The Commander of the Sri Lankan Army said that the military was still working on the “psychological elimination of the threat” since the end of the armed conflict and rejected suggestions of reducing the size of Sri Lanka’s armed forces.
Speaking in an interview to Adaderana, Lieutenant General Daya Ratnayake justified the increased involvement of Sri Lanka’s expanding military in civilian affairs, saying,
“Winning a war of this nature has basically two parts. That is physical elimination of a threat and psychological elimination of the threat. What we achieved in May 2009 is physical elimination of the threat. Thereafter achieving psychological elimination is a process and there are no shortcuts to it,” added Ratnayake.
Earlier this month Ratnayake said national security on the island was “stronger than ever” as he addressed a military conference being held in Colombo.
In his interview, Ratnayake also said there was a threat from “extremist elements living abroad”, saying it posed one of the biggest challenges ahead of him as the Commander of the Sri Lankan Army. Adding “they get support from various organisations and so on and with that support always they are trying their level best to destabilise our country," he warned that "we are not allowing any room" for those "extremist elements".
Responding to a question on the possibility of reducing the military presence in the North-East of the island, Ranayake went on to state,
“This is the way Western people think. Actually we think differently. We use our military for the best interest of the country. Our military is a reflection of the society.”
“Of course always you have people who come and artificially create issues and try to portray and project a different image. Those people, we will not be able to convince”
The Sri Lankan Commander also dismissed the idea of restricting the military’s activities, saying,
“This is Western thinking... They use military only for military purposes, mostly to fight a war or something. But in Sri Lanka even within the constitution of this country, the military could be used for any other activity of the government, for the betterment of the country.”
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