Taking credit for the outcome of the war is continuing and with the launch of a book by Maj. Gen. Kamal Guneratne recently, the war victory has once again taken centrestage. In reply to our queries about Maj. Gen. Guneratne’s war effort as narrated in his book, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, who was the Army Commander at that time, had this to share with us.
Q Victory has many sons, so they say. In our country from time to time many people have claimed responsibility for the war victory. Recently Major General Kamal Gunaratne published a book on the war. So far there have been many such books and this book is also one among them.
Kamal Gunaratne was one of the commanding officers of one battalion out of fifteen others, who were at the war front. His battalion was based from the beginning in Muhamale security cordon. It was I, who took him out of it and deployed for assault attack. He cannot move from place to place with his battalion on his own. I took them to forward assault attacks on January 2, 2009 after we wrested control of Kilinochchi.
Three-fourth of his book contains his past. It was I who entrusted him with a battalion. At that time there was a disciplinary action pending against him. Forgetting that temporarily, I assigned him the battalion, which he led from January to March.
Thereafter two units of his battalion of three, were detached and joined with the battalion under Brigadier Ravipriya and a new task force was established. This task force was responsible for the attack on Prabhakaran.
These were done on my instructions and not in the way the author of this book had wanted.
Further, this battalion under Ravipriya continued the assault on Prabhakaran and his group and coordinated the finding of the body of Prabhakaran and other details.
The eight units of this task force completely handled this operation.
I have information to believe that this book had attempted to undermine the
Army Commander.
If he says that he refrained from answering two telephone calls of the Army Commander, that person is undisciplined as making this issue in the presence of Junior Officers and this warrants disciplinary action.
At a time when a severe conflict situation is present at the war front, not answering the telephone calls and beating about the bush, he is not at all suitable to be a Commander of a Battalion. That is my thinking and if I knew it then I would have removed his uniform before removing that of Prabhakaran.
QDid you read Kamal Gunaratne’s book completely?
No, I did not. But I heard from a close associate of mine that this book has attempted to ridicule me and my position and several references made therein to undermine my authority. I have no time to waste in reading this book.
Q Do you infer that an attempt had been made to attack you by this book on an agenda of someone?
Yes. It is very clear. It is best observed by those who were present at the launch of this book as invitees, and it is clear whose plan was this and whose needs it fulfilled. When an Army officer is going on retirement that occasion is graced by the Minister of Defence and by the Defence Secretary.
There is also the Army Commander who directed the war. Forgetting everybody presenting this book to a leader of a political group and a politico of the same group, it signalled what the agenda was at that event.
QWith the rapid spate of books on the war competing each other, many are wondering when the book authored by Sarath Fonseka would be published?
Most of these books do not contain the actual history of the war, but had been written to sling mud at me and are blown out of proportion.
If anyone wanted to write about what actually took place at the war, he would never have written in this manner.
I am also going to write the truth about the war. In that book there won’t be a single sentence to sling mud at anyone. I am presently sketching it. It might be a lengthy one, why? Because if Kamal Gunaratne had written such a big volume on his single battalion, I would have to write about 20 battalions, for which I gave leadership, as to how they were grouped and their modus operandi.
With this compilation there would not be any opportunity to boost up somebody or sling mud at anyone. I expect to launch this book sometime next year.
QReading all these books and observing the criticisms levelled at each other and the vituperative allegations, one wonders how on earth these groups got together in ending this war?
There had been issues, but however despite these differences we were able to finish it. During the last stages, four battalions from four sides launched the attack.
On certain occasions they were subjected to severe attacks of the terrorists. We hastened to deploy the task force units to such positions and help the battalions to regain the positions.
These situations are also mentioned in Kamal Gunaratne’s book, but they appear to have been written for self-glory. For this type of severe attacks the Commanders of other battalions were never called and some were not even aware of that situation. I had to intervene in resolving the differences among the individual Commanders.
I did not engage in mollycoddling them as winning the war was considered as the number one priority by me. There was no time to pacify these Commanders.
QWere there any misunderstandings on the last two or three days?
The final assault continued from May 17 Night 2009 until the morning of 19.
