Sirisena’s claims on LTTE seen as totally baseless
Posted on September 29th, 2018
By Nirmala Joseph Courtesy The Gulf Today
CHENNAI: Informed people have rejected an allegation raised by Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena that the now-defunct Tamil Tiger outfit had planned to attack Colombo with an aircraft flying from Chennai in 2009.
Speaking to the Sri Lankan community in New York where he spoke at the UN General Assembly, Sirisena said, No one knew it better than me.”
Retired Indian military intelligence officer Colonel R. Hariharan was quoted in the local media on Saturday as dubbing the Sirisena claim as fiction. The Chennai airport was fully secured and the Q branch of the Tamil Nadu police was on high alert,” he said.
They would have known had the LTTE hatched such a plan.”
Hariharan now works with the Chennai centre for China studies and the international law and strategic analysis institute.
TR Baalu, prominent leader of the opposition DMK, who was a Union minister during the days Sirisena refers to, said: What he says is totally baseless. How can he say either the Centre or the State government would have allowed our territory to be used to attack any other country?”
There was no such plan of the LTTE, a banned organisation. It is totally false.”
The DMK was in power in 2009.
Sri Lanka expert Prof PS Suryanarayana said, It is wild imagination that the LTTE had plans to attack Colombo from Chennai.”
Sirisena was the acting defence minister during the last two weeks of the civil war with the LTTE in May, 2009, when the Tigers were eliminated.
The former president (Mahinda Rajapaksa) was away, the former prime minister was away. There was no defence ministry Secretary and Army Commander in the country at the time,” Sirisena said, adding that all senior leaders were out of the country fearing an LTTE air raid.
The Tamil Tigers were going to operate an aircraft from Chennai or some other jungle area to bomb and destroy targets in Colombo,” the President said.
Sirisena said it was a well-guarded secret that all senior leaders were out of the country fearing an LTTE air raid. Even I did not stay in Colombo. I was at several locations outside Colombo in case the Tigers attacked the capital city,” he said.
September 29th, 2018 at 7:18 pm
It is a fact Mahinda was away from May 14 to May 18 morning and Fonseka was away from May 11 to May 17. However, it was not to save themselves from a Tamil attack launched from Tamil Nadu! That part is wrong. It was to save themselves from war crimes allegations. Sirisena could not say it for obvious reasons.
I don’t think Gotabaya was away. He was in Sri Lanka as far as I know. Defence Secretary is not part of the military Chain of Command and would not be charged for war crimes anyway.
On May 16 Mahinda declared “LTTE has been crushed” from Jordan. Why? When he landed in Sri Lanka, he pretended that we had already won the war. He kissed the land and celebrated. Why? Did the honeymoon go ahead without the groom?
The real war was fought when Mahinda and Fonseka were in the island on the 18th. If any war crimes happened on that day, they must take responsibility.
Sirisena was under severe pressure from a senior politician to finish off the LTTE within that time (May 14 to 17) but Sirisena (after advice from international law experts) refused. Had he done so, he would have been turned into a scapegoat for war crimes. That senior politician had told Sirisena that he is a weak person without any courage, a coward and a loser. (Partly true for other reasons). But Sirisena was not foolish. To make matters worse, this particular politician implicated our STF and the Navy in war crimes by then to the US State Department.
I agree with that politician’s views on Sirisena but never underestimate Sirisena’s shrewdness. He fooled and tamed Rajapaksas thrice and he will try it again for the 2019 presidential election.