August 16, 2011, 9:08 pm

By Jayantha de Silva

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, giving evidence yesterday before Mt. Lavinia District Judge M. C. B. S. Moraes, said that during the war only India and no other nation could have militarily intervened.

The Defence Secretary’s evidence was led by Attorney-at-Law Ali Shibry at the hearing of the private plaint filed, against the Leader Publications and the Editor of the Sunday Leader, by him in connection with an article published in the Sunday Leader which allegedly claimed that by virtue of his post he had a role in the procurement of four MIG Jets for the SL Air Force outside tender procedure resulting in a loss of US$ 100.78 million to the country.

The plaintiff maintains that the article was defamatory to his reputation and claims damages amounting to Rs. 1,000 million.

The respondents are Lal Wickrematunge, the publisher of The Leader, and Fredrica Jansz who is the present Editor, after the assassination of former Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was the Editor at the time of the publication of the article at issue.

He said that the present government recognized the important role played by India in the war and a special task team, which amongst others, included the witness and his brother Basil Rajapaksa, who was an advisor to the president was formed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, to apprise that country about the on going Humanitarian Operation at the time.

He said that under him, the intelligence apparatus was re-organised and revamped as evident in the capture of K. P. Padmanadan, alias KP, who had been acting as the LTTE leader after the demise of LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabakaran.

In reply to a query by the counsel he said that people had elected Rajapaksa from the Hambantota District to represent them in the parliament.

He reminisced that his father D. A. Rajapaksa even had to mortgage his house to serve the people of his electorate.

Responding to a another query he asserted that the Rajapaksas never resorted to exploiting the people."

Speaking in retrospect, he said that he joined the army in 1970 from Ananada College where he was a cadet.

Tracing his ascendancy in the army he said that he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

He had followed courses of studies in India, Pakistan and the USA.

He retired after 20 years service.

For his military prowess he had been the recipients of medals including amongst others the Ranashura or warrior medal and commendations from late Presidents J. R. Jayewardene, Ranasinghe Premadasa and also from the incumbent President.

He, as the Commander of the Gajaba Regiment, had served under Major General Denzil Kobbekaduwa in the Vadamarachi Operation. He had also served under Major General Wijaya Wimalaratne.

Had India not intervened to stop, the Vadamarachi Operation the war could have been over 30 years ago.

Later, he was appointed as the Defence Secretary. In this capacity he had played a pivotal role in formulating strategy.

In addition he had unified the three services and as the President’s brother had addressed vital issues pertaining to the services directly to the President himself, which ultimately paid off in the final victory over 30 years of terrorism.

He outlined the pivotal role he played in this post in procuring ammunition from Pakistan, when there had been a logistic problem in transporting ammunition from China, as it was at the time hosting Olympics.

Certain media groups acted in an irresponsible way. A case in point was the publishing of defence analysis reports which inflicted immeasurable damage to the war effort. Such actions sowed pessimism, he said.

To counter this threat, the Defence Ministry inaugurated a Web portal which even replaced the LTTE Web Portal. On the last day of the war millions world wide viewed that web page, he said.

The case was postponed to October 13 and 31.