The point was driven home on Monday when Air Marshal Ranasinghe accompanied Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte to Mankulam, together with Army Commander Lt. Gen. Rohan Daluwatte, and Navy chief Vice Admiral Cecil Tissera.

Air Vice Marshal Jayalath Weerakkody, the third most senior Air Force officer, a highly rated officer among all three services, is to be appointed Chief of Staff this week, sources said.

The tussle had dominated conversations in officers' messes in all three armed forces for weeks.

The controversy came about over uncertainty over how long any officer can serve as a service commander, in the army, navy or air force.

Many officers still believed that a service chief could only stay for four years, unless he was given an extension of service by the president.

If that were so, Air Marshal Ranasinghe would have had to retire on Feb. 17, that is yesterday, when he completed four years as air force chief.

By a remarkable coincidence, Air Vice Marshal Peiris is completing today, three years in his present rank, which is the limit of the term of an air vice marshal.

If Ranasinghe stayed, then Peiris had to go. The only way Peiris could stay would have been for Ranasinghe to retire, and Peiris to be promoted to commander, in which case he would become an Air Marshal, and get several more years in the air force.

But last week, Secretary of Defence Chandrananda de Silva wrote to Peiris, informing him that his term in rank was up, and that he would have to retire on Feb. 18, according to defence ministry sources.

The existence or no-existence of the four year rule for service commanders has caused much confusion in recent times in all the services.

In the past, when the air force was smaller and was headed by an Air Vice Marshal, a regulation that the service commander serve only for four years, was enforced. The same applied for the Army and Navy. Officers such as Major General Dennis Perera, Air Vice Marshal Paddy Mendis, and Rear Admiral Asoka de Silva, retired after completing four years.

Thus, everyone knew who would be the commander, and when, and there was hardly any tussle for the top positions.

But in the late eighties, service chiefs began asking for extensions when their time was up, notably under President R. Premadasa.

The result was that controversies arose over whom the president favoured. In 1991, there was the tussle between Lieutenant General Hamilton Wanasinghe, and his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Cecil Waidyaratne. In the end, Wanasinghe was made a full general and appointed as commander of the JOC (Joint Operations Command), while Waidyaratne became a Lt. General and served as army commander. Wanasinghe went on to become Secretary of Defence.

In the navy, Vice Admiral Ananda Silva was given a two year extension of service by President Premadasa, on top of his original four years, sending the hierarchy into some confusion. When that period was up, he was made a full Admiral and retired, while his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Clancy Fernando, was promoted to Vice Admiral and became commander. Had Silva got another extention, as many expected, Fernando would have had to retire.

The ambiguity over this rule has caused many senior officers to be distracted with political tussles, rather than attending to their work.

Many resort to slinging mud at each other, service chiefs at their deputies, and deputies at service chiefs. Charges of incompetence are bandied around, military secrets are leaked out against each other, and then blame is placed for the leaking out of such secrets.

No matter who wins, the media is often at the receiving end, since both sides use journalists for their own ends.

Many journalists, whose job it is to report on corruption and incompetence in the government or forces, are abused, and charged with helping one side, usually quite wrongly.

The recent tussle between Peiris and Ranasinghe was no exception. A supposedly secret report on the air forces huge losses in Eelam War III was leaked to well known defence writer Iqbal Athas. (Why this report was confidential is another matter. Why no action was taken on this report is even more puzzling. If no action was going to be taken, why was a high-powered committee appointed in the first place?)

Many people assumed, naturally, but with no evidence at all, that Peiris or officers close to Peiris would have leaked the report, which was extremely critical of Ranasinghe.

Meanwhile, Athas was being hounded. First, he reported to the police that armed men in civvies were watching his house in Mirihana, Nugegoda. The matter was taken up with the Media Minister, and received a cursory promise of an investigation. Of course, nothing came of it.

Then, the armed forces tried to diseredit Athas by having a captured LTTE cadres say that Athas' stories were useful to the LTTE. Athas got wind of it, and reported the matter, before it happened. Then, the Daily News went ahead and published the captured cadre's story as its front page lead several days later, clearly proving the plot. This drew a howl of protest from international media organizations who saw clearly that Athas had been framed.

Finally, Athas was attacked in his own home last Thursday night, a gun pointed at his head in the presence of his wife and sobbing 7-year-old daughter. Only his daughter's screams saved him from harm.

His driver was less lucky and was beaten up.

Perhaps coincidentally, the tussle between Peiris and Ranasinghe was reaching a climax. Now, rumours are blaming both for the attack on Athas.

This is an extremely dangerous situation. There is no evidence that either was involved in the attack. In fact, given the fact that Athas has uncovered many scandals within the armed forces, the attackers may not be from the air force at all.

The police are also reluctant to get involved in matters concerning the forces. This results in nothing being done to protect journalists. In Athas' case, the attackers returned to the neighbourhood three hours after the first attack. This was after a complaint had been made to the DIG of the area.

Yet there was no police guard present.

Only the presence of some of Athas' military friends, who had rushed to his house (with their own guns) after hearing of the attack, saved him from a worse fate at midnight. The attackers left without doing anything, after seeing them.

Perhaps most harmful in the case of uncertainty over who the service chief will be, is the government's own silence on these issues. At no time did President Chandrika Kumatunga, in her capacity of Minister of Defence, or her deputy minister, Anuruddha Ratwatte, bother to tell the nation, and the air force, who was retiring, who was staying, etc.

They could have saved a lot of trouble, most of all the damage to the reputations of Ranasinghe and Peiris, not to mention the reputation of the Sri Lanka Air Force.

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