By Subathra

Former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has exposed some fault lines within the high-level security apparatus in his newly released book, ‘Conspiracy to Oust Me from the Presidency’, admitting that what he once deemed as his strength and what he once strengthened had become his vulnerabilities.

When Gotabaya took office as president, he appointed his long-time army buddies to important positions in government.  He believed surrounding himself with people close to him would bolster him, enabling him to exercise his powers more easily.

But that belief was quickly destroyed when halfway into his term he was forced to abandon his presidency and seek refuge in a foreign land.

In contrast, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Maithripala Sirisena, who had no close security affiliations, wielded their power with ease.

What this showcased was that although Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s militaristic approach was successful on the battlefield, it was a failure in the political arena.

In his book, Gotabaya highlights the rift between his Defence Secretary General Kamal Gunaratne and Chief of Defence Staff General Shavendra Silva, both of them close confidants,  and attributes the conflict between the two Generals to be one of the reasons for his ouster.

General Shavendra Silva was already the army chief when Gotabaya took over as president, and in appointing General Kamal Gunaratne as defence secretary, Gotabaya no doubt believed he had the entire security apparatus under his control.  But the reality was quite the disappointing contrary.

Describing this as a structural defect, he says he appointed senior officers who have worked with him for many years to the most important positions in the law and order and security agencies, and that the structural deficiencies did not appear when the armed forces were engaged in disaster management operations at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, he says later the appointments caused obvious problems in the command and control structure of the security system and that by then it was too late to resolve the issues.

One of the issues highlighted was that there was not much of a seniority gap between Defence Secretary Kamal Gunaratne and Army Chief Shavendra Silva, both of whom were commanding officers in charge of divisions during the war and saw themselves as equals and at times superior to one another.

Gotabaya doubts whether the two were talking to each other and says at times they acted with conflicting intentions, with the army chief often refusing to respect the instructions of the defence secretary.

Under such circumstances Kamal Gunaratna may not have had control over the armed forces when he was defence secretary, Gotabaya says.  He cites this inconsistency and a lack of proper intelligence as the main reason for his failure to contain the popular uprising against him.

It is doubtful that seniority was the underlying cause of the conflict. Kamal Gunaratne joined the army as an officer in 1981, became 2nd Lieutenant in 1982 and retired in 2016. Initially associated with Gotabaya in the 1^st Rajarata Rifles, he was one of the initial members of the Regiment renamed the Gajaba Regiment.

Shavendra Silva, who joined the army as an officer in 1984, became the 2nd Lieutenant of the Gajaba Regiment in November 1985. Not yet 60, he recently celebrated 40 years of military service.

Given that Shavendra Silva was three years junior to Kamal Gunaratne in terms of service, one wonders how the issue of seniority arose.

However, it is important to note that during the final phase of the civil conflict, both Sarath Fonseka and Gotabaya Rajapaksa chose vibrant, confident young officers to lead the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Shavendra Silva was one of the chosen leaders. At the rank of Colonel, he was promoted to Brigadier and made Commander of the 58th Division which operated under the name Task Force 1.

The regiment, which started from Mannar, advanced towards Mullivaikkal via Poonakari, Kilinochchi, and Pudukudiripu, was the catalyst for the final victory against the LTTE.

 The 53rd and 55th Divisions, the latter under Kamal Gunaratne, then considered the army’s top special forces, were stationed at Muhamale and Nager Kovil fronts.

Both Silva and Gunaratne were Brigadiers then.

Shavendra Silva’s Division performed so well on the frontline and reached heights once thought unattainable that at one point it considered itself superior to the 53rd and 55th Divisions. Though high-ranking officers in the army realized this would cause chaos in the military structure, they couldn’t do anything about it due to the risks of creating confusion on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, the 53rd and 55th Divisions, advancing from the Muhamale and Nager Kovil citadel, unopposed by the LTTE, faced frontline action only in the final few weeks of the war. In the final battle, Kamal Gunaratne was given command of the 53rd Division and temporary command of the 68th Division.

LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed in a fight with the 68th Division under Kamal Gunaratna.

It is not surprising that Shavendra Silva, who had led the war successfully from Mannar, was not happy that it was not his Division that dealt the final blow to Prabhakaran.

Post-war, both Gunaratne and Silva were promoted to major generals and offered opportunities to serve as deputy ambassadors/high commissioners abroad.

Shavendra Silva was offered a job in the Sri Lanka mission in the US and Kamal Gunaratna, in Brazil. But both men face war crimes charges, with Shavendra Silva also facing travel bans from the US and Canada.

While Kamal Gunaratne retired as Major General, Shavendra Silva retired as Lieutenant General but held the post of Army Commander as General.

When Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed Kamal Gunaratne as the Defence Secretary, the Army Commander’s superior, he held the rank of Lieutenant General.

A year later, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who promoted Shavendra Silva to the rank of general, also promoted Kamal Gunaratna to the rank of general.

These confusions are the cause of the problems.

Gotabaya, who used Shavendra Silva when needed, later promoted Kamal Gunaratne to the post of Defence Secretary and promoted him to General, creating a conflict between the two.

Now the question arises, was Gotabaya Rajapaksa suggesting the security forces were hamstrung because they were not given proper orders when protests broke out against him?

There might be an element of truth in this, as Gotabaya notes, Kamal Gunaratne and three chiefs of the armed forces were attending a wedding reception at the Shangri-La Hotel when his residence in Mirihana was besieged by protesters.

Gotabaya recalls in his book that upon being informed of the protest, Major General Suresh Saleh, head of the National Intelligence Service, came to his house and from there, made a video call to Kamal Gunaratne and Shavendra Silva, showing the protest outside.

He charges no action was taken until Suresh Saleh took steps to disperse the crowd.

Disagreements between the security authorities alone are not the cause for the state of affairs that unfolded during those climacteric days. What has emerged as significant is that even those whom he had trusted, had forsaken him.

Gotabaya has also accused the intelligence agencies, who had performed well in their duties related to the pandemic, of having completely failed to address the creation of politically motivated groups on social media.

It is ironic that someone who was swept to power on the promise that he alone could fix the Easter Sunday bombings should now be blaming the weakening of the intelligence agencies and the disintegration of the security infrastructure, for his downfall.  More so since he, soon after coming to power, boasted that he had reorganized and strengthened the intelligence and security structures and that no one could shake them anymore.

But now he is crying foul, blaming the very same security structure being responsible for the conspiracy to remove him from office.

On a more serious note, his comments that strict protocols should be enforced to control, monitor and limit the interactions of senior officers of armed forces, police and intelligence agencies with employees of foreign embassies, begs the question, what exactly does he mean?

Does it mean Sri Lanka’s top security officials have acted on the hidden agendas of foreign embassies?

Udayanga Weeratunga, a close relative of Rajapaksa, and a former ambassador to Russia, who has commented on this matter, revealed that Kamal Gunaratne, Shavendra Silva, P. B. Jayasundara, Lalith Weeratunga, Jayanath Colombage, Milinda Moragoda

and Nissanka Senathipathy,  who were close to Gotabaya,  were involved in the American conspiracy. He also claimed that it was these people who got Gotabaya in trouble and that they were also responsible for creating rifts among the Rajapaksas.

Their aim apparently was to isolate Gotabaya.

Weeratunga also charged that Gotabaya did not reveal certain facts about Shavendra Silva and Kamal Gunaratne in his book, because he feared the repercussion from America.

All this brings up a big question.  How much of this is true? And how much damage does it do to the image created around Gotabaya?

-ENCL