Wanasinghe’s war was about woes

Retired Gen Sarath Fonseka, when he was Army Commander, was asked why the army was unable to defeat the LTTE earlier. He said it was because of the arms and ammo given to them by some (actually 3 Generals not of India but SL).

He did however not show any revulsion or abhorrence when Hamilton Wanasinghe now president of the Ex Servicemen got on his platform during the run up to the Presidential elections be smirching that up to now non political organization and also questioning Fonseka’s choice of a supporter.

The ramblings of Wanasinghe which are listed below basically for entertainment. Wanasinghe’s military career was also remembered for his part both as a witness and an adverse witness for the prosecution in the deadly attempted coup of 1962 when almost all others in the thereafter disbanded 3rd Field Regiment of the Artillery took a prominent part.

Wanasinghe it was said was a card carrying member of the UNP which party like the Baathists of Iraq made affinity to the party a sine quo non for the career prospects of army officers.

Readers just as Fonseka knew will hopefully understand why the army could never have defeated the LTTE when Wanasinghe was commander, JOC and Defence Secretary.

Fair and Lovely

On India’s objection to SL seeking arms from China or Pakistan he says it was “unfair” forgetting how arms were given to the LTTE by the SL army itself under his command. That was treacherous.

Pooneryn (1993)

In the Pooneryn battle (1993) the LTTE infiltrated the army base and fought from inside its perimeter completely surprising the defence. The army according to Wanasinghe lost ‘210’ soldiers and the ‘rebels’ (please note the Norwegian and UNP word for terrorists) according to Wanasinghe 500 (LTTE admitted to 150). As defence secretary he said “I can’t imagine what happened”. In an inspired moment he sparked his faltering imagination by saying “The Tigers achieved an element of surprise”. This has to be one of the most stupid and ponderous under statement of the conflict where an army base of 1800 soldiers was overrun by 1000 ‘terras’.

Osama and Prabakaran

When asked by the Lanka Academic why the SL forces had still not got Prabakaran, he retorted, expecting his accumulated wisdom would be sensational, “the US couldn’t get Al Qaeda’s Bin Laden even with their super powers (sic)”!

LTTE air raid

On the LTTE air raid on the night of 28/29 October 2008, the former army ‘chief’ limited himself to saying it was the LTTE’s “attempt to retaliate” and gratuitously advises the public to be ‘vigilant’. Not a word from the former army ‘chief’ about the actual raid and its effects and lessons. Intriguingly on the SL Academic blog a ‘Roger this’ says of a particular ‘chief’ “Ask HW to declare his assets first. Having retired they are living way above their means”.

Digging trenches in Killinochchi

Asked by Bryson Hill of Reuters why the army was taking time to overcome the Killinochchi defences, ‘chief’ Wanasinghe blithely exposes his limitations by saying only that the LTTE had “dug trenches to slow down the advance”.

He was either totally ignorant (probably) or impervious to the presence of LTTE anti personnel and vehicle mines, artillery, mortar and machine gun fire and reinforced concrete bunker defences which were proof against anything other than direct hits, and the trade mark ferocious LTTE counter attacks which took a heavy toll of life and limb.

Fonseka it is reported and to date uncorrected in Lankaenews had in Washington in late 2009 stated that the army had lost 5000 in the final 3 weeks of battle. Neither did he give credence to the driving monsoon rains accompanied by a vicious cyclone that affected mobility, casualty evacuation and administration and prevented the SLAF from giving close fire support to the attacking troops. The mud and floods bogged down the armoured columns, preventing them from providing intimate fire support to the attacking infantry. The nearly 20 km long moat and daunting 12 foot bund behind which the LTTE was in almost impregnable positions dominating the land approaches had not even entered less crossed the ‘chief’s thoughts even though the media itself were full of it.

Thus to ‘chief’ Wanasinghe when Killinochchi was finally taken it was naively all a trivial matter of over coming ‘some trenches’ which he had apparently with over whelming insight had noted were also “dug” in. Not only Prabakaran and former constable Nadesan were confused at the ‘chief’s military punditry.

Personal offer of crates of tea for weapons

Rori Nessman writing for AP on 10 Jan 09 say that ex Army ‘chief’ Wanasinghe (1988-91) said that he ‘tried to buy desperately needed weapons for the army to fight the LTTE”. Money was so short he said that he “offered crates of tea for arms. The SL Treasury rejected the deal.

The army of about 40,000 was unprepared for brutal fighting that ensued.

Our army was for mainly containing internal unrest. It was not trained for war. It soon realized that the rebels with their RPGs and make shift armoured tractors were better armed than the troops”.

This is an extra ordinary blasé statement to make for any ex SL Army officer far less Wanasinghe an army ‘chief’ and later defence secretary, unless he was blissfully ignorant to the fact that war was seldom anything but brutal, the SL Army had been fighting the LTTE since 1980s and their fighting strength based on superior intelligence and lightning attacks on targets in endless waves of fighters was far more than Wanasinghe knew. No wonder that Wanasinghe had a problem countering the LTTE when all he could attribute to the LTTE were mainly RPGs.

