Xinhua,  Sat Mar 18 14:45:10 EST 2006

    Colombo, March 18 (Xinhua) Sri Lanka's Army chief has said that the military's support for the government's peace initiatives was not due to any fear of the Tamil Tiger rebels.



Addressing his troops in the northern town of Vavuniya Friday, Commander of the Sri Lankan Army Sarath Fonseka said that the army's policy was the same as that of the government. 'The problems of the Tamils must be solved through peaceful means,' military sources quoted him as saying on Saturday.



'We support the peace process to see if we can achieve peace through negotiations and (it is) not due to any fear of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam),' Fonseka told his troops.
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- The Academic

This is not surprising as the Sri Lankan army has always had a history of supporting a ceasefire whenever one is declared. If one goes back to the 1987, Premadasa, CBK and Ranil ceasefires, SL armed forces have never been seriously accused of violating them.

Past commanders like Kobbekaduwa & Janake Perera have never left any doubt that they were fighting the war in order to protect the constitution of the country - as is the duty of armed forces in any country.

Some members of SL armed forces can be accused of corruption, abuse of power and inefficiency. But then, all that reflects SL society today.

For nearly thirty years now, our troops have kept the LTTE at bay. What other government department or government in SL has achieved its objective like that in the recent past. The record of our government departments is a litany of consecutive, never-ending failures.

The failure to defeat the LTTE completely shows not the inefficiency of the forces but the political nature of a major part of the problem and the influence of many factors that are outside the scope of armed forces.

It is very important for both the government and the opposition to acknowledge that there is a political problem, identify a fair and permanent solution to that problem and get the majority behind it to deliver that solution.

Rationale dictates that the LTTE must agree to that solution and ditch the pursuit of an unworkable Eelam which will create more problems than it is supposed to solve.

If the LTTE remains adament and persists with the separate state non-solution, then the army has a big and meaningful role to play.

A political solution to the ethnic problem will be the beacon that will guide the armed forces to victory over terrorism. That political solution is the responsibility of the government.