To meet the increased threat to national security and the worsening of the ground situation, President J.R. Jayewardene established a new anti-terrorist unit to fight the ever-increasing spate of subversive activities: The Joint Operations Command (JOC).
Formed on 11 February 1985, the JOC was to co-ordinate the activities of the Sri Lanka Army, Navy and Air Force in counter-terrorist operations in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Bull Weeratunga was appointed the Head of the JOC and a few months later was appointed the High Commissioner in Canada.
I was recalled to active service in 1985 as head of the JOC Succeeding Bull. I was also promoted from Brigadier to Lieutenant General. I accepted the appointment because the President informed me that the Army Commander, the Navy Commander, the Air Force Commander and the IGP were willing to work amicably under me.
 |
| General Cyril Ranatunga |
Rather than having the three service commanders and the IGP acting independently, it made more sense to have one coordinating authority to plan operation and modify plans to suit the resources available. The political leadership until that time perhaps did not realize the problems of coordinating military operations. They did not have a coordinated plan for military operations. It was people like Prof. K.M. de Silva who were actively involved in advising President Jayewardene to set up the JOC.
A major problem that we had was that as a result of the riots, countries which had earlier sold us arms were not willing to sell equipment to Sri Lanka.
For instance, in the case of a tender awarded to an American company, the armoured cars were approved by the American Government, but they refused to release the turret and the gun. The British Government refused to give spares and ammunition for the armoured cars we had bought before 1983. The Saladin armoured cars were seen in action in Sri Lanka during the 1971 insurgency. The crisis made it impossible to get spares for them. The Indians were not supplying arms or equipment to us. But the Chinese Government did not hesitate to provide all our military requirements in huge quantities including aircraft, T-56 assault rifles, RPGs, naval vessels, vehicles including wheeled workshops and armour. These were sold to us at a very nominal price, barely covering the cost of production.
Pakistan was also generous in her support. I met the then President, General Zia Ul-huq, when he visited the island. He guaranteed to provide all required military hardware to combat the terrorists in whatever quantities that we in the military required. He never spoke of the finances involved or the procedure. I was inquisitive to know the time gap between such a request and delivery. He clasped my hand and gave me his personal telephone numbers and asked me to ring him any time of the day. He also promised that the requirement would arrive by aircraft and be delivered on time. He assured me that the delay will be only the time to load and the flight time from Pakistan to Sri Lanka. This was a tremendous encouragement to all of us.
The West had looked aside in our hour of need, and neither did our immediate neighbour respond positively. China, Pakistan, and Israel were the only nations which were willing to provide military assistance for us in those darkest hours.
The Israelis understood our need well though they did not give us the Dvora attack boats we wanted. The officials looked with suspicion at our request and would not hear of any request regarding the dvoras.
Finally Ravi Jayewardene met the Prime Minister, Shimon Peres. When he told him that the terrorists were being trained by the PLO, the Israeli PM said, “So we have two things in common -- you also have terrorists and they are being trained by the same group we are opposed to. We have a common enemy”. He then instructed the authorities to give us what we wanted. That was how we got our first Dvora.
He actually released two Dvoras. He told Ravi Jayawardene, “Tell your father that whatever his needs are, will be given.
The most effective means for intelligence was the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP). The LRRP is much talked of today as something novel, introduced during the last decade. This impression has to be corrected. The LRRP based on accurate intelligence yielded good results. We were lucky to have an informant who was the brother-in-law of a ‘terrorist’ leader (name withheld for security reasons) who provided reliable intelligence to arrest many important terrorist cadres.
The story of one very effective and special LRRP team can be told now. The LRRP was led by the late Captain Suresh Hashim. Some of the details of the plan are withheld to maintain secrecy as they may be of use to the enemy even now.
Captain Hashim was a Lieutenant in 1 SLLI when he led a four-member LRRP into the jungles many miles south of Trincomalee. They were dropped ashore by boat and found their way in unfamiliar terrain in one and a half days to the ambush site. They lay in ambush for three days and were rewarded with the target -- ‘Ganesh’, the Trincomalee LTTE Leader and his accomplice. They escaped under heavy fire into a waiting helicopter on call in the vicinity. What was probably more remarkable was that they brought with them the bodies.
