Jaffna army commander gets Gusi peace prize

COLOMBO: Maj Gen Mahinda Hathurusinghe, commander of the Sri Lankan army in Jaffna peninsula, is the only South Asian to be awarded the prestigious Gusi Peace Prize this year.

The 49-year-old artillery officer, who cut his teeth in warfare at the Officers’ Training Academy (OTA) in Chennai in the 1980s, and had gone on to get an MA and MBA, will be given the prize in Manila on December 24 for his outstanding contribution to the resettlement of Tamil war refugees after the end of Eelam War in May 2009.

The award, which is considered the Asian version of the Nobel Peace Prize, is named after Gemeniano Javier Gusi, who fought the Japanese army in the Philippines during World War II, and thereafter became a champion of human rights.

In an interview to Express on Thursday, Hathurusinghe said that his first and foremost task on taking over command of Jaffna in February 2010, was to clear “millions” of mostly “home made” anti-personnel and anti-tank mines planted by the LTTE in paddy fields, jungles and houses.

De-mining ahead of UN schedule  Despite a shortage of de-miners, the Lankan army, the local and international de-mining NGOs were “very much” ahead of the UN-approved schedule, he said.

“What the UN expected us to do in four or five years, we have achieved in a year-and-a-half!

Only 333 families remain to be resettled in Jaffna peninsula, and these are from Vadamarachchi East and the far South, which are yet to be cleared of mines. Other families are back in their original plots and not in transit camps,” the commander said.

As regards Jaffna town, he said that the army had already vacated Gnanam Hotel and was poised to quit Subhash Hotel in a month. Both hotels were popular among visitors before the war.

Lone high security zone: On the sensitive political issue of high security zones (HSZs), Hathurusinghe saidthat the only remaining HSZs was in the Palaly airbase area.

“Once the Tellipalai and Maveddipuram areas are de-mined, we will allow people to move in.This could happen as soon as the third phase of de-mining is over. Already, we have released Vasavilan Central School, Union College in Tellipalai, and the Maveddipuram and Nakuleswaram temples,” he said.

Houses for refugees: Army personnel had built 1,000 two-roomed houses for war refugees, each valued at SLRs 5 lakh (`273,874.15), Hathurusinghe said.

“Every battalion was given a quota of 15 houses. Voluntary contributors gave us money and materials, but labour was free as they were army personnel,” he said.