The storm over Daya Ratnayake’s SJB appointment  

Opinion
By Editor_1
General Daya Ratnayake, the 20th Commander of the Sri Lanka Army being welcomed t the Samagi Jana Balawegaya by its leader Sajith Premadasa – X/ @sjbsrilanka
By Subathra
Former army officers joining the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) are usually non-events.  But the recent inclusion of former Army Commander, General (Retired) Daya Ratnayake to the party fold and his elevation in rank has stirred a hornet’s nest of sorts, with two prominent personalities from within and outside the party voicing their opposition to the inclusion and elevation.

Last week General Ratnayake met SJB leader Sajith Premadasa to extend his support to the party, after which he was given the position of Advisor on Public Policy to the SJB.

Opposition to the appointment came from prominent personalities operating on two different platforms – personal politics and human rights. The first volley was lobbed by Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, who opposed the appointment because General Ratnayake had been involved in the court martial proceedings against him. This could also be called personal enmity.   The second came from Ambika Satkunanathan, former commissioner of the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission and human rights activist, on the grounds of human rights violations.

General Ratnayake was the Commanding Officer of the 23rd Infantry Division stationed in the Eastern Province from 2005 to 2007 when Sarath Fonseka was the Army Chief. It was under the leadership of General Ratnayake that the operation to capture Vakarai, a stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the East, was carried out.  From 2007 to 2009, he was the Commander, Forward Maintenance Area (North), a post given to him purely because of his status as a confidant of Sartha Fonseka.

However, when the Mahinda Rajapaksa government threw  Fonseka into jail, in the immediate aftermath of his 2010 election defeat, and appointed a military court to try him for ‘military offences’, Daya Ratnayake became an adversary, in that he took on the task of gathering evidence of ‘corrupt deals’ against his onetime confidant.

The investigation report on Fonseka noted: “Major General Daya Ratnayake, appointed as the Evidence Gathering Officer by the Military Court, recorded evidence of 35 persons, including 22 army personnel, 7 police officers and 6 civilians, within 22 days.”

Daya Ratnayake was seen to have developed a close relationship with the Rajapaksa family and was appointed as the Chief of Army Staff and later in 2013, the 20 Commander of the Sri Lanka Army. He was also simultaneously promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General.

When Maithripala Sirisena was elected President in 2015, Ratnayake was promoted to the rank of full General but was asked to step down from his Army Commander post. However, after Gotabaya Rajapaksa came to power in 2019, Ratnayake was appointed Chairman, of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).

Field Marshal Fonseka’s anger over Daya Ratnayake’s inclusion into the SJB ranks isn’t just a case of personal enmity but also relates to the close relationship Ratnayake maintains with the Rajapaksa family.

On the other hand, Ambika Satkunanathan has opposed the appointment of General Ratnayake citing human rights violations and accountability issues. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, she wrote: “The appointment of a war crime denier as advisor and use of the term “humanitarian op”, shows #SJB doesn’t think violations of IHL and HR were committed during war and there’s no need to hold military accountable. All Southern parties seem to hold the same position on this issue.”

In an interview shortly after being appointed Chairman of SLPA in 2019, Ratnayake referred to the final phase of the war as a “humanitarian operation”, maintaining that it was an operation carried out without any civilian casualties. He also argued strongly that no ‘war crimes’ had been committed during the war.

These statements do not mean General Daya Ratnayake should not be held responsible or answerable for wartime and post-war human rights violations. Because, as a career military officer, General Ratnayake’s 35-year army career spans the entirety of the war and he played a significant role in war operations from the 1980s to 2009.

As Commander of the 23rd Division stationed at Amparai, Batticaloa, he is also answerable for the mass killings of journalists, parliamentarians, human rights activists and civil society members in the East in the years following Karuna Amman’s split from the LTTE. These events and his command role make him answerable to the human rights violations that occurred during the period.

Post-war, thousands of LTTE cadres and civilians surrendered to the forces or were arrested, but a large number of them have disappeared and remain missing even today.

When General Ratnayake took over as the Commissioner General Rehabilitation of ex-LTTE combatants on August 16, 2009, he claimed more than 10,000 ex-combatants had been placed in rehabilitation camps. However, government estimates showed that over 12,000 had been rehabilitated.

The total number of LTTE combatants who surrendered or were captured during the war has never been released by the government or the military. General Officer Commanding (GOC), 58th Division of the Sri Lanka Army, Major General Chanakya Gunawardena, who testified in the hearing of the recruitment petition filed in the Vavuniya High Court regarding the surrendered LTTE carders, including senior leader Ezhilan, testified that the list of those who surrendered to his division was at the headquarters.

Although the court ordered the list to be submitted, it was not done so, and the court was later informed that the 58th Division did not have such a list and they did not take responsibility for those who surrendered. The court was also informed that the Bureau of the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation had taken charge of all those who surrendered.

General Ratnayake, who was the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, was the key person to answer regarding missing persons. It was he who was responsible for providing the statistics regarding the number of persons taken into custody, and how many were rehabilitated. It was his responsibility to ensure that no one went missing during his watch.

It is in this context that Daya Ratnayake’s appointment to the SJB high ranks is controversial.  Not only is he answerable to the rights violations that were committed during the way, he also refuses to acknowledge any such violations were committed.

Sarath Fonseka’s question as to whether Sajith Premadasa is seeking rapprochement with Gotabaya Rajapaksa by giving the position of advisor to Daya Ratnayake, and Ambika Satkunanathan questioning  SJB’s position on accountability deserves a closer look. The appointment has also created doubts about the SJB’s commitment to rights, and reconciliation.

-ENCL

 

Editor_1
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