Captain Hashim was an exception, at times ill-disciplined but was daring and hardly put off by danger. He was often seen confidently lighting a cigarette under enemy fire much to his own amusement, but not to his nervous comrades. There was only one way to keep him out of trouble and that was to keep him occupied under a strong but sympathetic leader in whom he had confidence.
Procurement for the armed service was given publicity as never before, which in turn demoralized the military and the general public. A brief account of the procedures practised by the JOC at this point will be appropriate.
The entire procedure was handled by Mr. Nimal Jayawardene, as the President of the Procurement Committee along with senior representatives from the armed services appointed by the Service Chiefs. This practice was continued until the latter stages, even when I became the Secretary Defence, Ministry of Defence, with Brigadier Granville Elapatha, the former Director-Budget, Army Headquarters as the MOD representative.
The entire Committee attended only if there was the need to do so and requests for military hardware were tabled and discussed by the committee which I attended as GOC, JOC as it was the service chiefs who executed my operational requirement. Upon agreement on the type and capability of the equipment, the usual Tender Board procedure was adopted with the calling for public tenders to purchase equipment for the Armoured Corps to replace the World War II vintage Daimler and Saladin Armoured cars. Those vehicles were entirely dependent on the United Kingdom for the supply of ammunition, spare parts and accessories which we did not receive due to pressure being exerted from the Tamil community and human rights activists, who were alleging that the military were employed in ‘genocide’ against the Tamil people.
Neither did the US nor the NATO countries agree to supply these spares, which were essential. The Commanding Officers of Armoured Corps recommended and suggested that the Cadillac Gage armoured car and the tender to be awarded to the agent based in Singapore. My position as the GOC resulted in my adoption of the policy that no arms supplier could meet me. However, many arms suppliers did use their initiative to try and arrange discussions. They even resorted to contacting my two sons, without any success in spite of these repeated efforts.
The final tender board suggested two suppliers for Cadillac Gage and Urutur, as two reliable armoured cars to compete for the tender. But Cadillac finally won the deal -- a deal worth Rs. 750 million, which resulted in representatives from the Armoured Corps visiting Singapore and Belgium to assess the vehicles for performance. The President was keen to purchase them as early as possible, but after almost a year he summoned me so as to inquire into the cause of delay. I, as Chairman of the Board, summoned the representatives of Cadillac from Singapore who in turn stated that though the deal was approved by the American Government, only six Cadillac gage Armoured cars could be supplied immediately without the main armament and turret.
I felt like using that agent for target practice. What arrogance. What hypocrisy. These are the people who are now preaching to us. We were not asking for charity; we were paying for them. There were a few incidents which made an operation of a larger-scale mandatory. In April 1987, the LTTE engaged in a series of attacks against military and civilian targets. The LTTE had captured eight soldiers and demanded the release of 25 LTTE members in government custody to begin negotiations. They also demanded that the fuel embargo imposed by the government be lifted immediately and accused the government of bombing the Jaffna Hospital.
It later turned out that the LTTE was responsible for the incident. Around 1730 hours during the rush hour after work in the city of Colombo, the LTTE detonated a powerful bomb killing over 106 civilians and injuring over 200 at the Pettah Bus Stand. It was obvious that the LTTE expected a severe backlash similar to that which followed the killing of the 13 soldiers in the Jaffna Peninsula on 23 July 1983, but they were disappointed in that expectation, as no reaction ensued.
Following the LTTE rejection of the 19 December proposals of the government, their activities showed that they were preparing for armed conflict. There were also statements by LTTE spokesman Balasubramanium Canagaretnam alias Raheem that they were preparing for a defensive battle. They, however, indicated that they would resume talks in principle based on the December 19 proposals, as suggested by Minister Thondaman. The cabinet had almost agreed to lift the fuel restrictions, but it was torpedoed by the LTTE massacring innocent civilians. A unilateral truce was to commence on 11 April. But the LTTE massacred 129 civilians including men, women, and children of all age groups in the village of Kitulutuwa.
