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No more extra money for war, warns President

By our Defence Correspondent
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has sent a strongly worded communique to the heads of the army, navy, and air force, telling them that she will not allow a Supplementary Estimate to their 1999 budget allocation, according to Defence Ministry sources.

The letter, to army commander Lieutenant General Srilal Weerasooriya, navy chief Vice Admiral Cecil Tissera, and air force commander Air Marshal Jayalath Weerakkoddy, stressed the need for fiscal discipline throughout every government department, and said that the armed services should not be an exception.

This would mean that the 1999 Defence Budget would be kept at 47.03 billion rupees this year.

However, a few days after the letter was issued, a second letter was sent from the Ministry of Defence, saying that certain exceptions may be made in the case of essential items, sources said. This indicated that the president has, had second thought on the matter, and torn between the need to try to control defence spending, and the need to ensure that the LTTE does not gain on the battlefield.

It is standard practice in every government ministry and department, to overshoot the original budget allocations which are presented to the house each November, and ask Parliament for more money through the Supplementary Estimates in September.

In 1998, the budget allocation was 44 billion rupees, but another 12 billion rupees was allocated through the Supplementary Estimate, bringing the total to 56 billion rupees.

The amount approved for the three armed forces for 1999 is 47.03 billion rupees. of this, 39.04 is classed as recurrent expenditure, while 8.3 billion rupees is capital expenditure.

The president’s order was met with dismay among the three forces, since all three had intended overshooting the budget allocation.

The air force and navy in particular are in the process of beefing up their strengths in order to cut off LTTE supply lines along the coast, and a reduction in this effort would seriously hamper their abilities.

The recent events off the Mullaitivu coast, in which two LTTE ships carrying weapons tried to sneak into Sri Lankan waters, clearly underlines the need for further strengthening of both the air and naval capabilities.

The first ship ’’MV Mariamma," was driven off by Sri Lankan warships, before being sunk by the Indian Navy. (See ‘’Cornered by warships ... " March 21,1999)

But the second ship ‘’MV Showa Maru," managed to unload its cargo into four large boats, three of which managed to get to shore. Only one boat was sunk by navy gunboats. This despite the fact that both the air force and navy made valiant attempts to sink all four boats before they could reach shore. (See ‘’Sea Tigers suffer more devastation," May 9, 1999)

A 2-member team from the Sri Lanka Navy returned after a 2-day visit to New Delhi to discuss co-operation between the two countries with top officials of the Indian armed forces, in the light of the increased attempts by the LTTE to bring in arms shipments.

The president’s instruction came after the Central Bank lowered its estimates of expected growth in Gross Domestic Product, which is expected to bring less revenue than the government expected. This in turn would lead to a higher budget deficit, and require the government to borrow more money both in Sri Lanka and abroad.

That in turn would cause bank interest rates to increase, slowing down economic growth even further, as local companies would find it difficult to borrow from banks at the higher rates, and would thus have less money to invest.

President Kumaratunga had so far allowed the armed forces to spend whatever they wanted. After being elected to power in August 1994, she scrapped all arms purchases, partly due to corruption among top ranking officers, and partly to show the LTTE that she was making no hostile moves during the peace talks.

But when the Tigers broke off peace talks and went back to war on April 19, 1995, the forces were all in a dangerously run down condition, and the president told them to buy whatever they needed, virtually signing a blank cheque for them.

Since then, defence expenditure has skyrocketed, and amounted to the unprecedented 56 billion rupees last year.

But with the government in financial trouble, and no end in sight to the war, the president has decided to try to cut down in the area of defence expenditure, which is the largest expenditure incurred by the government.

The cutting down of capital expenditure of the armed forces also indicates President Kumaratunga’s general dissatisfaction with the slow pace of the war, with no end in sight before her government’s term ends in August of the year 2000.

In the north, the army remains bogged down in the Wanni, with large areas under its control but lacking the resources to wrest the remaining jungle areas from the control of the LTTE.

What has particularly irked her is the obvious lack of strategy and direction among the army’s top brass.

Ever since the government last November gave up Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte’s failed scheme to capture the main road to Jaffna, the army has shown no clear strategy. Instead, columns of troops have launched operations on both sides of the Wanni, and captured some land area, but are nowhere near gaining an outright victory.

Ratwatte himself has been conspicuous in his lack of enthusiasm to lead in recent months, and seems content to let the war run on quietly, without making a serious attempt to finish off the Tigers.

The last major offensive was more than two months ago, when troops seized the Madhu region. The Tigers withdrew without seriously resisting the advance, leaving the army with the task of hunting for Tiger stragglers inside the newly captured area. Even the offensive immediately before that one was very similar, with troops taking control of the Oddusudan area last December with little resistance.

The LTTE, for its part, has shown that it is content to play a waiting game, trading small tracts of land in the Wanni for time, while it tries to beef up its strength by recruitment, and trying to obtain more sophisticated weapons and ammunition by bringing in arms ships.

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