Sri Lanka Armed Forces - History

History

Sri Lanka has a long military history going back 2000 years. The roots of the modern Sri Lankan military lead back to the colonial era when the Portuguese, Dutch and British established local militias to support their wars against the local Kingdoms. The British created the Ceylon Rifle Regiment during the Kandyan wars, although it had natives in its ranks majority of it was made up of Malays. It was disbanded 1873.

The lineage of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces dates back to 1881, when the British created a volunteer reserve on the island named the Ceylon Light Infantry Volunteers. Created to supplement the British garrison in Ceylon in the event of an external threat, it gradually increased in size. In 1910 it was renamed the Ceylon Defence Force (CDF) and consisted of several regiments. The CDF mobilized for home defence in World War I and again in World War II when its units were deployed along with allied forces in Asia and Africa. At the end of the war it has grown in size to that of an independent brigade, but was de-mobilized in 1946 and disbanded in 1949. In 1937 the Ceylon Naval Volunteer Force was established (later renamed as the Ceylon Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (CRNVR)), it was mobilized for war in 1939 and was incorporated into the Royal Navy.

Following establishment of the Dominion of Ceylon with Britain granting independence in 1948, work began to establish a regular military. The Army Act No. 17 of 1949 was passed by Parliament on April 11, 1949 and formalized in the Gazette Extraordinary No. 10028 of October 10, 1949. This marked the creation of the Ceylon Army, and the CDF the CRNVR were disbanded to make way for a regular navy. On December 9, 1950 the Royal Ceylon Navy (RCyN) was established. Finally in 1951 the Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCyAF) was established as the youngest of the three forces. From the out set Britain played a significant role in helping the Ceylon government in developing its armed forces.

The growth for the Ceylon Armed Forces were slow due to lack of foreign threat, since Ceylon maintained cordial relations with its neighbor India and had a defence treaty with Britain. In the 1950s it was mainly employed in internal security assisting the police. There was an attempted coup in 1962 by a group of reservists, which led to cuts in military spending and the disbandment of several regiments. This together with the lack of an intelligence agency left it ill-prepared for the insurgency launched by the marxist JVP in April 1971.

The 1971 JVP Insurrection saw Ceylon Armed Forces mobilizing for combat operations for the first time and its size grew rapidly. The insurrection was brought under control in a few months. In 1972 Ceylon became a Republic and the Ceylon Armed Forces became the Sri Lanka Armed Forces.

By the early 1980s, the Sri Lanka Armed Forces mobilizing again as a new insurgency began by Tamil militant groups in the north of the island. This was the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War. The size of the Armed Forces grew at a rapid rate in the 1980s. By the mid-1980s, the Armed Forces began launching operations in the like of conventional warfare against the LTTE which had by then became the most powerful of the Tamil militant groups. This led to India intervening by breaching Sri Lankan air space to carry out food drops and shortly afterward the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord was signed and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was sent to Sri Lanka to establish peace.

The military was redistricted to its bases but was soon heavily involved in another insurrection by the JVP in the south of the island from 1987 to 1989. In the north tension increased with the LTTE and the IPKF leading to open war with the two suffering heavy casualties. In 1990 the IPKF pulled out and the war commenced with the Sri Lanka Armed Forces and the LTTE.

In 1994, a brief ceasefire came into place and peace talks began. But it broke down when the LTTE attacked several docked naval gunboats. The phase of the war that followed, known as Eelam War III, saw a conventional war taking place in the northern and eastern provinces of the island and terrorist attacks in other parts of the country. The Sri Lankan Army began deploying full divisions in offensive operations and the Navy and Air Force increased their inventories to support the Army.

In 2002, a new ceasefire was established with Norwegian mediation and peace talks began. The SLMM was established to monitor the ceasefire and certain progress archived until the LTTE withdrew from the peace talks in 2003. Although the ceasefire continued no peace talks took place till 2005. In the mean time the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) filed a report stating the LTTE had violated the ceasefire 3,471 times since the signing of the cease fire, including matters such as child recruiting, torture, abduction, firing of weapons, sabotage, carrying of arms in government-held areas, construction of new positions, movement of arms, ammunition and military equipment, denial of access to families of detainees and the obstruction of truce monitors. However the security forces violated the ceasefire only 162 times.

In April 2006 following the a suicide bomb attack on the Commander of the Army, air strikes began followed by skirmishers, however both the government and the LTTE claimed that the ceasefire was still in place. Offensive by the Armed Forces was launched when the LTTE closed the sluice gates of the Mavil Aru reservoir on July 21 and cut the water supply to 15,000 villages in government controlled areas. This led to several major attacks by the LTTE in the eastern province and the north. The Armed Forces went on the offensive successfully liberating LTTE control areas in the eastern province during 2007.

On the 3 January 2008 the government informed Norway of its decision to quit the ceasefire, with it the ceasefire officially ended on the 16 January 2008, following several bombings in the capital. Along with the ceasefire ended the operations of the SLMM.

During 2008 there were heavy fighting in the northern province where the Sri Lanka Armed Forces launched major offensives and succeeded in liberating LTTE controlled areas of the Mannar District, the Vavuniya District and moving in to the Mullaitivu District and Kilinochchi District. During December 2008, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces were engaged in offensives in all fronts, with heavy fighting around Kilinochchi where the LTTE had their headquarters and close to Mullaitivu.

In early 2009 the Armed Forces liberated in quick succession Kilinochchi and the strategically important Elephant Pass. Thus establishing a land route to the government controlled Jaffna Peninsula which had been supplied by sea and air for over 10 years after its liberation in 1995. Shortly thereafter Mullaitivu was liberated by the 59th Division of the SLA. Boxed into a small land area north of Mullaitivu, the LTTE with its remaining cadres and leadership was effectively trapped, with this land mass being slowly reduced until May 2009.

On 19 May 2009, the Sri Lanka Armed Forces won its final battle against the LTTE with the death of several LTTE leaders, including its head Velupillai Prabhakaran while he was attempting to flee.

On 22 May 2009, Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa confirmed that 6,261 personnel of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces had lost their lives and 29,551 were wounded during Eelam War IV since July 2006.

The Armed Forces have been accused of human rights violations during the war, particularly during the final stages. The Times alleged that United Nations reports indicate more than 20,000 civilians had died due to attacks carried out by the military. However, the UN disputed these figures but admitted that the death toll was unacceptably high. The Sri Lankan government strongly denied these figures. The Human Rights Watch has also accused the military of "impeding the delivery of human aid" and carrying out indiscriminate attacks against civilians.