The LTTE also simultaneously attacked 18 other Sinhalese villages. These incidents were followed by the Colombo truck bomb explosion at the Central Bank, which caused massive destruction and carnage. Curfew was immediately imposed mainly to prevent another anti-Tamil riot, which could have been triggered by certain groups, given the escalating violence.
Massacres of Sinhalese villagers in the LTTE ‘ethnic cleansing’ programme continued to frighten innocent villagers, who had lived in those places for generations… The urgent need was to eliminate the terrorist ‘bases’ so that they could not conduct these raids in the villages in order to achieve their aim of ‘ethnic cleansing’….
A General's story — from battlefield to battlefield
Hiranthi Fernando talks to Gen. Cyril Ranatunga on the eve of the release of his autobiography, which deals with, among others, the 1971 insurgency and the Vadamarachchi operation.
"I am only recording what happened. I will always tell the truth and stand by the truth," says General Cyril Ranatunga, former Chief of Defence Staff, whose autobiography -- 'Adventurous Journey: From Peace to War, Insurgency to Terrorism' -- will be released on Wednesday.
The book details the many events and experiences in the life of the General who, after being in the midst of the action during the height of the war against the LTTE, served in many positions in the Sri Lankan military and the government before he retired as Chief of Defence Staff. Thereafter, he was appointed Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to Australia and the United Kingdom.
"The two people who prevailed on me to write the autobiography which will be launched at the BMICH were Maureen Seneviratne and Prof. K.M. de Silva," General Ranatunga says adding that the book dwells briefly on his childhood and schooldays, the times of peace and then goes on to the 1971 insurrection during which period he was the Coordinating Officer in Kegalle.
"When I threw out the insurgents in Kegalle, they emerged in Anuradhapura, where I then went."
When the Tamil militancy surfaced in the north, General Ranatunga was Commander of the Support Forces in Panagoda. He was then assigned as Commander, Security Forces in Jaffna. "Unlike today, when travel is by helicopter, it took me a whole day to drive to Jaffna. There were many rebel organisations then, apart from the LTTE. When I informed the authorities at the time, that the first batch of LTTE trainees were going to India, no heed was paid to it but I was only asked when I was getting back to Jaffna. I was very angry and had to go back and tell my men waiting in Jaffna that the mission was unsuccessful. As things developed I came back to Colombo and served as Chief of Staff of the Army, while also serving as Commander of Security Forces Jaffna."
When it was time for him to retire, the then President, J. R. Jayewardene, and the then Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, extended his term for another year, General Ranatunga says. However, before the year was up, he felt it was not fair by the other officers who would miss out on their promotions and he insisted on retiring. He was then appointed Chairman, Airport and Aviation Services, a post that he enjoyed tremendously. "This was also a 24-hour job but I was doing something constructive. It was a new field; the engineers were nice people and I enjoyed the life."
However, he was then recalled into service by President Jayewardene and appointed General Officer Commanding Joint Operations Command. "It was back to uniform, having given away all my uniforms and other paraphernalia," the General said. "Back in to operations, I finally decided to take the LTTE on in various places in the East and North. We planned the major Vadamarachchi operation. We had troops committed to Tenmarachchi too in preparation. However, with the 'parippu' drop by Indian aircraft, the operation was halted on the orders of the President.
"I was asked to allow the aircraft to come in and drop food. I went up to the control tower and watched the 'parippu drop'. I recall J.N. Dixit, who was the then Indian High Commissioner, telling me, "India will never permit Jaffna to be taken over."
General Ranatunga served thereafter as Chief of Defence Staff while the IPKF was in the country. "When President Premadasa gave weapons to the LTTE, I opposed it vehemently and he was very angry.
However I felt it was my duty to say what I thought was correct. I will always do what is correct for the people and the country. I am not asking for a vote, I am only thinking of my grandchildren." |
E-mail