The Army & The Indo-Lanka Accord
By Rajan Hoole –May 16, 2015
Dr. Rajan Hoole
Having launched Operation-Liberation and taken over the Vadamaratchy sector, the Army was poised to take the rest of Jaffna. The population had mixed feelings. They were to varying degrees tired of the LTTE, bombing and shelling. The LTTE supporters left the Jaffna peninsula in droves, and the others hoped that the LTTE, which was then disorganised, would follow suit. India, which did not want to be cut out of the picture, air dropped food supplies over Jaffna on the 4th of June as a signal to the Government.
In early June, about the same time as the Indian airdrop, Jayewardene convened a meeting with the three officers who led the Vadamaratchy operation. They were Brigadier Denzil Kobbekaduwe and Colonel Wijaya Wimalaratne who were in charge of the two advance columns and Lt. Colonel Sunil Peiris who was in charge of the commandos. Sunil Peiris had landed on the east coast of Jaffna by night with 150 commandos and had dug in, forming a line cutting off Vadamaratchy from Thenmaratchy Division to the south. Some of the others present at the meeting were Ministers Athulathmudali (National Security) and Gamini Dissanayake, General Attygalle (Defence Secretary) and Ravi Jayewardene (Personal Security Advisor to the President).
Jayewardene announced that India was stepping in and told the three who conducted the operation that they had 48 hours to do what they wished and asked if they would like to move ahead and take the rest of Jaffna. Kobbekaduwe and Wimalaratne wanted to proceed. Sunil Peiris said that it was ‘futile’, since the units and the men needed time to recover. Then Jayewardene decided to call it off. Sinha Ratnatunga tells us that General Ranatunge, the JOC Chief, had earlier advised against proceeding. It is also interesting that this decision-making involved younger officers and retired officers. It does not appear to have involved the Army Commander. Here again the sharp difference of opinion among the younger officers on how much the fighting men could be pushed is of interest.
Once the Indian Peace Keeping Force arrived, the interests of the country and the Army would have been best served by maintaining a smooth working relationship between the two armies. But this desirable aim was vitiated by what had become in practice a diffused command structure and a lack of cohesion in the Sri Lankan Army, with the Commander’s authority subverted through political interference.Read More