I had to coordinate that final attack. When the assault commenced around 2.30 a.m. on 17th all the terrorists were cornered in an area left of Mullaithivu.
That is about a 400x400 metres area on the East of the lagoon.
There were battalions of Shavendra Silva and Kamal Gunaratne. The terrorists were wading in the lagoon late in the night and coming up near about three metres and launched an attack on the front security post, and ripped it off. I guessed that Prabhakaran was in this group. Their attempt had been to destroy our front offensive and escape to the jungle. Within minutes I ordered Kamal Gunaratne and Shavendra Silva to fortify the place where our front-line was attacked and Prasanna Silva to continue the offensive at the place where the terrorist group was holed in. At that moment I received a call from Jagath Dias, who was the senior most Commander of the battalions. He informed that Shavendra Silva and Kamal Gunaratne were seeking authority for them to continue the offensive from the place where the terrorists were first holed in, believing that Prabhakaran was there.
During this call with Jagath Dias I overheard Kamal Gunaratne retorting angrily, “What is the use of us being here, when they do not require us. It became evident that the two were not happy with the decision I had made. They were worried that Prabhakaran would be cornered by the battalion of Prasanna Silva and not by them. It appeared that they wanted to score a point saying that finally Prabhakaran was beaten by them.
They had been arguing on this matter. But finally Prabhakaran was caught at the point I wanted Kamal and Shavendra to be. There were issues like that and I do not know whether this book contains any of these facts.
QIt seems as if everyone was trying to score the point of capturing Prabhakaran?
There were ambitions like that. The details I stated plus other interesting information would come to light in my book.
QKamal Gunaratne in his book blames you for taking him to task when he informed about the killing of Prabhakaran. He had been frustrated with your blames even after killing Prabhakaran.
Kamal Gunaratne had a very limited knowledge of the war, whereas I always acted with much responsibility and above board. I cannot act being confined to a limited space as the Commander of the Army.
He himself says that some had got deceived seeing a corpse believed to be that of Prabhakaran. What he says is that even a small child could identify Prabhakaran. No one in the Army had seen Prabhakaran alive, and they had only seen him in pictures. We wanted to establish his identity, and that was why I sent Karuna to that spot, and another LTTE leader, who was under the custody of the intelligence unit to identify the body. They identified and in addition A DNA test was made. I did this because I had more responsibility than Kamal Gunaratne.
When Kamal Gunaratne was behaving in a childish manner, choice words may have come out of my mouth.
QIt is alleged in this book that you did not want the news of Prabhakaran’s death made known
to anyone.
These are stories he himself has created that is all I want to say. However, until it was established that it was the body of Prabhakaran, they could not confirm or announce that it was so. As an Army there are ways of doing things. There is also a mode of exchanging news on the war.
Junior officers cannot divulge such information to the Defence Secretary. But the Defence Secretary had a habit of speaking to junior officers, seeking information on everything, by breaking the traditions of the Army.
All decisive information on the war had to be made known only according to the rules of the army. There is information that is to be held very secretively. Experiences of the war can be written by anyone, but untruthful information to satisfy political needs should not be divulged by anyone as it would be greatly misleading.
QThere is a reference to the NIC and Prabhakaran’s Dog Tag in this book.
Kamal Gunaratne in his book says that I asked for the Dog Tag. Why should I ask that from him?
I gave orders that these items should be sent immediately to Colombo. How can he keep the NIC of Prabhakaran in the museum? It is sheer madness. I could not check back whether these items were handed over to the authorities as directed by me.
Now only I realised what would have happened to the NIC. It is a lie that he gave the Dog Tag to me. Only he would know what happened to them. I gave orders to him to hand over these items to the Army Head Quarters. It is not something to be published in newspapers. A disciplinary action can be taken against him even now. I am suggesting to the Army Commander to take such action. I as the then Army Commander also can take action for going against my orders and over the statements he is making to the media.
QWill there be any more similar books on the war in due course?
They may come. One need not be a Commander of a Battalion to write a book. Whatever books that are published should be authentic and should not have made up stories to sling mud at others or to be in accordance with the political thinking to fulfil some political agenda.
No one can write books fabricating lies about the war.
