Daily News Editorial

Commendable move by President

13 October 2016

President Maithripala Sirisena it appears has taken the wind off the sails of the Joint Opposition functionaries whose perennial claim has been that the Yahapalanaya government has been giving stepmotherly treatment to our war heroes. Even when the Salawa armoury exploded some JO members went to ludicrous lengths to claim that it was due to the low morale of the military personnel guarding the facility, at the shabby treatment meted out to the war heroes, that the catastrophe took place. The arrest of a number of military intelligence personnel for complicity in the murders of journalists Lasantha Wickrametunga and Prageeth Ekneligoda provided grist to the mill of the JO campaign to portray the government as being “anti-war heroes”. What is worse, they accused the government of mistreating our military personnel at the instance of the West and the Tamil diaspora, in a clear attempt to gain political mileage at the expense of our servicemen.

But what was the reality? No sooner the war was over the military was deployed to do menial work such as sweeping up roads and digging up trenches for the city beautification project of former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Even worse, the war heroes who were deified by the Rajapaksas (and also the public) for winning the 30-year-old civil war were made to sell vegetables, in rented out stalls, dealing a slap to the dignity and honour of the uniform.

But what hit the nadir was the deployment of Navy personnel to perform domestic chores at the palatial homes of Basil Rajapaksa and the use of army personnel to tend to the canines of the youngest offspring of the former President. For good measure, the war winning army commander was also thrown behind bars for the audacity of politically challenging the maha rajano. Not only that, further indignities were in store for our war heroes when the handpicked military personnel providing protection to defeated Presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka, holed up in a five star hotel, were made to kneel on the tarmac, on the orders of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

On the contrary, President Maithripala Sirisena has decided to accord the dignity and respect due to our war heroes by giving recognition to their valour and sacrifices in a most tangible form. For the first time since the end of the war, a scheme has been launched under a concept of the President, to enlist and engage all retired service personnel for productive purposes to benefit the country. Under the tittle ‘Retired War Heroes’ Human Resources,’ a scheme has been launched to deploy those servicemen with the necessary skills and aptitudes in the various technical fields in the development projects that have been earmarked to take the country forward. In this way these war heroes will be given the opportunity to be of productive use to the country, like they did in the battlefield, to redeem the nation from the threat of division.

At the launch of the scheme on Tuesday appointments were give to five retired military officers to serve as Technical Officers in state sector undertakings. According to the President, there are 1,13,598 retired servicemen, in the age group where they could still be of service to the country, who could be similarly used in the country’s development programmes. He also assured that the recruitment of these retired military personnel will in no way affect the filling of the regular vacancies in the state sector.

Speaking at the occasion the President said there had been accusations from various quarters that his government had been neglecting our war heroes but noted that it is only now that these valiant men were treated with dignity and respect and given the opportunity to better their lot while at the same time lending their service to the country.

The move is a commendable one indeed since we have among our retired war heroes a whole army of men and women with multifaceted skills and talents that could be of immense benefit to the country. These war heroes had been long languishing without much activity which may have been alien to their nature as battle hardened warriors. In other countries, particularly in the west, it has been the practice to enlist the services of retired military personnel once they had been demobilized.

We too should follow suit. This, while giving them the necessary outlet for their military mindsets, would also fill them a sense of pride that the state is willing to appreciate their sacrifices on the battlefield on behalf of the nation.

The Rajapaksa regime, it has to be said, exploited the war heroes merely for political gain. There was the highly amusing scenario witnessed in many parts of the country (barring the North and East) where government candidates at a Provincial Council election held just after the war victory having erected military bunkers to serve as their party offices while some candidates went about in military fatigues. Had the Rajapaksa regime been genuinely concerned about our servicemen it would not have made Karuna Amman a government Minister, knowing of the latter’s role in the massacre of thousands of our fighting men.