Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has appointed new Army Commander and Navy commander, less than two months since the government troops defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, a local English newspaper reported Sunday on its website.
According to the Daily Mirror, Army Chief Sarath Fonseka has been appointed as the Chief of Defense Staff, while Major Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya has been appointed as the new Army Commander.
Rajapakse has appointed Navy Chief Wasantha Karanagoda as an advisor to the president and Rear Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe as the new Navy Chief.
The new appointments will take effect from July 15.
Fonseka and Karanagoda have been credited for defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a three-year military campaign starting July 2006.
Rajapakse announced on May 19 that the LTTE has been totally defeated with all the 15,000-sq-km territory controlled by the rebels being recaptured by the troops and almost all the LTTE leaders being killed.
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.
(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2009)
