Sustaining SL’s strength

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in his comprehensive and ‘no-holds-barred’ public lecture at the SLFI on Tuesday on the subject of ‘Future Challenges to National Security in Sri Lanka’ has touched on almost every issue of relevance to this country currently. If one had lingering doubts on any issues plaguing contemporary Sri Lanka, they were all taken up for clarification by the Defence Secretary. Accordingly, his address was a stitch in time of sorts which would have won wide public acceptance.

The Defence Secretary’s lecture centred mainly on national security concerns and the possible threats to domestic socio-political stability, but before we go further in this commentary we believe it would be in order to dwell on a most vital point which was made by the speaker which is exceedingly worthy of repeated emphasis. That is, that the city of Colombo is today an exemplar of multi-ethnicity and peaceful co-existence among communities and that communal amity would be made the norm in this country. This is proof that the Lankan state is firmly committed to a policy of building fraternal ties among our communities. The question would not arise of one community dominating the other.

The Defence Secretary was also clear on the matter of implementing the recommendations of the LLRC report. He said that the report is being studied very closely by the agencies of the state, including the Security Forces, and that the state would not be sidestepping the LLRC’s prescriptions for the common good. Therefore, it could be said that all those measures which would help in the task of strengthening national unity and in bringing about national rejuvenation would be implemented by the government.

Considerable attention was paid to the LTTE rump and its continuing anti-Lanka activities abroad and considering that no chances could be taken with these elements, it only stands to reason that the country’s security could never be compromised.

Accordingly, in proportion to the perceived threats against Sri Lanka, its defenses would need to be constantly beefed-up. This was the gist, so to speak, of the early parts of the Defence Secretary’s lecture and one could not quarrel with his observations given that numerous pro-LTTE outfits are continuing to be active against Sri Lanka abroad; some even advocating a renewal of armed confrontation with the Lankan state.

But it was also reassuring to note that the state is not being dismissive of any of the outstanding North-East issues which have cropped-up time and again, including that of accounting for all those who seem to have ‘gone missing’ during the Lankan state’s efforts to keep Sri Lanka intact against the LTTE’s prolonged savagery. We hope that the population census which has been taken on by the state in the North would prove invaluable in this respect.

Accordingly, the government seems to be adopting what could be considered a two-pronged approach to strengthening Sri Lanka. The first, is not to put down our defenses, by adopting appropriate security measures, such as, maintaining a military presence in areas where such a presence is absolutely essential. Second, there is a consistent effort to build trust and confidence among our communities by considering and implementing the recommendations of the LLRC.

The latter prong is as important as the first. The LLRC recommendations give us an insight as to how better understanding among our communities could be established.

We need to steadily go ahead and implement them because there are really no short cuts to national reconciliation. The people of the North-East should be increasingly brought into the decision-making process and one could be glad that this is already happening to a degree in those regions.

We had the reassurance of the Defence Secretary, for instance, that we now have a civilian administration in the said areas. This process must continue until an administration which is fully responsible to the local public could be established with the participation of the North-East people within a unitary and united Sri Lanka.