Baffling security lapse at Colombo airport

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, JULY 25. The Bandaranaike International Airport, which came under attack by the LTTE on Tuesday, is one of the most tightly guarded places in Sri Lanka, but, from the events of yesterday, not sufficiently enough.

Hundreds of Air Force personnel are deployed to protect the airport and the adjoining airbase. There are three checkpoints in the final 500 yards to the airport and at least two places where sentries man anti-aircraft guns behind sandbagged fortifications.

There are also sentries around the perimeter fencing and check- points on the highways that run parallel to the perimeter on two sides. But at least 13 LTTE men sneaked in and carried out a sensational strike.

People are still struggling to find an explanation how such an incident could have occurred in spite of the security blanket. The Government has ordered a high-level investigation into the incident. The air force commander has also ordered a four-member court of inquiry to be headed by an air vice marshal to go into the incident.

``The lapse was that on a crucial day like July 23 (the day before the anniversary of the 1983 anti-Tamil riots), they dropped their guard and treated it like any other day, when they should have been on the highest alert,'' said Air Vice- Marshall (retd) Harry Goonetilleke, former Air Force chief.

According to him, the complex is so vast it is almost undefendable unless the air force has 10 times the manpower it has now. ``It is impossible to police every nook and corner of the perimeter. The camp commander should have identified the vulnerable points in the camp from the point of view of their importance, like the hangars, and put them under extra security.''

He said the air force owed it to the people to explain why the electronic fence installed around the hangars five years ago had failed to stop the infiltrators.

The LTTE men were able to enter the complex without meeting any resistance, which means they must have spent at least a few days studying the entire area and identifying the security loop-holes. According to some reports, the rebels possibly came up to the airport in two batches, one by bus and another by train.

``It seems unbelievable that a group of fully armed men used public transport and were not stopped at any point,'' Air Marshall Goonetilleke said. The night before the attack, eyewitnesses reportedly alerted sentries at one check-point about the presence of a group of suspicious-looking men in combat gear near the airport. The sentries investigated and found two empty cardboard boxes, but saw no one.

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