DNA leader and MP Gen. Sarath Fonseka's broadside at the government during the Emergency debate in Parliament on Tuesday smacks of a volte face. He said that there was no threat to Sri Lanka's national security and it was the leaders feeling insecure who ruled under Emergency laws in peacetime.
Gen. Fonseka is entitled to his opinion and what he says in Parliament cannot be questioned. However, we are reminded of what he said and did about post-war threats to national security while he was in uniform. It may be recalled that he as army chief did his damnedest to make the government take delivery of a huge consignment of arms and ammunition worth about $ 32 million weeks after the end of war. His contention was that the depleted stocks of the army had to be replenished to meet possible terrorist threats, though the war was over. The government did not buy his argument and it is believed that the rejection by the Defence Ministry of arms and ammunition he had ordered from China soured his relations with the President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
How would Gen. Fonseka reconcile his earlier position that the country had to be prepared through arms procurement etc. to face post-war threats and his latest pronouncement that there is no need for extending the State of Emergency as there are no threats to national security?
Gen. Fonseka also pressed for stepping up recruitment to the army even after the war was over. He wanted its strength increased at least up to 300,000! What would have happened, if the government had given in to his pressure and recruited tens of thousands of more personnel to the army? Wouldn't the country have been unnecessarily burdened with a huge army in peacetime in spite of the absence of threats?
Gen. Fonseka keeps contradicting himself. He really belongs to Parliament. (Courtesy: The Island)
