"Major General Janaka Perera’s assassination along with his wife and several others must be viewed in the light of forces that are desperate to create as much instability in the country as possible. While the LTTE are the obvious cause of this tragedy, one cannot dismiss other contributory factors such as killers and those who assist them being bought for such evil acts."
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- [October 06, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian] Major General Janaka Perera has gone the tragic way which has become the dreadful and appalling trend in Sri Lanka ever since the Mayor of Jaffna Alfred Duryappah was gunned down by the LTTE gunslingers in the temple premises of Varatharajah Perumal of Ponnalai in the Jaffna District July 1965. The fact such ghastly killings persist is a reflection on the successive governments of the country for failing to resolve the terrible ethnic crisis even four decades after the first blood-letting horror.
Since then we have lost many leaders, men of great standing and the Tamils in particular have been wiped out of almost all their moderate leaders and some intellectuals too. The country has also lost thousands of people of great caliber through migration because they just could not live under a perennial state of fear in Sri Lanka. Some have become so bitter that they could not live in their own homeland that they have turned against the rulers of the country. Even more frightening is that such Diaspora has become bitterly racist and behaves as if they want to take revenge against the country. - Major General Janaka Perera’s assassination along with his wife and several others must be viewed in the light of forces that are desperate to create as much instability in the country as possible. While the LTTE are the obvious cause of this tragedy, one cannot dismiss other contributory factors such as killers and those who assist them being bought for such evil acts. The country is buried in corruption at all levels and bounty killers have become a fact of this reality.
- Major General Janaka Perera, a soldier turned diplomat has many military campaigns to his credit and equally the Elephant Pass disaster of April 2000. When he was overlooked for promotion to Army Commander, he retired in 2001. It was then he was appointed as the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia and ambassador to Indonesia. The Down Under appointment met with immediate protests by over 300 Tamils accusing him as a war criminal. He was marked as a person responsible for hundreds of deaths and the torture of many others in Jaffna. The human rights group Amnesty International raised similar concerns about him. His appointment to Australia where Tamils have sought refuge in their hundreds was considered a foolish move by the government of the day.
- Following his short stint in the diplomatic service he took to active politics as an organizer of the United National Party. Strangely, a soldier who was involved in many military campaigns and could have lost his life in the field of battle, was killed at a political rally at Anuradhapura yesterday. During the recent provincial elections in the North Central Province which he damned as marred by violence, the UNP failed to gain the majority and he became the provincial leader of the opposition.
As a soldier he played a major role in suppressing the 1987-89 JVP oppression that released a great deal of terror in Colombo and the neighbouring districts. He was in charge of Operations Combine in Colombo that was responsible for the capture of the JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera. In the following years he was in full gear combat duties against the LTTE in Jaffna and the Weli Oya areas.- In the Operation Rivisera, as Brigadier Janaka Perera he led the liberation of Jaffna from the LTTE as the commander of 53 Division which had under his control the Independent Brigade, Air Mobile Brigade, Armored Brigade and an Infantry Brigade.
- Following the fall of Elephant Pass where the lives lost were considerable on both sides, Brigadier Perera was Overall Operations Commander with responsibilities to counter the LTTE offensive. In this operation he had along with him Major General Sarah Forseka as Security Forces Commander of Jaffna. This was the time when it was feared that 40,000 troops could be trapped and run over and the appeal to India for help to rescue them was turned down. President Chandrika Bandaranaike appealed for a naval rescue since Sri Lanka was short in supply of ships to undertake such a mission.
Fortunately for the troops, the LTTE offensive was checked and the army successfully established defensive lines against attacks from the Tigers.
Considered as one of the most distinguished forces persons of the army, he served as the Chief of Staff of the Sri Lankan Army and has won the awards of Rana Wickrema Padakama, Rana Sura Padakama, Vishista Seva Padakama and the Uttama Seva Padakama. - A Sandhurst Academy trained officer, Major General Janaka Perera had his early education at St Joseph’s College and later read geology at the University of Peredeniya. - Sri Lanka Guardian
