I have written for a couple of weeks about the Sri Lanka Military Academy, and my work there, and also how it stood me in good stead when I was appointed to head the Peace Secretariat. Liaising with the forces then proved very easy, and I got answers straight away to questions posed to us by our critics.
But in this last article about the impact of the new course at the Academy, I want to dwell, not on the war, but rather its students, with particular attention to one who exemplified the impact of the degree programme we had introduced, with study of a range of subjects, politics and administration and science and of course healthy doses of both computing and English.
A year after I had taken over at the Peace Secretariat, I was visited by a student of the first intake, 51. Since they were the only ones whom I had to teach, in the first six months of 2000, I spent much time with them, and they have continued to be my favourite intake. Unfortunately, though in the old days they would by now be at least half colonels, given congestion in the army they are still just majors, though I hope that will change soon. Incidentally, the chap who topped the batch did not get a degree since he did not have the required Advanced Levels, but he proved extremely bright, and his career has proved our faith in him.
The 2015 Presidential Election
I would come across that batch in later years, memorably when they were returning officers for postal voting in the 2015 Presidential Election, but my favourite amongst them had by then left the Army. This was Chamil Prasad who was amongst the brightest and very high in the order of merit, and even more significantly was keen to ask questions, which many students did not do, given the passivity our education system inculcated in students. I still recall the furrowed brow with which he expressed the need to know more.
After the degree course cadets were supposed to produce a thesis, but Chamil did not appear with his peers, and I found that he had deserted. This was because, hot-tempered as he was, he had rounded on an officer who had tried to pull rank in a, literally, heavy handed way. Chamil had a keen sense of justice and decided not to put up with the punishment he had been given.
But then he came back. Sudantha, who was by then Commanding Officer at the Academy, told me that he had paved the way for this since he had no intention of losing his star opening bat. This was for the Armoured Corps, the regiment I had been told by a visiting Indian General was considered an elite, and this seemed to me to be the case given the officers I met, including Jagath.
So Chamil went back into the Army. But then Sarath Fonseka, understandably enough, decreed that officers who had deserted, even though they might have been allowed back in, would not be promoted, and Chamil then decided to leave. Having done so, he turned up in my office at the Peace Secretariat, to ask my advice on what he should do.
At that time I had just been appointed, in addition to being head of the Peace Secretariat, to the post of Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights. The Minister was Mahinda Samarasinghe who led our delegations to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, where I had worked well with him.
Invaluable assistance
I was told that I could appoint anyone I wanted to as a Co-ordinating Secretary, and Chamil seemed ideal for the job. So he proved, and was of invaluable assistance during that incredibly busy period when I did what amounted to two more than full time jobs. In addition to looking after the routine work of the office, he also helped with the value addition I brought to my work, starting language classes for instance to enable Ministry staff to learn Tamil and English. And he travelled with me on the projects I developed for what was termed Confidence Building and Stabilization, which involved work with Divisional Secretariats in the North and East, and improving relations between officials and what were termed military liaison officers.
Unfortunately the Peace Secretariat was closed down soon after the war, and then Mahinda Samarasinghe was stopped from co-ordinating humanitarian assistance, with a new Secretariat taking up all tasks though without the expertise necessary for the job. Those measures contributed to our virtually losing the peace, after the great work the President had done in winning the war, both on the battlefield and in international forums.
We did work as we could through the Ministry, but soon enough the silly election season set in, and I fear I too got carried away by that and ended up in parliament through the National List. My contribution after that to the nation was minimal, though I learned a lot through visits as Adviser on Reconciliation to all Divisions in the North and East, and in a few instances I was able to evoke action to improve the lot of the people I interacted with.
Academic qualifications
I took Chamil onto my parliamentary staff, but he did not have enough to do that suited his talents. However I was able to send him, through my Liberal Party connections, for an attachment at the European Parliament in Brussels, and as always he worked well with the officials of the Liberal Group there. I saw him with them once when I visited Brussels, and I felt then that we had done well on our degree programme, for it produced individuals able to work at anything, on equal terms with anyone.
Chamil left me soon after he got back to Sri Lanka, for a career in the business world, and soon obtained relevant academic qualifications while rising in his office. But we kept in touch, and when he went abroad, to earn enough to purchase a house, I was able to help him at this end. While in Sierra Leone his reports of the situation he had to deal with was illuminating, and it was clear his firm benefited from his input, not least his capacity to control unfamiliar African labourers, and deal with the local bureaucracy.
Professor Rajiva Wijesinha