There is unhappiness in the police circles that the Inspector General of Police Mr Rajaguru has not intervened on behalf of three police officers - one transferred and two interdicted - on political grounds.
Mr Lionel Guna-tillake was among a string of highly respected police officers who have been transferred by the PA government on political grounds. Mr Guna-tillake distinguished himself as an investigator by the capture of Saman Piyasiri Fer-nando - the military wing leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna known as the Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya - at the height of the JVP insurrection.
Mr Gunatillake who attended the INTERPOL, Lyons meetings on arms and explosives and on international terrorism, is also internationally respected for his work. His November presentation in France earned him praise from the INTERPOL Secretary General R.E. Kendall and his staff as well as the delegates.
Mr Gunatillake's thrust was that the terrrorist of one democracy is the terrorist of another democracy. He had stated at the Lyons meeting that this should be the basis for security and intelligence cooperation between national agencies. Mr Gunatillake is also respected for his honesty and hardwork throughout the police department as his brother Nimal Gunatillake, is currently the Senior Superintendent of Police in Jaffna. They have been fearless both in their fight against terrorism as much as their fight against political interference.
The reason for transferring Mr Gunatillake is now clear. Mr Guna-tillake is a straightforward and a no nonsense man. When his men arrested an LTTE operative who confirmed earlier evidence that the LTTE did in fact killed Lalith Athulathmudali, Mr Gunatillake decided to make the information available to the government. Against the wishes of some of the senior Defence Ministry and Police Headquarters colleagues Mr Guna-tillake decided to tell the truth.
All the interrogations, investigations and evidence pin point to the fact that the LTTE killed Lalith Athulathmudali. This was also confirmed by Scotland Yard that worked closely with British intelligence on the Athulathmudali case. To please a government bureaucrat and a politician, a public official decided to transfer Mr Gunatillake out to Police Headquarters and interdict the two police officers who conducted the investigations on the Athulathmudali case.
Commissions of inquiry have become political tools. Government has appointed men and women who will tell what the government in power likes to hear. It is only a question of time that those who sit on commissions will themselves realize the damage they have done to Sri Lanka and to themselves by trying to please politicians in power for some petty gain.
At a future date Sri Lanka will become a classic case study for subverting national security for political gain. Today, it is clear that the STF is taking heavy losses after Lionel Karunasena, a tough, hard and highly skilled STF commandant was replaced. When the fighting standards cannot be maintained, troops take heavy casualties.
Government has preferred political loyal men to efficient men. Government has preferred men who lie to keep politicians happy. Since about a year government decided to replace professional intelligence officers with politically aligned policemen. Some of these policemen had no clue at all about intelligence. The only intelligence they generated were political intelligence - what the leader of the opposition, his colleagues, his friends and his family was doing.
Although political intelligence was also the forte of some intelligence operatives of the UNP regime, there has not been such a focus on the gathering of political intelligence as during the past few months. But more than that, this spate of transfers have harmed national security both at a tactical and a strategic level. Tactically, informants that have been cultivated over the years have been lost.
Strategically, the National Intelligence Bureau, has lost the training arm by transferring the top trainer it had. The head of training in intelligence - a British and Israeli trained operative later retired. The transferring out of the true professionals out of the Criminal Investigations Department, National Intelligence Bureau and recently from the Colombo Detective Bureau and replacing them with people who had to learn intelligence and investigation from scratch has been a huge set-back to a country at war.
When the politically aligned officers come up to the level of the professionals who have been transferred out tremendous damage would have been done.
Many police officers, serving and retired, are surprised why the Inspector General of Police has not exercised his right to stop politicians and bureaucrats without a backbone from interfering in police appointments. Mr Rajaguru, himself a British Intelligence trained man, has been criticized by foreign intelligence and investigative agencies, and the diplomatic community for allowing politicians to destroy the security apparatus by replacing first rate intelligence and investigative officers by an untrained group of policemen who have political clout.
Mr Rajaguru must learn from history. He must recall that in 1970 as Ms Sirima Ban-daranaike came to power she had put her own men to the Special Branch. Her favourites, who were not professionals, could not predict the 1971 insurgency. But after the insurgency, she realized her folly and brought back the veteran operatives. President Jayewardene made the same mistake in 1977 but after July 1983 he brought back the veteran operatives. By that time national security had been seriously damaged.
Sri Lankan public officials must learn how to say no to a politician or to a senior bureaucrat bent on praising their political masters. A public official must know to keep the politician in his or her place. Otherwise the public official must resign with dignity. It is a disgrace that the standard and the quality of public officials have dropped so low
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