatment from the Military hospital, he withdrew his retirement papers. After he recovered, a cease-fire was in force and he decided to continue in the Army. This is his background in the Army and has never commanded troops in any high intensity operation. During the Ealam war IV he was the Security Forces Commander Vavunia carrying out the tasks of a holding Formation and providing the logistic backing for the Divisions involved in the offensive operations forward of his area which were under the direct command of the Army Commander. All strategies and operational plans of Elam war IV was worked out purely by the Commander of the Army and all tactical plans of the GOC’s were closely monitored and directed by the Army Commander himself. During Elam war IV, there was no Overall Operations Commander commanding the offensive operations as done in the past. Only time an offensive Division was kept under the Command of Jagath Jayasooriya was 59 Division, which was launched along the Eastern axis during its formative stage and later deployed in the rear area of the holding Brigade in Welioya for a period of two months. All other times Jagath Jayasooriya’s job was either going on sight seeing in the operational area, receiving the Army Commander during his visits to Vavunia and giving the welcome speech at the Commander’s weekly Operations Review Conference welcoming the Army Commander.

4. During Army Commanders weekly operations review conferences in Vavunia, sometimes Jayasooriya used to ask stupid questions and get pulled up by the Commander. One day when the Army had moved even beyond Thunukai, half way on the western axis, Jayasooriya asked the Commander, “what would happen if the terrorist employ all their resources and attack the Army in one single place”? This led the Commander to severely reprimand him for being so negative and unprofessional and lacking the ability to understand the tactical picture. In addition to this, Jayasooriya’s (then a Major General), conduct was well below that of a General Officer Commanding. The day the Army launched the biggest rescue operation taking a very high risk at Pudumatalan where a large amount of logistic problems were expected once over 115000 civilians were rescued from the crutches of the terrorist causing immense logistic problems, Jayasooriya was staying at home on leave. He was not bothered to make an effort to return and attend to any urgent requirements in the field. Due to this, the Army Commander had to berate him and summon him to Vavunia like a Young Officer and asked him to attend to the urgent logistic matters.

5. During Elam war IV, the Commander had banned alcohol in the North and East operation areas as he expected all officers to be fully sober and committed all the time as the operations continued. However, during this time it was reported to Army Headquarters by one of the escorts of Jayasooriya who gave an anonymous call to Army HQ saying that Jayasooriya was consuming liquor in his room every day and indulging in homosexual activities with his Aid de Camp. Based on the report the Army Commander got his Aid de Camp arrested by the Military police where the officer had given a statement saying that he used to drink with Jayasooriya in his bedroom while Jayasooriya was lying down in bed and the Aid de Camp sitting next to him. However, the officer had denied involvement in any sexual activates. Anyway, Jayasooriya keeping a junior Lieutenant as his Adc, instead of a Captain and retaining the same officer even as the Commander of the Army when the normal rank of the Commanders Adc is a Major, the allegation of homosexual behavior with this young officer was seems to be quite true although it was not proved.

6. During Ealam war IV, not only Jayasooriya, even in the East the Security Force Commanders or even the GOC’s on holding role, except the GOC of Trincomalee Division were not involved in offensive operations. Trincomalee GOC commanded the Mavil Aru and Sampur operation. The Army Commander placing the Task Force Commander directly under his command commanded all other operations in the East. Only Jaffna offensive operations were commanded by the Security Forces Commander Jaffna and two Reserve Division Commanders but not the holding role Division Commanders. It is sad to mention that Jayasooriya was clueless about the maneuvers of Divisions and Task Forces and did not have even any proper control over the holding Divisions. There were many instances where the Commander of the Army had to interfere and sort out problems pertaining to his holding Formations. Major General Rajitha De Silva who was a holding role Division Commander under him will justify this.

7. There were many other allegations against Jayasooriya’s conduct and the Army Commander was to initiate many other inquiries against him and remove him from Command when the President acting against Gen Fonseka’s advice appointed him as the Commander of the Army. Jayasooriya, is now trying to change the history of the war victory together with Secretary Defence who is a man suffering from an inferiority complex to claim the credit for the victory. He has shamelessly removed the name of General Fonseka, which had been put up on all the monuments erected to felicitate the war victory to please the politicians. In fact in short, Jayasooriya has never commanded any offensive operation during his career and did not understand the a thing about new tactical concepts introduced by General Fonseka for the Infantry units to achieve the great victory with his own past experiences.

To be continued....