sundayisland.lk

The Sri Lankan government is ready to deploy additional troops under UN command for peacekeeping operations, the army has told the world body.

Army Chief Lt. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya informed a visiting high level Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) delegation of the SLA’s readiness to increase its contribution by two more battalions.

Jayasuriya emphasized at a Jan. 31 meeting at army headquarters that the SLA was in a position to deploy well-trained troops at short notice when he met the delegation here on a fact-finding mission aimed at assessing SLA’s preparedness to sustain existing missions as well as taking new assignments.

The GPOI is a US initiative launched in 2004 by the then Bush administration to ensure the availability of well-trained fully equipped troops for UN missions.

The visiting delegation comprised Scott A. Weidie, Chief of Multi-national Training, US Pacific Command (USPACOM), Rich Maloney, GPOI Planner, USPACOM, John L. Otte, Director of Camber Corporation’s International Civil Military Division and Lt. Col. Lucien Campillo, Desk Officer, USPACOM. Lt. Col. Patrick Schuler, Defence Attaché at US Embassy and Wing Commander Chanaka Fernando (Rtd), Training Programme Manager, US Embassy, too, were also present.

Weidie is a graduate of the US Naval Postgraduate School (1993), Naval War College (1997), and Joint Forces Staff College (2000) and has served in aviation squadrons, aboard ship et al.

The meeting took place in the backdrop of Sri Lanka’s No 2 at the UN Maj. Gen. Shavendra Silva being appointed to Special Advisory Group on UN Peace Keeping Operations.

Maj. Gen. Silva commanded the 58 Division (formerly Task Force I), which brought the north-western coast up to Pooneryn under its control before cutting across the Vanni mainland to reach the east coast in early 2009.

The 58 Division also figured in large scale operation in April 2009 that caused a debilitating setback to the LTTE’s conventional fighting capability.

A army headquarters spokesman told The Sunday Island that Sri Lankan troops had been deployed under UN command at several countries, with Haiti and Lebanon being the main deployments.

Troops deployed in Lebanon are equipped with armoured fighting vehicles.

In line with UN policy peace keepers rotate every six months. Smaller SL contingents are deployed in Ethiopia, Congo, Burundi, Western Sahara and Sudan. Irrespective of rank, peacekeepers receive approximately $ 1,100 a month.

The Navy and the Air Force, too, contribute personnel for the ongoing Haiti mission.

Asked whether peacekeepers received their salary during overseas deployment under UN command, a senior military official said that they were fully paid, though a part of UN pay received by peacekeepers was utilized by the military for the welfare of personnel.

Lt. Gen. Jayasuriya recently visited troops deployed in Haiti and Lebanon and UN peacekeeping headquarters.

Maj. Gen. Silva told The Sunday Island that even during the height of the ground war against the LTTE (June 2006-May 2009), Sri Lanka maintained its full contingent in Haiti.

He said that the army never contemplated quitting the Haiti mission even though many felt heavy troop commitments on the Vanni front would compel Sri Lanka to pull troops out of the Caribbean.

Sri Lanka joined the UN mission in Haiti during the tenure of the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who believed the country could take advantage of the Norwegian, arranged Ceasefire Agreement to gradually increase its peacekeeping contingent.

Those who had been silent as long as the LTTE held the battle-field advantage were today working overtime against the Sri Lankan government, an External Affairs Ministry spokesperson told The Sunday Island. They had been critical of Sri Lanka’s recent inclusion in the Special Advisory Group on UN Peace Keeping Operations.

The ministry said that the global community shouldn’t allow those prejudiced groups to prevent Sri Lanka from playing a positive role in global peacekeeping operations.