Sri Lanka’s president opens new army complex with accused war criminal

by Thusiyan
Nov 8, 2019

Sri Lanka’s president declared open a new military complex this morning, speaking at a grand opening ceremony alongside accused war criminal Shavendra Silva.

Maithripala Sirisena opened the new ten-storied Rs. 53.3 billion Army Headquarters at Akuregoda, Pelawatta earlier today, with a 21-gun salute and military parade held in his honour.

The complex is reportedly the largest construction project in Sri Lanka.

“The government spent a colossal expenditure on this construction in spite of all administrative challenges,” declared Silva.

Speaking alongside him, Sirisena reportedly “expressed high appreciation to the armed forces, the police and the intelligence services for their absolute commitment to national security and regional security”.

Silva headed Sri Lanka's 58 Division, an army unit which has been accused of mass atrocities and violations of international law during the 2009 military offensive that saw the killing of tens of thousands of Tamils. The 58 Division has been accused of repeatedly bombing hospitals, widespread sexual violence, torture and the execution of surrendering Tamils. His appointment as head of the Sri Lankan army sparked international condemnation earlier this year.

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button