Military Career
Lt. General Kobbekaduwa joined the army in May 1960 and received his training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England. After returning to Sri Lanka, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 1st Reconnaissance Regiment of the Sri Lanka Armoured Corps. Although the army was more a parade ground army at that time, Lt. General Kobbekaduwa was to see it turned into a well trained, battle hardened and disciplined army. Lt. Kobbekaduwa was well liked both by his superiors, peers, and subordinates, and his promotions within the army came swiftly, despite twice being a victim of political interdictions in 1977 and 1965 when he was sent on compulsory leave following an attempted coup d'état but was returned to active service in 1970. General Kobbekaduwa was a graduate of Royal College of Defence Studies and the British Army Staff College at Camberley. He was promoted to Major General in 1990 and was posthumously promoted to Lieutenant General in 1992.
Kobbekaduwa was an excellent strategist, who could obtain maximum advantage from minimum resources. Even the LTTE fighters respected Kobbekaduwa’s strategic skills and military tactics.
He was quoted as saying "Why should we let anyone else fight our war?" The IPKF, unhappy with his presence at the front, complained twice. His sense of justice made him realise that although the Tigers were all Tamil, this did not necessarily mean that all Tamils were LTTE. He wanted to win the confidence of the civilian population and make them realise that they were better off trusting the government army.
He was fighting an enemy who had a large stock of arms and an advanced military infrastructure with limited manpower and finances. This made it difficult to hold on to territory, subjugating the people of the area to a military rule while continuing to wage war against a guerrilla army.
He used three principles in his counter-insurgency war measures: firstly, he did not believe in holding down land, secondly, he believed in drawing the enemy away from populated areas to minimise civilian deaths and with advance manoeuvring and superior firepower strain and destroy the enemy firepower, and thirdly make the civilians realise that they were better off trusting the armed forces. In fact, the UNHCR paid a tribute to him for his humanitarian approach to the beleaguered Tamil population.
Denzil Kobbekaduwa has been called an "exceptional Third World General". This is not to denigrate him but shows how good he was at carrying out a campaign under third world situations, where funds were limited and every resource had to be carefully nursed. It was Kobbekaduwa who in 1985 waged war with the LTTE on two fronts.
Read more about this topic: Denzil Kobbekaduwa
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