Wanasinghe ignorant of the fire power of the army

Further the SL Army from 1957 had an Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment of British armoured cars (Saladins and WW2 Daimlers), Ferret scout cars and British Saracen and Russian BTR 152 APCs with the formidable 12.7mm (Gorinov) Heavy Machine gun and had been equipped with 3.5 Rocket Launchers used by the British and Commonwealth armies since 1971. Surely these were better than a few if that armoured tractors and RPGs.

In addition to which Pakistan had been lavishly giving us some pretty effective 25 pounder artillery (range about 12,000 meters) and the infantry had 81 mm mortars which had a range of about 5000 meters but then Wanasinghe though an artilleryman himself appears not to have understood the fire power available to him.

SL Air Force

Wanasinghe went on to say “the Air Force was reduced to bombing rebels with barrels of explosives rolled out of transport planes”. That is true but not for the reasons he states or to decry his pathetic tea for weapons offer to prospective weapons suppliers. There was an international embargo on weapons procurement by SL at that time (we were considered a pariah state).The SLAF far from being ‘reduced’, having skilled and highly qualified and motivated engineers, rose to the challenge and improvised using WW2 navy depth charges and 1971 vintage Russian 125kg bombs.. He tries unsuccessfully to camouflage his own incompetence by saying that now the ‘sky is the limit” for the army and “whatever the country can afford they get”. His reference to the ‘skies’ has even mixed up the roles of the army with that of the SLAF.

Unaware of the role of the SL Army

It should not surprise most that Wanasinghe appeared to be unaware of the constitutionally laid down primary role of the army to defend the country. After all on taking over he did say he wanted to encourage the army to engage in agriculture so probably he grew tea that he hoped would pay for weapons. How did he after nearly over 10 years of fighting the LTTE interpret the army’s role to be simply just to ‘containing internal unrest?”

Battle between Waidyaratne/Algama and Wanasinghe

The ‘internal unrest’ Wanasinghe talks about may have been more accurately the battles he had with Waidyratne his chief of Staff and Algama.

23 Schools of military training

Did the ‘chief’ also not know there were 23 schools of military training including specialized ones for combat, tactics and weapons, commandos, marksmanship etc in addition to the SL Military Academy (Diyatalawa) and regimental training centres for all regiments and corps of the army and the prestigious Staff and Command College at Sapugaskanda. Surely all this was not just for containing ‘unrest’

One must wonder what else he as army commander facing nothing short of “brutal fighting” has now forgotten about the army. The SL Army trained not only for conventional war but for counter insurgency (COIN) operations having in the late 1960s sent officers to the Commonwealth Jungle training centre in Malaysia, Australia and Assam (India) from whence on arrival they ran many courses for all ranks including all officer cadets in the jungles of Ridiyagama, Monaragala, Lahugala, Ampara and from the 1980s in Vavuniya, Mullativu and Minneriya.

Weapons to the LTTE not for tea but free

When Wanasinghe commanded the army, it lost a stretch of the A 9 Jaffna to A’pura road which was not surprising as according to the evidence given to the Commission inquiring into the death of Vijaya Kumaratunge (1989), the LTTE had been given RPGs, mortars, self loading rifles and grenades by the SL Army as stated in the Ceylon Daily News (CDN) of 21 Feb 98 (page 1) valued at Rs 190 million. Weapon delivery continued remorselessly even after the massacre of 350 surrendered policemen in the eastern province (CDN of 21/2/98). The LTTE was also transported in SL military transport and aircraft to attack pro Indian SL Tamil groups (Island 23/02 98 page 15).

On capturing Killinochchi 2009

According to Norman Palliawardene (Island 5/1/2009), Wanasinghe was full of praise for the security forces on capturing Killinochchi during the night of 31 Dec 08 / 01 Jan 09. He had recalled that the forces had to abandon Killinochchi earlier and said that this time (2009) it was “great of them to fight and chase (sic) the LTTE from their heartland. People of the North hate the LTTE”. Normally the military aim in the attack is to destroy/capture the enemy or capture territory held by the enemy. This must be the very first time that troops began ‘chasing’ the enemy. His babyish utterances contrast vividly with those he compliantly and pompously made to the Sunday Leader on 29 July 2007 when he said that “no war is winnable….”

Catastrophe averted in 1990s

However the SL defence ‘chiefs’ by giving the LTTE arms and ammo have to be responsible not only to the “ordinary masses” of the North who “lost their children” as Wanasinghe trying to be politically correct put it but also to the SL army which also lost thousands of its officers and men at Pooneryn, Mullativu, Killinochchi and elsewhere and the ordinary masses etc of the South who died in ‘brutal’ terror attacks. Thankfully we did not have multi barrel rocket launchers (MBRLs) in 1990 to gift the LTTE as well. Had that happened there would have been a catastrophe in SL which all the second wind pontificating of Wanasinghe could not have averted. Would the chief have worried?

Wipe out

It would be best that such former army ‘chief(s)’ do not try to share or bask in the glory of the victorious deeds of the gallant warriors of today who wrested not only Killinochchi but wiped out the LTTE from the face of the earth. There is nothing to relate these gun runner ‘chiefs’ with anything to do with the SL Army. The question being asked today is not only why they were not tried in the first place but also how these ‘chiefs’ got through the army’s selections procedures to reach its highest echelons. Over to you politician(s). The citizens would like to know. The best thing for these chiefs now is to get lost.

- Asian Tribune -