- Current Chief of Staff of Sri Lanka Army, Major General
G. A. Chandrasiri sworn in as New governor for the Northern Province
China View 12 July 2009
[see also
Thirteenth Amendment to Sri Lanka Constitution -
Devolution or Comic Opera
? "There are some who may describe the 13th Amendment as a
constitutional sleight of hand par excellence. But, that is to put too fine
a point on the matter. The blunt reality is that those who proclaim that the
13th Amendment is intended to share power between the Tamil people and the
Sinhala people, are, to use a colloquialism, 'trying to pull a fast one' on
the Tamil people.Under the 13th Amendment power will continue to reside in
a Sinhala dominated Central government, within the frame of an unitary
constitution. The 13th Amendment is intended to secure a constitutional
frame which will enable a Sinhala majority to manage the Tamil people more
effectively than before.... it has created a Provincial Governor appointed
by the Sinhala President who will exercise executive power in
respect of provincial matters - a Provincial Governor who is also
the administrative head of the provincial public service and who has
control of the Provincial Finance Fund."]
COLOMBO, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Army Commander General
Sarath Fonseka, credited with the military success over Tamil Tiger
rebels, has been appointed as the new Chief of Defense Staffby President
Mahinda Rajapakse, the presidential secretariat said Sunday in a
statement. His place as the Army Commander will be taken over by Major
General Jagath Jayasuriya, the statement said. Sri Lanka Navy
Chief Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda has been named as the National
Security Advisor to the president. Karannagoda's position has gone to
his Chief of Staff Thisara Samarasinghe.
The reshuffle of the defense hierarchy will come into effect from July
15.
Meanwhile, the current Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Army and
Competent Authority for the Internally Displaced Persons in the North,
Major General G. A. Chandrasiri was sworn in as the new governor for the
Northern Province on Sunday.
Dixon Dela, the governor of the Northern Province was appointed as the
High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in the Maldives, effective on Sunday.
The changes came less than two months since the military's demolition of
the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The LTTE's 30-year-old campaign to set up a separate Tamil homeland
ended on May 19 after all its 15,000-sq-km territory being recaptured by
the government troops and almost all its leaders being killed in a
successful military operation carried out by the current government.
About 300,000 Tamil civilians displaced by the final battles between the
troops and the LTTE are now being housed in several welfare villages in
the north, waiting to be resettled to their homes.
