The shooting of ‘Sita’ the during the Mahiyangana Rajamaha Viharaya's Randoli Perahera recently by an officer from the Civil Security Department (CSD) who was seconded to the Mapakada Wewa Wildlife Regional Office, highlights the need for specialised personnel to be employed for duties which involve wild animals and of tamed elephants. Why majestic wild elephants are tamed, and continued to be used for religious procession in chains, in the day and age of electric vehicles, high tonnage trucks, and animatronics is a completely different question, and one which much has been said about. The incident shines a spotlight on misuse of personal, prioritisation and care of tamed elephants.    

Firstly, there are questions about the physical and mental state of the accused who discharged his firearm at ‘Sita’. Some reports indicate that he was under the influence of alcohol and did not listen to reason. While this remains to be proven, it also raises questions about what the carers of ‘Sita’ were doing while someone took potshots at ‘Sita’ who was at the time chained to two trees. Where were Sita’s keepers or mahout? Is there no one responsible for the Elephant? Should they not be taken to task too?

While it is commendable that the authorities moved quickly to arrests the officer who had, allegedly fired at the tamed elephant after mistaking it for a “wild” elephant, the incident raises the question why CSD personal, trained for internal security and protective duties as a paramilitary unit, was employed at the regional office of the Wildlife Department is a question which the Government should answer. CSD officers are not trained to deal with wild animals, and as such are not suitable to be deployed to bolster the ranks of the poorly funded and equipped Wildlife Department. Those who deal with wild animals, and even tamed ones, such as ‘Sita’, should be specially requited, trained and equipped for that specific role.

One of the key issues which has manifested to reach this point, is the poor prioritisations of security and defence establishments. The CSD, which was earlier known as the Civil Defense Force (CDF) and by the colonial title, the home guard, was established and trained to be a rear echelon local defence paramilitary group, that could take on guard duties and provide round the clock protection for vulnerable communities, thereby freeing up the armed forces and Special Task Force (STF) to march forward on the offensive with their counter insurgency / counter terrorism duties. However, when the war drew to an end, the Sri Lankan Government played politics, and instead to a large-scale demobilisation, which most post-war nations would do, opted to hold on to the large military formations and a nearly 35,000 strong CDF cadre, which was rebranded as CSD for peacetime duties. With their war time duties no longer available successive Governments have tried to ‘use’ the CSD cadres for all sought of other functions, including city beautification, agriculture, and to ‘support’ the understrength Wildlife Conservation Department. Nearly 10,000 are deployed to ‘monitor and maintain’ the electrified ‘elephant fence’, which is another failed policy story.

Therein lies the problem, with large war-time establishments remaining in near full strength, and taking up a larger slice of the budgetary pie. Organisations which should have been better resourced like the Wildlife Conservation Department, are left understaffed, poorly paid, and poorly equipped to do their task effectively. A well-trained Wildlife Officer who was dutiful would not have discharged his service weapon at any animal without clearly identifying it first as a significant threat. They would have also deployed several non-lethal countermeasures first, to try to chase away any “wild elephant”; had if they were detected, using a firearm would have been a last resort. This is why the Government needs to get its policies right, right size the security and defence establishments to a robust plan, and divert much of savings to better fund and equip other state agencies who do have a critical role to play for the betterment of the country.