Notorious commander appointed Governor of Northern Province

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2009, 17:05 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has appointed Chief-of-Staff of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasiri as the new Governor of the Northern Province. Maj. Gen. Chandrasiri was the former chief of the SLA in Jaffna, under whose command Jaffna witnessed hundreds of forced disappearances, extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations in the period from 2006 to 2008. Tamil political circles in Colombo commented that Mr. Rajpaksa, who claims to have crushed the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam, has appointed his military men in key posts in the occupied Tamil homeland to head civil services with a 'colonial mindset'. Earlier, in April, Rajapaksa appointed Chandrasiri as the Competent Authority Officer in charge of resettlement of Tamils from Vanni in alleged barbed-wire 'internment camps' in Vavuniyaa.

The ex-military Governor is to assume duties in his office in the Northern Provincial Council Secretariat which is located in Varoathaiya Nakar, a suburb located along Trincomalee –Anuradhapura highway, 7 km off north of Trincomalee city.

Meanwhile, Mr. Rajapakse has appointed Army Chief General Sarath Fonseka as the Chief of Defence Staff. The post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was created last month with the approval of Sri Lanka’s Parliament.

Maj. Gen Jagath Jayasuriya will be the new Army Commander, succeeding Sarath Fonseka.

Rear Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe has been appointed new Navy Chief. He will replace Admiral Vasantha Karanagoda who has been given a new posting as advisor to the President, according to sources in Colombo.

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