30th January 2000

By Alia

Bureaucracy also stands in the way of the Government's war effort against the LTTE sometimes.

Recently the Ministry of Defence granted approval for the Sri Lanka Army to purchase 375 trucks from the United States Army. These left hand drive trucks together with conversion kits (for right hand drive modifications to be effected in Sri Lanka) were offered at nominal rates. This was because the trucks formed a redundant fleet.

Of the 375 vehicles, 200 were to come from a US base in South Korea and the remaining 175 from a base in West Germany.

Treasury officials held the view that there were deal deals since the vehicles were coming from West Germany and South Korea. MOD approval, they argued, had been granted only for one deal. The Army was given the choice to decide which one it was.

Since the numbers from South Korea were more, the Army chose to import them. The remaining 175 in Germany will not arrive in Sri Lanka.

Treasury officials believe that would require fresh approval from the MOD.

High tech

Checkpoints in the City and suburbs, set up to prevent infiltration of Tiger guerrillas and smuggling of weapons, explosives, bombs and other material will soon go high tech.

Defence Ministry officials were last week discussing the possibility of introducing electronic equipment at checkpoints to detect weapons and explosives.

Needless to say the move will cost billions, if not millions of rupees. As one senior security official remarked rather wryly "it would be better to spend that money and improve our intelligence network". He added "this will only make a few agents and their friends richer."

On the rise

LTTE's attacks on economic targets are on the rise. According to official statistics, attacks last year using Improvised Electronic Devices (IEDs) totalled 132. There were also 41 abortive attempts.

Military officials say this is an increase when compared to 1998 during which there were 76 attacks and 12 abortive attempts. These attacks have been directed on telecommunications, electricity, transport and the estate sector, they said

Unusual request

Amidst all her official chores, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, had an unusual request to attend to. An Elephant in Jaffna, revered by the residents and now in the custody of the Army was ill. A local vet had attended to the pachyderm but there have been no results. She promptly ordered vets from Colombo to fly to Jaffna and take care of the sick animal.

The elephant had been captured from the jungles and taken to the Jaffna peninsula when LTTE was dominating the area.

It had been at a park in Point Pedro when troops re-captured the peninsula.

Rajpal Abeynayake's Column

Editorial/ Opinion Contents