Even though China is a good friend of ours and we need their assistance to develop, I’m not afraid to say that was a mistake. I will request them to renegotiate and come with a better (deal) to assist us.
Ours is a small country and needs foreign investment to shore up its economy, says Sri Lankan Present Gotabaya Rajapaksa. In his first interview after taking charge, he told Nitin A. Gokhale, Editor-in-Chief of BharatShakti.in and SNI, that the island nation’s involvement with China is commercial. He has a message and an invite for regional powers like India, Japan, Singapore and Australia: You too should help Sri Lanka by investing and encouraging private countries in your countries to invest in the island nation. Why leave it to China alone and then “grumble”?
Excerpts of the interview:
Q: Hello and welcome, I’m Nitin Gokhale and I’m privileged to have with me today Sri Lanka’s new President Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa. A former soldier turned administrator and now the nation’s chief executive. Welcome Mr Gotabaya to this interview and I’m really honoured and privileged that you’ve given this time to me. I think this is perhaps your first interview after taking over as Sri Lanka’s seventh executive President. What is your priority as Sri Lanka’s new president? What are your priorities?
A: We have given the policy to the people. In that, we have identified certain areas that we have to act on. Now, one is to ensure the security of this country and the people so I had to readjust certain things in these institutions especially in the military and also in the intelligence agencies, and next one is the economy. That’s very important at this time. So, I have identified certain areas where we have to focus and improve. So, security and economy are the two first priorities.
Q: But in security I mean you are well known for what you did during the Eelam war IV when you revamped the entire security structure. You got the intelligence set-up completely reorganised and of course, led the entire war effort. What in your view has happened in these last five years where there has been some slippage and we, of course, had the Easter bombings on 21st April. So what do you want to do?
A: It depends on the policy of the government. Unless you give priority and, in your government’s policy, if national security is not on the priority list then it is down to the lowest level and that’s what happened. The last government did not give enough priority to national security. And also probably they misunderstood the importance of national security to bring economic stability. First, you want to have stability in the country for the locals and the investors to invest. (For) Local businessmen to invest, entrepreneurs to invest, national security is important. So that is what happened during the last five years. Because that government did not give enough attention to the security of this country and other things happened especially on certain investigations on officers who were involved in humanitarian operations that we had. That affected the morale of the security forces. And also there were things happening on national intelligence. Because see we have different agencies in charge of intelligence. Intelligence is important. That’s starting with SIS—State Intelligence Services. That’s the number 1 civilian establishment. Then you have the military intelligence—the army intelligence directorate, the navy intelligence and the air force intelligence. But out of that, actually the Directorate of Military Intelligence, that is the intelligence arm of the army was the most experienced intelligence agency. Then you have the CID, that is (Q: of the police) and the TID, Terrorist Investigation Division. These institutions are more or less investigation units. They are good at investigation.
Q: Right. So, post-events they are good, not in anticipating intelligence.
A: Intelligence is a different ball game but the previous government did not give this authority to the military intelligence so they were more or less not involved in even gathering information and liaising and in intelligence they were not involved. Mostly it was the CID and TID and probably SIS. But I should say that they were good at different areas. Not in this. This, not because of anything else but for the last so many years where we had terrorism in this country and anti-terrorism (ops). In that, major role of intelligence was played by the directorate of military intelligence and also, we train these officers and they have the experience. So, it is difficult immediately to stop that and give it to another (agency). I think that was another reason.
So the first thing is, of course, government policy. Then, the second thing is the institutions which are responsible for intelligence if they were not given (authority), if they change the role, then, of course, there is an issue. These are the things that ultimately led to this incident (Easter bombings).
Q: Yes, in April 2019. But, that we will move ahead because if I remember correctly and we have discussed this a number of times, Sir, that you had actually got them on a one grid kind of a thing, all these agencies when you were defence secretary.
A: So now I have appointed a very good defence secretary who is very experienced in this aspect and a dedicated officer and I have given instructions to reconstitute this organisation and get all the intelligence agencies together and coordinate them and to work accordingly rather than restricting them into departments and working individually, they must share. It is quite important. So, he will do that.
Q: That’s right. Do you think he also needs to do a lot of cooperation with countries around, like India for instance and other countries, western countries maybe? Because today intelligence sharing is important.
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